Inspector of the Dead

by David Morrell

  A sudden noise made De Quincey turn.

  A door banged open at the back of the church. Becker rushed in, snow falling from his hat and coat. He struggled to catch his breath. “A judge…Sir Richard Hawkins…throat slit…St. James’s Park!”

  “What?” Commissioner Mayne exclaimed.

  “His wife…a tube down her throat…drowned her with…”

  The revenger never forgot his father’s shock when the constable approached their meager cottage, asking, “Is Caitlin O’Brien your wife?”

  “She is. Why? Has something happened to her?”

  The Irish accent made the constable look him up and down. “You could say that.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “She’s been arrested.”

  “Arrest…” Colin’s father couldn’t finish the word. It was the first time Colin had ever heard him sound afraid. “My God, for what?”

  “Shoplifting.”

  “No!”

  “From Burbridge’s linens.”

  “There has to be a mistake. That’s the shop where Caitlin went to sell her knitting.”

  “I don’t know anything about knitting, but I know when your wife left Burbridge’s shop, she had more in her basket than when she went in.”

  “No! Caitlin would never—”

  “Be careful who you raise your voice to. Maybe you can get away with yelling at constables where you came from, but over here, people show respect for authority.”

  “I’m not trying to…I didn’t mean…Where is she? At the station house in St. John’s Wood?”

  “If you want to help her, you’d better find a lawyer.”

  The constable turned to walk toward the wicker seat of a two-wheeled pony cart that he’d driven from the city.

  “Can you take me with you?” Colin’s father begged.

  “You can see there’s space for only one man in the cart.”

  “At least wait for me so that you can show me to the station house! Please! I need to see her!”

  The constable let out an irritated sigh. “I can give you five minutes.”

  Colin’s father hurried back to the cottage.

  “Emma, you’re the oldest. Stay here and watch Ruth. This is all the money I have.” It amounted to just a few coins. “I’ll take Colin with me. He can bring back messages if I don’t return right away.”

  The constable flicked the reins on the cart’s pony and started to drive away.

  “Colin, grab your coat and a chunk of bread for each of us,” his father said quickly.

  Breathless, trembling with fear, Colin did what he was told, then raced to catch up with his father, who hurried to catch up with the constable.

  All along the half-built street, women and children stood at open doors, watching.

  The lane of their village merged with a broader one and then a main road, the mass of traffic increasing along with the clamor of hooves and wheels.

  “Police! Out of the way!” the constable shouted.

  When carriages and animals wouldn’t part for him, the constable swerved his cart into the ditch and hurried through the rising dust.

  Colin tripped and fell, scraping his arm on gravel. He scrambled to his feet and stretched his short legs to rush after his father. Dust caked his lips.

  At last they reached the sign ST. JOHN’S WOOD, but the narrow streets increased the congestion, the cobblestones adding to the din of hooves and wheels.

  The constable turned his cart onto a lane and stopped the horse at a building that resembled a shop, although its sign announced POLICE.

  “I don’t know what use it did you to follow me here. You’ll spend your time better if you look for a lawyer.”

  “But I need to talk to my wife!”

  A sergeant stepped from the station house. “What’s all this shouting?”

  “My wife’s here! Caitlin O’Brien!”

  “The Irish shoplifter? No, you’re wrong. She isn’t here.”

  “You mean you released her?”

  “I mean we no longer had space. An hour ago your wife was carted to London with two other thieves.”

  “London?”

  “To Newgate Prison. Yell at somebody there and see what happens.”

  “God help us. Newgate.” For a moment, Colin’s father was paralyzed with dismay. Recovering, he asked, “Where’s Burbridge’s?”

  “Make trouble with a witness, and you’ll join your wife in Newgate.”

  Colin’s father ran into the street, begging directions from passersby.

  “Where’s Burbridge’s linen shop? Can you tell me where to find…?”

  People backed away.

  “Two lanes up. On the right,” a man finally said, to be rid of him.

  Colin’s legs ached from the effort of so much running. Somehow, he managed to keep his father in view as they hurried through the crowd. His father rushed into a shop where shirts, handkerchiefs, and tablecloths were displayed in a window.

  When Colin entered, he heard his father saying to a man behind a counter, “My wife came here yesterday to sell three jumpers that she knitted.”

  “I didn’t need them.” Burbridge was heavyset, round-faced with thick dark eyebrows.

  “We live in Helmsey Field, four miles north of here,” Colin’s father said. “A woman there told us she’s your sister.”

  “I don’t know what that has to do with anything.”

  “Your sister told my wife to come here. She said that the jumpers my wife knitted were the kind of special item you like to sell.”

  “My sister might have thought the jumpers were special, but they weren’t up to my standards. I told your wife I couldn’t use them, and the next thing I knew, I saw her putting a shirt under the knitting in the basket she carried.”

  “No! Caitlin wouldn’t do that!”

  “Well, she did. I know what I saw.”

  “There’s got to be a mistake.”

  The door opened. The constable they’d followed to St. John’s Wood stepped inside and put a hand on his truncheon.

  “Trouble?” the policeman asked.

  “This Irishman’s calling me a liar.”

  “No! I didn’t say that! All I’m saying is there’s been a mistake!”

  “In your place, I wouldn’t be bothering the man your wife stole from,” the constable advised.

  “He’s scaring off my customers,” Burbridge complained.

  “You can go to Newgate Prison and try to help your wife,” the constable warned, “or else I can arrange for you to go to Newgate a different way.”

  Colin’s father looked at both men in desperation. Then he ran from the shop.

  Colin chased after him. They reached the main road and joined the relentless roar of vehicles and livestock surging onto it from various lanes. The accumulating noise and dust became overwhelming, carrying them along with such force that even if they’d wanted to return to their village, they couldn’t have broken free. The boy had the feeling of being trapped in the relentless rush of a swollen river, hurtling toward a waterfall, but instead of spray hovering over the waterfall, a thick brown pall hung above London.

  As Becker finished his breathless message, the group listened in shock at the back of the church. The fidgeting of police lanterns illuminated the group’s stark expressions.

  “Drowned the judge’s wife in…?” The commissioner turned toward De Quincey. “Milk? That doesn’t make sense. No one in his right mind…”

  “It makes perfect sense,” De Quincey said. “The killer knows exactly what he’s doing and is definitely in his right mind, at least as the law defines sanity.”

  “But only a monster would do this.”

  “Or someone who feels that his victims are monsters,” De Quincey said. “It’s clear that the killer believes his horrid actions are perfectly justified. When I say ‘milk,’ what’s the first thought that comes to you, Commissioner?”

  Mayne’s quick mind responded, “Because we’re in church: a b
iblical passage. ‘A land flowing with milk and honey.’”

  “And you, Inspector Ryan? Your first thought?”

  “The purity of a mother’s milk. But I don’t see how either of those expressions helps us.”

  “Emily?” De Quincey requested. “What comes to your mind when I say the word ‘milk’?”

  “Macbeth, of course.”

  “Excellent, my dear.”

  Commissioner Mayne looked baffled. “Miss De Quincey, do you indulge in laudanum also? I fail to see what milk has to do with—”

  “Have you seen Macbeth lately, Commissioner?” De Quincey asked. “Or perhaps you read my essay about it: ‘On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth.’”

  “The drug makes you jump around in your mind.”

  “Lady Macbeth scorns her husband for lacking the resolve to kill the king and take his place. She ridicules Macbeth for what, Emily?”

  “For being too full of the milk of human kindness.”

  Commissioner Mayne reacted to the reference. “Milk? Human kindness?”

  “That’s what Sergeant Becker smelled when he found Lady Hawkins. Her body was filled with it. The milk of human kindness gone sour. Again, the killer indicates that he seeks revenge for a great injustice.”

  “But the connection seems so arbitrary,” Mayne said.

  “Not if you consider the plot of Macbeth. It’s about assassinating a monarch.”

  The commissioner’s sudden pallor showed that he now understood.

  “The name on the note in Lord Cosgrove’s hand was Edward Oxford, who shot at the queen,” De Quincey said. “The name on the note that Sergeant Becker found in the hand of the latest victim was John Francis.”

  “Who also attacked the queen,” the commissioner said.

  Sunday, 29 May 1842

  Among a crowd near St. James’s Park, a dusky-skinned man watched Queen Victoria and Prince Albert ride past in an open carriage, returning from church services. With so much attention directed toward the queen and the prince, only a few people saw the man pull out a pistol.

  One of the few who noticed was a boy who happened to look in the man’s direction as he aimed and pulled the trigger.

  The result was merely a clicking sound. When the hammer fell, the pistol failed to discharge. The man hurried away.

  Another witness was Prince Albert, who glanced toward the crowd and turned to Victoria, saying, “I may be mistaken, but I’m sure I saw someone take aim at us.”

  The boy who had seen the attempt was afflicted with a stutter. When he tried to tell people about the pistol, his halting speech made them so impatient that they walked away. But when the boy returned home and managed to tell his family, they decided that someone needed to be informed about the incident.

  For the next twenty-four hours, they sought out various officials, persuading them to listen as the boy stammered his account. Meanwhile, Prince Albert’s own report brought Commissioner Mayne to Buckingham Palace.

  “As His Highness indicated, there was a chance that he might have been mistaken,” Mayne told the group at the church. They had retreated to a room off the vestibule, where they couldn’t be overheard. “Then word reached us of a boy who had seen what Prince Albert reported. We no longer had any doubts and cautioned the queen and the prince to remain in the palace while we increased the number of constables in the area.

  “Imagine our surprise when, without informing us, the queen decided that cowering in the palace was a bad example. Her subjects expected her to appear when her schedule in the newspapers indicated that she would. She was determined to honor what she considered a promise. So, on the next day, at six in the evening, she and Prince Albert went on their customary carriage ride from the palace, up Constitution Hill, toward Hyde Park. We knew nothing about this. Thousands watched the carriage go past. It was an astonishing act of heroism.”

  As the commissioner paused, Ryan added to his account. “I was still a patrolman in that area. Because I’d captured Edward Oxford and because I’d been helpful in finding a thief who sneaked into the palace and stole items of the queen’s wardrobe, I was being used for special assignments. In this case, I wore plain clothes, blending with the crowd. The detective division hadn’t yet been created, but you could say that unofficially I was already a detective.

  “I established a position close to where Oxford had fired at the queen two years earlier—at the edge of Green Park. I’d been told that, because of the danger, the queen had refused to appear in public that day. Of course, her potential assailant couldn’t have known that. There was a chance he would return, and I hoped to recognize him based on the description I’d been given.

  “To my shock, the queen and the prince actually drove past. I don’t know which of my emotions was stronger—my relief when Her Majesty went by unharmed or my sudden worry that she would be in danger when she returned from Hyde Park.

  “The crowd stayed in place, waiting for a further glimpse of the queen and the prince. More people accumulated, shouting, ‘Here she comes!’ as the carriage reappeared twenty minutes later. Watching for anything out of the ordinary, I noticed someone on the opposite side of Constitution Hill. A constable was looking intently at a young man who stood next to a water pump. The young man had a dark complexion, matching the description of the person I’d been warned about.

  “Ahead of the returning royal carriage, I started across the road,” Ryan continued. “The crowd’s noise became louder. I heard the clatter of horseshoes and carriage wheels as the queen and the prince drew nearer. The young man had retreated behind a tree. When I reached the crowd in that area, the carriage came by. The constable astonished me by turning from the young man and standing at attention as the carriage passed. Apparently the constable had never been that close to royalty, but I had seen Her Majesty many times, and my attention was solely on the young man, who suddenly raised a pistol from behind the tree.

  “I lunged for it. The roar of the shot made the crowd scream. As gun smoke filled the area, the constable hurried over, helping me struggle with the man who’d pulled the trigger.”

  “John Francis,” De Quincey said.

  Ryan nodded. “Other constables then joined us. We took Francis to a guard station at the palace and from there to the police station at Whitehall.”

  “Were the queen and the prince injured?” Becker asked.

  “Thankfully, no,” Commissioner Mayne answered. “Francis kept claiming that the pistol contained only powder and wadding. His barrister argued that Francis’s motive was to draw attention to a failed tobacco shop that he owned, hoping to attract customers and pay off his debts. Nonetheless the government charged him with high treason.”

  “High treason? Even if the pistol might not have been loaded?” Emily asked.

  “A firearms expert testified that the wadding from the pistol would have been a serious projectile if it had struck the queen’s face. The wadding—ignited by the gunpowder—might also have set fire to the queen’s dress. Francis was found guilty.”

  “And sentenced to be hanged until he was dead,” De Quincey said. “Because the offense was high treason, the further details of the punishment harkened back to the days of Henry VIII. Francis’s head was ordered to be cut off and his body divided into four quarters.”

  “Emily, I’m sorry if this conversation upsets you,” Ryan said.

  “I’ve read worse in Father’s writings, Sean, but thank you for your concern.”

  Commissioner Mayne seemed taken aback by the familiarity with which they addressed each other. Then he returned his attention to what was being said.

  “There were some who believed that Francis felt in such despair over his debts that he hoped to be judged insane and confined to Bedlam,” De Quincey told Emily. “After all, Edward Oxford was rumored to have a comfortable existence there. Perhaps Francis wished for a life without the need to worry about lodging or his next meal. If that was indeed his motive, he was sorely disappointed.”

  �
��Was Francis executed?” Becker asked.

  “No,” De Quincey replied. “At the last moment his sentence was changed to a life of hard labor in Van Diemen’s Land. When Francis heard where he was going, perhaps execution might have seemed a better fate.”

  “All because of poverty.” Emily’s voice dropped, her tone revealing how well she understood the desperation of being poor.

  “For years I had championed the idea of a detective unit that would use plain clothes and have jurisdiction throughout all of London’s police districts,” Commissioner Mayne said. “This second attack on the queen hastened my resolve. Thirteen years earlier, it had taken twelve weeks to create the Metropolitan Police Service. Now the detective unit—with its two inspectors and six sergeants—was established in a mere six days.”

  “Just in time,” Ryan said. “Two months later, someone else tried to shoot the queen.”

  “Where’s Newgate Prison?” Colin’s father begged as they struggled to find their way through London’s chaos.

  Carriages, coaches, carts, cabs, and overflowing omnibuses rattled past them, passengers perched on top of the buses, servants clinging to the backs of coaches. The din was overwhelming. Newsboys yelled about the latest crimes. Costermongers shouted the virtues of the fruits and vegetables in their carts. Beggars pleaded for pennies.

  Some streets were so congested that Colin and his father were constantly bumped and jostled.

  “Tell me how to get to Newgate Prison!” his father implored.

  “Strike someone on the head and steal his purse,” a man said and laughed.

  “If I was you with that Irish accent,” another man said, “I’d run in the opposite direction.”

  “Please! Tell me where Newgate Prison is!”

  “In the City of London.”

  “But I’m already in London. Where in London?”