‘Noah . . . tell me that you did not kill the man.’
‘Your mortal soul need not bear that burden. I entered the alley with my dagger drawn and saw no sign of him – not even a scent. But I felt he was there, lurking. No doubt he was expecting a cautious approach, so I took the opposite action and proceeded noisily, whistling and kicking at debris for all the world like a passing sailor planning to use the space as a toilet. Such a strategy would perhaps give him pause and a moment of doubt as to whether I was indeed the one who had been observing him. It was a successful ruse: I saw him peep out from behind a buttress and our eyes met.’
‘And what of the man? Did he speak? Did he show any fear?’
‘Quite the contrary. He smiled and nodded as if to acknowledge an equal in his deceptive art. But there could be no conversation. He leaped at me with a thin stiletto blade and we fought. I will admit he was an accomplished man with a knife, but we were evenly matched and I left him with a gash to his neck. As soon as he realized he could not easily kill me, he took the sensible decision and fled.’
‘You did not think to follow him? He might have led you to the one who controls him.’
‘I believe that two bloodied men running through Ratcliff-highway may have excited the wrong kind of attention, George. And in any event, we need only look behind us if we want to locate the fellow again. Think also of this: whoever controls the man now knows what we know.’
‘Hmm. What do we know? That some invisible hand controls a murderous Italian? That Eldritch Batchem is not perhaps the person we had assumed him to be? I see little improvement in our current position.’
‘As I say, whoever is watching this investigation is also visible through their observation of it. They will follow where we lead.’
‘Or they will kill us, Noah.’
‘They have resisted that course of action thus far – though I cannot explain why. Perhaps it is a case of seeing how close we come to the solution before they strike. The only course of action is to proceed with what we know. Either we will reach the end of this mystery, or we will again encounter its perpetrators during our attempts.’
‘Hmm. You said that Mr Batchem was pursuing his own avenues of investigation about Ratcliff-highway. What of those?’
‘Quite. Taking advantage of my bloodied state, I returned to the sites of his earlier questioning and lied that a man in a red cap had just assaulted me. Had they seen such a man? Some replied that they had and that he had been asking about the first mate of the Aurora, a fellow named Hampton. I trust he was not among those found in barrels?’
‘That is correct. He is the one mariner not accounted for, although I fear Mr Batchem’s searches are quite in vain – it seems Inspector Newsome showed a likeness of this fellow Hampton to the ship-owner some days ago. Sir Richard believes the body was pulled out of the river by the Thames Police shortly after the vessel went missing.’
‘It matters not. One of the men to whom I spoke had suggested to Batchem that he might visit the rat fights at the Forecastle public house off Ratcliff-highway this evening. It is apparently a well-attended spectacle and somebody there may know of first mate Hampton. Therefore, if I sought redress from my “attacker” I might follow suit and visit the place.’
‘I know the Forecastle by reputation,’ said Mr Williamson. “Drinking, dogs and death” – that’s what the local constables say about the place.’
‘Well, we might consider a trip to “the rats” if that is where Batchem is to be. If we attend, it is highly possible our Italian, or one of his fellows, might also make an appearance.’
‘Hmm. It seems a hazardous course – or a possible trap. Did you learn nothing further from your visits among the receivers? Perhaps that is a safer route.’
‘I have Ben watching the large silk emporium on Ludgate-hill. It seems they are about to receive a large order from a dubious source. I am afraid, however, that Inspector Newsome has had the same idea – I met him there just before the discovery at the London Dock. What of our Mr Cullen? Have you had any reports from his labour at the wharfs?’
‘Nothing useful as yet. He remains there still as far as I know.’
‘Do you doubt his ability? ’
‘He was a dutiful and honest constable. Time will tell if he has a detective’s capacity for broader thought. Inspector Newsome clearly did not think so.’
‘A detective might be many things, might he not? Your “broader thought” is Mr Newsome’s cunning and ruthlessness. I might say that my own advantage is knowledge and experience of the city. Perhaps Mr Cullen’s dogged persistence will be the particular trait that improves him.’
‘We will see. He is a good man and I wish him well. I fear, however, that his goodness and devotion will lead him one day to harm. He has a young man’s thirst for justice.’
‘Harm comes to us all, George. Surviving it is what makes us men.’
‘Hmm. Hmm.’
‘Well, we will see what Ben and Mr Cullen bring to the investigation. More information is the thing. What did you discover at Waterloo-bridge? I assume it was murder?’
‘Undoubtedly. I believe the killer ascended the bridge by rope from a vessel floating upon the river itself – an endeavour requiring significant skill.’
‘That should surprise me, but our dealings with the Italian lead me to believe that we are at odds with a group of uncommonly impressive talents. We may assume, then, that the murder upon the bridge was therefore another example of a conspicuous warning of the kind we saw at the London Dock – a signal for anyone with knowledge of the missing brig to hold their peace or forever be no more.’
‘It would certainly seem so. There is one more minor point, however: the toll-collector said that, apart from a missing hat and the wound to his throat, William Barton was otherwise in a composed state of dress when he staggered out of the fog.’
‘And this leads you to believe that he perhaps knew his killer . . . that perhaps they exchanged some words but did not struggle.’
‘Either that or the attack was so swift and invisible that Mr Barton saw nothing.’
‘I rather suspect the former. If we could only learn more of the Detective Force’s investigation into the events at the London Dock, we might be able . . . Wait a moment. George? That averted glance tells me that perhaps we do know more. Or rather you do.’
‘I . . . it is true that I have been fortunate enough to discern a number of details through . . . through an old acquaintance in the Force.’
‘Were you planning to tell me?’
‘Am I under investigation now, Noah? Must I account for my every movement? Do I ask you how or where you find your information? I am sure it is best that I do not know.’
‘Very well. I will not question your sources. Tell me what you know only if you wish. I trust you did not bleed in order to acquire it.’
‘Hmm. There are few clues to follow. The fatal barrels were evidently swapped with those in the original consignment. Nobody saw anything, of course.’
‘That in itself is a clue.’
‘Quite. As far as I can tell, the only useful piece of information to come out of the investigation thus far is that the alien barrels had traces of both muscovado sugar and tobacco about their hoops and staves.’
‘Which means they were rolled through other warehouses to reach their destination. That tells us little.’
‘It tells us that the barrels most likely originated elsewhere than London Dock, for there is no practical reason why they would have picked up those residues at the London Dock, where the respective storehouses are quite separately located. The suggestion is rather that the barrels came from a single warehouse or landing that contains many forms of cargo – the kind of businesses, for example, found along the river wharfs rather than in the docks.’
‘You are right, George. And such privately owned places would also offer more privacy in the act of embarrelling those unfortunate sailors.’
‘But there are hundreds
of such quays and wharfs and platforms. Where could we begin?’
‘I admit I have no idea, but I know a place where we might begin to ask, and where we might perhaps find more answers to our multiplying questions.’
‘The Forecastle.’
‘“Drinking, dogs and death”, George? Shall we make an evening of it?’
‘Hmm. It would seem so.’
TWENTY-ONE
As the tides of the river ebb and flow according to the timeless balance of the waters, so there is a natural equilibrium in the shared existence of men. Thus, as Inspector Newsome found himself cruelly imprisoned in the visceral vaults of the city, I found myself free.
Once again, my labour and fortitude in the face of the inimical blank page had seen me emerge from penury, the printer’s press (as ever) my deus ex machina. They may take my bed, my clothes, my copy and my freedom, but they may never take the writer’s soul, which – like the golden goose – is abundantly fecund.
Naturally, in those first days, I compensated for my months of deprivation by gorging myself on chops and pies and porter until I thought my cheeks would tear and my belly pop. I sought out the busiest, noisiest streets and the smokiest, most raucous congregations to feel once more like a citizen of this great and glorious chaos that is London. Along Waterloo-road, meanwhile, I sated more carnal needs unto the very threshold of stumbling anaemia.
Alas, with enjoyment of liberty comes further bills, and I was soon again but a whisker away from the magistrate’s bench if I could not quickly turn my hand to further column inches on the Aurora case and to my continuing researches into the murky past of one Eldritch Batchem. And so I went in search of the latest knowledge among the taverns of Fleet-street, where those news-grubbers of my bastard kin – the penny-a-liners, scribblers, fire-watchers and pseudo-literary liars – gathered to steal each other’s stories and make the nation’s print.
Needless to say, the detective mania continued apace. For all its soiled reputation, the London Monitor had started a fire that the London Dock murders had fanned into a conflagration. At every coffee-house fireplace along Fleet-street, the questions were the same: what is the Detective Force doing to solve these latest crimes? Why does no murderer yet stand before a judge? Is the Custom House complicit? Where is the Aurora? Will Eldritch Batchem be the man to solve the crimes? Is Sir Richard Mayne to resign his position as Police Commissioner at the will of Her Majesty?
The following, from a Times correspondent, might stand as a representative example of the mood gripping the city:
Dear Sirs
Must not the world wonder that here, at the heart of its richest and most illustrious port, seven documented murders and the theft of an entire vessel have recently been perpetrated? Is it not a matter for national shame that those warehouses into which the wealth of nations are entrusted may apparently be entered at will, and invisibly, by the common criminal? Indeed, it is an outrage to both our moral and our commercial standing in the eyes of multiplicitous nations that such crimes remain unpunished.
I am modest in my claims that I possess some investigative acumen of my own, and the course of action seems a clear one. Whence came those barrels containing the unfortunate mariners? Who made them, and where? How did they find their way into the spirit vault and on whose authority? Answer these questions and you answer how the bodies became thus entombed.
As for the tragic Mr Timbs, there is a rumour that he was warned by his killers some days prior to his death. Why did not the Metropolitan Police offer him protection even as he courageously led them simultaneously to the truth and to his end?
I put these questions to the investigators of London – Eldritch Batchem among them – in the name of clarity, justice and in the true spirit of detection.
Yours
Aloysius Dent
Oxenden-street
Thus does the populace at large (and its correspondents in particular) demonstrate their anodyne mediocrity. It was all to me a stale debate, and proof enough of what I had already sensed: that the greater headline lay hidden beneath rather than atop this story. Who was the man calling himself Eldritch Batchem?
Absent he may have been from the London Dock three days before, but he was not one to shy from attention where it might aggrandize his investigative efforts. Accordingly, his riposte could be found in the very next day’s edition of the Times:
Dear Sirs
I read with interest Mr Aloysius Dent’s communication of yesterday on the case of the Aurora, and concur wholeheartedly with his assertion that it is an outrage. Where I must disagree, however, is with his claim to ‘investigative acumen’.
An amateur would naturally look first to the provenance of the barrels and their route into the spirit vault, but he would do so in error. It was clear to me (if not to the Metropolitan Police) that the bodies left at the dock were intended to be found as a form of grisly display. Therefore, the perpetrators will have taken all measures to avoid leaving clues. Readers may be assured that I am not at liberty to reveal here the true path of the investigation as I pursue it.
As to the recent letter in these pages from Sir Richard Mayne, in which he refutes my verdict on the Waterloo-bridge suicide, I can only pity the investigative methods employed. His ‘solution’ of murder is both fanciful and relies upon a misreading of unrelated evidence that is now so ‘conveniently’ erased by the passage of time and traffic.
I remain, in the service of justice and truth,
Yours,
Eldritch Batchem
Investigator by Royal Appointment
A trip to Whitecross-street gaol to learn more about the man was clearly imperative. There would be inmates still resident who might recall the curious Mr Crawford (or Crowley), who, with his perpetually gloved hands, his maniacal neatness and his disturbed dreams, was no doubt a memorable figure to those who had been immured with him. And did not I myself fully appreciate that even the most private man will sometimes open the lockbox of his soul to those who have shared the same melancholy fate?
Of course, there was no use simply visiting the gaol and enquiring after the inmate in question. Previous journalistic endeavours had shown that the deputy governor guarded the keeper’s office like an administrative Beefeater and would reveal nothing whatsoever without a letter of introduction or an official edict. A more circuitous approach had to be taken – one more native to my inquisitive bent.
Accordingly, three days after the London Dock murders, I could be found standing before the lofty frontage of that house of correction on Whitecross-street during the morning visiting period. If I appeared to be a simple vendor of beer with my barrow of brown glass before me, and if I squinted histrionically through spectacles seemingly no less opaque than my bottles, one may be sure it was with a grander design.
‘Two porters, please,’ said a pretty young woman, opening her purse. Her two small be-suited sons (infant undertakers both) stood alongside her, staring morosely at their polished shoes.
‘Certainly, ma’am,’ I replied. Then, with a myopic peer: ‘I know Mr Dixon likes his morning porter, eh?’
‘Excuse me, sir? I know no Mr Dixon.’
Another theatrical moue of ocular impairment: ‘O, forgive me, ma’am! I mistook you for Mrs Dixon. I see now that you are Mrs Talbot. These peepers of mine!’
‘I . . . I am afraid you are again mistaken, sir. I am Mrs Dickinson.’
‘O, curse these useless eyes of mine! I do apologize. How could I have not recognized Roger’s pretty wife? Your sons are the very image of him!’
‘Roger?’
‘Your husband was the finest glove-maker of Oxford-street, ma’am, if you don’t mind me saying so. It is a travesty what his creditors have reduced him to.’
One of the boys giggled and mimicked my wrinkled squint to the other.
‘Sir . . . my husband is called Herbert and is a banking clerk. I am afraid we must be going now. Good day to you.’
I maintained my optic confusion only unti
l the innocent Mrs Dickinson had entered the gaol. Then I swiftly cast aside the spectacles and rolled the barrow away, ever grateful for the limitless capacity of our race to be embarrassed by awkwardness.
And a mere four hours later, I was back for the afternoon visitation period without the beer and spectacles, though with a basket containing bread and eggs. This time, I was an erstwhile colleague of that unfortunate banker’s clerk Herbert Dickinson, he with the lovely wife and the two melancholy sons forced to grow with the shame of debt upon their bloodline. The poor man had complained of his prison diet and it was only fitting that I do whatever I could to supplement his gruel.
Once inside, however, I made no futile attempt to locate any Mr Dickinson. Rather, I made for the Middlesex ward of the gaol, crossing the spacious flagged yard and through the dolorous family scenes of the receiving ward to where I knew the day room of the debtors lay. My quarry was not the ashen fathers, the wasted husbands or the dissipated sons – rather, I sought the debtor without visiters: the long-term resident who has passed through the grief and shame of insolvency to find a home of sorts behind those walls. It is these men who are the unofficial ledgers and historians of inmates past, and of whom there are always one or two in every debtors’ gaol. Indeed, here was one now sitting at the common table . . .
As his roomates received tearful kisses and sustaining victuals, he reclined insouciantly in a chair and smoked his long clay pipe with a smirk playing about his eyes. Dressed in a fading and oft-repaired suit, he was greying about the temples and must have been fifty years old. At my entry, he cast a comprehensive gaze of enquiry about my person and allowed himself a broad smile around the mouthpiece of the pipe.
The Thieves' Labyrinth (Albert Newsome 3) Page 23