The Thieves' Labyrinth (Albert Newsome 3)

by McCreet, James

  ‘Some places are darker than others, Inspector. They harbour more souls and seek more to share their hopelessness. Waterloo is doubtlessly one such place. They are the spots where your bodies linger, unseen, until delivered up once again to the sun.’

  ‘Well, I see I have wasted my time coming to you for information, Mr Tarr.’ Mr Newsome made to stand.

  ‘The river becomes darker, Inspector. Time was when every vessel moved by the power of wind or arm alone. Time was when every vessel was natural wood. Now all is steam and iron and copper. We have lost our feeling for the river and have made it just another thoroughfare to suit our ends. And yet it continues to claim souls, does it not? What would we see if the waters were to recede and reveal the history in its mud? The ribs of Roman galleys? The ribs of men sacrificed to religion, commerce and despair? Predictable? Ho! Predict your own end, Inspector!’

  Mr Newsome stared sidelong at the ex-pilot to discern if he was mocking, or merely mad. The latter seemed the likelier assumption, so he began walking towards Tripe-alley.

  ‘I will bid you good day, Mr Tarr. I leave you to the comfort of your insanity.’

  ‘Beware the beasts of the river!’

  The inspector stopped and felt for the tooth in his pocket.

  ‘“Beasts?” I thought you spoke only of souls?’

  John Tarr touched the side of his sun-seasoned nose and winked.

  ‘Look at this.’ Mr Newsome returned to the bench and held the tooth between thumb and forefinger so that Tarr could see it clearly. ‘What manner of river animal has a tooth like this?’

  ‘Inspector – there are things down there in the blackness that no man has ever seen. O, we sometimes see their shadows or the flick of a tail. We sometimes see the body of a cat vanish in a splash with an unseen snap of jaws; we sometimes see shapes in the low-tide mud made by no human foot; we sometimes hear noises at night made by no human throat. Your tooth tells me nothing I do not already know.’

  ‘I see. Well, once again, your “expertise” appears to be quite incoherent. Thank you for your time.’

  John Tarr made a mock salute and turned his attention back to the river, his cigar still smouldering at the corner of his mouth.

  Mr Newsome shook his head and returned to the clamour of Pickle Herring-street, more assured than ever that the river made mad those who worked upon it. As he passed the wool warehouse, a terrible faecal-vegetal reek assailed his nostrils and he was forced to rapidly pull out a handkerchief to cover his nose. He looked around for the origin of the smell and his eyes met those of a very odd little man standing on the opposite side of the street.

  The fellow might have been a boy of fifteen from a distance, such were his dimensions, but in fact he must have been twenty-five years old. His face seemed utterly devoid of expression – almost, indeed, as if his features had been painted onto a wooden effigy of a man: two round brown eyes, a spatter of freckles, an unremarkable nose and a mouth-shaped mouth. The dark hair was matted with filth, and it was evidently he who was so noisome. Passers-by exclaimed in disgust as they walked by, allowing him significant space. He returned Mr Newsome’s look of disgust without interest or recognition.

  The inspector was hurrying to be elsewhere, however, and did not stop to give the encounter further thought.

  SEVEN

  It might be said that one has not truly experienced London until one has visited the theatre. Admittedly, there is much to be said of a stroll along Oxford-street or a cup of coffee on Fleet-street, but for an authentic view of city life, one attends a theatre such as the Queen’s. And on that evening two days after the Waterloo-bridge incident, Wych-street was veritably a-swarm with people flocking to hear Eldritch Batchem speak.

  It had been uncharitably noted by some that it was no mere coincidence that a playbill for this show had been found in the pocket of the unfortunate tidewaiter William Barton . . . or at least that Mr Batchem had reported thus. Wags in certain other quarters had joked that the investigator himself had slain the man just to popularize the evening. Such are the comments of cynics, but the fact could not be denied: the thrill of the dead man advertising the fame of his own death’s investigator was a story too delicious to resist.

  Accordingly, the auditorium was filling rapidly, each part relative to the price of its seat. In the gallery sat London’s common men and women: a heaving and raucous mass of unalloyed humanity that exuded a sour reek of bodies, smoke and gin. Some scratched at dirty collars; some feasted on handfuls of meat pie bought especially for the occasion; some peeled off boots to ease their work-worn feet. All chattered and laughed with the crass manner of the streets. Perhaps nine in every ten women were there in a purely ‘professional’ capacity.

  The stalls were perhaps a little more refined. Here, decorum competed with affectation to demonstrate that two shillings more per seat made one a ‘theatre-goer’ rather than a groundling animated only by vulgar entertainment. Were one to scan the rows in this part of the theatre, one would have noticed among the throng a single Negro face: Benjamin. Beside him was Noah Dyson, and beside him was Mr George Williamson (relieved of pickpocket duty tonight on account of attending the show). John Cullen was once again by his mentor’s left hand, seemingly gleeful at this, his first visit to a ‘real’ theatre rather than the sordid penny gaff.

  A number of people would have been intrigued to see this peculiar quartet together, and Commissioner Sir Richard Mayne was one of them. Sitting alone in his private box, he had at first believed himself to be mistaken when he saw George Williamson sitting in the distant stalls before him. Using his opera glasses, however, he was able to verify that it was indeed the illustrious detective who had once worked within the ranks of the Detective Force. And there, either side of him, was an ex-constable and a known felon.

  Inspector Albert Newsome was yet another who, seeing the Negro face, had noticed the four sitting together and wondered at the import of such a grouping. In his experience, it was a fellowship that promised only inconvenience. Fortunately, none of them seemed to have noticed him sitting a few rows to the rear and to their right.

  By now, the theatre was quite filled to capacity and the vast banked horseshoe of seating writhed with figures and murmurs. Smoke drifted thickly through the light of the large gas chandelier hanging from the gaudy gilt ceiling.

  ‘Is that Sir Richard in the box?’ said Mr Cullen to his neighbour.

  ‘It is,’ replied Mr Williamson. ‘And he has seen us.’

  ‘Do not turn, but Inspector Newsome is also sitting three rows behind us to the right,’ said Noah. ‘I saw him in the lobby as we entered. He pretended to be tying his bootlace.’

  ‘There are many policemen here tonight,’ said Mr Williamson. ‘Whether to mock or revere Mr Batchem, I could not say.’

  ‘Which do you favour, George?’

  ‘First I will listen to the man – then I will make my judgement.’

  ‘Of course. Tell me – why do you study the gallery so intently, George? Are you expecting to see somebody in particular there?’

  ‘Hmm. It is idle habit – nothing more.’ Mr Williamson extracted his watch somewhat irritably. ‘Where is Mr Batchem? It is time for the performance to begin . . .’

  At that moment, the deep-red curtains on the stage twitched and a thrill went through the audience. A cheer went up from the gallery. The theatre manger emerged from between the folds and made a bow.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen – welcome! Welcome! Tonight we are privileged indeed to have the pleasure of an audience with a man who has lately captured our interest in the public sphere, in the newspapers, in the annals of crime and—’

  ‘Get on with it!’ yelled a voice from the gallery, followed by much spirituous mirth.

  ‘I . . . well, without further preamble, I give you Mr Eldritch Batchem: investigator extraordinaire!’

  Applause of an enthusiastic (if not yet fully convinced) manner went up, and the curtains were drawn back to reveal that same figure glimp
sed previously on Waterloo-bridge. He seemed a smaller man on the immensity of the bare stage, dressed in his customary tweed suit and odd russet cap. Indeed, there was a suggestion, almost, of vulnerability about him that hushed the crowd to an improbable silence.

  Cowed he may have been, but the way he strolled to centre stage showed little trepidation. There, he stroked his pointed salt-and-pepper beard with a gloved hand, eyes cast downward at the boards, and nodded to himself as if lost in thought. One might have heard the very rustle of his clothing as expectation rose.

  (‘Quite the showman, is he not?’ whispered Noah to Mr Williamson.

  ‘Hmm,’ replied the latter.)

  Finally, Eldritch Batchem looked up, giving the impression that he had stumbled quite by chance upon an audience gathered in his honour. He cast a meaningful look around and smiled, though his eyes were black glass. When he spoke, it was with a calm, clear voice that carried to the furthest recesses of the auditorium.

  ‘Who among you, I wonder, is a murderer?’

  A flutter of scandalous pleasure passed through the gallery.

  ‘I say again: who among you is a murderer? No doubt you abhor the thought! No doubt you reject outright the very idea that you – a Christian, a son, a daughter – could be capable of such a soul-staining act. But that would be your mistake! Why? Because we are all murderers.’

  He paused to let his voice and his challenge dissipate among the multitudinous faces before him. There was doubt in the stalls, cynicism in the boxes and a horripilating desire to disbelieve in the gallery.

  ‘Who is the murderer?’ said Eldritch Batchem, pacing head down now in a soliloquizing manner and stroking at his beard. ‘Is he (or she) not the one with the wild light of insanity in his eyes? Has he not wet, fleshy lips and dirty hair? Does he not sweat, as we are proverbially led to believe? O, we have all seen the death masks of these killers, and we fancy that we can see their murderous intentions – even in death! – merely in the cast of their features. We see images of men in the newspapers and, because they are called “murderer”, we see a murderer . . . but I ask you: could not that face just as easily be the face of a poet shaped in plaster for posterity?’

  (‘I regret to admit that he makes a salient point,’ whispered Noah.

  ‘Hmm. Let us see how his oration develops,’ returned Mr Williamson.)

  ‘There are those who may say the murderer is a poet: an artist of the criminal world because he breaks both human law and the divine. I disagree, ladies and gentlemen. I disagree most wholeheartedly. The murderer is a man (or a woman) like any one of us because he is weak. Not omnipotent, not super-human, not an aberration of morality. No, he is all too human. It is his humanity that makes him murder – not because he is strong, but because he has failed to fully become a civilized man.’

  Here, Eldritch Batchem paused again, staring up at the ceiling and caught in the reveries of his address. He might almost have been quite alone upon the stage and seemingly engaged in a dialogue with his own soul. The gallery perceived his immersion and were even more spellbound. Was the man an actor to capture them so? Or did he truly have a deeper knowledge of the murderer’s mind? The silence pleaded to be filled with more, and he timed the hiatus precisely before resuming:

  ‘But do not take my words as authority, ladies and gentlemen. I am a simple investigator. Consider, rather, some words more fitting to our venue here and let us hear what the Bard has put into the mouths of his murderers. Says the first:

  I am one . . .

  So weary with disasters, tugg’d with fortune

  That I would set my life on any chance

  To mend or be rid on’t

  ‘Says the second:

  I am one . . .

  Whom the vile blows and buffets of the world

  Hath so incens’d, that I am reckless what

  I do, to spite the world

  ‘What do we make of this pair of murderers? Our first is a desperate man who cares not for his own life, who is tired and punished by fate. Are there not debtors in our prisons who might speak so? Our second is perhaps more how we perceive the murderer of our city: a crazed and maddened figure who acts with violent impetuosity. Even in this, however, he seeks – like a child – to anger a temperate parent. These are your murderers: weak fellows! And are we all not weak on occasion? Do we not all stumble briefly on the path of righteousness?’

  A cough punctuated the quiet – a cough from a private box to Eldritch Batchem’s left. He looked up and beheld the commissioner of police holding a handkerchief at his mouth.

  ‘Sir Richard Mayne? Is that you, sir? I am honoured.’

  A colossal susurration of comment rolled through the audience and three thousand pairs of eyes went to the box, where the red-faced gentleman sat with an expression carved in vermilion granite. Fingers pointed and a ribald laughter tinkled in the gallery.

  ‘Perhaps our august guest in the private box there is privately saying to himself: “That is all very well, Mr Batchem, but those murderers are drawn from the fancy of a great writer rather than from our real city streets.” Too true, sir. Too true. So I will proceed to some murderers of recent note as a means of illustration.

  ‘Who does not know the name of Daniel Good: this man who severed the arms and legs of his female victim, disembowelling her and burning the entrails in his fireplace? Three thousand policemen could not find this gentleman as he drank at Hampstead or sat in plain view to have his hair cut at a barber’s! Perhaps you will say that he is the kind of murderer you are thinking of?’

  (‘If Sir Richard becomes any redder, I fear he will suffer apoplexy,’ whispered Noah.

  Benjamin covered his snorting laugh with a handkerchief.)

  ‘I say “no”,’ continued Eldritch Batchem. ‘Daniel Good was a weak man. His appetite for the female form was uncontrolled. He had spent time in Millbank penitentiary for killing a horse by tearing out its tongue, if you please! He was a suspected incendiary and a petty thief whose secret was discovered when he tried to make off with some stolen breeches. Why, the man was an utter failure as a member of our species. It is said he was also vain, combing his hair from each side to cover his naked pate. Who would fear such a man? A weak and mortal man.’

  ‘What about Greenacre?’ came a shout from the gallery.

  ‘Ah yes – James Greenacre. No doubt you shout his name because he was reputed to be a thinking man, an intelligent man . . . and another dismemberer. It was he, of course, who carried his female victim’s head in a canvas bag across London – by omnibus, no less! – to dispose of it in Stepney lock. A calculating, inhuman man you might say. On the contrary, he was a fantasist and liar, an atheist who slept in a strait-waistcoat while at Newgate lest he take his own life . . . though, of course, he protested his innocence to the last.

  ‘These are your murderers: the weakest, most venal, most hopeless, most selfish and godless of men. Any one of us here could be these men but for the love of a parent, but for the teachings of the Church, but for the paternal hand of the law. The way of weakness leads to death and damnation, but the way of moral strength leads to salvation for all.’

  Eldritch Batchem paused, his finger raised as if to punctuate the thought and his glistening eyes focused somewhere among the gilt heavens of the theatre’s ceiling. Silence reigned. Then, slowly, he seemed to return from that sublimity to cast a smile across the thousands of faces before him.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the first part of our evening’, he said. ‘I thank you for your ears.’

  And with this, he bowed deeply, adding a theatrical curlicue of the arm.

  The auditorium at first yielded but a patter of applause, as if people had not quite registered the conclusion of the address. Then the gallery stirred itself into action and the patter built into a more thunderous response, fuelled further by no small contribution from the stalls.

  ‘What is your impression?’ said Noah over the noise.

  ‘He has said nothing w
e do not already know,’ said Mr Williamson. ‘But it pleases the common man to think investigation is an art rather than a science.’

  ‘Is it not both?’ said Noah.

  ‘Hmm. I leave the consideration of art to artists. I note that Mr Newsome is not applauding.’

  Noah turned in his seat to peer at the sour expression upon the inspector’s face. ‘Ha! Was he not one of the men working on the Daniel Good case?’

  ‘I believe so. He was never keen to speak of it.’

  ‘Look – the theatre manager has taken to the stage once again,’ said Mr Cullen, pointing.

  And the manager had indeed ventured onto the boards once again in order to shake Eldritch Batchem’s hand. When that gesture was met with blank refusal, however, a laugh went up from the cheaper seats. Red-faced, the manager attempted instead to attain silence so that he could speak.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen! Ladies and gentlemen, please! After the interval, Mr Batchem will speak further on the life and philosophy of the investigator, and perhaps entertain us with stories of some of his cases. At the present time, though, he has consented to take questions from the audience. Will anybody be the first? Who will offer a question for Mr Batchem?’

  The theatre rapidly took on the absolute quietude of the classroom when the master asks for a reader. Feet shuffled. There were a number of coughs. Then came a (no doubt) gin-fuelled query from the gallery:

  ‘Mr Batchem – you says bad things ’bout murderers. Aren’t you afeared of being murdred yoursel?’

  Laughter animated the crowd, but dissipated when it became clear the speaker was quite prepared to answer.

  ‘Sir – murderers often prey on the weak because they are weak themselves,’ said Eldritch Batchem. ‘Their women, their children, their inferiors. What have I to fear from a man like Greenacre? He has no interest in one such as me.’