Murder as a Fine Art

by David Morrell

  The boy stared at the sketch of John Williams. A lamppost was behind him. People moving along the street caused the shadows to change and made him aware of reflections on the window. In particular, he became aware of his reflection, of his face next to that of John Williams: high forehead, sharp nose, and strong chin.

  “Better not stare at him too long,” the man advised. “With that curly hair of yours, you look a little like him. You don’t want to give yourself nightmares.”

  “No, sir.”

  “Can’t read, huh? Would you like to learn?”

  The boy thought a moment and realized that, if he didn’t know how to read, he wouldn’t be able to learn more about John Williams and the Ratcliffe Highway murders.

  “No, sir, I can’t read. Yes, sir, I’d like to learn.”

  “Good lad. Do you know where St. Nicholas church is? It’s down by the docks. St. Nicholas is the patron saint of sailors and merchants.”

  “The church is near the warehouse where I work for dustman Kendrick.”

  “A dustman, are you? Want to make something better of yourself?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “On Sunday morning, come to the nine o’clock service. I help the minister. After the service, I teach people how to read the Bible. I know that’s your day of rest from being a dustman, but I always give a cookie to any children who come to learn to read the holy word.”

  The boy’s stomach rumbled at the thought of the cookie. “Thank you, sir.”

  “With those good manners, you’ll go far, boy. Now do what I say and stop looking at that sketch before it gives you nightmares.”

  To the puzzlement of his mother and the former soldier, the boy went to church every Sunday, sat through the service, attended his reading lesson, and received a cookie. He became the best student the church had ever seen. Within a year, he could read any Bible passage his teacher presented to him.

  He went to every newspaper and learned that they had archives in which reports about John Williams and the Ratcliffe Highway murders were stored. He read all of them until he knew them by memory.

  He found a copy of a sketch of Williams and carried it in a pocket, studying it when no one saw him.

  “Mother, who was my father?” the boy asked.

  “He died a long time ago.”

  “But who was he? Tell me about him.”

  “It hurts me to think about him.”

  “How did he die? Is that why you sob at night?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “What was his name?”

  His mother turned away.

  After work, the boy kept returning to Ratcliffe Highway. He frequently entered the building where Marr had been killed. It was still a linen shop, its layout exactly as described in the newspaper accounts. The boy imagined where the bodies had lain, where the blood had sprayed.

  He returned to the King’s Arms tavern, this time going inside, again imagining where the bodies and the gore had been.

  He pretended that he walked next to the cart that had transported his father’s body past twenty thousand people to the crossroads of Cannon and Cable streets, where his father had been buried with a stake through his heart. The boy positioned himself in the middle of the crossroads. As traffic rattled past and drivers shouted for him to get out of the way, he wondered if he stood on top of his father’s bones.

  He was under a dock when the former soldier discovered him.

  “Stop!”

  The boy spun. He had muzzled a cat so that it couldn’t wail. Its legs were tied.

  “Why would you do that?” the former soldier demanded.

  The man grabbed the knife from the boy’s hand, freed the cat’s muzzle, and released the cords around the cat’s legs. Despite its injuries, the cat managed to run away.

  One night, the boy showed the sketch of John Williams to his mother.

  “Is this my father?”

  She recoiled from the image.

  “John Williams. He’s my father, right?”

  She stared at him in horror.

  “Why did my father kill all those people?”

  She wailed.

  The former soldier hurried in, shouting at the boy, “What in blazes did you do now?”

  “I asked her if John Williams was my father.”

  Weeping, his mother sank to her knees.

  The former soldier shoved the boy toward the door. “Leave her alone! Get out! I don’t want to see you here anymore!”

  “You’re not my father! You can’t give me orders!”

  With a gasp, the man staggered back. His breath driven from him, he peered down at the knife the boy had plunged into his stomach.

  “Tell me, Mother. Am I John Williams’s son?”

  “You’re a monster the same as your father was.”

  The boy plunged the knife into her also, hurled the shack’s lantern onto the floor, and stepped outside.

  Behind him, amid screams, flames crackled.

  AS BROOKLINE STUDIED THE WAX display of his father swinging the mallet, footsteps brought his attention back to the present.

  He turned toward three men who appeared at the doorway. Two of them came into the room while the other remained at the entrance, making sure that no one eavesdropped from the corridor.

  Brookline stepped toward them, positioning himself in front of another exhibit, one that showed the body snatchers, Burke and Hare, frozen in the midst of removing a corpse from a coffin they had excavated. A plaque explained that Burke and Hare sold corpses to surgeons who had few legal ways to obtain bodies for medical research. To provide even better specimens, Burke and Hare took to murdering people.

  By conducting the conversation before this exhibit, Brookline distracted his associates from noticing the resemblance between him and John Williams in the later tableau.

  “Anthony was killed at the prison last night,” Brookline told them.

  The three men adjusted to this information.

  “The newspapers reported that someone was killed there in addition to the governor,” the man at the door finally said. “Not the Opium-Eater. Someone else. I hoped it wasn’t Anthony.”

  “He was very convincing as a would-be assassin outside Lord Palmerston’s mansion,” Brookline told them. “The fireworks he set off during his escape through Green Park were memorable.”

  “Godspeed to him,” the two men said.

  “Godspeed,” Brookline echoed solemnly. “He was a man worthy to share combat with. Tonight we pay tribute to him.”

  HERE,” MARGARET SAID.

  “Stop,” Ryan told their driver.

  The coach halted outside a bakeshop on a gloomy street near the Seven Dials rookery. While most of the area near the slum was unusually empty, the shop bustled with activity.

  “What’s going on?” Becker asked with a frown.

  He and Emily helped Margaret down and escorted her inside. Frantic people jostled past them, hurrying out, carrying bread.

  “Figured you quit,” the owner grumbled behind the counter.

  “I had personal business,” Margaret told him.

  “Well, put on your apron and get back here with me. I can’t keep up with all the customers. They want to make sure they have food at home so they don’t need to go out tonight.”

  “Margaret,” Emily whispered, “no one realizes this is where you work. You’ll be safe here. We’re going to need you. Don’t leave.”

  WHERE YOUR FATHER listened to the music,” Ryan said as the coach took them along Oxford Street.

  “It’s the only place I can think of,” Emily told him. “I kept imagining the violins and horns of a concert. But Father never mentioned any place where he listened to a concert. Then I heard the organ at Westminster Abbey, and I realized there were many kinds of music. Organ music. Father told me, when he was young, starving on this street, he and Ann used to come to a particular corner and listen to a man play a barrel organ.”

  “Do you remember the cor
ner your father showed you?” Becker asked.

  “Up ahead on the right.”

  “The street isn’t busy. If he’s here, we shouldn’t have trouble seeing him.”

  “Nor would Brookline’s men.” Ryan pointed. “See there and over there? Those men appear to be reading a newspaper or looking into a shopwindow, but what they’re really doing is watching the street. Brilliant. They work for Lord Palmerston, but Brookline can order them to do whatever he wants.”

  “This is the corner,” Emily said. “I don’t see Father anywhere.”

  “Maybe he’s nearby.” Ryan called up to the driver, “Stop.”

  He stepped from the coach and walked up the neighboring street, entering a shop as if on an errand.

  “May I help you, sir?” a clerk asked, eager for business.

  “Sorry. I made a mistake.”

  Ryan left the shop, didn’t see De Quincey anywhere, and walked back toward the coach.

  On the corner, a legless beggar banged a cup on a paving stone, pleading beneath his hat, “Kind sir, can you spare a pence?”

  Ryan continued toward the coach.

  “Inspector Ryan,” the beggar continued pleading, “don’t act surprised.”

  At the mention of his name, Ryan felt his skin prickle.

  De Quincey?

  Ryan had met informants under unusual conditions often enough that he controlled his reaction and dropped a sixpence into the beggar’s cup.

  “Meet me on the street behind this one,” De Quincey told him, pulling the silver coin from the cup. “At Cavendish Square.”

  Ryan stepped into the coach and told the driver, “Go two blocks, then turn toward the next parallel street.”

  “But what about Father?” Emily protested.

  “Promise to look straight ahead.”

  “Why?”

  “Whatever you do, don’t look back.”

  “Inspector, please explain yourself.”

  “That was your father on the corner.”

  “The beggar without legs?”

  DE QUINCEY BANGED HIS CUP on the paving stones a few more times. Occasional pedestrians went past and ignored him. When he saw the coach turn a corner, he pushed his wheeled platform in the other direction, passing one of the men who watched the street. A short distance beyond the man, he veered into an alley, dismounted from the platform, and descended into the tunnels.

  A few minutes later, he reached the shadowy area where he had made his bargain with the beggars.

  A man limped in one direction and then another, working his legs.

  “I been on that… what’d you call it?… platform for twenty years. Walkin’ feels strange. Hurts my legs more than scrunchin’ ’em under me.”

  “I have no further use for it,” De Quincey said. “Here’s sixpence someone gave me. Many thanks, my good man. Did you receive any reports?”

  “Someone thinks he noticed Brookline going in and out of Tussaud’s wax museum on Baker Street. Someone else thinks he knows where this bloke might live.”

  “What’s the address?”

  When De Quincey heard the street name, he gasped.

  I DON’T SEE HIM,” Emily fretted. “We’ve been around Cavendish Square twice, but even when I pay attention to the beggars, I don’t see him. Oh,” she exclaimed.

  From bushes in the square, a tiny ragged figure darted through an open metal gate, rushing toward the coach. Becker quickly opened the door, letting the beggar in.

  “Hey!” the driver yelled.

  “It’s all right,” Ryan assured him.

  As Becker closed the door, De Quincey remained sprawled on the coach’s floor, keeping his head below the windows.

  “Did anyone notice?”

  “Not that I can see,” Becker answered.

  “Father, you’re shaking,” Emily said.

  “I need my medicine.”

  “We can’t afford to buy laudanum for you,” Ryan objected.

  “I didn’t ask you to do so.” De Quincey’s face glistened with sweat. “The man we’re hunting—I know who he is.”

  “Yes. It’s Colonel Brookline,” Emily told him.

  “What? You reached the same conclusion?” De Quincey asked, his amazement distracting him from his pain.

  “Father, we met Margaret Jewell.”

  For once in his life, De Quincey was speechless.

  Emily quickly explained what they had learned. “Margaret was too ashamed to tell the truth back then. She met a former soldier and took his last name: Brookline.”

  “Brookline is the son of John Williams?” De Quincey asked in greater astonishment.

  “The boy became obsessed with his father. He haunted the Ratcliffe Highway murder scenes. During an argument about Williams, he stabbed the former soldier and Margaret, then set fire to the shack. The former soldier died, but Margaret managed to crawl away. She never saw the boy again.”

  “All we have are suspicions, though,” De Quincey objected. “When I told Lord Palmerston that Brookline matched my description of the killer, the home secretary was outraged. Palmerston can’t possibly imagine that a war hero, an officer, and the most trusted man on his staff, the man he depends on for his life, is capable of these murders.”

  “I know one man who might believe us,” Ryan said.

  “Who?”

  “Commissioner Mayne. The man who told Becker and me about the original murders.”

  “Persuade him.”

  “God help me, I can’t bear to see you shaking any longer,” Ryan said. “Driver, stop.”

  Ryan hurried from the coach, entered a chemist’s shop, and returned with a bottle of ruby-colored liquid. “That cost me one of my last shillings. Use it wisely.”

  De Quincey grabbed the bottle and seemed about to swallow its entire contents but suddenly stopped his trembling hand and took only a sip.

  He closed his eyes and held his breath. Then he exhaled. When he looked at Ryan, his eyes were less anguished.

  “Thank you.”

  “For heaven’s sake, don’t tell anyone I did that.”

  “You may count on my gratitude. Go to Commissioner Mayne. Meanwhile, Constable Becker, Emily, and I shall try to find Brookline.”

  “We’re not police officers any longer. If Commissioner Mayne refuses to listen, we’re on our own. We can’t just wander through London, hoping to find Brookline.”

  “We’re not on our own, and we won’t be wandering. My informants gave me crucial information. I have no doubt where Brookline lives.”

  THE DESTINATION WAS so close that it surprised Emily and Becker. De Quincey instructed the driver to return to Oxford Street and proceed east, then south toward Soho Square.

  “When I survived on the streets of London in my youth,” De Quincey explained, “Soho Square was one of my haunts. I don’t know what the Soho Bazaar over there is. That factory for Crosse and Blackwell pickles didn’t exist. But the stoop ahead looks exactly the same as when I collapsed next to Ann fifty-two years ago. I see it like yesterday. If Ann hadn’t acted quickly to revive me…” De Quincey repressed the memory. “And here, just below the square…”

  “Greek Street,” Emily said, reading a sign on the side of a building. “You wrote about this area, Father.”

  “In my Confessions. I’ve come far, and yet I haven’t come far at all. Please stop, my good man,” Father instructed the driver.

  “Never had any fare treat me so polite,” the driver responded, bringing the coach to a halt.

  “Number thirty-eight,” De Quincey told his companions. “In part, I survived the winter because a mysterious man took pity on me and allowed me to sleep in a house that he occupied from time to time. The house had no furniture. I slept on the bare floor with a bundle of law papers for a pillow and a foul-smelling horseman’s cloak as a blanket.”

  Becker pointed. “Number thirty-eight is just down the street.”

  “Does anyone appear to be watching for visitors?” De Quincey asked.

&nb
sp; “Everything looks quiet.”

  They opened a coach door and descended to the sidewalk. A cold breeze made Emily pull her coat tighter.

  “This is the address from which one of my informants saw a man matching Brookline’s description depart,” De Quincey said. “Constable Becker, I trust that you still have your knife and your truncheon?”

  “Close at hand.”

  “Emily, stay behind us. If we encounter difficulties, run.”

  “I won’t leave you, Father.”

  “Both of you stay behind me,” Becker ordered.

  All the houses on the street had three levels and adjoined one another. Number 38 drew attention because of its gloom.

  “Fifty-two years ago, it wore the same unhappy countenance,” De Quincey said. “The only difference is the windows.”

  “They all have bars,” Emily noted.

  “The bars weren’t here when I knew the house. And the window on the second floor wasn’t that small. It has been altered to reduce its size.”

  “Someone’s worried about intruders,” Becker said.

  As in every other house, thick draperies prevented a view of the interior.

  “Emily, while I go up the street and appear to beg, why don’t you and Constable Becker knock on the doors to either side of this residence? Tell whoever answers that your last name is Brookline and that you’re trying to find your brother, a former colonel who lives on this street but who won’t give you his number. Pretend that you and he had a long-ago disagreement, that you desire a reconciliation. Request information about his welfare. Constable Becker, it might be best to fold your arms over your chest to hide the slashes on your coat.”

  De Quincey walked up the street and sat on a stoop, watching Emily and Becker speak to women who stepped outside each residence. Each of the women wore the apron and dust bonnet of a servant.

  Even though De Quincey was seated, his need for laudanum forced him to keep moving his feet as if walking in place. He took a small sip from his bottle, holding his tremors at bay. The cold breeze bit his cheeks and contributed to his shaking.

  A breeze tossed debris past him. He couldn’t help noticing the unusual lack of activity as numbers of people either stayed indoors or else left the city.