‘He might kill yer for yer money!’ returned the original inquisitor, again provoking mirth.
‘Ah – but then we are describing a different category of criminal altogether: not the classic murderer of the criminal annals, but a man who can only kill as if by accident! A bully or common thief for whom slaughter is but an occupational hazard.’
‘It sounds like you almost revere the murderer, sir.’ (This from an earnest gentleman in the stalls.)
‘“Revere”, you say?’ pondered Eldritch Batchem with another barbate stroke. ‘Not at all – but I take an interest in the classification and study of these malefactors. It is a fascinating subject, even if the subjects themselves are aberrations of our civilized condition. By knowing the evil of the human heart, one may better fight the criminal.’
A preparatory cough came from that private box to the left of the stage. And a new hush came over the gathered throng.
‘Mr Batchem,’ said Sir Richard Mayne with a clear, unwavering voice, ‘you speak of fighting criminals and of investigation – but what of remuneration? You take considerable monies for your work. Why not work for the Metropolitan Police if eradicating crime is your aim?’
‘Do you not also receive a wage for your work, Sir Richard? Do your constables and inspectors not receive a wage? I am no different in that respect.’
‘Except that you choose to investigate only robberies, blackmail cases and embarrassing private concerns,’ said Sir Richard. ‘For all your talk of murderers, you leave those cases to the brave men of the police because there is no money in them for you.’
‘I fear you are wrong, sir. Only two days ago, I was called to investigate a very nasty incident on Waterloo-bridge – which I am sure most of our audience has read about.’
A murmur among the three thousand seated there said that yes they had indeed read of it.
‘“Suicide” you called it,’ said Sir Richard. ‘I cannot contradict because I was forbidden access to the facts of the crime. No doubt many of the people here tonight also read of your shameless self promotion in mentioning a playbill for your show found in the dead man’s pocket. A highly fortuitous occurrence, would you not say?’
‘I certainly would not say that, Sir Richard!’
Sensing that the tenor of the dialogue was making the audience restless, the theatre manager stepped forward. ‘Thank you, Sir Richard, for your contribution, but perhaps we will let another ask their question . . .’
Sir Richard smouldered and leaned back in his seat with folded arms. Eldritch Batchem appeared to smirk into his beard.
‘Who else will speak?’ encouraged the theatre manager.
‘I. I have a question,’ came an assertive voice from the stalls: Inspector Newsome.
‘Mr Batchem says that three thousand policemen could not find Daniel Good. But Mr Batchem did not find him either. In fact, Good was found in Tonbridge, Kent, by an ex-constable of Metropolitan V Division who recognized him.’
‘Inspector Newsome is it?’ said Eldritch Batchem, peering exaggeratedly into the crowd. ‘I see you are not wearing your uniform tonight. I congratulate you on your memory, but perhaps you are forgetting more recent events. Were you not the detective in charge of the Lucius Boyle case – that evil murderer and incendiary also known as “Red Jaw”?’
At the name of this particular criminal, a great mutter went up among the audience. Lucius Boyle had been a murderer to make Good and Greenacre look almost angelic.
‘As I recall,’ continued Eldritch Batchem, ‘you chased that criminal all over the city and could not catch him even as he committed a murder among a crowd of thousands at Newgate! Nor could you apprehend him as he sailed slowly away in a hot-air balloon. Or was that the fault of Detective Sergeant – rather, former-Detective Sergeant – George Williamson? I see he has also attended this evening to learn about the art of investigation.’
Mr Williamson flushed with embarrassment as the massed audience turned to look in his direction, but did not rise to the bait. At his side, Mr Cullen felt a stab of anger at the humiliation and threw out his own question:
‘You mock respected detectives, Mr Batchem – men who face danger every day. Perhaps you can tell us, with all your wisdom, what makes a great detective?’
‘A fine question from the burly fellow there,’ said Eldritch Batchem. ‘I will answer such things more fully after the interval, of course, but let me summarize now. A great detective does not guess – he knows. A great detective has intuition and knowledge in equal measure. A great detective understands his fellow man and reads him as one might read a book. And, finally, a great detective has a keen intelligence – keener, in the end, than his quarry the criminal.’
Eldritch Batchem nodded to himself, evidently pleased with the apophthegmatical nature of his answer. Mr Cullen struggled for a riposte and could find none.
‘Well – that is all we have time for in this first part of the eve—’ began the manager. But there was to be one more question . . .
‘Wait! I have something to ask.’
The speaker was a gentleman in a private box to the right side of the stage. His voice carried great authority, and his appearance suggested considerable wealth. He did not wait for the manager’s permission to continue:
‘I have heard much tonight about the nature of crime and criminals, and I believe I have a challenge for some of those present, if detectives they truly are.’
‘Let us hear your challenge,’ called Sir Richard from the other side of the stage. ‘Whatever it is, I am sure the Metropolitan Police’s Detective Force is more than adequate to your purposes.’
‘Yes, share your question that a true investigator might solve it,’ added Eldritch Batchem, looking at the boxes either side of him in turn.
The auditorium was once again as silent as a midnight altar.
‘Very well,’ said the wealthy-looking gentleman. My name is Josiah Timbs. I am a merchant and ship-owner of this city who recently suffered a substantial loss. I know not who is responsible, or any of the circumstances, but here, tonight, I offer the sum of one thousand pounds to him who will solve this crime and return my property to me.’
‘I will do it!’ shouted the drunken man who had asked the first question that evening. Laughter briefly filled the place.
‘That is a generous sum, Mr Timbs,’ said Eldritch Batchem, once more stroking his beard. ‘What manner of a loss would account for a reward so significant?’
‘Mr Batchem, Sir Richard . . . you other investigators present . . .’ began the ship-owner, ‘I hardly know how to say it, so incredible is it to me that this crime has occurred in the modern city of London. Gentlemen – my ship, the brigantine Aurora, has been stolen.’
A hubbub immediately animated the crowd and the theatre manager did his best to restore calm.
‘Excuse me, Mr Timbs,’ said Eldritch Batchem, when he could make himself heard. ‘Did you say your ship? An entire vessel?’
‘Quite so. The Aurora is my four-masted brig. It has vanished utterly from the Port of London with half of its seamen aboard and with a full cargo. It might not be a murder, but it is certainly an outrage. What do you make of that, you detectives? What will you do about that?’
A pandemonium of speculation and wonder now quite seized the audience. Eldritch Batchem looked up to see Sir Richard staring glacially down at him and the former seemed to smile with those dark glass eyes.
EIGHT
If Eldritch Batchem had been a minor public figure before that performance, he was a greater one thereafter – not least because a number of newspapermen had been in the audience to hear his comments about the Metropolitan Police and the challenge from Mr Josiah Timbs. The following day’s papers seemed to mention little else.
A recurrent theme in all of them was the provenance of the strange investigator himself, who, barely six months previously, might never have existed. The first recorded instance of his investigative work, of course, had been that scandalous case of the
infant cut in pieces and left in a package on Blackfriars-bridge. Then there had been the lesser-known case of the banker’s clerk who absconded with cash left in his care. It had been around that time that people started to speak his name more widely.
It need hardly be said that any mystery about his identity vanished when he was said to have investigated that notorious case of theft from the Green Drawing Room (anteroom to the very throne room itself) at Buckingham Palace. Whether it was the Queen herself who requested his involvement, or whether he was engaged by an attendant to Her Majesty remains somewhat ambiguous, but the man had ostentatiously used his ‘By Royal Appointment’ appellation since that occasion.
One thing was certain: the Green Drawing Room case made the title of ‘detective’ suddenly fashionable in London. For the first time, one began to see examples in the personal advertisements of the Times for investigators with ‘Private Enquiry Addresses’ who would, for a fee, trace one’s missing jewellery, recover one’s absconded husband, or observe one’s wife unbeknown to her. Nothing, it seemed, was quite as exciting as the life of the detective. Indeed, for a month or so, one might have seen a notice on the first page of the Times for:
MR DENT’S ADVANCED COLLEGE OF DETECTION
Those gentlemen wishing to learn the science of investigation may attend this course, designed and ratified by erstwhile genuine detectives of the Bow Street Magistrates Court. For instruction in the finer points of clue-finding, reading the criminal face, ‘Swell Mob’ cant and deductive philosophy, apply to Mr Aloysius Dent, 14 Oxenden-street. Gratis map of ‘Murderous London’ with lesson one, and a ‘Certificate of Detection’ on completion.
Yet the man who seemed to have stirred the interest remained an enigma. Nobody knew him. Nobody could remember hearing the name previously. He attended no club and had been to university with not a single person who could recall him. It was rumoured that he lived not in a house or apartment, but alone at Mivart’s Hotel. In fact, had he not spoken English with such unaccented fluency, one might have suspected him of being a foreigner.
At least, this was the common interpretation of events. There is, in truth, always someone who knows the bigger story – always one man who is able to burrow beneath popular perception and the obfuscations of rumour to strike at the facts with unerring accuracy. And, inevitably, there was one who knew.
It was I.
To some, I am a penny-a-liner: a self-supporting newspaperman who measures the size of his next meal in column inches. To others – notably those old men of Paternoster-row and Haymarket – I am an occasional producer of popular broadsheets, arcane encyclopaedia entries, sundry poetry (or, rather, doggerel) for all occasions, and dramas that play too often to an unappreciative audience of one. Speaking for myself, I am a novelist well accustomed to the rigour of the nib, the ceaseless scraping upon paper and the oil-lamp blindness of extended lucubration.
Perhaps the reader has read a copy of my book on an earlier illustrious case of George Williamson (the copyright of which I was obliged to sign away to avoid another penal spell). Or perchance my more recent volume on another case of that investigator has found favour . . . before the copyright of that one also was taken from me on account of my non-payment of printing fees. Alas, I had been somewhat less prolific following those works on account of my being imprisoned at Horsemonger-street gaol in Lambeth.
It was not, as some malicious wags may have implied, for plagiarism that I found myself incarcerated thus. Nor was it for the penning of false begging letters, fraudulent inquest reports or defamatory satire – some of which accusations might have been previously levelled at me. No – I was resident in the debtors’ wing of that gaol thanks largely to the personal impoverishment occasioned by my latter opus and the incomplete repayment of printing costs thereof. Such are the results of publishing at one’s own risk.
So it was that, while another great case had begun to play out on the streets of the city, I was confined between dusk and seven each morning to a room with four iron bedsteads (alas, no pillows or sheets), a cruelly chilling stone-flagged floor, a reeking privy emptied but once a day, and three other dolorous gentlemen similarly abused by Fortune.
Nevertheless, one should not think that I was isolated from events. As befits a fellow of infinite resource, I had rather set about establishing that mildewed cell as the centre of a web to trap every fruit fly of gossip, every moth of rumour and every fat buzzer of news floating above those London streets. Each newspaper left behind by a visiter was a reservoir of information for me to absorb. And, of course, I was not idle in my writing, producing regular scandal sheets for the presses that I might better peck away at my debt (like a sparrow at the dome of St Paul’s).
In short, even in my confinement, I scented the story and used the flavour of it to build a feast in my mind to sustain me where the oatmeal gruel and pulpy vegetable stews of Horsemonger-lane could not. It was also within those imprisoning walls that I happened to learn more of Mr Eldritch Batchem . . . or at least of a possible previous incarnation.
On the day after that notable theatrical address, I was reading the Times for possible further news of the Waterloo-bridge case or of the body dragged recently from the river. Unaccustomed as I was to receiving visiters of my own, I instead used the broad pages of that esteemed organ to hide myself as I eavesdropped on the conversations of those who came daily to see my cell-fellows.
Burley was one such inmate: a tailor by trade, but a failure by inclination, he was a faded and worn wisp of a man who had spent much of the previous decade in one or other of the city’s debtors’ gaols. Grey of skin, hair and suit, he did some occasional stitching work during the days with the futile aim of mitigating his debt – but his chief value to me was in his brother-in-law Charles: a loquacious sort who would visit each day but Sunday to tattle and chatter like a maid of all work.
‘I declare, I had a capital evening yesterday,’ twittered this Charles the day after that eventful show.
‘O yes?’ said Burley, with gibbet enthusiasm for another tale of unknowable pleasure.
‘Yes indeed! I went to the Queen’s Theatre to hear that fellow Eldritch Batchem – you know: the investigator chap.’
‘O yes?’
‘He spoke about murderers: Greenacre, Good, Lucius Boyle . . . all the best ones. And there was a terrific episode before the interval when some merchant chappy said his brig had been stolen entire. And Sir Richard Mayne – the police commissioner himself – was there in a box, and he said he would investigate, and—’
‘O yes?’
‘. . . and, well, I had the strangest impression I had seen this Batchem before.’
(At this point, I fear there was a crepitant convulsion of my newspaper as I reached for a pencil to scribble details over the police notices.)
‘O yes?’
‘Indeed. He has a strange sort of pointed beard, this Batchem. That, combined with a rather peculiar russet cap he wears, does rather tend to hide his face but for the eyes. However, it was something in the cast of his eyes, combined perhaps with the inflection of his voice, that struck me.’
‘O yes?’
‘Do you remember when you were in Whitecross-street gaol, just after you lost your premises?’
‘O. Yes.’ Burley now rather had the look of the medieval martyr hewn in lichened limestone.
‘Well, I would swear before any judge that this Batchem was at Whitecross-street at the same time you were. He was not called by the same name then. Nor did he have a beard or wear a red cap. No – he was called something quite different: “Crawford” or “Cowley” or “Crowell” or some such. But he did seem to wear leather gloves, as I recall. But I tell you: the voice and the eyes were highly suggestive.’
‘O yes?’
‘Indeed. The voice . . . you know? It seems rather odd, does it not, that two years past, he seems to be a debtor with a different name and now he is an illustrious investigator addressing thousands at the theatre? Somebody should inve
stigate that, don’t you think?’
‘I suppose so, Charles. In truth, I cannot recall the man you refer to.’ (A rare conversational gambit from the threadbare tailor.)
‘What? Well, I have a distinct recollection of him. Most curious. Ah, did I also tell you about the young lady I have been calling upon?’
‘O yes?’
By this point, however, my keen journalistic mind was working phrenziedly at the potential story I had just overheard. Were there even a shred of truth in it, it was the sort of thing that might earn me a juicy commission to cover my debts and free me from that place.
Accordingly, I left old Burley to the garrulous tortures of his brother and walked out towards the yard, cogitating upon how I might extend my reach beyond the walls to learn more. Then I remembered with a flash of excitement: had not a turnkey of my acquaintance at Horsemonger-lane previously held a position at Whitecross-street? I immediately sought him out.
As usual, he could be found in the warder’s lodge with a mug of tea and a newspaper. He was an affable sort, and what I learned from him, though exiguous enough, was intriguing. There had indeed been a ‘Crawford’ or ‘Cowley’ or ‘Crowell’ at Whitecross-street, and my turnkey recalled the fellow in question with some clarity on account of his being allowed the rare privilege of a private room. The debtor’s stay there had been brief, but what had struck the warder more than anything was the general eccentricity of the gentleman combined with a mania for privacy.
So fastidious was he (said the turnkey) that his every limited possession was stored with almost geometric precision: his razor and other bathroom articles laid out perpendicularly parallel to the eighth of an inch; his clothing brushed and folded with the greatest care; his few books kept always in strict alphabetical order (by author), and his newspapers catalogued by date. And, while many freshly incarcerated insolvents will initially spurn the company of other debtors through humiliation or low spirits, this fellow never settled into his ward.
The Thieves' Labyrinth (Albert Newsome 3) Page 8