Inspector of the Dead

by David Morrell

  “When her family came to London, you followed them and continued your attentions to her. Lord and Lady Grantwood were so dependent on you that they couldn’t object.”

  “Kindly lower your voice,” Trask told him.

  Sir Walter’s headache from the brandy the night before was stronger than his patience.

  “You gave orders in the army, but you can’t give orders to me. For all your railways and steamships and money, you can never buy respectability. People who matter will always see remnants of sweat on your brow. There’ll always be a residue of dirt beneath your fingernails. Even your language gives you away. Your embarrassing use of ‘blasted’ at the queen’s dinner last night reminded everyone of your poor breeding.”

  Sir Walter’s sarcasm about poor breeding referred to Trask’s father, Jeremiah Trask, who’d built the first train link between Liverpool and Manchester in 1830, beginning the Railway Era. Trask senior was rumored to have financed the start of his empire by selling stock in worthless African gold mines.

  “Again, I caution you to be careful,” Trask said.

  “Step out of the way. I have personal matters to attend to.”

  “Indeed you do,” Trask said. “You’ll find that Catherine’s father had second thoughts. The announcement of your engagement to Catherine was premature.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Trask didn’t reply.

  “What have you done?” Sir Walter demanded.

  “I merely asked Lord Grantwood to reconsider his decision.”

  “Damn you!”

  Shoving past him to pound on the door, Sir Walter knocked Trask off balance and toppled him into the slush.

  Trask landed on his injured arm. Wincing but refusing to groan, he used his left hand to grip the railing and stand. His sling was now filthy. His hat lay in the ash-covered slush, its carefully brushed fur ruined. Half-melted snow slid from his overcoat.

  Pedestrians halted and stared. Drivers leaned from their cabs in shock, never having expected to see such a scene on a Mayfair street.

  Trask picked up his dripping hat. If he was angry, his impassive features concealed any sign of it.

  But Sir Walter was overjoyed. “If you wish satisfaction, I’ll meet you at Englefield Green.”

  “A duel? No. I saw enough killing in the war.”

  “How noble. Or maybe you’re afraid that your injured arm will give me an advantage—which I would be happy to take. A manslaughter charge would be worth the price of never seeing you again.”

  The door suddenly opened.

  Lord Grantwood’s butler frowned at the commotion and at Trask’s soiled hat and overcoat.

  Storming inside, Sir Walter asked, “Is he in his study?”

  Not waiting for a reply, he headed in that direction and found Catherine’s father standing at the study’s open doorway.

  “Did you hear us?”

  “The entire neighborhood did,” Lord Grantwood told him.

  “Was Trask lying that you changed your mind about Catherine marrying me?”

  “He did not lie.”

  “Where’s Catherine?”

  “Preparing to visit a sick cousin in the country.”

  “Tell her to come down. I wish to speak to her.”

  “That won’t serve a useful purpose.”

  Sir Walter had never seen Catherine’s father look so pale. “What on earth is the matter with you? What happened here this morning?”

  “Colonel Trask and I had a discussion. He persuaded me that Catherine’s affection for him mattered more than any other consideration.”

  “Why do your features look strained? Did he threaten you?”

  “No.”

  “I remind you of our conversation yesterday afternoon. Your financial disasters are common knowledge.”

  Lord Grantwood’s face looked tighter.

  “As beautiful as Catherine is, no member of the peerage would offer to marry her,” Sir Walter pointed out. “She can’t bring any material advantages to a marriage, and she might even prove to be a drain if she asks her husband to take care of you and Lady Grantwood.”

  Catherine’s father sank onto the chair behind his desk.

  “Moreover, Trask’s knighthood might qualify him to be called ‘Sir,’ but I shouldn’t need to remind you that it impresses commoners more than it does the aristocracy. I also shouldn’t need to remind you that the title of a knighthood can’t be passed on to an heir. If, God forbid, you allow Catherine to marry him, any child from their union couldn’t inherit his title. I, on the other hand, am a baronet. My title of ‘Sir’ is not only superior to Trask’s, but it can be inherited. If you renege on your promise and allow Catherine to marry him, you doom your descendants to life without a title. Finally,” Sir Walter said with emphasis, “my fifty thousand pounds per year might not be comparable to Trask’s fortune, but it’s far more than you now have. It would support Catherine in comfort while affording you some luxury as well.”

  Lord Grantwood stared at the glowing chunks of coal in the fireplace, his expression indicating that he received no warmth from them. “There’s no need to remind me of yesterday’s conversation.”

  “What the devil made you change your mind? How much money did Trask offer you? Enough to remove all your debts?”

  “I won’t allow you to insult me by suggesting that I’d be willing to sell my daughter.”

  “Then what did Trask say to make the difference?” Sir Walter stepped closer. “You’re not telling me everything. I can see it in your eyes.”

  “He persuaded me that emotional considerations are finally what matter.”

  “Emotional considerations? What do they have to do with anything? A woman learns to love her husband—or at the very least to appreciate what he provides for her.”

  “I must ask you to leave.”

  “He threatened you. I’m right. I know it. Not physically, perhaps, but he threatened you all the same. With what? What are you hiding? What’s your secret?”

  Lord Grantwood continued to stare forlornly at the burning coals.

  “I’ll find him and make him tell me what he used against you,” Sir Walter vowed.

  “He’ll tell you that he loves Catherine and that Catherine loves him.”

  Sir Walter tapped the knob of his walking stick against the palm of his hand. “When I finish with him, he’ll tell me a great deal more than that.”

  “I’ll have more of that Cream of the Valley,” the banker’s clerk told Thaddeus Mitchell as midday business in the Wheel of Fortune reached its peak. “Bring another glass for my friend.”

  Here in London’s business district, talk of money usually flowed like the Wheel of Fortune’s gin and beer. But today the only topics were the several murders and whether appointments should be canceled so that everyone had a chance to hurry home before the sun went down, which would happen in three hours. The lingering question was whether they would be safe even in the sanctuary of their homes.

  “It’s the Russians doing this,” a stockbroker insisted, setting down his glass of beer.

  “Right. They’re trying to distract us from the war,” a telegraph executive emphasized.

  “The Russians want to make us afraid to go anywhere,” a commodities distributor complained, finishing his glass. “We’ll soon be bowing to the tsar.”

  “If we’re not murdered in our beds before then. Nobody’s safe.”

  “Bring another glass of beer,” the stockbroker called to Thaddeus Mitchell. “I can’t believe how thirsty I am.”

  Thaddeus smiled at the exceptionally active Monday business. “Coming up!”

  Someone else commented that the beer made him feel thirsty also. The man—a cotton importer—took another swallow, set down his glass, leaned sideways, and toppled off his chair, striking his head on the floor.

  Three tables away, a property developer finished his Cream of the Valley, put a contract into his pocket, stood to return to his office, and crashed acros
s the table.

  Someone shouted.

  Another man collapsed.

  Thaddeus Mitchell’s smile dissolved into an expression of horror as the banker’s clerk hurled a glass into his companion’s face.

  The telegraph executive removed a knife from a pork pie and drove it into a passing waiter’s neck.

  Then the violence truly began.

  The sign CONSOLIDATED ENGLISH RAILWAY COMPANY was remarkably subdued for one of the richest privately owned enterprises in England. Even its address was inauspicious, located on Water Lane, off Lower Thames Street, away from the grandeur of the business district’s famous landmarks, such as the palatial East India Company headquarters and the Bank of England colossus.

  In one of his many shrewd business moves, Trask’s father had used intermediaries to purchase all of one side of Water Lane, with no seller realizing Trask senior’s plan and raising the price accordingly. He had broken through walls and added new corridors that unified the interiors of the row of anonymous buildings. He’d reduced the numerous entrances to three, one at each end of the block and one in the middle.

  After creating the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in 1830, Trask senior had built numerous other lines, crisscrossing the country with noise, smoke, and cinders. Other businessmen understood the immense profits that could be made and built their own railways. In 1846 alone, 260 companies applied to Parliament for the right to build railways. But many of those companies weren’t able to survive, and Trask’s father purchased them at bargain prices, again using intermediary companies so that few realized the immense empire he was creating. By 1850 there were six thousand miles of railways in England, and Trask’s father owned more than half. Telegraph lines ran next to railway tracks, and soon Trask’s father built a second empire. But railways couldn’t traverse oceans, and so Trask’s father expanded his interests into steamship lines.

  All this from selling stock in worthless African gold mines, Sir Walter thought. As he raged through the central entrance, he remembered his uncle telling him that Trask and his opportunistic father were examples of the new wealth that threatened to sweep away class distinctions. “Make no mistake—commoners with money will ruin this country. Soon it’ll get to the point that we need to ask permission to hunt foxes on land we used to own.”

  “Your business, please?” a porter at the front desk asked.

  “I want to see Trask.”

  The porter raised his eyebrows at the omission of “sir” or “colonel” or even “mister.”

  “Do you have an appointment?”

  “Just tell him Sir Walter Cumberland wants to have words with him.”

  “I’m sorry, but if you’re not on this list…”

  Sir Walter felt his face turn red. “Tell him that if he doesn’t see me, he’ll definitely receive that invitation to settle our differences at Englefield Green.”

  The porter considered Sir Walter, frowned, and wrote something on a piece of paper. He handed it to a clerk. “Take this to Sir Anthony.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Sir Walter said, angered at the reference to Trask as “Sir.”

  “I can’t allow you to do that.” The porter stepped in front of him.

  “Perhaps you’d like to meet me at Englefield Green also.”

  “What’s going on here?” a voice demanded.

  Sir Walter turned toward Trask, who stood halfway down a staircase, glaring at him.

  “This gentleman insists on—” the porter began.

  “Yes, I heard him insisting all the way up in my office,” Trask said.

  “I don’t know how you threatened Catherine’s father, but I won’t let you get away with it!” Sir Walter told him.

  “Lower your voice.”

  “Maybe you did buy Catherine from her father. I wouldn’t put anything past you. How much did she cost?” Sir Walter made a threatening motion with his walking stick. “When I learn what you used to pressure him, I’ll—”

  By then, Trask had descended the stairs. With his uninjured left arm, he grabbed Sir Walter’s walking stick, yanked it from his hands, and hurled it away. Then he struck Sir Walter so hard in the face that Sir Walter stumbled from the building and landed in the slush-filled gutter.

  Trask emerged from the building and took a sideways position so that the sling on his injured right arm was protected.

  “I accept your invitation to Englefield Green.”

  When Sir Walter tried to stand, Trask struck him again, using his left fist to knock him back into the slush.

  “Unless you’d like to settle the matter right now,” Trask said.

  Before Sir Walter could express the fury that his bloodied face communicated, shouts filled the end of Water Lane.

  “Help!” a man screamed.

  Someone with a knife was chasing him.

  Other shouts filled the neighborhood. “Over at the Wheel of Fortune! They’ve all gone mad!”

  Around the corner, a pistol sounded.

  The man with the knife gained distance on his prey.

  Trask stepped toward the attacker, tripped him as he went past, and stomped a boot down hard on the hand that held the knife, breaking fingers, forcing the man to release the knife. Trask then placed a boot on the back of the man’s neck, applying his full weight.

  “Stay down!” Trask warned.

  The man squirmed and wailed like an animal.

  “What the blazes is wrong with you?” Trask demanded.

  The porter rushed forward to help, pinning the man to the cobblestone lane.

  “The Wheel of Fortune!” someone shouted. “Hurry!”

  Trask spun toward Sir Walter, who remained in the gutter, holding his bleeding mouth, astonished by what he’d just seen.

  “For a change, make yourself useful,” Trask told him. “Help my porter subdue this man.”

  Around the corner, the shouting persisted.

  Cradling his right arm in its sling, Trask ran toward the commotion. As he turned left onto Lower Thames Street, he saw a man in the slush, moaning from a wound to his stomach.

  Several men wrestled with someone who held a pistol.

  Trask kicked the assailant’s left knee. As the man screamed, Trask kicked his other knee, dropping him to the cobblestones. He prepared to kick the side of the man’s head, but seeing that the captors now had the advantage, Trask hurried toward more intense shouting.

  People scuffled in front of the Wheel of Fortune tavern. An actual wheel hung above the front door—not the fortune wheel depicted on tarot cards, with someone falling from the wheel’s downward motion while someone else clung to the upward side. No, this was a wheel from a gambler’s game of chance. From beneath it, a stool crashed through the front window, spraying glass over the crowd.

  Constables struggled to subdue the fighting. Some were forced to use their truncheons when people in the mob attacked them.

  A man stumbled through the chaos.

  Trask recognized him as Thaddeus Mitchell, the tavern’s owner. Blood dripped from his forehead, staining his white apron.

  “Good God, what happened?” the colonel asked.

  “Customers dropped over.”

  “What?”

  “Others began screaming. Some had knives or pistols because of the murders. They pulled them out and—”

  Around them, the screams persisted.

  “Somebody even used blood to write on the counter.”

  “Wrote something in blood?” Trask tugged the owner toward the entrance, demanding, “What are you talking about? Show me.”

  Ryan and Becker hurried from a cab, avoiding shards from a broken window that protruded from the slush. Someone sagged against a wall, his head down, moaning. Somebody else was carried from the tavern.

  A tall man with a military bearing approached them. Until now, Ryan had seen him only in uniform and might have taken longer to recognize him, if not for the sling on his right arm.

  “Colonel Trask, thanks for sending your message.” />
  “My offices aren’t far from here—on Water Lane. When I heard the commotion, I came to learn what caused it. I quickly realized that you needed to be told.”

  A police sergeant finished questioning members of the crowd and walked toward them. The insignia on his brass buckle made clear that he belonged to the business district’s police force, separate from the Metropolitan Police to which Ryan and Becker belonged.

  “You understand that you’re guests,” the sergeant said.

  “We’re here to help, not try to take over,” Ryan told him.

  “Well, if you can make sense of this, you’re welcome.”

  The sergeant led them inside.

  The shadows of the Wheel of Fortune were pierced by daylight through the shattered windows. The place had a stale odor of beer and gin.

  Ryan and Becker surveyed the damage. Tables had been broken, chairs destroyed, bottles, glasses, and a mirror smashed. Blood colored the sand on the floor. Two policemen helped a groaning victim limp away.

  In a corner, a man with an injured forehead stared at the scene, his hands pressed to the sides of his face in shock.

  “That’s the owner—Thaddeus Mitchell,” the sergeant said. “He admits to hiring a drink doctor to dilute his beer and gin so they last longer.”

  “And the man he hired added more than the usual chemicals,” Ryan concluded. “Something so powerful that people who drank it either passed out or suffered visions of monsters trying to attack them.”

  “How this happened I can understand,” the sergeant said. “But the why of it doesn’t come to me. What would possess someone to do this?”

  “To keep people from feeling safe in places like this, where they normally feel relaxed,” Becker answered. “The same as they no longer feel safe in churches or parks—or even in their homes.”

  Colonel Trask pointed toward the counter. “What I mentioned in my note is over there.”

  They spread out, studying what stretched before them. Someone had stuck his fingers in blood from one of the wounded and used it to write a name along the counter.

  Ryan turned again toward the owner. “Mr. Mitchell, when did the drink doctor come here?”