by M. J. Trow
‘Inspector Tanner.’
‘That’s the chap. Well, he didn’t seem to be there and … well, I wondered … after your little bit of trouble, you probably met him, that kind of thing. So, I thought that you might like to pursue the story, so to speak.’
Batchelor’s expression hadn’t changed, and Buckley rushed on with his explanation. ‘For money, of course.’
‘Up front,’ Batchelor said. Best not to have any complications later.
‘Oh? Oh. Well, yes, of course. I thought three pounds.’
‘Five.’
‘Five?’
‘It’s the going rate. For freelance work.’
‘Is it? Freelance work seems exceedingly well paid if you don’t mind my saying so. Well, five pounds it is.’ He searched in his pocket. ‘Do you mind coins?’
‘Not at all.’ Batchelor wouldn’t have minded farthings at this juncture. ‘So, you want me to go and interview Tanner. Do you want me to write the article for you or just make notes?’
‘Oh, write it up.’ Buckley suddenly remembered their differing styles. ‘Leave it a bit short, so I can put in some long words.’
‘I certainly will,’ Batchelor said with a smile. ‘It wouldn’t be a Buckley piece without some nice long words, now, would it?’
Buckley smiled back, unsure whether mock was being made or not. He got up and dusted his jacket down with his pocket handkerchief. ‘Nice place you have here,’ he said, politely.
‘I like it,’ Batchelor said, seeing him to the door.
‘I don’t need to tell you,’ Buckley said, out of the corner of his mouth, ‘that this is strictly confidential.’
‘Naturally. I will send the copy round with a lad later today.’
‘I look forward to it.’ Buckley took the stairs circumspectly, skirting Mrs Biggs looming at the bottom. ‘I’m sure I will be seeing you around, Batchelor. Goodbye.’ And with a slam of the door, he was gone.
George Sala was right – Matthew Grand had never seen a city like London. And he had never seen so many people in one place before, except perhaps on a battlefield. But battlefields were different, surreal, other-worldly places where skylarks still sang over the thunder of the guns. Here, the crescendo of noise came from the rattle and clatter of the drays, the coal wagons, the haywains; from the roar and whistle of the locomotives on their viaducts and the laughter and chatter of the crowds, punctuated by the cries and squawks of the street vendors.
There were no muddy streets here, no roads called by numbers or letters; just an interminable rabbit warren that went on and on. Flower sellers pressed their lucky heather on Matthew Grand. Grubby men offered to polish his boots. Ragged urchins cadged his coppers. He was everybody’s friend in this city of strangers—
‘’Ello, mate!’
‘Buy a flower, darlin’!’
—and he didn’t even want to think what delicacies they were offering him. The roasting chestnuts looked just about edible, but eels and mash he would leave alone.
A growler took him to the foot of Ludgate Hill, and he saw the great dome of St Paul’s rise ahead like a sunlit good deed in the naughty dark world below it.
The cabbie leaned down to tell him, ‘It’s solid up ahead, guv’nor. Best walk from here. Straight on. About half a mile.’
It was solid indeed. A cab horse had died in its traces, blocking the road, and the traffic had come to a standstill. Cabbies snarled and bellowed at each other, horses whinnied and shied. If Grand heard it once, he heard it a dozen times – ‘Why ain’t there a copper about when you need one?’
The corpses of cattle and pigs hung from the pigeon-haunted rafters of Leadenhall Market, and live chickens clucked and fretted in their baskets until a cook or serving maid selected one and it was silenced and stilled by the poulterer’s cleaver. Blood trickled in the runs built into the sloping floor and ended in the gutter. Children played there, dabbling their fingers in it and darkening their faces like the drunk and defeated Seminole Indians Grand remembered in the county fairs of his childhood. They took no notice of the tall American in the wideawake striding through the offal on his way to destiny. Somewhere in these streets, Grand hoped … Grand knew, a conspirator was lurking; the man he had come three thousand miles to find.
‘The manifest?’ Inman and Company’s clerk was a weaselly little man, his skin a parchment yellow like the pages of his ledgers. ‘I’m sorry, sir, but I’m not at liberty to give out information of that nature.’
The note was in Grand’s fist before the clerk had finished his sentence.
‘On the other hand—’ Inman’s man took the money and hauled open the ledger in one almost seamless movement – ‘what did you say your friend’s name was?’
‘I didn’t,’ Grand said, a second note in his hand.
The clerk smiled, took the captain’s offering and spun the ledger to him. There they were, the thirty-eight passengers who had sailed from New York on the SS Orient. Twelve of them were women and Grand could discount them. The men were a different matter, and even a man and his wife travelling together would not automatically rule out the husband as a friend of John Wilkes Booth.
Matthew Grand nearly dropped the ledger when he saw it. The list was not alphabetical but clearly written up in order of boarding. And there, twenty-first in the list, was Charles Dundreary. The character that Edward Sothern had been playing in Our American Cousin on the night they killed Lincoln. That could not be a coincidence, surely.
‘This man.’ Grand tapped the name with his finger. ‘What can you tell me about him?’
‘Nothing, sir.’ The clerk frowned. ‘We do not ask to see our passengers’ credentials.’
‘You must have an address, surely?’
The clerk sighed and waited. Grand recognized the hiatus and produced his third note. This was becoming expensive. A second ledger appeared, smaller than the first, and the clerk riffled through its pages. ‘Ah, here we are,’ he said, squinting at his own writing. ‘Charles Dundreary. The Alhambra. Oh, that’s odd.’
‘Why?’ Grand asked. ‘Where’s the Alhambra?’
‘Well, it’s on the east side of Leicester Square, sir, but it’s not where it is; it’s what it is. The Alhambra is a Music Hall. Leotard the Magnificent, the trapeze artiste, tops the bill. The Great Maskelyne after that. And then—’ the clerk closed to Grand and dropped his voice – ‘dances forbidden in Paris.’
‘I see,’ Grand said.
The clerk snapped shut both ledgers. ‘No, no one lives at the Alhambra, sir. I fear your … friend … has chosen to deceive. And it’s not a place for young gentlemen like yourself, either. It’s quite disgusting what goes on there.’
‘I’m sure.’ Grand nodded. ‘And thank you.’
‘I don’t know what the world’s coming to,’ the clerk muttered as the captain strode to the door. ‘What with filthy dancing and murders …’
‘Murders?’ Grand paused with his hand on the brassware.
‘Why, yes, sir. On the SS Orient. I assumed you knew. I thought that was why …’ His voice trailed away.
Grand was back in front of him in a second, looking the man grimly in the face. ‘You’d better tell me all about it,’ he said.
‘Oh, I couldn’t do that, sir,’ the clerk assured him. ‘I’m not at liberty to—’
But he never finished his sentence, because Matthew Grand had hauled him halfway across his counter, paper and inkwells going everywhere. ‘I’ve paid Messrs Inman and Company more than enough, one way or another, over the last few days,’ Grand said, twisting the man’s lapels so that his eyes bulged. ‘Now why don’t you do your bit for Anglo-American relations and tell me exactly what you know?’ He relaxed a little and flicked the errant lock of hair on the clerk’s forehead back into place. ‘There’s a good chap.’ All in all, his English accent wasn’t too bad.
He let the clerk go so that his throat could work properly. The man licked his lips, and his eyes swivelled left and right. There was no one within sho
uting distance. Only old Mr McAvoy in the inner office, and he would never hear a cry for help anyway. All the clerk could do was to come clean with what he knew.
‘It was three days out from Ireland, sir,’ he whispered, as though the ledgers themselves had ears. ‘A Mr Winthrop was found dead in his cabin.’
‘Not of natural causes, I assume?’
‘No, indeed, sir.’ The clerk closed to Grand, carried away with his own narrative. ‘There was a large wound in his chest which had pierced a lung and a valve of the heart – or so the ship’s doctor said. He was not wholly sure – this was the first such incident he had ever known on board a ship – but he thought the weapon was a Bowie knife.’
‘Was it found?’
‘Apparently not, sir. All the passengers were questioned, of course, by the captain and his first officer, but to no avail.’
‘Who would handle this case,’ Grand asked, ‘when the Orient got to Liverpool?’
‘Well, normally the Liverpool police, sir. But in view of the fact that the late Mr Winthrop was a Londoner and that the detective branch at Scotland Yard have a reputation for these things, I understand it is being handled by them.’
‘Scotland Yard?’ Grand had never heard of it.
‘The Metropolitan Police Headquarters, sir.’ The clerk could not keep the patronizing tone out of his voice. ‘It’s in Whitehall Place, sir. You can’t miss it.’
By the time the clerk had finished his story – told with a little too much glee for Grand’s liking – the American was uneasy. He had thought that he was trailing a conspirator, a man who had sought, however wrongly, to assassinate a man for higher political reasons than sheer bloodlust. Now, he wasn’t so sure. The thought of two murderers – or would-be murderers – being on one ship with a passenger manifest of less than forty seemed unlikely in the extreme. And yet … He became aware that the clerk was speaking to someone else, behind him at the desk.
‘Can I help you, sir?’ he was saying, in simpering tones. ‘I believe this gentleman is just leaving.’
‘Yes,’ a pleasant voice said, from over Grand’s shoulder. ‘I am Inspector Tanner, of Scotland Yard. I wonder if I might have a word with you. I am investigating the murder of William Winthrop on the SS Orient, and I believe you are the man I need to speak to.’
The clerk flicked Grand a warning glance and slid the ledger along the desk, motioning Tanner to step that way. Grand took the hint and left, pausing in the doorway to try and catch a glimpse of London’s finest. But Tanner had his head down in the ledger already, and so Grand just got an impression of a pair of shoulders, a trim back and some highly polished heels. He opened the door, stepped out on to Leadenhall Street and realized he had London at his feet and its nearly three million people to hunt through to find his man. The thought that the streets within five minutes’ walk of where he stood held the same number of people as the whole of his home city made his head spin, but he was young, rich and handsome; what could possibly go wrong?
James Batchelor’s head was fizzing with the thrill of the chase. He had dithered on the doorstep of his lodgings, undecided as to whether the scene of the crime or Inspector Tanner would provide him with the most information, and had finally decided on Tanner. He could build on what he learned at Vine Street when he went to the Haymarket later. He had a lot of words to write before the presses started rolling, and anything that could save time would be of the greatest help. With his head down and his thoughts elsewhere, he would have overshot the police station had he not cannoned into someone walking the other way.
‘I beg your pardon.’ Batchelor and Inspector Tanner spoke in unison and raised their hats as if they were a Music Hall turn.
Tanner stepped back. ‘Mr Batchelor,’ he said with a smile. ‘Just the man I was hoping to bump into. I’ve been doing some work on this latest murder atrocity, and I thought you might like to have some details for one of your articles.’
‘That’s exactly why I’m here,’ Batchelor said.
‘Really?’ Tanner was impressed. ‘Fleet Street works quicker than I realized. I haven’t really worked out the details yet, but you are very welcome to listen as I think aloud.’
Batchelor was delighted. This was journalistic gold. It was well known that Commissioner Mayne disapproved of the gentlemen of the Press, just as he disapproved of little boys throwing snowballs in the parks, but he was wise enough to let his detective inspectors use their discretion. And nobody, surely, could be more discreet than Dick Tanner. Batchelor opened the door for the inspector and waved him through, blushing as he realized that he was inviting the man to enter his own place of work.
Tanner, always the gentleman, gave him his smile and walked in and made for the stairs. ‘I worry that the weapon was never found,’ he said, half to himself and half over his shoulder to Batchelor, following him up the stairs.
‘Was it found in the last incident?’ Batchelor asked. This was news to him.
Tanner cast his mind back. The last incident had been some years before but … yes, now he came to think of it, the weapon had not been found on that occasion either. The Yard man was impressed with the Fleet Street man’s thoroughness. ‘No, you’re quite right, Mr Batchelor,’ he said. ‘It was not. But, of course, the wound was very different.’
‘Not the throat?’ Batchelor had hauled a pad out of his pocket and was hastily making notes. He had tried to come to terms with Isaac Pitman’s squiggles but had always been totally unable to read it back. Instead, he relied on a few pithy remarks which hopefully would mean something to him in an hour or so.
‘Indeed not,’ Tanner assured him. ‘One thrust to the chest, deflating the lung and collapsing the left ventricle of the heart. We are looking for a tall man—’ he turned and gestured at Batchelor, a knife striking at his chest – ‘from the angle of the wound, and also a right-handed man. We have looked at the available suspects and have managed to come up with about two dozen. Alas, Mr Batchelor, many of those are halfway to Western Australia by now. We are tracking the others down as we speak.’
‘You have suspects? And why Western Australia? Are they already convicted felons then?’
‘No, just able seamen doing their jobs, as I understand it.’
‘What were they doing in the Haymarket last night?’
Tanner had reached the landing and, turning, looked down at Batchelor, poised on the stair. ‘Haymarket? Last night? I’m talking about the stabbing on the Orient six days ago.’
‘I’m talking about the Haymarket last night.’
‘So I understand. I believe that crime will be on my desk for me to look at later today, but for now it is the Orient that commands my attention, Mr Batchelor.’
Batchelor wilted where he stood. ‘I need a story by this afternoon,’ he said into his hat, which he clasped on his chest with both hands. It was a posture which had served him well over the years. ‘I … I just must have the story, Inspector Tanner.’
Tanner was not an unreasonable man, and he had decided to keep an eye on this up and coming young man. A journalist in the pocket was worth three on the street any day. He blew down his nose and set his mouth for a moment, then turned for his office. ‘Come along, then, Mr Batchelor,’ he said. ‘Let’s see what my desk has to tell us about the latest Haymarket atrocity.’
Suddenly not dejected any more, Batchelor took the last stairs two at a time and followed Tanner with a hop and a skip, closing the door firmly behind him.
Dick Tanner may have had a soft spot for Batchelor, but he had work to do. As soon as he had given him the very barest of bones – essentially, all he had – on the latest Haymarket killing, he was back on the street and hotfooting it to the undertakers’ premises where the mortal remains of one William Winthrop awaited him. Tanner was not really a blood and guts man. He was never keen on even fresh bodies, but William Winthrop was now almost a week dead and not getting any fresher. The undertakers were getting testy, and he had finally had notice from above that if he didn’t g
o and view the victim in the next few hours, heads would roll. And ‘above’ meant Chief Inspector ‘Dolly’ Williamson. The head rolling would be real. Tanner squared his shoulders and decided that it couldn’t really be that bad.
It was bad. Bad didn’t begin to describe the smell in the shed of Messrs Warren and Warren, Undertakers to the Gentry, at the bottom of their yard. This was where they put all the corpses described by the elder Mr Warren as ‘unfortunate’ – in other words, those too pungent to be any nearer their actual place of business. Tanner, happily, didn’t have to stay long. The cause of death, a clean cut where a knife had been slid in between the top two ribs, almost in the centre of the chest, was obvious, and so was one other thing: the face was all too familiar. Blinking and coughing from the smell, Tanner retreated gratefully back to the fresh air of the yard, heavy with the clean scent of pine wood-shavings.
‘Has the family come forward?’ he asked Warren, who stood beside him in his habitual pose of abject attention, his hands placed just so against his watch chain.
‘We have been unable to locate any next of kin.’ Warren’s voice was sonorous and deep, as though it came from the bottom of a well. Or a crypt, Tanner couldn’t help thinking.
The undertaker looked at Tanner, wondering if he always looked that colour. He delved into his pocket and brought out a small tin, which he proffered.
‘No, thank you kindly,’ Tanner said, raising a hand. ‘I don’t take snuff.’
‘Oh, this isn’t snuff,’ the undertaker said. ‘It is a concoction of my own devising; a mix of thymol in a new product from America called petroleum jelly. You just pop a little under the nose, like so—’ he dabbed a small glob of the stuff on his moustache – ‘and it kills the smell, at least to a degree. I also find it makes the moustache glossy, but that is a side effect. Try some.’
Tanner dabbed his finger into the goo in the small tin and gingerly applied it to his nostrils. He inhaled and smiled. The man was right – the smell had almost gone, though he knew it would revisit him in his dreams. He got back to the point. ‘So, no next of kin. Do you mind me asking where you have been looking?’