by Parry, Owen
Time is as undependable as it is bitter. I re-lived all this in the space of a flight of stairs, and got me to the landing wrenched apart. I was halfway down the hall before I saw him.
He stepped from the shadows by the sanitary cabinet. A man in a red silk mask.
This was no ghost. Nor was the revolver in his hand a tool of the spirit world.
“Give me the letters,” he said, in a deep, charred voice. He was a big man, larger than I had realized from my glimpse of him in the penny gaff.
“What letters?” I said, pathetically.
He laughed like Death in a plague year.
“Give me the letters, or I’ll spread your brains over the walls.”
Now, in the books of Mr. Scott, the hero refuses all compromise. But I am not a hero, nor enamored of Mr. Scott and his fictions, and in this world of flesh and the devil a cane is no match for a pistol in the hand of a man twelve steps off. I wished to live. And had no great attachment to the letters. A small good deed was not worth a widowhood for my wife.
I reached into my pocket, where the letters had been tucked, and found naught but a loose thread.
He must have marked the surprise on my face.
“Come on,” he said. “Give over.”
“I don’t have them,” I told him, patting down my every pocket and then the lining of my jacket. Desperately. “They were in—”
And then I remembered the enthusiasm Miss Perkins had displayed for finding her own cab, and her reluctance to have me pull on my coat. The frock coat left in the room with her, when I stepped off to the sanitary convenience. And hadn’t young Pomeroy come storming into her changing room the night before, demanding just such letters? She would have sensed their worth. And the White Lily took them.
“They’re in my room,” I told him, wanting time. For I would not betray a misguided girl. “I’ll get them for you.”
“Move, and you’re a dead man.” He laughed again, as that pale horseman might. “I’ve been through your room. Where are the letters, Jones?”
“Under the control of the United States Government,” I told him abruptly.
“You little bastard,” he said, raising the pistol.
A door opened between us and a plump man stepped out, half undressed and thinning hair awry.
“Can’t a body get ’imself a bit of bleedin’ sleep?” he demanded, looking in my direction.
A wraith between the gaslamps, the creature in the red mask slipped away. No one had seen him but me.
“Lieutenant Culpeper!” I called.
But he was gone.
TEN
I’M SHUT OF IT,” INSPECTOR WILKIE TOLD ME. “FINISHED and done. It ain’t a bit of my business anymore.” He sat there so distraught in his cubbyhole office that I would have thought him frightened, had he not been a police fellow. “I said to them, I did, that I didn’t care if it ’ad to go up to Sir Richard Mayne ’imself, I wasn’t ’aving no more to do with that murdered child.” He looked at me, then looked away, then forced his eyes back to me yet again. “Even Mr. Archibald ain’t never seen the like. I couldn’t do it, I told them. I told them all I’d sooner go gathering pure in a bucket, I did. I couldn’t ’elp seeing my little Albert lying there. Or my little Alice. And I wasn’t ’aving no more to do with the matter.”
Now, I myself had experienced a failure of the will, or of nerve, or of whatever you will term that quality that lends determination, so I could not be too harsh on the inspector. But I was disappointed, see. For I wanted aid and counsel, and found myself alone. Even Mr. Adams had failed me, in a manner of speaking, for I had gone first to the legation, as early as decency allowed, only to be told by Mr. Henry Adams that his father had been detained unexpectedly in the country and would not return until the afternoon. Young Adams spoke to me as to a servant.
But let that bide.
“Gleason’s your man now,” Wilkie added. “Inspector Gleason, ’e’ll be in touch.”
“I hope to go to Glasgow,” I said. “Tomorrow.”
Wilkie seemed only to want to be rid of me. “Well, then ’e’ll be in touch when you come back, won’t ’e? If not before, then after.”
“I do not know when I will come back.”
“Oh, sooner or later, no matter. There’s plenty to do without you, ain’t there? What with bloody murder every place a body looks. A gent just killed a serving girl in Chelsea, for serving ’is porridge too cold for ’is tastes and ’is liking. Oh, we ’ave work enough to do, there’s plenty.”
It did seem odd to me to be set aside so easily, since I had associations with these crimes as unwished and unfortunate as they were undeniable. But the police know their own business best.
“Look you,” I said. “There is another matter. It travelled down the selfsame road, but it come in a different coach. Perhaps it is a separate doing entirely. Involving blackmail.”
“Blackmail?”
I nodded. “That is how the matter looks to me. It is an affair of letters.” And then I told him much, though not quite all. I left out my brief possession of the missives and their subsequent borrowing by Miss Perkins. For I planned to have them back from her, and no harm done to anyone. Nor did I think she needed more attention, even from the police, for her own safety’s sake.
When I had finished my story, Wilkie said, “Don’t that sound a rum business, now? ’Owever it comes out.” He frumped his chin. “I ’ave looked into things enough to know old Pomeroy’s as loaded as Lord Raglan’s travelling trunk. Dripping like the Bank of England, ’e is. Though the family ’as a bit of a jinx to it.” He gave me the full of his bewhiskered face to admire. “So the Pomeroy lad’s got ’imself into a fix. And all for writing letters. I allus said, I did, that a man ’as to be careful if ever ’e writes things down what shouldn’t be writ. Lord knows, I never writ a single letter to my late departed, and she was none the worse for it. No, pen and ink just gets a man in trouble.”
“I had hoped . . . that you might go with me. To call upon Mrs. Pomeroy in Lambeth. A policeman would make it official, see. Otherwise, I do not see how I could call upon a lady to whom I have not been introduced or recommended.”
“Oh, that’s a different thing, it is,” Wilkie said. “Blackmail. Now, that’s a matter wanting more attention. No, I don’t see why I shouldn’t go along, if it’s a separate matter and all completely different. For I ’ave enjoyed our discussions of the criminal class, I ’ave, Major Jones, and would gladly ’ave more profit from your devisings. So long as there ain’t murdered little boys in it.” He cocked his head, like a hound unsure of a brush-break in the distance. “A Cremorne dolly, is she? This Mrs. Pomeroy of yours? Is that the reason the father won’t ’ave ’er for ’is daughter-in-law? A ‘light lass of Lambeth,’ is that the shame of it? A little less than spotless, is she?”
“It is not that at all.”
“Then what is it, pray tell? If the girl ’as nothing she ought to be ashamed of?”
“She is of the Jewish persuasion. And from Hungary, I am told.”
That lifted Wilkie’s eyebrows. He thought for a moment, then said, “Well, I wouldn’t worry about ’er, then. Your Jew allus lands on ’is feet like a scratching cat. Piles of money, every one of them. Although they don’t let on when they line up at the charity ward.”
I thought of the threadbare Hebrew boys leaping onto the boats at Billingsgate, in the hope of selling a jersey or a scarf, and I recalled the barrow clothiers by the Dials, whose faces looked worried half to death by life. But I said nothing.
“Of course,” Wilkie continued, “everybody’s equal before the law. After all, this is England, ain’t it? But I wouldn’t trust a Jew from ’ere to that wall. Especially not a foreign one, for they’re the worst.”
“But you will go with me, then?”
“I will, indeed,” he told me. “I’d like to ’ave a look at the Jew-girl what ’as got ’er claws into a decent boy with prospects. Stinking dirty, the most of them, your Christ-killers.�
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Now you will say: “You should have called his language to account, for it was ungentlemanly, and some things will not suffer public utterance.” But I will tell you: The only hope for the Hebrew is America, which is his promised land, though even there he is not always welcome. Still, I think he may find a place among us, as Moses Feinberg did, with his honest flannels. Nor does it help to chide when grown men speak, for you will only make them hate more deeply. And as for killing Christ, that is all tosh. A man as lovely as Our Savior would have been nailed to the cross wherever he was found, in Jerusalem, in Delhi, or in London. Such mercy and forgiveness are intolerable. We take up hammer and nails to show our thanks. And why not blame those Romans for their part? They were a nasty sort, according to Mr. Gibbon. Their bad behavior did not end with Pilate, either, for they went after Peter and Paul and the lot of them later.
The inspector agreed to go with me, but first he had other business to which to attend. I waited, thinking the interval would be brief, but it stretched on for over an hour. Notes were written and despatched by runners, constables were called in to clarify reports of theft and trespass, and, once, Wilkie excused himself to deliver a stack of papers to a superior. Police work is like the army, see, a very massacre of paper enemies.
I sat as patiently as I could, although I wanted to rush across the city. To be fair, I thought, I could not ask too much—for I had parsed my story and told the honest fellow little enough. The role of Miss Perkins was underplayed, and the appearance of that red silk mask in the hotel hallway went unmentioned. If he made me wait, twas no more than I deserved.
Twas noon when we were quit of the Bow Street station, with its smells of wax and worry, and its deep, brown light. Waiting for the fly to pull around from the stables, we took our mid-day refreshment from a street stall, where generous portions lauded the police. The city grumbled along under a gray sky, and summer seemed gone forever, although it was hardly begun. The wind had changed and the smoke-pot manufactories down the river smudged the air and put a sting in the nostrils, reminding all of the might of British industry. Then off we rode, in a plain, half-open vehicle. Crossing the Thames by Waterloo Bridge, Wilkie pointed out the new Westminster span, all scaffolded, in the distance past the bend. In between, the river was brisk with chugging engines and snapping canvas and oars drawn by calloused hands.
Lambeth, where I had not been, did not appear auspicious, but was a grubby mix of want and warehouses. Mrs. Pomeroy’s address had been written brass-bold on the letters and we went to it straight, for the south side of the river was not trafficked so immensely, although we had interference enough from goods wagons and dray carts.
The street where Mrs. Pomeroy lodged was built all of brick and regular as a barracks. The houses might have pleased Mrs. Schutzengel’s Communists, for all were equal, though equally undistinguished. The street itself was cobbled, but not clean. The whole effect was of a cat’s paradise, where there would always be something unpleasant to hunt. A few geraniums cowered in window-boxes and the air drooped with the sulfury smell of iron wrought in a furnace.
We counted the numbers as we rolled along, but, just as we come up on Mrs. Pomeroy’s abode, I grabbed Wilkie by the sleeve and turned my face away from the row of houses.
“Keep driving!” I whispered. A hissing cat myself I was. “Tell the driver to go on, for God’s sake!”
Wilkie gave the fellow a tap and said, “Go on, Michaels. Go on.”
“As you like, Inspector,” the fellow said.
“Have him turn the corner,” I told Wilkie. “Out of sight.”
“What’s this, what’s this?” the inspector asked.
“Did you see the fellow coming out the door? Did you see him?”
“The proper gent with the face like pink roast beef?”
“Yes. Him.”
“And who would he be, now? What ’as got us in alarms and rushing around corners?”
“That was Mr. Pomeroy. The father.”
WELL, THERE WAS FOOD for thought, it seemed to me. When a father who is not to know of a daughter-in-law’s existence exits her lodgings at the start of the afternoon. And in my glimpse of him, he had not looked riled. You might have thought he had just enjoyed a meal.
I wondered what those letters had to say, and if it was at all what I expected.
And then, as we pulled up at the curb, a frightful thought coursed through me: What if we found Mrs. Sarah Pomeroy murdered? Killed by a father-in-law who would not tolerate her? Had the elder Pomeroy truly looked as calm as I had thought him?
“Well, you’re anxious as a trotter waiting to run,” Wilkie said. And he was right.
We stepped up to the door and I gave it a tap with my cane.
After a moment, footsteps padded within, followed by a woman’s voice deep in the alto. Dusk and damask and languor, that was the sound of her.
“Are you coming back already, my lover?” the foreign voice asked the door. “Are you coming back again, you are so naughty!”
By then, she had the bolt undone. The light of day shone in, and she said no more.
We stood there, waiting for time to put itself right. If the woman’s voice was dusk, her hair was midnight, and her green eyes promised depths forbidden the weak. Handsome she was, and vivid. Not least because she stood there in her unmentionables, chemise no more than half buttoned and her shoulders free of even a dressing gown.
“Betty Green!” Inspector Wilkie fair cried. “Why, Betty, I ain’t seen you in I don’t know ’ow long!”
She shut the door upon us.
Allowing her an interval to robe herself to a decency, I turned my perplexed face to the inspector.
“Call ’erself ’owever she likes,” he told me, “but that’s little Betty Green, what was the great beauty of Camden Town ten year ago. She wasn’t fifteen before we all ’ad our eyes on ’er. Although there weren’t nothing improper, I mean to say,” he added hastily. “At least, not from the gentlemen amongst us.”
“Perhaps she shares her lodging with Mrs. Pomeroy?” I said.
“Well, maybe she do, and maybe she don’t, but that’s our Betty Green, what went bad and found ’erself in a fix in Lisle Street, when a ’andsome young viscount took poison on account of ’er. Crawling around on the floor like a dog, ’e was, and barking, too. We ’ad to take ’im to the charity ’ospital, which was nearest to the establishment in which our Betty was positioned in her shame, and the doctors finished killing ’im soon as we got there. We ’ad to close Mrs. ’Opkins down for a month, which was an inconvenience to a great many ’igh gentle-men, although I don’t say the old girl didn’t deserve it. Betty come off with a promise to be good and a rash of new customers from the Inns of Court.” He nodded thoughtfully. “I allus thought there was money must of changed ’ands, for a viscount’s death would get most girls transported.”
“But is she Jewish?” I asked.
Wilkie guffawed. “Jewish? Betty Green? Ain’t that a larf? I used to see ’er from out the parlor window, as the old girl what got ’er the indecent way and then reformed all righteous went drudging Betty off to the Methodist chapel. Every Sunday that was, for morning prayers and evening preaching both.” He shook his head like a dog shaking off water. “Jewish? That’s a good one, our little Betty.” He looked at me. “She could of ’ad any man in Camden, but she aimed at ’igher things, that one.” Then he corrected himself. “Any man but meself, I mean, for I was ’appily set up with the late Mrs. Wilkie.”
I thought sufficient time had passed to try the door again. The truth is I was dazzled by my bafflement, and baffled to a dazzling. Nothing at all made sense in London town. But just as I was about to knock, a boy come whistling by in an old Dutch cap. He turned to enter the door of the house next by.
“You, lad,” I called. “Who lives in this house?” I gestured toward Mrs. Pomeroy’s door with my cane. I hoped to clarify matters somewhat, see. “Would you know, then?”
“Oh, that’s the Jew gi
rl,” the boy explained. “Me mum says I ain’t to speak with ’er, for she’s a bad one.”
“But do you? Speak to her?”
The boy glanced about himself. Seeing no one else, he said, “I said good morning to ’er once, but she told me to go pee off. The bloke what comes round to see ’er give me a penny, though. To fetch ’im a cab, though ’e mostly comes in a carriage.”
“The man who comes to see her, how old is he, do you think?”
“Old as the bleedin’ ’ills, guv’nor. ’E don’t look like ’e could make it from ’ere to the gin shop.”
And so the elder Mr. Pomeroy must look to a boy that age, although he seemed in his prime to developed eyes.
The lad glanced at Wilkie, then back to me, and asked, “Is that one there a peeler, sir? Is the Jew-girl come into trouble?”
“Never you mind,” the inspector told him. “Or I’ll tell your mother what you’re up to.”
“I ain’t up to nothing, Bobby Peeler,” the boy said almost ferociously. “And me mum would eat you up like ’er morning sausage.”
He stuck out his tongue, and went in.
I knocked upon Mrs. Pomeroy’s door again. With a certain firmness.
She opened, but only part-way. Covered up she was, but her flimsy gown was unsuited to greeting company. For a lady’s dress is as regulated as a battalion of grenadiers. The mistress of that house would have failed inspection.
“You are not gone away?” she asked in that husky, foreign voice. “Why do such people come to me?”
“Oh, go on, Betty,” the inspector said. “I’ve known you since you was short and stumpy as the major ’ere. You can’t play none of your confidence tricks on Wilkie.”