Murder as a Fine Art

by David Morrell

  “You don’t understand. Not yet. The father was John Williams.”

  “John Williams?”

  “Margaret’s parents died from typhoid fever when she was twelve. She worked in a number of factories and finally decided to look for a servant’s position. Marr already had a shop boy, but now he needed a woman to help his wife while she was in a family condition and later after the baby was born. The pay was ten pounds a year, meals and a cot included. Margaret was allowed to leave the shop one night a week, a half day on Sunday, and a full day every month. She was seventeen.

  “Marr was a bitter, angry man, always finding fault and shouting. Worse, he always complained when Margaret wanted her weekly night off or when she took her half day on Sunday. As far as her full day once a month was concerned, Marr threatened to put her on the street if she was absent for the entire day.

  “Margaret met John Williams at a street festival on one of the rare occasions she was off duty. A merchant sailor, Williams was ten years older than Margaret, good-looking, with yellowish curly hair and an entertaining manner. He took a liking to her.”

  Emily paused, the shadow of Westminster Abbey weighing upon her.

  “Then he took advantage of her,” Becker suggested, trying to ease Emily’s discomfort by saying it for her.

  Emily nodded. “It appears that Williams wasn’t merely trifling with her affections, although the consequence was the same. They spent company with each other whenever she could get away. Sometimes Williams was gone on a merchant ship for months. Early in October of eighteen eleven, he returned from a voyage to India. They were desperate to see each other.”

  Emily’s face was red with embarrassment. She rushed on. “That’s when the event occurred. Two and a half months later, Margaret finally had to admit that she was with child. She was sick every morning, and Marr recognized the symptom from when his wife had experienced similar sickness early in her condition. Marr challenged her with his suspicions. When Margaret admitted their truth, he was furious, saying that she’d signed a contract with him and he had relied on her to help his wife with the baby and now Margaret was unable to fulfill her obligations.

  “ ‘I can work for many more months,’ Margaret tried to assure him, but Marr shouted that he wouldn’t tolerate a sinner in his home. He intended to look for another servant immediately, and as soon as he could find one, he would put her on the street with the rest of her kind.”

  Emily hesitated, trying to find the words to continue.

  “John Williams was known for his temper. When Margaret told him about Marr’s reaction, he became more furious than Marr was. She and Williams had planned to live together. Williams was scheduled to go on one more voyage to try to earn enough money for their lodging. The longer Marr kept her as a servant, the more time Williams and Margaret had to prepare. Now their prospects were ruined.”

  “Williams went to see Marr?” Ryan asked.

  “Yes. The intent was to persuade Marr to keep Margaret working until Williams returned from his voyage. But you can imagine how two angry men handled the conversation. After they nearly came to blows, Marr swore that the next day, Sunday, could definitely be Margaret’s half day off. The entire day, in fact. And every day thereafter because Marr didn’t want her to return.

  “This happened on Saturday afternoon. In a back room, Margaret heard the argument, but she was too afraid to intervene. She heard Williams storm from the shop. Then Marr made her do heavy work for the rest of the day. The reason he sent Margaret out near midnight supposedly to pay the baker’s bill and buy oysters was to punish her because he knew how afraid Margaret was of the dark. She lied at the inquest.”

  “What?”

  “The reason she failed to pay the baker and buy the oysters was that she had a premonition and was trying to find John Williams.”

  Numerous worshippers entered the church, the tension on their faces indicating that they were here to pray for their safety. The street in front of the abbey had little traffic. At eight in the morning, it should have been crammed as black-coated government clerks came to their offices, but many had apparently decided to remain home because of the crisis.

  “The bloody government’s not doing enough,” a severe-looking man murmured to a companion as he entered the abbey.

  Another man approached, telling a woman, “The peerage abandoned the city and fled to their country houses. They’re so rich they can hire protection. But they don’t dare rely on constables. A constable killed all those people last night.”

  “And sailors,” the woman said. “Can’t trust anybody. A man broke into Coldbath Fields Prison last night, killed the governor, and released a thousand prisoners. Heaven help us, they’ll murder us in our sleep.”

  “For sure, the government won’t help us.”

  “Lord Palmerston has reason to be worried,” Becker observed as the man and woman took refuge in the abbey.

  “Even more than he realizes,” Emily replied.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ll understand in a moment. Margaret couldn’t find Williams because he’d been watching the shop. When he saw Margaret leave, he went in to confront Marr again. He’d been drinking. He had a ship carpenter’s mallet that a sailor had left at his boardinghouse. Margaret believes that he only meant to frighten Marr.”

  “But the argument got out of control,” Ryan concluded. “After Williams killed Marr, he needed to eliminate anybody who’d heard the argument and could identify him. But why the baby? The baby wasn’t a threat to him. Why did he kill the baby?”

  “In his drunken rage,” Emily replied, “Williams decided that if Marr was determined to punish Margaret because of the baby she was going to have, then Williams was going to punish Marr’s baby.”

  The abbey’s bells rang, making the air tremble.

  “Three days ago, that thought would have been impossible for me to consider,” Ryan said.

  “Margaret suspected that Williams was responsible,” Emily continued. “The next morning, after the authorities questioned her, she found Williams at his boardinghouse. She asked him, but he denied it. She asked him again, this time strongly, and again he denied it. But she could see it in his eyes. What was she going to do? She couldn’t tell everyone that she was with child and without a husband and that the man who fathered the child was the man who slaughtered the Marr family. Her future as anything except a woman of the streets would be ruined if she told the truth.”

  “So she didn’t reveal her suspicions,” Ryan murmured.

  “She says, if only she hadn’t met Williams, if only the event between them hadn’t occurred, if only she hadn’t been weak…”

  “Yes, all those people would not have died.”

  “All these years, guilt tortured her,” Emily told them.

  “What about the Williamson killings twelve days later?” Becker asked. “I told Inspector Ryan how strange it was that a man named John Williams would kill a man named John Williamson.”

  “According to Margaret, Williams became distracted and moody. He drank so much that she couldn’t bear to be with him. He sought her out, saying how much he loved her, but she sent him away. One of the taverns that he went to belonged to Williamson. People joked that the two might be related, that John Williams was young enough to be John Williamson’s son, and yet Williamson was old enough to be Williams’s father.”

  “Makes me dizzy,” Ryan complained. “Now I’m thinking like your father. Williamson.”

  “You understand?” Emily asked.

  “Williamson. Son of Williams. The name kept torturing him. He’d killed Marr’s son. Margaret had left him. He might never see his own child, possibly a son. Guilt tore him apart until he lost his senses. I think your father would say that when Williams killed Williamson, it was like he was killing himself.

  “A few days later, he did in fact do that, hanging himself in Coldbath Fields Prison,” Ryan concluded.

  The abbey’s doors banged open, startling them.
Organ music boomed outward as nervous worshippers emerged, not seeming to feel any safer.

  Organ music. Emily suddenly realized where her father had gone. But there wasn’t time to explain.

  “Margaret’s baby,” she said.

  “What about it?”

  “She delivered a son. She worked as a mudlark, scavenging coal along the river, but she managed to keep the child with her. When the boy was four, she met a former soldier. They lived together.”

  “And?”

  “The boy took the soldier’s name. Brookline.”

  “What?”

  “Margaret Jewell’s son… John Williams’s son… is Colonel Brookline.”

  DE QUINCEY FELT HANDS TOUCHING HIM.

  “Hey!”

  Waking with a fright, he kicked with his sore legs.

  Someone jumped back.

  In the pale morning light, De Quincey’s eyes jerked open. A dozen specters formed a semicircle before him. Their clothes were ragged, their faces gaunt, their skin marked with sores.

  “Just feelin’ for a razor,” the man who’d jumped back said.

  “You think I’m the killer?” Ignoring the pain in his injured shoulder, De Quincey used both shackled hands to grip the grimy wall behind him and stood. “A slight man of my age, what chance would I have against men as tall as you? Why would I want to harm you?”

  “For our valuables,” another man said with sarcasm.

  “Maybe you were trying to rob me of my valuables,” De Quincey told them.

  “Your chin scabbed, the blood on your coat, you don’t look like you have any more valuables than us. Why are you wearin’ handcuffs?”

  “I had a disagreement with Lord Palmerston.”

  “With Lord Cupid? Ha.”

  “Truly, Lord Palmerston took a dislike to me and ordered me arrested.”

  “If you don’t want to tell us the truth, that’s your business.” A man stepped forward threateningly. “But what are you doin’ here?”

  “The same as you. I needed a place to rest.”

  “I meant here. How’d you know to find here?”

  “If Lord Cupid’s really after ’im, he’ll bring the police,” another man complained. “They’ll search until they find this place. Let’s throw the bugger out on the street.”

  “Down this tunnel, can you still smell the bread from the bakeshop?” De Quincey asked.

  “Bakeshop?”

  “The aroma used to make my stomach rumble. But after a while, when my stomach was so small that I knew I couldn’t eat even if the bread were in my hands, I used to go down there and inhale the fragrance of the bread, imagining that it gave me nourishment.”

  “How’d you know about that?”

  “And there used to be a turn in the tunnel, with steps that led up to a courtyard. A water pump was there. I never trusted it, but it was the only water I could find, so I drank from it anyway.”

  “How’d you know about that?”

  “More than fifty years ago, this was my home for several weeks until I found shelter in an empty house close to here on Greek Street.”

  De Quincey looked around, feeling the weight of a half century. “Sometimes I think the pain I experienced here was nothing compared to what I later encountered. I need some favors from you good gentlemen.”

  “Gentlemen? Ha.”

  “We don’t do favors for outsiders for nothin’,” someone else grumbled. “We need to eat, you know.”

  “Believe me, I do know. Unfortunately, I find myself embarrassed by a lack of funds. I do have a means to pay you, though.”

  “How?”

  “With these handcuffs. In my right coat pocket, you’ll find a key to them.”

  A ragged man reached into De Quincey’s pocket and pulled out the key, jumping away. “Now we have you. Without us, you can’t get the cuffs off.”

  “I couldn’t get them off anyway. The keyhole is on the outside of the cuffs, where I am unable to reach. Please unencumber me.”

  “The little guy talks funny,” one man said.

  “Let’s keep him a prisoner,” somebody suggested. “He can make us laugh by talkin’.”

  “Yeah. Like a toy we pull out of a box.”

  “Remove the handcuffs and keep them,” De Quincey advised. “They are yours to sell. Police shackles and a key that opens them ought to be worth a couple of pounds to parties at odds with the police.”

  “I never thought about that.”

  “But do it quickly. I need to be on my way.”

  The men hesitated.

  “A couple of pounds,” one of them murmured. “Do it.”

  Soon De Quincey’s wrists were free of the weight of the shackles. He rubbed the irritated, swollen skin, encouraging blood to flow.

  “I have another means of paying you,” he told the men.

  “Now what’s he talkin’ about?”

  “My clothes.”

  “Huh?”

  “I need someone my size with whom to change garments.”

  “You want to trade your clothes with what we wear?”

  “Someone my size,” De Quincey emphasized. “The clothes I receive need to appear as if they are indeed mine.”

  “The only one of us your size is Joey over here. How old are you, Joey? Fifteen?”

  A thin boy emerged from the group. His clothes were as ragged as the others, his face scarred by smallpox. “Think so.”

  “Would you like my better clothes?” De Quincey offered.

  “They’re too nice. How can I beg in ’em? I’ll look like I don’t need the pence.”

  “But you’ll be warmer. And I have no doubt that the clothes I give you will become ragged soon enough.”

  In truth, De Quincey’s pant cuffs were slightly frayed. The elbows on his coat looked thin. But in his constant condition of debt, they were the best he could afford.

  “And your hat, please, Joey. You have a full head of hair to keep you warm.”

  Five minutes later, Joey was pulling his new coat over his new pants and looking proud. “I could go to a royal ball.”

  “The beggar’s ball is more like it,” someone chortled.

  Meanwhile, De Quincey pulled on the rags that the boy had given him. He tugged the shapeless hat down over his forehead.

  “Where do you expect to go like that?” a man wondered in amazement. “We’re tryin’ to get out of rags, and you want to get in ’em.”

  “Going somewhere is exactly why I need my next favor, good gentlemen.”

  “What? Another favor?”

  “Which one of you pretends not to have legs?”

  They glanced at each other, self-conscious.

  “How’d you know about…”

  “I am aware of all the dodges. One of you juggles. One of you does acrobatic tricks, presumably Joey, because he’s the youngest and most nimble.”

  Joey couldn’t resist showing off. He performed several somersaults and a flip before walking on his hands.

  The other beggars clapped.

  “Bravo,” De Quincey said. “As for the rest of you, one of you sings. One of you pretends to be blind. One of you sweeps dirt from the street when a gentleman crosses with a lady. One of you pleads that you need the price of a train ticket to go home to see your dying mother. And one of you pretends not to have legs. I have an excellent offer for the man who engages in that trade.”

  “What are you offerin’?”

  A man limped forward. Years of pinning his legs under him had damaged his knees.

  “May I see your platform?” De Quincey asked.

  The man looked puzzled for a moment. “Is that what you call it?”

  “Please bring it forward.”

  The man limped beyond his companions and returned with a square wooden board that had old carpet attached to the top and rollers on the bottom. The carpet was thick, hollowed in the middle, so that the man could hide his legs under him, creating the appearance that his legs had been cut off at the knees.


  “Never seen better,” De Quincey said. “Dear man, please step down the tunnel with me a short distance. I need to speak confidentially to you.”

  While the others watched with suspicion, De Quincey led the man away. The beggar winced with each step he took.

  “Good fellow, I need to borrow your platform.”

  “How am I goin’ to beg without it?”

  “Would I be wrong,” De Quincey asked, “in assuming that on occasion you enjoy a touch of alcohol?”

  “It is one of my few pleasures.”

  “And would I be wrong in assuming that you also enjoy opium in your alcohol?”

  “You’re talkin’ about laudanum?”

  “Exactly, my good man. To soothe one’s bones from the chill air. Are you familiar with it?”

  “My knees ache all the time without it. The pain keeps me from sleepin’ without it.”

  “Would you be willing to exchange your excellent platform for a supply of it?”

  “How’s that goin’ to happen?”

  “I need to be assured that you are familiar with laudanum’s potency. I want you to be warm in the cold and able to sleep without not waking up.”

  “You’re talkin’ about dyin’ from it?”

  “That has been known to happen to inexperienced partakers.”

  “I’ve been swallowin’ laudanum since I was first on the streets. So have they.” The man indicated the group farther along the tunnel.

  “Perhaps you’d like to share with them. That way, no one consumes too much.”

  “Share? How’s this supposed to happen?”

  “Do we have an agreement?”

  “Yes, yes, yes. Now where’s the laudanum?”

  De Quincey led the limping man back to the broken crate. He reached under it and produced the flask.

  “What’s that?” one of the beggars yelled.

  “Another payment for your favors.” As much as De Quincey craved a swallow, he handed the flask to the man with the limp. It was one of the most difficult things he had ever been forced to do: giving away laudanum. “When the flask is empty, you can sell it.”

  The man with the limp took the first sip. Each of them shared.

  “I wonder if it would be too bold to request yet one more favor,” De Quincey ventured.