A Coldblooded Scoundrel

by JoAnne Soper-Cook

  Devlin permitted himself a short, cynical laugh. "I knew a woman once in Stepney Green - made herself a fortune catering to both -"

  Phoebe took his face between her palms, gazed at him. "Still not sleeping, I see." Before Devlin could make a suitable rejoinder, she said, "Elizabeth Hobbs."

  "Where did you hear that name?" He spoke as quickly as he could, for his bottom lip had begun to quiver as if he were taken with a fever. His memories felt like body blows. Be objective, he told himself, it was just another case. He struggled to fall back on his training, cut himself off from the sensations that threatened to overwhelm him. He reached into his pocket for his handkerchief, mopped his sweating forehead.

  "It was something Dad let drop one night, at the supper table."

  Devlin stared at her, incredulous. "He let it drop? At supper?" The only thing Devlin could imagine Old Brassie dropping at supper was his fork, and that tragedy alone would be enough to precipitate an international incident.

  "It's not the point, Inspector. I know all about Dennis Dalziel - I know that he was killed and set on fire in an alleyway. It's so hackneyed that it's practically a textbook case."

  Devlin was thinking about the way the fat on Dalziel's body had bubbled greasily through the cracks in the blackened skin. It wasn't for nothing, he thought, that cannibals referred to human meat as long pig. He wondered if he were going to be sick. "I don't know where you got that information, Miss Alcock, but might I remind you that you are discussing official police business -"

  "I know why you never married." Her gaze was clear, steady, and without compromise.

  In that instant Devlin saw the end of everything: his career, his life, everything in ruins, and him wearing out the floor in a cell at Reading Gaol. He'd be condemned as a sodomite, subject to the harshest of penalties, because he was a copper, and corrupt, in open defiance of the Act....Devlin turned a horrified gaze on Phoebe Alcock, a gaze full of fear and patent misery.

  "I have a proposition for you." She touched his arm, broke into a smile. "Oh, for God's sake, Inspector - don't look at me like that!"

  Blackmail, Devlin thought - she's going to blackmail me. What resources had he, on a policeman's salary?

  "I think this is something you will readily agree to, Inspector." She took his hands in hers and squeezed them gently. "If we can agree on terms, I think everything will work out to your benefit."

  Devlin escorted Phoebe Alcock down to the main door, where they said their goodbyes. His mind was churning with the import of what had just passed between them: mainly he wondered if she would make good on her promises to him.

  "Let's just keep it between us for now, Inspector." She smiled, stood on tiptoe and kissed him - passionately. It differed significantly from the kiss she had bestowed that night at the tea dance; Devlin felt the tip of her tongue teasing at his own, parting his lips. She released him after what felt like an eternity. "And here's Violet! Did you enjoy your tour, my dear?"

  In the subsequent babble of female conversation, and before he fled headlong back up to his office, Devlin caught a glimpse of Freddie Lewis.

  The constable looked as if Devlin had slapped him.

  Six

  Alone in the archives room, Freddie Lewis carefully reconsidered what he'd just seen pass between Phoebe Alcock and Devlin. Of course anyone would want to kiss Devlin, he reasoned, and even if Devlin was shockingly unaware of his own appeal, that made him no less attractive to others. What in God's name had Devlin been doing? The simplest explanation - that Devlin liked his bread buttered on either side or both - made absolutely no sense. Freddie knew there was no Mrs. Devlin - that there had never been a Mrs. Devlin, nor was there likely to be. He suspected, although he couldn't know for certain, that Devlin had at some time engaged in one or two brief affairs with men, of mild interest and short duration. He'd never seen Devlin with a woman - except Phoebe Alcock. And yet Devlin had spent much of his free time at the tea dance in the garden, drinking gin with Phoebe Alcock and doing God knew what. Maybe he'd wandered off with her and sampled the strings of her merkin. Maybe, Freddie reasoned, she'd sampled his - no, Devlin didn't own a merkin, nor had he ever worn one. Freddie knew this because he'd had the pleasure - here his face relaxed into a grin - of seeing the inspector mother-naked.

  Beyond the table where he was working, something dropped. Freddie froze in place, his senses turned toward the direction of the sound. "Bugger," he murmured. "Losing me bloody mind, I am."

  Then he heard it again: a discrete click, like roundshot being dispensed into a tin. The tiny hairs on the back of his neck rose, and he wondered if it would be cowardly for a constable of the Metropolitan Police to run screaming out the door. "Get a hold of yourself," he said. "Nobody in here but old Johnnie Melville."

  "Where's Constable Lewis?" Devlin stopped at the desk on his way out, pulling on his gloves with half his mind elsewhere.

  "I haven't seen him, guv." The sergeant applied himself studiously to the procedures manual lying open in front of him, affected an expression of great intelligence that sadly failed to convince even himself.

  "How long have you been on duty here?" What the hell was Phoebe Alcock thinking? Devlin had passed from shock and fear to a state of patent anger.

  "Half an hour, sir."

  Devlin nodded. "I have pressing business to attend to - if you see him, tell him I'll be back later on." Devlin buttoned up his overcoat against the October chill. "And by the way, Sergeant - "

  "Sir?"

  "Your bloody book is upside down!"

  John Donnelly kept an office of sorts, located in Kensington, but where exactly in Kensington, Devlin was not entirely sure, and so spent nearly an hour clopping about in a hansom cab with a not entirely helpful cabbie suggesting possible venues. Had Donnelly been a proper chemist, he would have perhaps taken the ground floor of a house and made it into a shop, but Donnelly wasn't now and never had been a proper chemist - just a bounder from an Essex family just recently out of the middle classes. Donnelly made great pretence about being forced out of school before he'd completed his training, but Devlin had done some checking and knew that Donnelly's downfall had been an overt and badly restrained hunger for cock in public places. He'd been caught fondling a fellow student on the Boat Train during summer holidays, in the years before the amendment to the Act, and so found himself on the wrong end of a public prosecution and summarily expelled without a word of warning. He'd managed to gather enough skills to set himself up as a sort of backroom chemist, but Devlin knew that Donnelly's sometimes lavish lifestyle and taste for gambling were largely funded by Reginald Harker.

  Devlin wasn't worried about being seen, altogether, but concerned instead whether this latest enquiry of his would divulge too much of the case in hand. Of course, Devlin mused, given Harker's uncanny methods of gathering information, it was a fair bet that he had already deduced as much as Devlin himself knew, if not more. It was a difficult one to call, he thought, and he was grateful that he wasn't a betting man.

  Donnelly's laboratory was housed in a respectable looking house with an unassuming brick front, and a brass plaque beside the door proclaiming that this was the office of Mr. John M. Donnelly, apothecary and chemist. The door opened on to a pleasant anteroom, comfortably furnished and boasting several large fern-like plants in pots. Devlin chose a chair nearest the window - the room was empty - and browsed through a months-old copy of The Strand that he'd found lying behind a flowerpot. After some moments a door opened, and Donnelly appeared, clad in a long white apron that was decorated with sundry bits of gore. "Inspector! What a surprise - please, do come in!"

  "I hope I'm not catching you at a bad time?" Devlin wasn't sure where the blood and guts had come from, and he wasn't about to ask - it was not altogether impossible that Donnelly had been engaged in some dissection work for Harker, for reasons better left to the imagination.

  "Not at all, not at all." Donnelly ushered Devlin into his consulting room, and went immediately to wash
his hands at the basin, taking great care to scrub his fingers and his nails. The filthy apron, however, he chose to retain. "Now then, my dear fellow - what can I do for you?"

  Devlin decided to dispense with preamble. "How long can a person be infected with syphilis before the, ah, final stages?"

  Donnelly regarded Devlin with narrowed eyes. "That depends," he replied. "You might want to get undressed."

  Was this a seduction ploy? Devlin wondered. "What for?" he asked, trying hard to keep a note of truculence out of his voice.

  "Well, I'd very much like to examine you - to see how far the infection has already progressed. Reggie and I make an interest out of these sorts of cases. Just slip out of your clothes and get under the blanket - "

  "Not me!" Devlin's head had begun to pound. "I ask merely out of professional interest."

  Donnelly seemed relieved. "Well, of course - and I mean, you couldn't have caught it just from that one night at the Peacock Club."

  "I see you've been talking to Harker."

  "We occupy the same rooms, Inspector." Donnelly smiled coyly. "Pillow talk, you know. Post-coitus, the powers of conversation are rather heightened - "

  "Alright, alright," Devlin conceded the point irritably. "But how long does it take?"

  Donnelly blinked at him. "Harker was rather a quick starter when we first met, but I've managed to bring him along - "

  Devlin swore savagely, a long stream of mostly gutter curses with invocations to the Deity sprinkled liberally throughout. The pounding in his head had settled itself firmly behind his eyeballs.

  "After the secondary symptoms -" Donnelly at last recognised his task and launched into it with real enthusiasm, " - that is, after the, er, genital nodule disappears - well, the disease sometimes goes into a long latency period, without any ill effects."

  Devlin sagged visibly. "Damn," he whispered.

  Donnelly appeared not to have heard him. "Latency, in some cases, can last a lifetime - unless, of course, other organs are involved. Of course the worst is neurosyphilis, when the brain is involved. There are documented case histories of patients in lunatic asylums - "

  "Lunacy?" Devlin looked as if he hadn't heard properly. "So it can cause lunacy."

  "Yes - in the tertiary stages, of course - "

  "Thank you, Mr. Donnelly." Devlin curtailed another lengthy discourse with this sharp rejoinder. "That will do nicely. Very helpful." He cast a parting glance at Donnelly's soiled apron. "When you see Mr. Harker, would you ask him to call on me, at the Yard? There are some aspects of the case I am very eager to discuss with him." Probably not those features which Harker expected, but nevertheless...

  "I haven't seen him very much lately - he does pursue an after-hours existence these days. Of course he's always had an artistic bent. His grandmother was a Hungarian lacemaker, you know. Artistry is part of his essential nature, especially when you consider such a storied background."

  Doubtless Harker was even then settled comfortably in a cafe somewhere, discussing such weighty philosophical tropes as Truth, Beauty, and Life with an audience of enraptured young catamites at his feet. Devlin turned to go.

  "One more thing, Inspector - "

  "Yes?"

  "I understand that Harker has been pursuing a line of enquiry at the Peacock Club - did you chance to speak to him when you were there, the other night?"

  Devlin considered his reply for about as long as it took him to blink. "Not really, Chemist. Mr. Harker and I share certain commonalties of thought in some areas, but to his core philosophies I'm afraid I can only give...lip service."

  Seven

  Harker was, predictably, in the bathtub when Devlin arrived, but this did not deter the solicitor from receiving him - indeed, Harker directed Devlin to take a seat upon the closed lid of the commode, the better to converse with him. Devlin wondered if it were not some misaligned attempt at seduction, considering the kiss that Harker had bestowed on him just the other night - the fact that Harker was necessarily naked was also a factor. Devlin did his utmost to focus his gaze elsewhere, but time and again his eyes were drawn to the solicitor's smooth, wet skin.

  "I've come on business, Mr. Harker - official police matters, you might say." Devlin wriggled a little on the lid; the hard wooden circle was pressing into his buttocks and causing him discomfort. Add to that the fact of Harker's nakedness, so near, so tantalising...for a moment Devlin allowed himself to indulge in fantasy, and wondered whether it might be an error of judgement. He could think of no two men who were as unsuited to each other as himself and Harker - their differences of opinion as to procedure and method were the least of the stumbling blocks that each had placed in the other's path over the years of their long association. Devlin sighed. "Dennis Dalziel is dead." He felt it better to get it out in the open and not linger over it. A clean cut, and make it quick.

  Harker's eyes widened for a moment. "Ah," he murmured, "that is unfortunate, Devlin."

  "I only mention it, Mr. Harker, because it occurred to me that you and Mr. Dalziel had been keeping company of late."

  Harker paused to dump a jug of water over his head, sputtered and gasped for some moments, and took the towel that Devlin passed him. "Oh no, Devlin, there your intuition has lead you wrong. I was not keeping company with Dalziel for any other purpose than my current line of inquiry."

  "Then what were you doing in the Peacock Club?"

  "Following my current line of inquiry!" Harker stood up abruptly, in a shower of droplets, and reached out a long arm for his bath sheet. Devlin tactfully looked away, occupied himself with examining the cracks in the ceiling. "Come along, Devlin!" Harker hovered impatiently in the doorway. "And let that water out, would you?"

  Devlin accepted the cup of hot lemon and whisky that Harker passed to him, and sank into a chair beside the fire. His entire body ached, and, as usual, he hadn't been getting more than three hours of sleep at night. He wondered if he would ever sleep again. "What line of inquiry?" The hot drink warmed him through, and he felt a dangerous lassitude creeping upon him, relaxing all his limbs.

  "You were at school with John Whittaker." Harker offered Devlin a cigar, lit it for him with a glowing splint from the fire.

  "How d'you know that?"

  Harker's features arranged themselves into an appropriately condescending expression. "Devlin."

  "Yes, I was. That is to say, I knew him." Devlin waited to be struck by lightning, but some moments passed and his skin remained unsizzled.

  "Your parents did without a very great deal in order to afford your tuition. They wanted to send you to a good school, give you the education they felt you deserved."

  Devlin nodded. "Dad never made it past the ranks of your ordinary copper - a Bluebottle till the day he died."

  Harker smiled faintly. "Then you have surpassed your family's expectations, Devlin!" He drew on his cigar. "How well did you know John Whittaker?"

  Panic descended, smothering and absolute. "What do you mean?" He fancied that Harker could see right through his skin and deep into his bones, into the core and marrow of him. He could not confide in Harker; the truth was far too shattering for him to tell anyone-

  "We have all, in our time, made errors in judgement, Devlin." Harker's hand reached out, closed around his wrist gently. "I would never condemn you for that."

  Devlin forced himself to take a few deep breaths, attempted to calm his insides. "I first started at that particular school when I was fourteen. Of course, I was the new boy, and not especially liked by the others." Devlin offered Harker an embarrassed grin. "You can imagine. Well, John Whittaker was tall for his age, and big about the chest and arms. He kept an eye on me - "

  "He appointed himself your ad hoc protector?"

  Devlin blinked. "Er...yes, something like that, Mr. Harker." Ad hoc? "And he taught me how to fight back. I'd have never made it through if he hadn't come along."

  Harker smiled thinly. "Ah yes, Devlin, I expect you would have. We all have our resources, you know.
" He roused himself, paced a few steps back and forth in front of the fire, and went to look out the window. "You know that John Whittaker is married."

  Devlin's eyes were in danger of quitting his skull. "Married?"

  "Oh yes." Harker puffed on his cigar. "Although the wife is quite mad, quite mad." He peered at Devlin. "You were in the Peacock Club."

  "So?"

  Harker let the window blind drop back into place. "Many aspects of this case are clear to me, Devlin - except one."

  Devlin asked the obvious question.

  "Why, Phoebe Alcock, of course." Harker sat down, cast a glance across at Devlin. "I am not at all certain how she figures in this equation."

  "She's the Chief Commissioner's daughter." What the hell was Harker driving at?