A Coldblooded Scoundrel

by JoAnne Soper-Cook

  Freddie was asleep, his head lolling onto Harker's shoulder. "What's he got to do with it?" Devlin asked, speaking with difficulty around the thermometer.

  Harker glanced at the blond head, smiled gently. "He is your greatest ally, Devlin - and perhaps your dearest friend."

  "Friend!" Devlin sputtered, nearly choking on the thermometer.

  "Sh." Donnelly repositioned the instrument, gestured at his watch. "Just a little while longer."

  "Freddie Lewis probably saved your life." Harker leaned forward, forearms resting on his knees, his hands dangling. This position caused Freddie's head to drop forward, so that he appeared to be looking for some lost item between Harker's buttocks. "You were quite correct, Devlin - Whittaker has been watching you for some time now. Indeed, I have been following my own line of investigation, and I determined that John Whittaker has kept you under close scrutiny these many weeks." Harker paused as Freddie awoke and righted himself, smiling idiotically. "He saw you go out this afternoon with Constable Lewis - doubtless he followed you along whatever route your walk accomplished, and lay in wait for you."

  Devlin glanced at Freddie. "You knew this?" He spat out the thermometer.

  Freddie had the good grace to look ashamed of himself. "Mr. Harker came to see me whilst I was convalescing in Kensington. He said we'd to be careful about Whittaker - make sure he kept away from you."

  "But at the same time, I had Constable Lewis contact Whittaker - without your knowledge, of course, because that would have jeopardised my entire plan."

  "Of course," Devlin said sourly.

  "Mr. Harker said for me to go see Whittaker - I'd no trouble finding him. He were with all the other toffs in the Strand one night."

  "I instructed Freddie to make overtures to Whittaker, offer tidbits of information on your whereabouts and the progress of your investigation."

  Harker smirked as Devlin's face turned an alarming shade of purple. "False information, Inspector Devlin - you need not concern yourself on that point. False - but with enough truth that Whittaker would think it worth his while."

  "We knew that he was following you, all along - that's what we wanted," Freddie said.

  "So as to control him, Inspector - control and hopefully contain him." Harker sat back, seeming to lose himself in contemplation of the window shade. "I only regret that your efforts in this case led to your dismissal - but perhaps it's better this way."

  Devlin coughed, but into his handkerchief this time. "What d'you mean?"

  "We are luring Whittaker away from London." Harker pierced him with a keen glance. "Luring him out into the open, like a wild animal, so that we may hunt more freely." The solicitor laughed mirthlessly. "One is so confined by the city."

  "You're mad." Devlin glanced from Harker to Donnelly - Freddie had fallen asleep - and back again. "Do you think he can be so easily led?"

  "Oh yes," Harker said quietly. "For he is, at this moment, on this very train."

  Devlin wasn't precisely sure where they were, except that Harker had taken him to the country, some miles outside of London, and lodged all four of them at an inn on the borders of Surrey. Harker had exchanged his cabbie costume for that of an itinerant peddler, whilst Donnelly was disguised as - of all things - a surgeon. Devlin fervently hoped that the apothecary wouldn't kill anyone in the process of carrying out his deception.

  Freddie and Devlin shared a room, as did Harker and Donnelly, but Devlin felt himself to be so ill, and in such a state of shock, that he could not possibly attempt any kind of physical closeness with Freddie, or even sustain a conversation. He sat on the bed while Freddie filled the bathtub in the other room - thank God for modern conveniences, Devlin thought - and then obediently got in. The hot water quickly lulled him into a state of insensibility, and before he knew better, he was lying in bed, dressed in a clean nightshirt, with Freddie by his side.

  Despite his illness, Devlin found that sleep eluded him, and his mind chased itself round and round in circles, seeking answers where there were none to be found. He lay still, listening to Freddie's sleeping breath beside him, and the sound of Harker's and Donnelly's voices from the room next door, murmuring in quiet conversation. He watched the shadows lengthen through the curtains, and the rise of moonlight that blanketed the bed. He drifted into uneasy dreams, seeing John Whittaker in every corner of the room, and jolted back into wakefulness, his heart pounding and sweat seeping into the sheets. At length he fell asleep, and dreamed that a madman was on a great wooden sailing ship, with Donnelly and Harker, chasing him and Freddie around belowdecks with a cat o' nine tails. The ship changed course, and sailed off the edge of the world, and Devlin tried to shout and warn them, but he could only utter a frustrating series of squeaks and grunts. He tried to cover himself with the sails, to escape the knowledge of the inevitable, but the water rushed in through a hole in the side of the ship, and he had nothing in which to catch it. He woke up shouting, and was comforted by Freddie, who fetched him a hot toddy and sent him back to sleep again.

  There were no more dreams.

  Devlin slept till quite late in the morning, and by the time he finally awoke, Freddie had dressed and gone down to breakfast, and he was alone. He awoke slowly, conscious of the pain in his swollen throat, and the hacking cough that racked him. He felt feverish and dizzy, and he sat up slowly, resting for a moment on the side of the bed before attempting to stand.

  The day was quite beautiful, one of those cool, crisp days that are only ever possible in autumn, with a sky of soaring blue overhead. Devlin wished he were here in happier circumstances, so that he might enjoy the bounty of the weather - what would it be like to spend a day shooting in this country? Devlin had never actually killed a bird in his life, having never had the stomach for it, or the necessary cruelty, but he felt that recent events had hardened him throughout. He hoped he would have a chance to pursue Whittaker over the entire countryside, and lodge a bullet in him, just as he would do with a fox or a hare. He hoped Whittaker was running away when that happened - Devlin liked the idea of shooting his old nemesis in the back.

  He looked up as the door opened, and Harker appeared, wearing a sombre expression and an even more sombre dark suit, with lines of fatigue around his eyes, and his complexion unnaturally pale. The solicitor wordlessly passed Devlin a telegram, waited while the inspector read it. "What the devil...?"

  "Sarah Whittaker hanged herself last night, in her cell in Bedlam."

  Devlin had never considered himself a fanciful man, but now, sequestered with Harker and the others in the country, he began to imagine all sorts of things that would previously have never entered his consciousness. The knowledge that Sarah Whittaker had taken her own life - or had it taken from her - gnawed at his mind. Even given that she was still (as far as Devlin knew) married to John Whittaker, there was nothing in her personality to suggest a tendency towards melancholy. None of it made sense, and he wanted desperately to return to London, to the scene of the supposed suicide, and examine every inch of Sarah's quarters to try and determine the truth. He was doing absolutely no good here, trapped in a bucolic countryside setting with Harker and John Donnelly, and a nervous and over-solicitous Freddie Lewis hovering at his elbow every five minutes and plying him with tea and scones. Devlin had consumed enough tea in the past twenty-four hours to float an armada, not to mention the increasingly-annoying attentions of the pseudo-medico Donnelly. "It's a sore throat, dammit!" He waved Donnelly and his thermometer away with an irritated gesture. "Just a cold - probably caught it from Old Brassie the other day."

  The papers from London - thoughtfully provided by Harker - brought no fit news for Devlin's ailing state, either. Daily the headlines screamed that there had been another murder, that corpses were found floating in the Thames, lying in the streets, dangling from the chandeliers at the dancing halls. It amazed Devlin that Whittaker could manage to exact such a monstrous toll, being so far from the alleged scene of the crime. As far as the scions of journalism knew, the Metrop
olitan Police were doing nothing to curtail this horrendous string of offences. This latter gave Devlin a kind of grim satisfaction: now that he'd been removed from the case, Old Brassie and all the other high hats in the Force were falling on their collective faces.

  "Oh, Inspector, I feel certain that we are on his track now." Harker folded himself into the chair next to Devlin, with the graceful motion of an attenuated umbrella. Today the solicitor was dressed in dark grey - a sombre choice, given current happenings in London - but his strange green eyes held their usual expression of cool self-interest.

  "Do you?" Devlin's throat was aching, and his eyelids felt hot and weighted with fever. He'd just been on the verge of drifting off.

  "Perhaps it is my intuition." Harker flicked a glance at him, a curious half- smile that appeared and vanished, quick as a thought.

  "Well, what the devil are we waiting for, then?" Devlin moved to rise, was stayed by the pressure of Harker's hand.

  "All in good time, Inspector." Harker discovered a loose thread hanging from his sleeve, and spent some long moments manipulating it furiously. Devlin found himself increasingly irritated with the solicitor's evasions, and wondered whether his initial surmises had been correct. Perhaps Harker had lured him here for reasons of his own. Perhaps he and Donnelly had made arrangements to dissect him, after they'd done away with him, and add their findings to whatever dubious research that Harker was currently involved in.

  "I have been examining this Whittaker's movements - he was indeed on the train with us, and he is here, just nearby."

  Devlin coughed noisily, dislodging what felt like part of his right lung. "Post handbills, then," he hissed, "and tell him to show himself so I can arrest him."

  "No need to post handbills, my dear fellow." Harker smiled insinuatingly, clasped his hands around his knees. "He sticks closer than a brother."

  The idea of Reginald Harker quoting Scripture gave Devlin serious pause - hadn't someone said that even the Devil could quote Scripture to his advantage? "What d'you mean, he's close? Close to what?"

  "Close to us."

  The walls seemed to bend and bulge curiously, and Devlin passed a hand over his eyes until the fit had passed. He couldn't imagine what Harker meant: even given that the country house was large (supposedly it belonged to some friend of Harker's, although he wouldn't say who) Devlin could hardly fail to discern Whittaker's presence in the hallways. "Where?"

  "He got off the train at the same stop as we did, and took rooms in an inn called The Checkers, about a mile down the road. I have gone there several times, on some pretext or other, and twice now I have sent John."

  Devlin was dumbfounded. He knew that Harker liked to play detective, but he hadn't factored this sort of cool subversion into the solicitor's character. "You said he took rooms - not just one room."

  "Ah - he is there with his sister."

  "His sister?" Devlin didn't remember a sister, but that wasn't surprising, seeing as how he'd been determined to block out any memory of John Whittaker from his mind. If Whittaker had a sister, this was news; if he had a sister who was clearly in collusion with him, then the case before them was considerably enriched. "What sister?"

  But Harker only gave him an enigmatic smile.

  Fourteen

  Devlin hadn't wanted to make so bold a move as lying in wait for Whittaker at The Checkers, but he told himself that, since he could find no better method of capture, it was just as well to follow Harker's advice, and see what came of it. The worst that could happen was that Whittaker would divine their presence and take himself away, leaving them empty-handed.

  Devlin had allowed John Donnelly to bundle him in a heavy overcoat and a knitted muffler, against the late October chill. The fields around the country house were white with frost, and there was a scent of snow in the air. The cold lay upon Devlin's chest like lead, and he coughed uncontrollably in the carriage, raising concerned looks from both Donnelly and Freddie. Harker, for his part, was too sunk in his own reflections to pay much attention to the beleagured police inspector, and Devlin wondered what was going on in Harker's head.

  "Are we there yet?" Freddie Lewis sat with his buttocks barely touching the edge of the seat, and his gloved hands wrung themselves together. "When are we going to be there?"

  Everyone ignored him. The silence inside the carriage grew, punctured only by the sound of the horse's hooves on the road. Someone's stomach growled, and Devlin found himself wishing mightily for a cigarette, but Donnelly had forbidden it, on the condition of Devlin's lungs. Devlin wondered peevishly just when John Donnelly had received his doctoral certificate - it seemed the apothecary was giving himself unwarranted airs, but Devlin supposed that his dubious medical attention was better than none, especially at a time like this.

  Harker had assumed the poise of a predatory animal, sitting pressed against the cold wall of the carriage, gloved hands clasped together in his lap, and his eyes hooded and watchful. Devlin still didn't entirely trust him: it wasn't beyond Harker's scope to be somehow involved with Whittaker, especially if there was benefit in it. Devlin imagined that Harker would sacrifice even his acolyte Donnelly, if it meant an advance in his own position.

  "How do you know he'll be there?" Devlin raised his face from the muffler and directed his question at Harker. "It's not like he's expecting us, is it?"

  "Harker thinks he has devised a means by which Whittaker can be made to show himself." Donnelly nodded his agreement, as if he had been the instigator of this great and noble scheme.

  "Oh, has he?" Devlin cursed quietly. "What did you do," he asked Harker, "send him a telegram?"

  Harker turned his head slowly, his eyes slow to focus, as though he had just then been lost in some unfathomable inner contemplation. "Why yes...that's precisely what I did, Inspector."

  "You did." Devlin tried to laugh, but incited another coughing fit. "And I suppose you requested the presence of his sister, too?"

  "I have laid an amiable trap. Whittaker will step into it because he will be unable to resist."

  "And he's just going to overlook the fact that you have lent me your abilities - put it down to a brain fever or something?"

  But Harker was no longer listening, and after a moment the carriage ground to a halt in front of The Checkers. "We're here."

  The interior of the inn was overheated, and, wrapped in his woollen overcoat and Donnelly's great muffler, Devlin began to sweat - he sweat as a pudding sweats, when placed into a bag and secreted within the same pot as a boiled dinner. His perspiration ran off the tips of his fingers and into the recesses of his gloves, and crawled a slow and agonising pathway down his spine. He glanced around the room, taking careful note of the several quiet patrons disposed around the tables, and John Whittaker, seated near the back, and with him a woman dressed in gentlemen's attire, smoking a cigar.

  Violet Pearson.

  Devlin swayed, and clutched at Freddie Lewis who, in the interests of verisimilitude, had shaved off his moustache and slicked his curly blond hair back over his head. The effect was not unlike a squeezed ferret being forced headfirst through a length of piping. Freddie was dressed as a gardener-cum-jack of all trades, and someone (probably Harker, knowing his penchant for dressing games) had smudged coal dust on several strategic places around Freddie's face and head. He looked for all the world like a Northern miner just home from the shafts and headed for a bit of a knees-up at the local pub.

  "What the devil...?" Devlin blinked through the haze of smoking candles, not trusting to his vision, which had in all probability been irreparably warped by Donnelly's viscous potions. "What's she got to do with it, Harker?" He seized a fold of the solicitor's coat between his gloved and sweating fingers.

  "She is his sister." Harker flicked a glance at him. "But," he said airily, "I am satisfied that she is not complicitous in this affair."

  "Really." Devlin felt sweat running down inside his pant legs, collecting in his shoes, and he wanted nothing more at that moment than to b
ash Harker a good one in the mouth. But that would bring Donnelly down on him, and he'd heard that the apothecary had played a rather savage brand of cricket at school, so perhaps that wasn't a good idea. Besides which, it wouldn't do to incite a round of bloodshed at The Checkers - the clean up alone would be murderous.

  Whittaker was just as Devlin remembered: elegant, gorgeous, polished. He'd always felt inferior to Whittaker's brand of self-assured confidence, as though his background could never measure up. Whittaker's father had been a Member of Parliament, whereas Devlin's was a Bluebottle till the end of his days. Whittaker's mother kept an impeccable household, with dozens of servants, while Devlin's mother took in laundry to supplement the family income. It was too cruel an irony that Devlin should be here now, sweating in his borrowed clothes, standing beside the notorious Resurrection Men, and with a witless young constable who resembled a compressed weasel.