by L. J. Oliver
“Oy!” he called out. “What’s all this? What are you doing?”
“Jacob Marley,” said Constable Crabapple. “We’re investigating a series of offenses. Namely harboring stolen goods, dealing with known criminals . . . why, there’s even the flavor of murder about you, Marley!”
Jacob Marley smiled. “I have no idea what this is all about, gentlemen, oh pardon me, and lady . . .” He gave Adelaide a nasty wink that was not lost on me. Adelaide a “lady”? The Lady perhaps?
I restrained my imagination from wandering further and focused on the task at hand.
“Please, come in,” Marley said, “have a good look around, and then leave me.”
Adelaide and I followed Crabapple inside. The hairs stood up on the back of my neck as I pressed past Marley. As soon as I was in the house, I turned to shoot him an angry glare, but he had descended his stone steps and was standing in the icy street, whispering something in the ear of a plump milkmaid. She nodded eagerly, and he pressed a coin into her hand before she peeled off, her milk jugs dangling as she slipped and slid across the ice. Marley turned back to the house, caught me frowning at him, and grinned mildly as he climbed each step to the front door.
“This is your doing, no doubt,” he hissed at me.
“Come now, Marley,” I said. “You’re a man of the world—which explains the sad shape the world is in!”
Crabapple’s men turned Marley’s offices inside out, sweeping clerks’ desks, emptying filing cabinets, and pulling books from their shelves. Several of them stomped upstairs to his residence, and we heard the dull thuds of their heavy boots soiling his lush carpets.
I knew where Marley’s storage room was; I used a similar setup myself to receive collateral goods from customers unable to pay their dues. So I nudged Crabapple and nodded towards the back of the office, at a heavy door adorned with a series of practically impregnable locks.
“What’s this here?” Crabapple asked Marley.
“The vault,” Marley replied. “The items stored within are of incalculable worth, and I’d beseech your men to—stop! You can’t go in there!” He pushed past me and stood in front of the door, arms splayed to either side. “I’m appealing to your common sense, Constable; don’t let your men raid my vault! There is nothing of use to you in there, I can assure you.”
Unable to stop myself, I snickered.
“Open this door immediately, Marley,” ordered Crabapple. Sulking, Marley went to his desk, unlocked its middle drawer. He removed it, scowling at me all the while. Secured to the underside of the desk was a small package with keys and combinations to the myriad locks securing the “vault” door.
“You’ll pay for this, Scrooge,” he said, glaring. “And you—what’s your name, then?”
“Crabapple.”
“Fitting. And you’ll find your actions come at a high price, too.”
“Not at all,” I answered, taking off my top hat and brushing the slush onto his carpet. I replaced my hat with a flick of my wrist. “It seems you are to pay today.”
The vault door opened, and the policemen filed in, knocking over oil paintings and upsetting valuable porcelain vases as they did. Marley winced.
“Are these yours?” Crabapple barked, peering inside the vault his men were searching. “What proof do you have?”
Marley retrieved a thick book of ledgers from a safe and placed them with a thud on the desk in front of Crabapple.
The policeman flicked through a few pages. “I can’t read this, it’s all nonsense! Scrawls and scribbles.”
“Let me have a look,” Adelaide said, having until now been waiting in the reception area at the front of the office, watching and listening. Crabapple looked to me, and I nodded.
“Preposterous!” shouted Marley, as Adelaide took the ledger from the constable and sat down at Marley’s desk. She took his magnifying glass by its ivory handle and began inspecting the contents, line-by-line. “Who is this woman? One of your whores, Ebenezer?” Adelaide shifted uncomfortably, said nothing. She continued to study the pages, but I could see pink roses forming on her neck and cheeks as she blushed.
“How dare you, Marley! To assault a lady’s honor in that fashion, especially considering Miss Owen is now the only conduit between yourself and your freedom? Why, that is bestial even for you!” I cried, hot prickles of anger spreading across my scalp. I couldn’t help myself. “Besides, unlike you, Jacob, I can appreciate a woman for her mind as well as her loyal heart,” I retorted.
“Only because you are so miserly that you no doubt confine yourself to cheaper, more solitary solutions,” he said with a smirk.
“How dare you?” Crabapple fumed. “In front of a lady!”
“My dear gentlemen,” said Adelaide with her nightingale voice and velvet smile. “It would be of such assistance to me if you’d please postpone your disagreement. If Mr. Marley is innocent, as he claims, then it is of utmost importance that I uncover, in these ledgers, the evidence to absolve him.”
My former friend scoffed. He was about to open his mouth to release some acidic poison in Adelaide’s direction when we heard a sudden crash from the vaults. Marley and I rushed to be the first through the heavy door, and I made sure to jab my elbow in Marley’s side as I jostled past him. A wooden crate lay smashed on the floor, its contents spilling out over the booted feet of the policemen gathered round it: seemingly endless coils of chains and silver boxes.
“Had to smash it open, sir,” said Humperdink to Crabapple. “It was nailed shut.”
Crabapple grimaced. “Humperdink, if they made hats the size of your brain, you’d be wearin’ a peanut shell!”
“What in God’s name?” shrieked Marley, and pushed in, trying to scoop up the chains and wind them back into some order.
“What in the devil is this, Marley?” demanded Crabapple.
“A very valuable consignment of silver cruets,” Marley wailed. “Collected from St. Savior’s Church as security against a loan. Look, here!” He stood up, the chains draped over him and hanging from him like metal vines, and he pointed at a small dent in one of the boxes. “Look what you’ve done!”
I felt a ghostly chill at the sight of Marley weighed down with endless chains and boxes. As if it were a portent of some kind.
The policemen lost interest and continued their search, bringing cabinets and crates and boxes out into the office for examination and recording. I looked at Marley where he stood, tangled in his own chains. I tried to feel some compassion for him but failed. His expression changed from fury to something else, something far more pitiful.
“Look at these,” he whispered, holding up the bell chains. “These great chains, designed to hold the weight of great crystal church chandeliers and never falter, never dropping their burden. Each link is like the bonds of friendship, formed laboriously. Yet so easily severed with the proper tools.”
“Like betrayal,” I interrupted.
“But, Scrooge, look here, see.” He showed me a chain link with the telltale marks of soldering. “With a generous amount of heat and the right metal, they can be repaired. There’s just a bit of painful burning to go through to resolidify those links, those bonds of friendship . . .”
“Your use of that word is an obscene exaggeration.” I shook my head. “Is there anything left in that dried up and rotten prune you call a brain?”
Another crash came from the office as a constable dropped a porcelain elephant. Marley cried out, pushing me over as he scurried back out, the chains dropping from him.
“Oops,” said Humperdink, and Marley fell to his knees, scooping up the precious shards.
“You can cross that elephant off the inventory,” Crabapple called over to Adelaide, who ignored him as she studied each line and entry in the book.
Marley yelped suddenly and stood up, sucking his thumb. Blood dripped from where he had sliced it open on a shard of broken elephant. He thrust the remaining porcelain mess into the hands of Humperdink.
“You’l
l do no such thing, woman,” he barked, his chin wobbling. “Scotland Yard will be recompensing me for that item. Crabapple, I don’t know what game you are playing, but you would do well to remove this little girl from my accounts. That is sensitive information, and by no means anything a woman can comprehend.”
“Actually, Mr. Marley, the books are clean,” she said finally, closing the ledgers and sliding them across the desk towards him. “Though your business dealings are murky at best, there is nothing in here that is incriminating in any way.”
“Hah!” Marley yelled, triumphant.
Adelaide shook her head and muttered, “Now he thinks I’m competent.”
“That can’t be,” I said. “Make certain you check again.”
“So I have,” Adelaide continued. “See for yourself. Marley has kept impeccable records. Each unit is accounted for and listed against value and debtor. Transactions are recorded thoroughly, and each month is summarized in a detailed cash flow statement. I can find no connection to the Rutledge estate or any of the other—”
“Lord Rutledge?” said Marley. “What’s he got to do with anything? Never mind. It seems your judgment has once again been called into question, Scrooge. Not the first time you have been humiliated thusly, of course. You may leave presently—oh, unless, of course, there is more of my property you wish to have destroyed at the expense of Scotland Yard?”
“He would have traded through holding companies,” I urged Adelaide.
“All traceable,” Marley offered.
“They would have used pseudonyms.”
“Each debtor and creditor is named with a supporting address,” Adelaide admitted. “I recognize most all of them as reputable. I’d wager you would, too.”
Marley scoffed at me, his nose twitching in a sneer, casting triumphant glances at Crabapple to ensure he was registering every word. He was.
“There must be other ledgers. Marley’s mind for business is so hellishly astute he would have recorded everything, but I doubt even he would be thick enough to do so in open books.” I turned to Crabapple. “Constable! Have your men found anything in Marley’s residences above?”
“Quick as a corpse, that lot,” I muttered.
At that moment a drumroll of heavy boots sounded out as Crabapple’s men thumped down the stairs and burst into the office. Humperdink jumped and once again dropped the shards of porcelain elephant.
“Nothing, sir,” said a constable from under a heavy moustache.
“Check again,” I called out to him. The constable raised his eyebrows and looked to Crabapple. He said nothing but shook his head. His dark eyes were narrowed and bore into mine. His fingers twitched.
“Well?” shouted Marley, his voice thick with glee. “Pray, don’t keep me in suspense any longer! What will you have me arrested for? The ownership of a porcelain elephant? Impeccable business records? Come now, Crabapple, tell me how you are to explain the coup of the century to Inspector Foote and Commissioner Rowan?”
A heavy knocking drummed from the front door. More voices, demanding entrance.
“That would be Inspector Foote, I believe,” Marley said, raising an eyebrow to Crabapple. “The two of you are acquainted, I understand?”
“Humperdink,” snarled the incandescent Crabapple. “You will remain here and take Mr. Marley’s statement. Be sure to transcribe accurately the value of that elephant. All other men, off.” His face was reddening, clearly visualizing the torment he would face from his superior.
I had no doubt that despite enduring a verbal thrashing from Lord Dyer and others of his station last night for “allowing” Rutledge to be murdered right under his nose, that Foote had, in the end, managed to lay all blame at Crabapple’s feet.
I struggled to keep my breath under control, frustration and panic brewing in my gut. Then I saw Foote entering this chamber, and with him . . . Shen?
The Chinaman smiled thinly. Then I recalled the whispers that passed between Rutledge and Shen at the party. Shen had known I was coming after Rutledge. He had told the lord to give Marley’s name and had engineered all of this!
“Perhaps Mr. Scrooge and I might take some air, as you Englishmen say?” Shen suggested. “We have much to talk about, I believe!”
Adelaide’s eyes locked with mine and she nodded. “I’m sure Inspector Foote is going to want statements from all of us. I’m happy to give mine first.”
Soon I was outside with Shen, clenching my fists against the nasty December chill. Morning carolers passed, heads popped out from a garishly painted wagon. They rang bells and pointed at the legends on the wagon, which promised “good and fair prices” for all one’s Christmas needs.
“Now that’s a humbug, wouldn’t you say, Mr. Scrooge?” Shen asked.
The use of that word chilled me more than the cutting wind.
“What ‘need’ does one have for Christmas?” Shen asked. “Just a day to find yourself another year older and deeper in debt, wouldn’t you say?”
“What do you want? Why did you do this?”
Shen’s smile was a mockery of sympathy. “Even after you were warned, you not only pressed on, you entered my premise illegally, rifled through my things when I was not there. That was ungentlemanly. Rude. I do not abide rudeness.”
“I know about you and the underground opium trade.”
“Knowing a thing and being able to prove it are two entirely different matters.”
“What about ‘The Lady,’ eh?”
Shen shrugged. “Fezziwig’s invitation, yes. I was most curious myself to learn what that was all about. Some woman in need of help, I assumed?”
“You’re lying.”
“Rudeness,” Shen reminded me. “How much punishment do you really wish to endure? Particularly when vast pleasures may yet await you?”
I recalled the Colley Brothers making much the same offer.
“Your Constable Crabapple will no longer be willing or able to help you after this. Your Mr. Dickens will remain loyal only so long as he believes you are in a position to help him achieve his dream of becoming his own publisher.”
I tensed. Shen must have overheard Dickens and me talking at the party.
“And poor Miss Owen. What do you really know about her? She arrives on your doorstep just as all this misery begins. A coincidence? I do not believe in them, nor should you. Perhaps she is this mysterious ‘Lady’ Mr. Fezziwig meant to warn all of us about. A warning you might consider heeding. But no matter. What is important is that you need money and I have money. Promise me now that you will put all this foolishness behind you, and I will see that you receive all the funding you might ever desire.”
“From your foul trade.”
“Does it matter where it comes from, so long as it comes?”
My hands balled into fists, I said, “I’d rather go to the poorhouse.”
Shen bowed. “Very well, Mr. Scrooge. Perhaps when next we meet, I will draw you a map.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE COLD IN the air stung my cheeks. I pulled my coat tightly round my neck as Dickens and I walked against the icy wind back to our district. A carriage had been called for Adelaide, who wished to visit Guilfoyle before meeting me at the counting-house.
With lips numb from the chill, I told Dickens about the late-night visit from the young entrepreneur, even slipped him the ring I’d been given. He knew something of this strange photographic process. The camera obscura had been around for centuries, and a Frenchman named Niépce, who had only just died this year, had developed photo etching and a rough chemical process that might explain what I’d seen.
Little, though, could explain the base use that Smithson, whoever the bastard truly was, had come up with for the process. “Deplorable,” I snarled. “It’s one thing, a woman choosing to enter the world’s oldest. But the listless expressions, the confusion, and even fear in their eyes, it’s like they were drugged and dragged from their beds to perform in these . . . I don’t know what to call them.”
“Anything is possible. All that said, the boy was correct, though,” I said. “The commercial implications are staggering. Everyone with means will want one of these cameras, and the means to develop their own photographs. Whoever controls—”
“The word camera sounds an awful lot like chimera, doesn’t it?” Dickens said, twirling the hand-rolled smoke between finger and thumb. I stared at him, but his eyes were fixed on the glowing end of his cigarette. “Chimera, the fire-breathing monster.” He exhaled a swirling dance of grey air. “You see only profit, Scrooge. I see only misery. They’re using children around these dangerous chemicals. It might be poisonous, for all we know.”
“This city is poisonous. At least young Dodger is trying to make something of himself.”
Frowning, Dickens spotted a woman, no older than twenty, standing only a few yards away by the entrance of a millinery. She was clutching at a filthy shawl barely covering her exposed skeletal chest. It was rattling with heavy consumption. Her dirty and tangled hair, which had the color and smell of a goat, poked from underneath a dirty head kerchief. With a jolt, I recognized her as the beggar woman outside Fezziwig’s wake.
Dickens walked over to her, shrugging his coat off his shoulders and draping it around hers, taking care to button it snugly around her neck. “Cover up, Rosie,” he said, gently. “For the love of God, it’s December. You’ll catch your death if you haven’t already. Christmas Day approaches. Have you anywhere to go?”
I stared at Rosie as she silently wrapped herself in the reporter’s warm coat, curtsied, and scurried off down the street. In glum silence, the shivering reporter regained my side.
I opened my mouth, and he silenced me with a sharp look.
“What?” I asked. “I was merely going to—”