by Annis Bell
He rubbed his knuckles, which were chafed from the fight he’d had with the man when he’d finally caught up with him at the docks. Blount had a split lip, and one of his ribs was probably broken. If he were given the opportunity to interrogate the prisoner, Blount might have returned the favor.
Outside, a church clock struck ten, and street vendors began offering the day’s first meal. “Martin?” David drummed his fingers impatiently on the desktop.
Martin Rooke rubbed his chin and went to the door, which stood ajar. “Berwin!” he bellowed down the corridor.
A sergeant was at the door moments later. “Sir?”
“Bring last night’s prisoner into my office.”
“The Russian? The silent one?”
“Did we arrest anyone else?” Martin snapped.
“No, sir.” The young sergeant left hurriedly.
“You both speak Russian, don’t you?” Rooke placed a low stool in the center of the room and pushed the chairs and the table out of the way.
“Blount speaks several dialects. Also Hungarian,” David replied, taking off his coat.
Blount and Rooke did the same, Blount cursing as he withdrew his left arm from his sleeve. Levi had helped with his bandages, but every movement hurt and would do for some time yet.
“Blount, don’t touch him! You’ve done enough. This is my job.” David grimly rolled up his sleeves.
Rooke grinned. “You sound like you’re the only one who’s going to enjoy himself.”
“They could prosecute you. You’re a regular officer.”
“Extraordinary situations call for unconventional means.” Rooke lifted a booted foot onto the stool. “If he doesn’t open his mouth, then I’m in the wrong profession.”
It took a few minutes, but Berwin finally dragged the prisoner in. “He was resisting, sir.”
The broad-shouldered Russian had a bleeding nose, and a new lump had appeared on his shaved head. He held his hands, balled into fists, in front of his body. The handcuffs used by the Metropolitan Police were made of heavy iron and could not be removed without a key or tools.
“Put him on the stool, Berwin, and tie up his ankles,” Rooke ordered.
The Russian looked around, weighing up his surroundings and his enemies, searching for any opportunity to escape. His muscles were tense, and a vein in his neck pulsed; he grinned contemptuously as Berwin tied his feet together with a leather belt. When the young sergeant straightened up again, the prisoner spat in his face and uttered an obscenity.
Rooke said, “Berwin, go make some tea. Preferably in another station, if you know what I mean.”
The sergeant paled. “Yes, sir.”
When the door had closed behind him, Blount said in Russian, “Don’t try anything, you rat, and your profanity won’t get you anywhere.”
The man gaped at him, astonished.
“What’s your name?” David asked.
The brute simply spat and swore again. David and Rooke exchanged a glance. Rooke, standing behind the Russian, grasped him by the shoulders, and David hit him on both ears. He had not cupped his hands, nor did he strike him hard enough to burst his eardrums, but the blow was painful enough to let the prisoner know that they were serious.
The man shook his head and let out a stream of invectives in Russian until Blount shouted in his face, “Shut up!”
Once again, David asked in Russian, “What’s your name?”
The man stared obstinately toward the door. The muscles in his neck bulged.
“All right.” David took a position in front of the man, and Rooke grabbed him roughly by the chin.
The prisoner’s eyes widened in sudden fear. It looked as if he had already experienced what he knew would follow, or had done it himself to others. “No, please! Taras!”
Rooke released the man’s head.
“Taras. Taras what?”
“Komarow. I didn’t kill the boy.”
“Who did?”
Taras shook his head. “He’ll kill me.”
“We could kill you, too,” David said.
“Yes, but then you would have nothing,” Taras answered.
“What do we have now? A Russian who told us a name, which could be real or false.” David turned away.
“Ask him if the boy was the target,” Rooke growled.
David translated, but the prisoner said nothing. In Russian, Blount said, “I could smash his knees.” Picking up a policeman’s baton that was standing in a basket in a corner of the room, he tapped it on the man’s kneecap. Slowly, he raised the club.
“No!” Taras cried. Sweat formed on his forehead. “The boy was the target.”
“Why?” David took out a handkerchief and filled it with coins from his pocket. When Taras again fell silent, he hefted the handkerchief in his hand, feeling its weight, then held it out to Blount. With a grin, Blount added more coins. David knotted the handkerchief and whacked the tight little sack against the edge of the desk. He did not like torture at all.
“If you force me to hurt you, it will hurt me more. But make me angry and I can’t guarantee anything,” he said softly.
“If you think your miserable life is worth two cents, then talk!” Blount added. “The captain is pressed for time, and that makes him . . . unpleasant.”
Still standing behind the man, Rooke watched the captain and Blount intently.
“What will you do with me if I talk?” Taras looked at them dubiously, eyes narrowed to slits.
David conferred briefly with Rooke, then said, “We’ll set you free.”
“And if I say nothing?”
“Then you’ll be hanged as a Russian revolutionary who planned an attack on the House of Lords,” David said, admiring Rooke’s creative suggestion.
“You can’t do that! There’s no proof!” Taras shouted.
“We even have witnesses.” David hoped urgently that the man would finally talk. He wanted to take the afternoon train.
Taras snorted and cursed then finally said, “I don’t know why the boy had to die, but we were paid to find you and kill him. Just him, no one else. If we’d wanted otherwise, you’d all be dead.”
“Oh, you think so?” Blount said with a snarl.
“You’re quick, and you think like one of us. That’s the only reason you caught me, but sooner or later, we would have gotten you.” Taras looked from Blount to David. There was nothing in his eyes but the unsettling certainty that he meant what he said.
“Who hired you?”
“Ask Big John. Now beat me to death. That’s all I have to say.” Taras closed his mouth and gazed at the door, his dull eyes those of a man awaiting his fate.
David translated their exchange for Rooke, who shouted down the corridor for Berwin. The sergeant was back in the room so fast that he could not have been far away.
“Take him back to his cell,” Rooke ordered.
“Are you really going to let him go?” Blount asked.
“Yes, but the first solid ground he’ll feel under his feet will be in Australia,” said Rooke. They all knew that what might happen on the convict ship to Australia was another story.
“Big John?” Rooke had straightened his shirt and put his jacket on again.
“Are you coming along?” David was already putting on his coat and hat.
“Of course. I’m not going to let you go to St. Giles alone.”
St. Giles was no less dangerous in daylight than it was at night, but it was certainly uglier, revealing the hateful face of poverty at its worst. The Bank of England and London’s magnificent boulevards and parks were just a few streets away, but there in Old Nichol, a labyrinth of stinking alleys hemmed in by dilapidated tenements, a visitor moved in another world. Different rules applied there, and anyone from outside who entered that haven of destitution, violence, and crime would be sniffed out immediately and either sucked into the vortex or spat out again.
The corpses of dogs and cats lay in and around pools of dirty water. Makeshift repairs to
buildings’ broken windowpanes had been made with newspaper and scraps of wood. Rooke wore a bowler hat and carried a revolver and baton beneath his coat, as did Berwin, who followed at his heels.
“The death rate here is five times higher than in the rest of London,” said Rooke, dodging a pig that was trotting down the lane.
“That’s the effluent. The people here drink the fouled Thames water and dump their rubbish on the roadside, and as long as that continues, nothing here will change,” David said. His eyes were everywhere at once, scrutinizing all movement, peering into every entrance, but no one seemed to be following them today.
They reached the entrance to the Seven Bells unmolested. The door opened immediately, as if someone was expecting them, and they were led wordlessly into the large barroom where Big John sat behind a heavy wooden table. It looked as if he had just eaten, for he tossed his knife onto a meat platter and wiped his mouth on his sleeve.
A few thin rays of light entered the room through the grimy windows, and it was only when they stepped closer that they saw the two armed bruisers on either side of Big John’s chair. Rooke glanced warningly at David.
“Captain, you honor me! Oh, and our very special friend, Mr. Rooke, is with you. Didn’t we meet for the first time recently?” Big John, holding the better cards, savored the situation.
“So you rely on foreign murderers these days?” said David, referring to Taras.
“One can never have enough good people, wouldn’t you agree? But joking aside, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said Big John calmly. “May I offer you something to drink?”
“Why the boy? Why did you have the boy killed? He did nothing to you,” said David accusingly.
Big John’s small, piercing eyes looked at David almost with sympathy. “As I said, I had nothing to do with it. I wash my hands of it.” He dipped the tips of his fingers in a bowl of water that was standing on the table, then dried them on the tablecloth.
Leaning forward, Rooke spoke in a low voice. “Taras Komarow has told us a very different story.”
For a moment, the former boxer seemed to be weighing various courses of action. Then he drank a mouthful of beer and gave his men a signal, at which they moved to the opposite corner of the room. There were no guests in the bar yet; officially, the Seven Bells was only open in the evening.
“Did he?” Big John murmured. “He can’t have told you much, because he knows nothing. That’s what keeps an organization healthy, you know. Every little cog only gets the bit of information it needs. Naturally, I planned it that way. I won’t stand for my people playing me for a fool.” He was referring to Pedley’s murder, but as he well knew, they could not prosecute him without witnesses. “On my mother’s grave, the boy’s death does not rest on my conscience. Sometimes even I am just following orders.”
“Then you know who was behind it?”
Big John reached below his seat and produced an envelope. “You have a mortal enemy, Captain, and you probably don’t even know it. Revenge can wear many faces. I like you, though you may not believe it. Here.”
He handed David the envelope. “And now, please excuse me. I have some urgent business that needs my attention. Or was there something else, Mr. Rooke?”
Rooke clenched his jaw. All of them knew that, legally speaking, he could prove nothing against Big John. “We’re not done with you yet, Big John. Everyone makes mistakes.”
“Then take care you don’t slip up first,” Big John replied.
In silence, the men left the grim establishment, watching every shadow until they were well outside St. Giles. David took the letter out of his pocket and tore it open only when they had reached a coach station.
Isn’t it true that the loss of someone you care about hurts more than a knife in your own back? This is just the beginning. D.
David turned the piece of paper over in the light. It was heavy and expensive but bore no watermark.
“My God,” he muttered. He knew that Charles Devereaux was hiding behind that signature. Who else could it be?
Rooke had been watching David and only glanced at the words when David handed him the letter. “Is that . . . ?”
“Devereaux, yes. I took Jane from him, and I destroyed his trade in young girls and his business here in England.” A shudder went through David, because if Devereaux had truly returned, then David really did have an enemy capable of anything. He looked earnestly at his friends. “Not a word about this to Jane!”
“We need to hurry, Captain,” said Blount. “The train leaves in an hour.”
28.
Winton Park, Northumberland, December 1860
The wintry air and their tight dresses did not make it any easier for Jane and Hettie to return quickly to the house. But when they arrived, the next piece of bad news was already awaiting them.
Gladys came from the kitchen, and she had clearly been crying. “This is all so terrible! I want to leave this place. I can’t stand by and watch this—”
“Watch what?” Jane asked, taking the maid’s trembling hands in hers and rubbing them soothingly.
“Lady Charlotte has had a terrible attack. She looked like a she-devil. She was raving and scratching, and Mr. Draycroft and Sir Frederick had to hold her down so that the doctor could give her morphine. A person can’t live like that!” Gladys sobbed.
“Where is Miss Molan?” Jane looked around, just as Della came running down the stairs.
“The baby is coming!” Della cried. “Gladys, help me. We need more water and clean towels!”
At that moment, Alison needed her more than poor, sedated Charlotte did. With great haste, Jane and Hettie doffed their coats and hats, washed their hands, and ran to Alison’s room. Dr. Cribb was standing over the bed with the midwife, telling Alison how to breathe.
“I know how I’m supposed to breathe. This is not my first child!” Alison puffed. Her cheeks were bright red. Nora had untied her mistress’s hair, and sweaty strands clung to Alison’s face.
They had spread fresh linens out for Alison to lie on, and several basins of water stood at the ready. On the table lay clean cloths and the doctor’s medical instruments. Jane knew enough about childbirth to know that it was better, if at all possible, not to use the tongs and other instruments.
“Jane!” Alison nearly cried with relief. “Come here!”
Jane raised her eyebrows at Dr. Cribb, but he merely nodded. “Sit with her. It will be a few hours yet. Lady Alison is in pain and refusing to take chloroform, although it really does provide some relief during the birth.”
“Can it hurt her or the baby?” Jane asked. She sat on the edge of the bed and held Alison’s hand.
Almost imperceptibly, the doctor hesitated. “No, not really. Not when it is given in the correct dosage. My colleague, Dr. John Snow, invented an effective chloroform inhaler that even the Queen has come to appreciate. During the birth of her eighth child, Prince Leopold, she was greatly helped by the application of chloroform.” Cribb went to the table and picked up a cloth handkerchief and a syringe. “We will lay this cloth over the mother’s mouth and nose, and I will then determine precisely how much chloroform is needed to ease the pain. I would go so far as to claim that giving birth under chloroform is pain-free.”
Alison looked exhausted, but said, “As long as I can bear it, I will take no chloroform. Oh, yes, I’ve read about it, and I know there have been some deaths, too!”
“Keep going, Ally, you can do it.” Jane shared her friend’s opinion. She did not believe that doctors had enough experience with this relatively new anesthetic.
The contractions came and went, and Jane read to Alison, entertaining her with funny stories and ensuring the room was aired regularly. The latter of these tasks proved harder than suspected because the midwife, Mrs. Potts, a churlish woman from Allenton, thought that cold air and too much light would harm the mother.
“I’ve brought a lot of children into this world, and I have never allowed windows to be opened!
The room must be kept dark and warm. It has always been that way, and it has stood the test of time,” Mrs. Potts complained, screwing up her round nose in annoyance.
“Fresh air is important. The mother has to get oxygen into her lungs, not the same stale air that we’ve already exhaled a hundred times!” Jane replied unflinchingly. Dr. Cribb had gone to check on Charlotte, and she was left to prevail against the stubborn midwife alone.
“I’m so hot, Jane,” Alison murmured. She groaned as the next contraction came.
“Nora, open the window for a minute. I’ll close the curtains around Ally’s bed so no drafts can get through. Any objections, Mrs. Potts?”
The woman sorted her equipment loudly, grumbling about silly, ignorant girls who thought they knew everything. “Do you want to be there when I give her the enema?”
“Thank you, Mrs. Potts, but I don’t want to interfere in that area of expertise. Besides, I must go speak with Dr. Cribb. Stay strong, Ally, I’ll be back in a minute.”
Even in her exhausted state, her friend was still pretty. No, the right word was radiant, thought Jane, smiling at Alison, who grimaced back at her.
As soon as Jane stepped out into the hallway, she heard Dr. Cribb’s voice. He was standing on the landing of the stairs, talking to Sir Frederick. When the two men saw her, Sir Frederick turned away and went downstairs. Cribb was waiting for her.
“My lady, how is Lady Alison?”
“Keeping her chin up, and my God, I admire her for that!” said Jane.
The doctor smiled. “That is a gift that women have. They bear the most extreme pain and are rewarded with the greatest happiness.”
“Which brings me to Charlotte. She is a good mother, and she has suffered a terrible injustice. Doctor, I am certain that someone in this house is treating her very badly.”
“Those are strong words, my lady. Who do you suspect?” The doctor glanced around, checking for eavesdroppers, but they were alone on the landing. The grandfather clock in the hall struck five, and it was already dark outside.