by L. J. Oliver
“And in the matter of the protection of Belle Potterage?”
“Colley didn’t show there last night. As I told you, limited manpower, sir. I’ve had to recall Humperdink and the more senior bobbies I assigned so they can run down leads on the villain’s whereabouts. If he ain’t already long gone, as I suspect.”
“You believe he would abandon his brother?”
“Rats don’t have such loyalties.”
“Well, if that’ll be all, Crabapple, I’d like to thank you for your time and utter contempt.” At least knowing Dickens had his men stationed round the district where Belle and her useless husband lived brought me some relief.
I allowed Constable Crabapple to show me out—there may have been a shove or two—and I knew the mistake I’d made. I needed something from Crabapple and had hardly left things on good terms between us.
“Now, unless I may be of further assistance . . .” began Crabapple, pointing to the door.
Just then, Inspector Foote strode by—and stopped as he saw me. “Why, if it isn’t Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge. Why, I was just reading about you!”
Foote smiled, shook my hand, and asked if there was anything, anything, that his men could do for an illustrious fellow like myself. Clearly Dickens’ plan to raise me up by association to Sunderland was working.
“You may,” I said. “I’d like to gain an audience with Fezziwig’s murderer.”
“Would you now?” said Crabapple, his eyebrows raised high into his hat. “On what account?”
“He has murdered my friend. I wish to ask him why.”
“Lot of good that’ll do you, sir. The bastard hasn’t said a word, nor will he. But no matter, the evidence against him will qualify a trial, have no worry, with a verdict all but assured. So if you’ll excuse me . . .”
Inspector Foote flushed. “Please excuse Crabapple. He’s studying to become a half-wit.” He placed a hand on Crabapple’s shoulder. “Constable, I believe we talked about this. Politeness to the public we protect, that is the watchword of the day. If Mr. Scrooge wishes to speak with the suspect, I can see no harm in it. It’s Christmas, after all! That woman has already been to see Mr. Guilfoyle, has she not? In fact, here she is now!”
I turned to see Adelaide, her face tear-stained and blotchy, walking up the corridor from the cells towards me.
“Ah,” sighed Crabapple, stopping. “It appears the murderer’s schedule has just opened up.”
Adelaide strode up to me, her full skirts swishing on the stone floor. “Are you to speak with Tom?” she asked me, her big eyes gleaming.
“Miss Owen, like you, insisted on visiting the suspect,” said the inspector, with more than an air of superiority. Foote turned to her. “I cannot imagine how difficult this must be for you, Miss Owen. Men sometimes hide double lives. A dreadful business, simply dreadful. Thank you for all you revealed in your statement. Crabapple there couldn’t even get his name out of him!”
“Thank you, Inspector,” Miss Owen said softly. “If Mr. Scrooge is going to see Tom, I’d like to come along.”
Foote spun on Crabapple. “Show Mr. Scrooge the way. Mr. Scrooge, you should stop by my club sometime. We can talk of this and that. There are many crimes we simply do not have the manpower to follow up on as much as we’d like. Look here!”
He pointed at several documents tacked to the wall. Missing-persons notices. Attractive women, housewives, mothers, daughters. A half-dozen spread over the past few months. “If some generous benefactor might step forward and help us to hire more men, we might be able to get to the bottom of cases like this.”
“I’m handling those,” Crabapple said, crossing his arms over his chest, his body tensing. “Nothing to ’em. Young women run off with their sweethearts. Wives get tired of running the household and go off to communes like the one that Shelley woman keeps talking about forming.”
“Or maybe their bodies just haven’t been dragged from the Thames yet,” Miss Owen said. “Like poor Mr. Sunderland.”
“Well,” Foote said. “Crabapple, extend these two every courtesy.” He looked my way. “I want to hear about it if he does not, yes?”
I smiled and delivered an amused nod.
When the inspector had gone, Crabapple walked us down the hall. He sneered at Miss Owen. “Did you enjoy your congregation with the killer, Miss Owen? Fitting, is it, for a young woman to be cavorting with dangerous criminals? Pulled yourself up from hard times, haven’t you, miss? Humble beginnings. Difficult to fully scrape off the filth of life on the street, though.”
“You misunderstand me, Constable,” Miss Owen said, sniffing and dabbing her nose with a silk kerchief before folding it neatly away and raising herself up with dignity. “I have never suffered so. But I have done all I could to help those who have. To be in such an entrusted position that you may help and protect Englishmen from the dangers of the lawless, well, you are most lucky indeed.” She smiled at Crabapple through her tears.
Crabapple groaned. “Maybe that’s what I smell on you. A do-gooder. Even worse than a common trollop. At least whores see this world for what it is. Not what they delude themselves to think it could be.”
“Funny,” I said. “You lecturing about delusions. They’re the foundation of every one of your piss-poor conclusions in this case. You should watch what you say, Crabapple. One word in the right ear and a man like me could end your career.”
“The prisoner is down the corridor, Scrooge. You may see yourself to his cell. I’ll return in a few to show you out, and I expect your report imminently, though I shan’t expect any use for it. And do wish the doomed boy a very merry Christmas from me, won’t you.” Crabapple turned his back on us without saying good-bye, strode across the open atrium, and vanished into an office.
I looked at Miss Owen, her eyes still fixed to mine, gleaming with hope even behind the stinging hurt from Crabapple’s cruel jibe.
“Perhaps I should speak to Mr. Guilfoyle alone,” I suggested. Miss Piper would feature heavily in the subject of my interrogation, and I did not wish her to hear any of it.
“No, I can tell that you’ve learned something. Whatever it is, I must know. I must know all of it.” She looked straight into my eyes, her gaze unfaltering, her brow set in a firm expression. The subtle scent of rose drifted to me from the nape of her neck, and her grip of my arm tightened. “Please.”
“As you wish.”
She led me back to the cells further in the building, down a corridor through a suffocating stench of unwashed crooks and unemptied chamber pots. Behind the bars of the furthermost cell, Tom was curled up on a bench. He tried to cover his face with the rough rug that was his only bed-furniture.
“Tom,” said Adelaide, gently.
“I told you before, go away!” came the bitter response. The rug slid off his face, revealing tangled hair and bloodshot eyes. Those eyes landed on me, widened in surprise, and then narrowed under a frown. Did he know me from somewhere? How odd.
He wiped his nose on the back of his sleeve, and I noticed, with a flicker of curiosity, that the cuff of his sleeve was adorned with a mother-of-pearl button. Not something I would have expected to see on the cuff of a man of his station.
“Tom, this is Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge,” she said. “He can help us.”
“Go away, Adelaide,” said Tom again, standing up and stuffing his hands into his pockets. He turned his back on us and kicked the wall. His whole body twitched; beads of cold sweat had formed on his pale neck. The threat of hanging may have been weighing heavily on his heart, but so, it seemed, was opium withdrawal. His hands and face had been washed of Fezziwig’s blood, but Crabapple had seen fit to leave him in the same blood-soaked clothes in which he’d been arrested.
“Tom, I’m trying to help you—”
“What did you tell them?” Tom demanded, rushing at the bars and gripping them so violently Miss Owen gasped and darted from them. He pressed his face between the bars, his eyes those of a wild dog. “Did you really think it ‘hel
pful’ to tell them about my dealings with Fezziwig? You’ve handed them clear motive. Clear motive for why I might have done this thing. Damn it and damned be you!”
I clanged my cane against the bars, making him jump and dart away. “Enough of that. She loves you. Any fool can see that.”
Tom stared at me with piercing bloodshot eyes. “And you’re a fool if you believe anything she says.” He looked back to Miss Owen. “He will come, he will deal with this. All of this.”
“Tom . . .”
He began to pace in the small cell, his feet sweeping frantically before him. He smacked the walls, the bars, twitched and shook. “The less said the better. He’ll be here. He’ll be here . . .”
I wanted to ask whom he was talking about, but Miss Owen’s warning gaze stopped me.
“Tell me where you were two nights ago,” I demanded. “When Fezziwig was murdered.”
Tom remained as he was, hands solidly hidden in his pockets, back facing me.
“I know something of you, and soon, the world will as well. I’ve spoken to the press, and they were keen indeed to hear what I had to say. The gambling, the opium. It doesn’t look good for you. Unless you have an alibi, which I think you do.”
Tom stopped pacing and glared at me again.
“Adelaide,” he whispered.
Miss Owen took a sharp breath and turned to me, her hand moving back to the very spot on my arm that she had previously gripped. I felt the pressure of her not-so-gentle squeeze through the rough material but went on anyway.
“Oh, is it true?” she asked me, then turned back to Tom. “Is it true, Tom? Whoever saw you, whoever you were with, you simply must tell Crabapple. I’m begging you, surely the alternative is worse?” Her voice broke, and her chin started to wobble, but she pressed her hand to her mouth and calmed her breathing.
The alternative was worse. Tom’s legs kicking wildly as his vertebrae separated, one by one, all his blood forced into his head until his eyes popped, soiling the inside of that black bag. I peered at Adelaide. She would not like what was coming next, but compared to the alternative, my revelation would hardly harm a string in her heart.
“Do you know a Miss Piper, Tom?” I asked. “Pretty woman, ginger hair tightly wound in curls, blue eyes, five foot four or thereabouts? She was overheard at the Cock and Egg testifying to having spent the night with you when the murder was taking place. Laughed about it openly, in front of a pack of drinkers and whores.” I stole a sideways glance at Adelaide, but instead of crumbling into heartbroken sobs and accusations of infidelity, she was clutching the bars and her face was beaming.
“We must find her,” she urged. “Her account could set you free!”
“Don’t be hasty now,” I cautioned. “The evidence still weighs against him. But Tom, I urge you to explain yourself.”
Neither sound nor movement came from the cell. I turned to Miss Owen and shrugged; she was shaking her head.
“Where did you meet with her?” she asked through the bars. “Where can we find her? Tom, I can bring her to Crabapple; her witness statement must count for something.” Apart from an involuntary spasm of the head, betraying a painful withdrawal, no movement came from Tom.
With a sudden clang she slammed the handle end of her umbrella against the bars. “Curse you, Thomas Guilfoyle! What can it be that has made you so bitter that you are prepared to meet your death in silence? Here you have the key to your freedom and you will not take it?” Tom flinched but did not turn round.
“Do you know who the real murderer was?” I pressed.
“Tom, dearest, sweetest Tom,” whispered Adelaide. “Speak to us.”
“What were you doing at Fezziwig’s, holding that knife, if not to kill him?” I continued. When he did not answer, I ventured, “I think you arrived, found the door open, and went inside to make sure all was well. You smelled something foul upstairs and found poor Fezziwig dead. Perhaps you slipped in his blood, perhaps you sought to check if any life yet clung to him. Then you heard something and realized his killer was still there. You took the blade to defend yourself, and all manner of blood ended up on you in the process. Might you have even written ‘Humbug’ on the wall so others would know this wretchedness was not of your design? Perhaps, perhaps not. But you fled and ended up in that cubbyhole. How did you know of its existence? Did you know someone who was once apprenticed there?”
Tom was staring at me now, and his startled expression told me that I had gotten at least some of it right.
“Was it laudanum you carried? I know of your opium use.”
I waited for Adelaide to respond, but she did not. This was not news to her.
“No, you would not have wanted oblivion and sleep, far from it. Whatever it is you use to get your blood pumping again, you took that, perhaps that white powder I’ve seen people mix in their drinks, yes? And I’d wager you consumed all you had, because you knew you’d be fighting for your life if the true killer found you. Is that right?”
Tom was quaking now, casting frantic looks first at me, then Adelaide, and back again. “He has to come for me, Adelaide. Or he’ll send someone. He will!”
I straightened my back. “Your acquittal is within reach, Mr. Guilfoyle. If life is of no interest to you, then by all means squander it in the murky depths of vivid dreams of midnight oil in the hell pits of London. If you are ever free again to do so. But by allowing yourself to hang, you are condemning not only your own wretched soul, but Miss . . . but Adelaide’s, too. Think what torture her grief will be. I have met many selfish men in my life, Guilfoyle, but you are by far the darkest.”
He turned slowly, hands still in his pockets. Glassy eyes, deep set and tired, met mine. He took a few shaking steps towards us, until he was so close I could smell the gruesome mixture of stale opium smoke and sweet, coagulated blood. His jacket rustled as his hands were finally extracted from its depths, and he gripped the bars.
“What,” he said quietly, “what if I had seen something? Someone?”
“Tom, you must tell us,” Adelaide pleaded.
“You’d never believe me.”
“Tell us,” I urged.
He darted away, clawing at his own chest, and stared at the ceiling as if appealing to the almighty Himself. “A black veil. A shroud or cloak. Hands like bones, sharp, terrible fingers. A wretched thing that should not have lived. Killed by the dead, he was. A spirit. A dead thing so like the angel of death itself. Killed by the dead! A humbug. Humbug!”
A chill swept through me like a ghost. Adelaide held her breath, her sparkling eyes flashing from Tom to me and back again. Many more will die. And then you.
“No, I can see you would not credit it,” Tom whispered as he drew close to us again. “Not that I’d blame you.”
His fists were closed round the bars, gripped so tight his knuckles were white as bone. And there, on the ring finger, was the tell-tale band of pale skin that betrayed a missing ring.
“Where’s your ring, Thomas Guilfoyle?” I asked. He jumped, startled, his eyes wide and darting.
“W-what ring?” he stuttered, and his hands vanished back into his pockets.
“Don’t play the fool,” I said, then lowered my voice. “Heavy, gold. Red stone set deep in the middle.” The very same that had been spinning on my office floor amongst a pile of cadaver-dust.
“No,” he murmured, his voice coarse and dry. “No, I know of no ring.” His breathing became irregular and panicked, and he retreated to the back of his cell, wildly wringing his hands.
“Of course you do,” I said. “You wore it regularly. Daily, for months. You must have noticed such a permanent element of your attire?”
“Answer the man, Tom,” demanded Adelaide.
“It wasn’t my ring! I had nothing to do with that ring, or any of the locks it opened!” He was blathering wildly, loudly, his pleading voice echoing up the corridor. “My wearing it was nothing more than an accident, you hear? It shouldn’t have come to me, it wasn’t mine to use in
the Royal Quarter, not mine! Don’t tell Smithson Adelaide, you won’t, will you?” He was on his knees now, tears streaming down his cheeks, clutching at Adelaide’s skirts through the bars. She fell to his level and held his hands, soothing him with gentle coos.
“Who’s Smithson?” I asked. “What’s the Royal Quarter?”
“Killed by the dead, Adelaide,” whispered Tom, his face pressed against the bars and the desperation laced in his voice like poison. “By the dead!”
She hushed him and peeled away a strand of hair that was sticking to his sweaty forehead.
“And Annie Piper?” I asked.
“Save her,” Tom begged. “Save Annie, please, you must save her . . .”
I froze suddenly. Heavy booted steps reverberated up the corridor like a rhythmic countdown.
“Constable Crabapple!” called Adelaide, rushing to him. “We have made some progress, indeed. There is a witness, a Miss Annie Piper. She was with Tom on the night in question.”
He ignored her. “What’s this of a ring?” he demanded. Tom sank to the floor in the corner of the cell. “This ring?” With a flourish, Crabapple produced the mysterious ring that Fezziwig had been wearing when he was murdered. Tom’s opium withdrawal reached its zenith and he doubled over, heaving and vomiting like a poisoned dog.
“He has an alibi, Constable,” Adelaide pressed. “He could not have murdered Fezziwig!”
“Miss Annie Piper, you say? A known prostitute. Not a very credible witness. But the ring—excellent work, Miss Owen, Mr. Scrooge,” said Crabapple. “This new connection will expedite the sentencing. We’ll have this butcher hanged within a fortnight.”
Dickens met us at a newsstand a few blocks from the precinct. We told him all that had happened, and he shook his head. “Every paper has informants within the police. It won’t take long before that hallucination he described is relayed to one of them. If he keeps talking about it, that is.”