A Coldblooded Scoundrel

by JoAnne Soper-Cook

  "She came to see you at the Yard the other day. I know this because I happened to be there, talking with one of your colleagues about a case I currently have in hand."

  "You...went to someone else?" In spite of himself, Devlin was hurt. "Why couldn't you come to me, for God's sake?"

  Harker laughed. "Good God, Devlin, anyone would think you were jealous!" He leaned forward, hands on his knees. "Believe me, my dear fellow, I did not allow him the same considerations as I gave you that night at the Peacock Club!" Harker examined Devlin carefully. "I can deduce by your expression that my surmises are correct - and so you are jealous."

  "I've never heard such rubbish in my life!"

  "I wonder, Devlin, why you have never bothered to arrest me - considering that you are privy to the most sensitive of secrets."

  Devlin stammered something about the privilege of long association, confessed to turning a blind eye, consideration for one's friends, surely Mr. Harker understood. "And anyway," he conceded, "if I had to arrest people for open defiance of the Act, half of bloody London would be rotting below stairs in Reading Gaol!"

  He clutched his overcoat around him and tore off out the door, his insides seething with unspent rage. He heard a rattle on the stairs above him, and then Harker's voice, weighty with sarcasm.

  "Mind how you go, Inspector!"

  Devlin found his mind returning again and again to John Whittaker's supposed wife. Harker had not been forthcoming with his information, but that in itself was not surprising. Devlin had engaged in the exhausting task of badgering Harker for as long as he'd known him. Perhaps it wasn't just that, though - perhaps Harker was as much in the dark as Devlin himself, and feared to reveal his ignorance. It wouldn't be the first time that Harker had deliberately "forgotten" about him, out of sheer bloody-mindedness - here Devlin considered arresting Harker for obstruction - and it certainly wouldn't be the last. He considered going back to Fowler Street, but it was getting late, and he was cold and very hungry. If he went back to the Yard, there would likely be an inevitable interview with Old Brassie, who'd want to know why Devlin had made so little progress - this was an eventuality that Devlin wanted to delay for as long as possible. He would effectively inform Sir Neville when the time was right, when he'd gathered all the pertinent threads into his hand and had something to show for his efforts.

  He stood for some long moments on Crutchley Road, and considered what his next move might be. It was getting on for dark, and the wind had freshened with an uncommon hostility, piercing Devlin's worn coat in several places. He shivered and tried to burrow further into his collar. He had no desire to go back to his empty rooms in the Brougham Road, but neither did he want to wander about the streets of London like a Romany discard. In the end, he settled on a meal, and found himself sitting in a restaurant near Covent Garden.

  Most of the menu items would leave a considerable hole in his finances; when the waiter came and enquired as to his needs (with a wholly unnecessary haughtiness) Devlin ordered Welsh rabbit and a glass of beer. While he waited for his meal, his gaze strayed across the adjacent tables, which were mostly occupied by couples, or the odd well-bred family with their equally well-bred and well-behaved children. Devlin had always harboured a secret soft spot for the little ones, even though he had long ago accepted that he would have no issue of his own. Nearest his own table was a sumptuously appointed banquette, occupied by two men about his own age, obviously friends, and obviously engaged in comfortable and intimate conversation. As Devlin watched, the taller of the two reached out and covered the other man's hand with his own in a fleeting caress, whispered something that Devlin could not hear. The patent evidence of warmth and compassion was almost more than he could bear, and he was forced to turn his eyes away, pretend to study the pattern of the tablecloth.

  Where was Freddie Lewis tonight? Devlin found his thoughts drifting to the young constable. For all their five years as working partners, Devlin often felt that he knew very little about Lewis, about his habits and the company he kept. He wondered if this reflected badly on him as a superior, this lack of interest in the well-being of his subordinates - no, that was far too pat a realisation. Freddie's life was his own, and what he did after hours was his own business.

  Devlin was halfway through coffee and a Chelsea bun before he noticed the Bluebottle standing near the entrance. Instinctively he flagged the man, beckoned him over. "What is it, Constable...?"

  "Higgins, sir. You'd best come with me right away, Inspector."

  It was yet another murder, Devlin thought - had to be, on the face of it. Nothing else would turn his guts to water like the intuition that Whittaker had struck again. He'd had a fleeting idea that he might begin his search for Whittaker's insane wife, perhaps initiate a search of various lunatic asylums and workhouses, but it would have to wait. Perhaps he might put Freddie Lewis on this one - that sort of involvement would make Freddie feel better, even if it was merely a sop to Devlin's own shrieking conscience. He had some making up to do, he realised, and he had been rather too cavalier of late with Freddie's regard and his affection. He would give this case to Freddie, put him in charge of it, build up his confidence a bit.

  He tossed some coins upon the table and, shrugging into his overcoat, followed the constable out into the night.

  Eight

  Freddie Lewis had decided to walk home, even though the wind was cold enough to cut the bollix out from under a brass monkey. He wanted the cold air, and even relished it, because it helped to clear his head and give his thoughts a more rational framework. He'd left Devlin's office tidier than it had been in a long time, and filed all the bits of stray paperwork that Devlin was wont to overlook. He'd even washed Devlin's teacup and cleaned the sticky rings from the top of the inspector's desk, and he'd considered whether he ought to take Devlin's other coat out for cleaning, but decided that might be going a bit too far.

  He was nearly at the entrance to his street when he heard the cries, and turned instinctively to see what was the matter: an old man with severely bandy legs and the habitual demeanour of a beggar was being hounded by three other men, all of them young and obviously fit. "Oi!" Freddie started off towards them. "What's this, then?" They predictably scattered and ran, escaping down a narrow lane between two buildings, and it occurred to Freddie that something might be amiss when he realised that the crippled man was running with them.

  He stopped, began to back away, and turned to make good his escape, but his way was barred by the crippled man, who had seemingly regained his health and was holding what looked to be a length of piping. Freddie reached to make the collar, but his wrists were grabbed and cinched behind him, tied with rope. The premonition of it rose like smoke behind his eyes, and he fought to stay upright on his feet, but they were too many and he was only one.

  They swarmed to cover him, striking out with feet and fists, until he went down under a flurry of blows. He rolled from side to side, seeking escape from the endless assaults, but could make no headway. He tasted blood inside his mouth, and a wave of dizziness threatened him, then crested and washed over him, as everything went black.

  "What do you make of it, sir?"

  Devlin realised that if he'd got a fiver for every time someone had said that to him in recent days, he'd be set up for a holiday on the Continent. Devlin had never had a holiday, unless one counted the time he had accompanied his mother to the home of an aged aunt in Manchester, some years before, and Devlin was loath to count it, seeing as how he'd spent the entire time having his cheeks pinched and enduring remarks about the state of his bowels.

  "He's not burned it this time." Devlin mused on this for a moment, bending low over the corpse. "Probably didn't want to start a conflagration." This last was significant in terms of location, for Whittaker had taken his latest victim on the doorstep of Scotland Yard - a brazen assault, to say the least, and one calculated to cause embarrassment. What intrigued Devlin, however, was the physiognomy of the victim: from a distance, he might pa
ss for Freddie Lewis. "How long has he - it - been here?"

  The constable consulted his notebook. "I came on duty around about half- seven, sir. It weren't here then. Me and Duffett - " The constable gestured at another of his ilk, standing off to the side and vomiting quietly onto his boots " - were walking the beat tonight, and we come out about eight and he was there."

  Devlin asked the obvious question. "Where was Constable Lewis?"

  "Sergeant Hubble said he left about half-six, sir. Said he was going home to get some supper."

  Devlin turned this over in his mind, decided at last to leave Freddie out of it, at least for the moment. "Alright," he said, "Get it covered and get it to the morgue before you start a bloody riot." Already the curious had begun to gather round the steps, peering at the dead man with rather too much vicarious pleasure for Devlin's taste. "And get these people out of here!"

  He heard the constables' cries of "Move along, there - move along, now!" only dimly, as he slumped against the railing and wondered what in hell he was supposed to do about it now. He could already vividly imagine what the papers would have to say about it - a murder directly on the doorstep of the Yard, and nothing done, no leads followed, no suspects arrested.

  Devlin found Sir Neville Alcock still in his office, bent studiously over a file folder, his great girth supported against the edge of the desk. For some long moments, the Chief appeared not to see him, and so Devlin cleared his throat, rather more noisily than was necessary.

  "You've been stood there for five minutes - you can manage to stand there for a few seconds more." Alcock didn't even raise his eyes from the folder, and Devlin took this as a very bad sign indeed. By the end of the interview, he supposed, he would most likely be directing omnibus traffic in the Piccadilly Circus.

  "I expect you've seen it," Devlin began, once he had gained the older man's attention.

  "Of course I've seen it," Alcock grunted. "I'd have to be blind not to have seen it!" He heaved his bulk up out of the chair and began a slow circuit around the office, his steps as ponderous as any circus elephant, and just as capable of devastation. He stopped before Devlin, and gazed for some moments into the inspector's tiepin. "But it's not your fault."

  Too bloody generous, Devlin thought sourly, considering I was nowhere near.

  "He means to send a message to us, this Whittaker. Means to take us down a notch, draw the ire of the public and the press, make fools of us." Alcock moved away, went to look out the window. "How long since you've been home, Devlin?"

  Devlin's mouth opened and closed on nothing.

  "How long since you've had a good night's sleep? Eh? Don't think I haven't noticed. Good night's sleep just the thing for you. Young chaps of your sort haven't got the stamina that we used to have. You need to get a good meal in you - "

  This was something, Devlin thought, coming from a man who looked as if he routinely devoured a hog at each dinnertime.

  " - a good meal, sir, and then a bloody good rogering!"

  Devlin would have sagged, except such response would mean falling through the opened door. For a horrified few moments, he imagined that Sir Neville himself thought to provide if not the former, then at least the latter, and the images conjured by this speculation made Devlin slightly queasy.

  "Go home, Devlin." Alcock turned his back, effectively dismissing him. "Get some sleep and come back here with some concrete ideas on how to catch this fellow Whittaker." He turned and bellowed at Devlin, in a voice loud enough to carry all the way to Essex, "And find yourself a woman!"

  It wasn't that Devlin found himself a woman so much as a woman found him. He was awakened out of sleep by Mrs. Taylor, bending over him and rolling him to and fro, hissing in his ear that a gentleman was here to see him, and hadn't he get up and receive his visitor?

  "For God's sake!" Devlin rolled over and opened one eye. "Who is it, at this time of night?"

  "Don't take that tone with me!" Mrs. Taylor, ever resourceful, and quite used by now to dealing with the inspector's vicissitudes, wrung one of his ears until he yelped. "A young man, very handsome. You'd best see him."

  "Go away," Devlin moaned. But he got up anyway, and shrugged into his dressing gown, the better to receive John Donnelly.

  The chemist made no preamble: "Freddie Lewis is very badly hurt. I came here as soon as I found out." He reached out to steady Devlin, hold him upright. "You're shivering - here." Donnelly fetched a blanket from the sofa and wrapped it around Devlin, who felt as if he'd been drenched in icy water.

  "What happened?" Devlin asked, and then, "What time is it?"

  "Just past midnight. As far as we can tell, he was attacked on his way home, lured into a laneway."

  "How did you find out?" He'd have been all alone, Devlin thought, and likely preoccupied with other matters, as Freddie often was. They might have done anything to him, and what could he have done to defend himself?

  "Harker is also working toward a resolution of this case." Donnelly sloshed some brandy into a glass and handed it across to the inspector. "He asked that I relay the information to you."

  "I should have known Harker would be involved!" Devlin gulped the brandy hastily, his mind already running ahead. "Where is Freddie? Is he in the hospital?"

  "He's recuperating at a safe location - Harker thought it unwise to allow him to linger in a public hospital- "

  "Harker! What right has Harker to decide - " Devlin tossed the blanket off his shoulders, went through to the bedroom and began dressing as hastily as his shivering would allow. "Fowler Street," he said, "Take me there."

  Donnelly caught the inspector by the forearms, stilled his headlong flight. "He's not at Fowler Street."

  "Then where the bloody hell have you - "

  "Get into your coat and come with me." Donnelly gathered up Devlin's hat and gloves. "There's a cab at the door."

  He had never felt so bad in his life - not even after his failed bid for entry into the Hell Fire Club. He was lying - insofar as he could tell - in a nice bed, very comfortable, but he felt as though someone had tried to turn him inside out. Thank God for Chemist Donnelly, who at least had offered something for the pain - something Freddie suspected was laudanum, but which at least eased the savage grip of his injuries. The only down side was that it tended to make him astonishingly sleepy, and to produce bizarre and varied dreams, not unlike the visions of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, with whose work Freddie had a nodding acquaintance.

  In his more lucid moments, he worried about Devlin, and whether Whittaker was even now stalking the inspector with an eye to murdering him, now that Freddie had been taken out of the way. Perhaps it had been Whittaker in the archives room that morning, and perhaps he had deliberately infiltrated the offices of the Yard to weaken their resolve, to torment them with lingering and unfounded suppositions. It seemed to Freddie that a criminal of Whittaker's sort would likely turn to intimidation as the means to his end, if he thought it would help his cause - and it wasn't beyond Whittaker's scope, Freddie thought, to initiate a campaign of harassment. Privately, he fingered these theories over in his mind, but he knew that he would never mention any of this to Devlin. Perhaps Devlin had already contemplated similar, and Freddie had a deathly fear of seeming stupid to the guv'nor - he already suspected that Devlin thought him a little dim. He didn't want to lower the inspector's opinion of him by offering theories that might ultimately prove disappointing.

  "How much further?" Devlin bit hard on his lower lip, quashing an urge to pummel Donnelly with his fists. After all, it wasn't the chemist's fault that he was overwrought and tortured with worry.

  "Not long now." Donnelly reached out and squeezed Devlin's hand in the darkness of the cab. "He is being well cared-for, Devlin. Ah, here we are."

  The cabbie had stopped in front of a nondescript brownstone in Kensington, the sort of address usually occupied by the upper classes and those whose financial means did not outweigh their taste. Devlin disembarked and followed Donnelly into the house, stumbling on
the steps in his haste, half blind and dizzy with fatigue. "Easy, Inspector." Donnelly wrapped an arm around his waist and ushered him into the foyer, where Violet Pearson, dressed in silk pajamas and a smoking jacket, in deference to the hour, met them. Her long red hair was unbound and flowed freely round her shoulders; she was, Devlin thought, an uncommonly handsome woman.

  "Inspector Devlin!" She took Devlin's hands in hers and gave them a gentle squeeze. "You must be half out of your wits with worry! Right this way." She led him up a narrow staircase and along the upstairs hall, pausing outside one of the bedrooms. "Donnelly has administered laudanum for the pain, so Constable Lewis might well be sleeping."

  Devlin reached for the doorknob, and his courage failed him, and with it, the last of his strength. He slid down the wall to end up in an awkward sitting position with his overcoat bunched around his knees. "Oh my God," he whispered, thankful that only Miss Pearson was present to see his complete mental breakdown. "How bad is it?"

  She knelt before him, her hands on his knees. "It looks rather worse than it actually is - or so Mr. Donnelly tells me." She smoothed his cheek with the back of her knuckles and smiled. "You must take courage, Inspector! Constable Lewis needs your strength now." She helped him to his feet, leaned in and kissed his cheek. "Go in and satisfy yourself, Inspector, with the knowledge that your constable will indeed recover. Of that much I am certain."