by Steven Price
Mr. Pinkerton, Farquhar said, hooking a thumb into his waistcoat pocket and turning one foot out and cocking his knee. At the recommendation of one of my oldest friends, Mr. Busby, I have decided I would like to hire you, sir. I understand your terms are rather—
Henry Busby? William interrupted. Our results for him were less than satisfactory.
He was most impressed by your methods, sir.
William did not know what the gallerist might know of the Busby blackmail letters but it could not be much. Henry Busby had been blackmailed for lewd sexual acts and in the end every evidence turned up by the Pinkerton operatives suggested that the man, wealthy, unmarried, eccentric, had been blackmailing himself. The case had been abandoned.
Farquhar steepled his fingers before him. Shall we discuss the matter of payment, sir?
Fifty dollars a day, plus expenses, William said at once. It’s standard and non-negotiable. In this matter it should prove modest enough. We’ll complete the paperwork at a later date.
You accept then, sir?
I must remind you the Pinkertons are not police, Mr. Farquhar, said Shore.
Farquhar gave the chief a withering look. Let me be clear. I wish to hire Mr. Pinkerton to ensure the safe return of The Emma. I do not wish to prosecute the men responsible. I have no interest in revenge.
William grimaced. Maybe you should.
I beg your pardon?
You give these men what they want, it makes you a more attractive target. For the next time.
Tomorrow shall be the last time, Farquhar said gravely. This will not happen again.
Tomorrow?
The letter stipulated tomorrow, sir? Shore rubbed at his whiskers. That is rather immediate.
Farquhar passed across the letter from Utterson and the chief inspector scanned its contents.
These are unusually organized thieves, Shore said. One typically waits weeks or even months to hear from them. I wonder at the speed of this. He glanced up. You will need to act quickly to collect the ransom, sir. I would suggest you do not attend to your bank alone. I can send a man with you.
William took the letter from Shore. So you don’t yet know where the exchange will take place. Is that correct?
It is indeed, sir. The solicitor will send the details tomorrow morning. I am to wait for them here.
Shore nodded. As soon as you hear, come by the Yard. We shall establish our final details then.
How is this to work, gentlemen? the gallerist said uneasily.
It’s simple, William said. You do what they ask. You take the money to them where they ask for it, hand it over, the thieves will then deliver the painting to you. It’s all on their terms.
And I am expected to just trust them, sir? To have faith in their honesty, that they will present me with The Emma?
William gave the man a long level look. Yes, he said. You are.
FORTY-THREE
Martin Reckitt lay with his face white against the earth and in the moonlight Foole sat staring at it, bereft. He ate the salt crackers slowly. Something had broken in him and would not be repaired. For ten years he had dreamed of Charlotte, carried her daguerreotype, weighed her in his heart and found her measure and all that time he had been wrong. Had not known her in the least. At last he rose and slid on his heels down a low wet slope of grass to a stand of oaks at the bottom and he huddled against a fallen tree but he did not sleep. He could not shake the eerie feeling that he was not alone. At dawn he rose and studied the sky and then retraced his steps and stood over the cold corpse and stared at it again and then he took from the dead man’s pockets a billfold Charlotte had given him and he left that place forever.
It was four miles into the town of Midhurst through wet fields and he waited in the local square with his shoes sopping for the post office to open and he followed the clerk inside and purchased a ticket home. He did not care that his actions must look suspicious. The London & South Western punched through Midhurst at 10:15 every day and Foole the lone passenger on the platform climbed wearily aboard and the ticket agent hollered the all-clear and the engine huffed and steamed back up to speed. He rode the line through to Waterloo Station and so returned to London, silent, dark, alone.
He said nothing of the killing to Fludd or Molly.
As he came up through the mustard-brown fog at Penton Place Fludd opened the door and stood glowering. The house Mrs. Sykes had located for them looked cold, its owners gone for the season, the neighbours down on their luck and unlikely to take an interest. The street had been fashionable once or at the least had been wealthy but that age was long past and in the fog the houses looked now cold, soot-stained and desolate.
You look like you slept in the open, Fludd grunted. Or failed to. Is that a twig in your hair?
Slamming the door and locking it behind them.
Foole stripped off his frock coat, damp yet at the collar and wrists, and looked about and then hung it on the hat stand in the corner. I could use a bite, he said. What do we have?
What do we have what’s warm? Nothin but a bit of porridge. Fludd stepped back, ran his knuckles through his beard. We never known if you was comin back alone, Mr. Adam.
Foole blew out his cheeks. As you can see, he said.
Everythin go all right then?
He shrugged, not wanting to talk about it. Tell me how we fare, he said instead. Is the cart hired? Have we heard from Gabriel?
Go on, where’s the flit then? Molly announced, coming out from the parlour. She was wearing boots laced with mud and tracking prints across the carpet. She paused when she saw Foole’s expression.
Charlotte ain’t come back, Fludd said. It’s like Mr. Adam told us.
Done what you set out to, is it? Martin Reckitt’s clear of the clink?
Something like that.
But the child seemed to sense his distress and gave him a strange look and this in itself, this gentleness, made Foole suddenly fierce. He thought of Charlotte’s face in the firelight the night before. She had not betrayed him perhaps but neither had she been forthright. He thought of her standing with him that night on Blackfriars. She had tried to warn him that her ends were not his to know but he had not wanted to hear it. He looked up and saw Fludd and Molly, pity in their eyes.
He scowled. We have much to do. Where is my trunk? You did not leave it at Half Moon Street?
Fludd gestured to the stairs.
I never trusted her, Adam, said Molly. I never did.
It doesn’t matter.
An if she comes back here? said Fludd.
She won’t.
But if she do?
We won’t see her again, Foole said angrily. Any of us.
He had brooded over what had happened with Charlotte all the long grey train journey back into London. The worst was that he had not seen it coming. He had understood she was different from how she had been and he had recognized something, some trace or hint or warning in her, but he had failed to realize its import. She had murdered her uncle out of a vengeance that Foole too could understand. Had killed him and walked away from it and who was he to condemn her for it. He thought of Allan Pinkerton and felt a great black ache in his heart.
He left Fludd and Molly below and climbed the stairs tiredly and entered a small bedroom at the top of the house and there was a ladder standing down through the ceiling and this he climbed into the attic. A small narrow bed, Foole’s travelling case standing open upon it. A green trunk with clothes in disarray. Papers and dossiers stacked against one wall. A porcelain washstand stood in a corner with a towel folded over it and Foole washed the mud and road grease from his face and hands and he washed the back of his neck and dried himself with a towel and when he turned around he saw Fludd standing at the ladder.
What is it, he said, less kindly than he meant it.
He had some idea of the run of the giant’s thinking and he did not think he would like it. But it was not about Charlotte Reckitt.
Your bloody Molly, Fludd said instead. Gues
s who rode the bloody carriage into a worksite off Lambeth Road yesterday an knocked over a ladder holdin a sheet of iron so the whole bloody slice of it come down on me like an axe? Cleaved the damned horse in two, it did. Near took off me own bleedin head.
It weren’t that bad, Molly’s voice piped up from below.
Me arse it weren’t.
Foole stared hard at Fludd filling the trap door. What he wanted was to rest. Must we discuss this now? Can it not wait?
But then Molly was shrugging her way up the ladder and poked her head through and said, half grinning, There were a bloomin rat the size of a ham climbin my leg. What would you do?
Foole laid himself down on the cot, still dressed, he folded a hand over his eyes. What are you saying? he said slowly.
Our horse is dead.
The beast you hired?
Aye.
He raised his head. Do we have another?
Fludd looked at Molly. She studied with great interest a grease mark on the wall.
Find us one, Foole said. Before tomorrow.
Aye.
Molly, he said. You go see Mr. Appleby Barr. Tell him we’ll have some business to clear with him tomorrow afternoon. I think he’s been patient enough. He rubbed at his eyes with the back of his wrist and then he said, Japheth. Wait. On second thought hire us a new waggon too. Something clearly marked, noticeable. A labourer’s cart. Wasn’t there an outfit outside Waterloo Station the flash used to frequent?
Old Monkey Abbott’s, Fludd said. Aye, I know the place.
But Foole did not rest. In the afternoon he stripped down to his shirt sleeves and went into the scullery at the back of the house and heated a pot of water and went to the kitchen and stoked the fire there until it reached a high blaze. The heat was ferocious. He unwrapped the wax impressions of the gallerist’s keys from the strips of oilskin where he had kept them. There were seven impressions in total. He was cautious and slow at his work and he poured and cooled and heated again what was needed using the strange contained furnace that he had erected. He was alone in the house with Fludd seeing to their transport and Molly arranging a meeting with Appleby Barr for the following day and he would pause often and stoke the fire and listen to the house over its roar. Then he would wipe at his brow and again tug on the heavy fireproof mitts and fumble with the astrolabe of molten metal. He did not finish until late into the evening and when he looked up he saw Molly in the doorway hands on her forehead and sweat cooling on her throat and he did not know how long she had been there. A rawness was in him that had nothing to do with the next day’s events.
Is he prepared then? he said at last. Mr. Barr will see us?
Aye.
Good.
An the picture’s all safe an swaddled like a babe in a basket.
Foole nodded, exhausted.
Gabriel sent a message. Farquhar knows what we want. All’s in place. Or will be. Molly nodded at the elaborate alchemical apparatus set up behind him. An you? she said. You an Jappy all set then for your part?
I guess so.
How do you aim to manage it, while I’m on the river?
Foole lifted his eyebrows. Manage what? he said innocently.
Molly smiled.
FORTY-FOUR
Then it was Friday. William woke early and washed his chest and arms in cold water and the water foamed black with soot. He dressed in the darkness and stood at his window smoking with his hands clasped behind him. In the street below a ship-ribbed horse trotted ghostlike through the emptiness without handler or rein and vanished like an omen into the mists. William watched the hole in the fog where it had gone close slowly over. After a minute a crossing sweeper emerged and worked his slow way across the setts. Then two clerks hurried past. The fog thinned.
It was the day of the exchange. At eight o’clock he slung his chesterfield over one arm and set his silk hat on his head and went down through the lobby to the cab stand on the corner. He had eaten no breakfast and was not hungry. He caught a hansom to Scotland Yard feeling a stillness coming over him and it was a thing he had felt before and he knew by this that something that day would go wrong.
The Yard felt drab, sombre, miserable in its greyness. He nodded to the desk sergeant and flexed his wrists to get the blood moving and signed his name with stiff fingers. At Shore’s office he stopped and glanced uneasily down the passage and started to knock but then just turned the handle and went in.
You’re late, Shore said with a grunt.
Pushing with both palms on the desk, lumbering to his feet. A plate of cold chicken at his elbow. The drapes drawn wide, the pane beaded with condensation. Did you breakfast?
Is that an offer?
Shore gave him a sidelong grin. Aye. But I’ll have to take it out of your docket.
William took off his hat, ran his fingers through his hair to smooth it. Where’s Farquhar? I’ll want to go over the details.
Shore shrugged. Blackwell’s with him at Gilly’s across the way. I’ll take you down. You ready for this?
Is he?
George Farquhar will prove tougher than you suppose. Shore took a key from his pocket and unlocked the bottom drawer of his desk and withdrew a revolver and a box of ammunition. He said, Blackwell did a fine job on that tavern killer. You and Blackwell both. I signed the report on the matter yesterday morning. My superiors are pleased. He unclicked the cartridge from the weapon and loaded it and replaced it and then he slid the revolver across his desk. The poor girl, he said as he worked, meeting William’s eye. Thirty years and I’m still surprised how a case can turn out.
I’m sure that’s true.
You joke. But I’m not ashamed to say it.
I’m sure that’s true too. He nodded at the weapon. What’s that for?
For you. For protection.
William withdrew his own loaded Colt from his coat pocket and cradled it in his open palm for Shore to see and the chief inspector grinned a quick wolfish grin around the stem of his pipe. William bloody Pinkerton, he said, shaking his head. London just isn’t safe with you in it.
Or out of it.
Shore paused. There’s something else. Martin Reckitt was found murdered yesterday.
Murdered?
Aye.
William could feel the blood slow in him and he opened and closed his hands and after a moment he shook his head. How?
Botched escape maybe. An argument. Doesn’t much matter. The bastard was being transported out to the hulks in Portsmouth and disappeared during a miscount. Seems all of the other prisoners were accounted for. Shore gave him a gruff frown. Farmer from Heyshott brought the body up out of the woods in a barrow-cart. Throat was cut. There was a woman from out of town sighted at the pub where the miscount took place. Shore passed across a telegram to William and William looked at the description there and then he looked up.
It’s Charlotte Reckitt, he said in surprise.
Aye. Explain that one to me.
William sat in his heavy chesterfield with mud dried to a crust on the front and he stared at his hat and set it on his knee. I have no fucking idea, he said softly. You think she’s been murdered too?
I think she was a part of it.
Killing her uncle?
Aye.
She’s not a killer. I know killers.
Anyone can kill, William. It just takes the right circumstance.
He knew this was true but it was not his meaning and he said nothing and then he got to his feet. Farquhar would be waiting. He set his hat low on his head.
Shore paused with one arm in the sleeve of his frock coat. Thing of it is, London’s not like other cities, he said. Not even like your New York. It’s not a matter of us and them. Young ones like Mr. Blackwell don’t understand that. Crime is how this city works. Some folk steal to stay alive. Other folk find employment replacing what gets stolen. Others sell the stolen goods back out and all this keeps the little folk alive. I know it. I was a part of it. I grew up in it. Shore held William’s eye. But Reckitt
wanted to burn all that. He had a black heart, that one. He was a crook through and through.
Reckitt said the same about you.
They always do, Shore said with a tired smile.
Shore led him down and outside into the dissipating mist of Great Scotland Yard Street and he ducked around the slow-moving carts and crossed the street and entered a narrow wooden doorway under a red awning. Gilly’s was a small dining-house with private rooms in the back. Shore passed through a curtain and along a stone-flagged passage and at the third door he paused. You know negotiations like this don’t usually much trouble me, he said. Seems a rather civilized way to work a thing of value back to its owner. But this Edward Shade’s as like to do one thing as another, when he sees you. You be careful.
I always am.
The hell you are. I’ve assigned Mr. Blackwell to assist. He’ll stay back and out of sight of course. But I’ll not send you and Mr. Farquhar in without protection. These aren’t amateurs.
If it was bloodshed Shade wanted, he’d be doing this differently, John.
Shore gave him a long pitying look as if he had spoken foolishly and then opened the door. Blackwell was seated at a table in his shirt sleeves. George Farquhar paced at the window, smoking a cigar. He was dressed in a fine winter coat and a grey hat and his eyes were ringed in shadow. He smoked fast, fidgeted. Gripped in his left hand was a black leather satchel with silver buckles.
Gentlemen, William said. Are we prepared?
Blackwell rose and cleared his throat. Mr. Shore, sir, Mr. Pinkerton.
A damned nuisance, this, said Farquhar. His voice came creaking and bent.
William wrestled out of his chesterfield and laid it across a chair and crossed to the sidebar and poured out four glasses of sherry. Sit, he said. We have much to discuss.
Farquhar peered at William with a questioning look but came to the table and stubbed out his cigar and sat.
William gestured at the satchel. Is that the fee?
It is.
May I see it?