‘Please answer simply “yes” or “no”.’
‘No. People leave things on the bridge every day. I have a cupboard full of them here. Sometimes they come back asking after their lost articles – mostly they do not.’
‘I see. I trust you have been directed by Mr Blackthorne not to speak to any police constables?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Good. The police are poor investigators and I would not like them to muddy the waters. I go now to examine the body. Thereafter, the verdict will become public knowledge. Good day to you.’
And with that, Eldritch Batchem stood, made a curious bow, and walked without further pause into the passing crowds, his russet cap visible for just a few moments before he vanished into the crowd.
Toll-collector Weeton now felt the fatigue of the night’s experiences settle heavily on him. He picked up his book, took his hat, bade goodbye to the daytime toll-collector and set off south along the bridge to his home in Lambeth.
At mid-span, though, he had occasion to pause in interest. It was hereabouts that Eldritch Batchem had been making his earlier investigation. No visible trace of the incident now remained among the dung and dirt trodden by the traffic, but he leaned on the cold stone balustrade to linger where the man had died.
Daylight had arrived but weakly and light-grey cloud was striated with blue over the city. At this hour, the great chimneys of Southwark were still largely idle and the black pall of a million household flues had not yet obscured the vista. St Paul’s towered above all in sculptural eminence, and countless black spires raked a distant band of pellucid horizon soon to be lost in smoke. Over to the east, the slender Monument caught a flicker of nascent sun and briefly flashed its gilded crest. Here was the greatest city on earth, seemingly empty from this vantage, but seething with life.
And death. As if remembering something, Weeton took his book – a rather torrid tale – from a pocket and turned to the page he had folded on hearing the scream. He put his finger on the very sentence interrupted by that incident and traced it again:
Horror hides in darkness, and every heart resides in endless Night.
People passed – strangers all – walking with their own concerns along that patch of fatal roadway. Few knew of the crime at that time. In following days, however, that single death would become just one element in a far more terrible series of events.
TWO
There were some who might have asked why Inspector Albert Newsome of the Metropolitan Police’s Detective Force had not been the investigator walking about Waterloo-bridge that morning. Had he known of the incident, he would have been asking the same.
In fact, the inspector was sitting in a Thames Police galley beneath London-bridge at the very moment the toll-collector was making his way home. Perhaps it was the early hour, or the chill down on the water, or the stiff blue uniform he was unaccustomed to wearing, but the inspector’s expression that morning was one of stubborn lugubriousness.
Even without the scowl, his face beneath the badged cap was one that seemed perpetually irritated. His twisted red hair and bushy eyebrows gave him a somewhat windy appearance, and his wiry frame was the spring set to trap any criminal foolish enough to underestimate him. Unpopular he may have been, but other policemen spoke of him as ratcatchers are wont to speak of a champion terrier: if not with fondness, then with a certain respect for his fortitude.
The two constables sitting facing him in the galley held their oars across their laps and were pleased to look out among the shipping rather than at their recently appointed superior.
‘There, sir – can you see?’ said one of the constables. ‘There is a wherry towing another, both with passengers. Shall we row upon them?’
‘I believe the security of the nation will be unharmed if we overlook that particular crime,’ replied Mr Newsome.
The constable knew well enough not to respond, and tried to avoid the expression of his fellow sitting behind him. The galley remained tethered to the chains under the arch, gurgles and wave-slaps echoing strangely about them as the stream sucked past the mossy stonework.
‘Sir?’ offered the second constable. ‘Two ferries going there through the fourth arch at the same time, sir? Should we row?’
‘No, constable. We will not row. There has been no accident. No lives have been lost in that infringement of the shipping regulations.’
The wake of the ferries reached them and rocked the boat so that the oars rattled thickly in the oarlocks.
‘I say, Inspector,’ began the first constable who had spoken, ‘did you hear of the incident at Waterloo-bridge earlier this morning? A fellow of that division told me of it as I came on duty.’
‘What incident? Another suicide?’
‘Possibly . . . but there has been talk of murder. A man had his throat cut in the fog before dawn. I heard that Eldritch Batchem was appointed by the Bridge Company. They say he is the greatest detec—’
‘I will thank you not to use the word “detective” in the same breath as “Batchem”. The man is a nuisance and unworthy of the name,’ said Mr Newsome.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘A murder, did you say?’
‘Yes, sir. I heard that no weapon was found on the victim, but also that nobody else was on the bridge at the time.’
‘Curious, but it rather sounds like a suicide to me. The d—— river absolutely reeks today, does it not?’
‘No more than usual, sir,’ answered the second constable.
‘It is quite putrescent. Rotten eggs, mud, tar . . . and excrement.’
‘As I say, sir: the usual.’
The inspector reflected yet again on how many aspects of the river he despised. The black-brown water was the least of them: that frigid stew of hospital refuse, slaughterhouse effluvia, street dung, city sewage, manufactory poisons and the saturated souls of innumerable suicides. Its very surface was variously a swirling solution of mud, a rainbow-hued slick from the gas works’ outflow, or an animal-corpse bath.
This magnificent Port of London, so called, was to him but a conglomeration of irritants almost beyond tolerance. From the bridge down to Horseferry Pier, it was nothing but a dense glut of ships too diverse to enumerate, a passage barely three hundred feet wide winding between their pressing hulls. Not merely ‘boats’ – as his constables had been quick to inform him – but colliers, schooners, punts, barges, smacks, skiffs, cutters, lighters, hoys, barks, merchantmen, wherries, and sloops.
No doubt there was one hundred million pounds of cargo in the warehouses of that district. No doubt it was the richest and largest free port upon the earth. But the marine districts of Wapping, Shadwell, Limehouse, Poplar, Blackwall and Rotherhithe were nevertheless sinks of such notorious vice and infamy that no amount of precious ambergris or attar of roses could mask their stench. Ratcliff-highway alone kept the undertakers of the east busy, whether from natural or unnatural deaths.
One learned, of course, after time and whether one wanted to or not, to read the river: the slim difference at one hundred yards between a Dutch eel boat and a Hastings smack; the ochre sail of a distant barge compared to the startling salt-starched white of the returning whaler; the loaded boats low in the water and the unloaded waiting for their ballast; the leaning yards and looped canvas of the ship long in port, or the oakum scent of the vessel heading outwards newly supplied with rope. In that sense, and to an ex-beat policeman, it held at least some similarity with the streets. It was a vast, singular street to belittle all others – the oldest, the busiest and the most dangerous in London.
For their part, the constables of the Thames Police did not dare ask why this eminent detective had so recently and inexplicably adopted the uniform once more to come among their number – particularly as he did so with such obvious reluctance. True, they gossiped as constables will about an alleged scandal, about a criminal’s death in custody or an altercation between Inspector Newsome and the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Richard Mayne – but none
could agree on the truth.
In fact, if we were to follow the inspector’s history back a number of months, we would have found him in Sir Richard’s office at Scotland Yard, facing once again the stern glare of the commissioner’s intelligent eyes over the top of that broad desk.
‘So, Inspector – what punishment are you to face?’
‘Sir Richard – I feel I must deny all knowledge of this ledger that you say you found in my office.’
‘I do not say I found it. I found it. And I will have no more of that insolent tone. I would be quite justified in ejecting you from the force in ignominy for what you have done.’
‘Sir – if, for the sake of discussion, I had compiled a secret catalogue of the vices of London’s eminent people . . .’
‘Dispense with your conditional clause, Inspector. Your grammar cannot exculpate you.’
‘Justice was the sole spur to my action, sir. I sought neither personal advantage nor salacious entertainment.’
‘That may be, but you have disgraced the Force with your actions. It is not just the ledger, but also your handling of this recent case. You have let others get the better of you. If your behaviour were known outside this office, you would now be on the street: a common citizen. As it is, you are a senior policeman with an illustrious – if tarnished – record dating back to our very beginnings.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘Nevertheless, you must not escape punishment. As of this moment, you are no longer a member of the Detective Force—’
‘Sir! I must protes—’
‘I say you are not a detective! Tomorrow you take up a position with the same rank in the Thames Police. You will supervise two constables in a galley in the Upper Pool and you will work with your new colleagues to limit petty smuggling and river infractions wherever you may see them.’
‘I believe I would rather be a citizen.’
‘Enough of your petulance. It is that sort of attitude to authority that has brought you to this. I expected gratefulness for your unimpaired rank, but I see I am entirely correct in my course of action. Do you have anything further to add?’
‘No . . . Yes, I do. Under what circumstances could I earn again my position in the Detective Force?’
‘Finally, a question worthy of your character. I will say only this: your position remains open. When you have demonstrated to me once more that you are the man to fill it – when you show me the virtues of a righteous and true investigator – then you will return. And only then. I believe there will be ample opportunities on the river. Now – make yourself known at the Wapping Police Office tomorrow at six o’clock. They are expecting you.’
‘Righteous and true . . .’ mumbled Mr Newsome with a scowl, his eyes unfocused upon the water.
‘Sorry, sir?’ said the first constable. ‘Were you speaking to us?’
‘Nothing. It was nothing. Are you watching the river?’
‘Yes, sir. But I have seen only the things that do not interest you.’
‘That is enough impertinence, Constable. Do you not read the Times?’
‘I occasionally look at the sporting intelligence, sir . . .’
‘Well, if you were a little more literate you might have looked at the correspondence. In recent days, there have been a number of letters concerning improprieties in just this stretch of the river: alleged corruption among the Custom House officials. That is the kind of thing we should be looking for.’
‘Yes, sir. Alas, I have seen noth— Wait! Do you see over there by the collier being unloaded?’
‘Where?’ Mr Newsome stood in the galley for a better view. ‘Which one? Point it out. There are dozens of the infernal things.’
‘There . . . just short of Tooley-stairs,’ said the constable, directing his finger into a thicket of hulls. ‘Something in the water. I saw something rise above the surface . . .’
Mr Newsome stared where directed but saw only sooty timbers lapped by the greasy swell. ‘What was it? What did you see, Constable?’
‘I would not like to say for sure, but it might have been a body. I cannot see it now. Perhaps I was mistaken . . . some piece of debris . . . a wool bag.’
The three of them scanned the water for any sign.
And then there it was: a dark hump rising from the depths. It might have been a garment buoyed with air or a half-floating bale . . . were it not for the pale skin and the hair.
‘Row, boys!’ shouted Mr Newsome. ‘Put your backs into it and row!’
The tether was unhooked, the oars splashed and they were off with a jerk, the inspector standing now with a kind of practised harpooner ease and his eyes fixed unblinkingly on the body.
The bobbing thing was now clearly visible at the surface. Others had seen it also and a clamour arose upon the collier, where coal-blackened lumpers leaned overboard to point. A boathook was handed from man to man to extract the object, but Inspector Newsome shouted to them:
‘No! Do not hook it! You may damage evidence!’
The galley pulled rapidly alongside the collier with a bump. The first constable tossed a rope up to the coal-lumpers and the two vessels nestled against each other.
Close to, the corpse wallowed face down in water stained black by coal dust. It wore a dark pea coat, and the white flesh of the forehead was revealed briefly as it bobbed amid the waves.
‘Hand me that hook now,’ called Mr Newsome to the lumpers above.
The boathook was passed down into his outstretched palm and he manoeuvred its end carefully under the arm of the body, straining to turn it over in the water. A face appeared, revealing dead eyes and a flap of bloodless skin hanging loose from the left cheekbone.
‘Take the arms, boys,’ he said. ‘Careful now, he is d—— heavy.’
Together, and with the shouted accompaniment of the lumpers, they struggled to heave him into the galley, which pitched alarmingly under their exertions. Finally, and with much muttering from the constables, the legs flopped over the gunwale, dragging about two feet of rattling iron chain after them.
‘Well – what do you make of that?’ said the inspector, examining the chain about the ankles. ‘It looks like our swimmer was not meant to surface.’
The dead man lay sprawled in the bottom of the galley, his saturated clothes creating a pool of dirty water about him. If there was any wound, the blood had long since passed into the river.
‘What do you think, sir?’ asked the first constable, squeezing water from his own jacket cuffs.
‘I think I would like to get this man back to the station at Wapping and see what he can tell us about why someone would wrap his legs in chain.’
‘Do you think it is murder, sir?’
‘Closer investigation will tell us more, Constable. But I most definitely hope so. To your oars!’
THREE
Among the manifold thieves in London, perhaps none is more notorious than the pickpocket. The cracksman may take greater risks as he ascends buildings, and the embezzler may make more money for his troubles, but it is the pickpocket whose name lives in infamy among visiters to the city. In France, in Germany, in Holland and, indeed, across the world, they speak of his skills in tones of half-admiring outrage.
For there is nothing to the pickpocket so ignoble as mere theft. The ‘lift’, as he terms it, is both a science and an art, learned through many years of apprenticeship during which he who reaches maturity without being transported earns the respect of his fellows and may call himself a master. As such, he has his own closely guarded techniques to prey upon the gullible and innocent.
Observe him, for example, on Oxford-street, where he is accustomed to working with an accomplice. They loiter together before jewellers’ windows, smoking cigars and casting surreptitious glances inside to see in which pockets the customers deposit their purchases. The cigars, of course, are no coincidence. When the ill-fated customer eventually exits, it is into a great puff of finest Havanah, which causes him or her to blink and blindly accept the sin
cerest apologies from the courteous smoker who has so thoughtlessly breathed upon them. No matter that the other rapscallion has extracted the necklace in the velvet box from their jacket pocket and made off down a side alley without so much as being seen by his victim.
Or see the pickpocket lounging in the restaurants of the finest hotels with just a porcelain cup of tea and that day’s Times before him. He could very well be one of the guests himself with his fine linen and new boots, but he is watching the others with far greater attention than he gives to his newspaper. He notes, for instance, how the elderly gent with the top hat pays for his drink and slips his pocketbook into a right trouser pocket. Or he notes how the Belgian tourist constantly pats his breast pocket to see if his daily allowance has been lifted by the unscrupulous men of whom he has been warned. These two will soon be visiting the Tower, or Parliament, or St Paul’s, and the observant tea-drinker will be there close by them in the pressing throngs.
Indeed, there is only one man that strikes fear into the heart of the master pickpocket: the person who knows his techniques and who watches him as closely as he watches his victims – the detective.
Were one to visit the Sol’s Arms public house on Wych-street, or the Brown Bear opposite Bow-street Magistrate’s Court, one might hear these light-fingered fellows discussing the figure of the detective. And one might be surprised to hear the commingled dislike and respect they reserve for their sole predator.
In fact, let us eavesdrop on just such a conversation in one of the smoky rooms of the Sol’s Arms on the evening of the day that had begun with the Waterloo-bridge incident.
‘Did you hear about Jacobs?’ says a thief with a clay pipe in the corner of his mouth. ‘He was pinched at Ascot last week with a pocket full of watches. He’s got transportation – seven years.’
‘I heard,’ replies a Haymarket loiterer. ‘A sorry business, that. Who got him? Was it Sergeant Jenkins?’
‘No – Jenkins is working on a murder at Chelsea.’
The Thieves' Labyrinth (Albert Newsome 3) Page 2