The pulley above me creaked. The spout sputtered momentarily, and the fountain began to die away: a blessed relief in my precarious post, though I was already soaked. Cheers arose from the crowd as the dying spray blew out over their heads.
Then the pulley jerked again. I drew back instinctively, wrenching my arm out of the clock’s packing frame. With a chafing rasp, it began to drop. My reverie broke, and I clutched myself to the crane. Hunt had managed to shut off the water supply, but the brakes on the cables were hydraulic. In turning off the water, he had released the winch as well.
The clock fell away from me, ever so slowly at first. My first thought was, would I be held responsible? There was no way I could have held on to it, all by myself. More likely it would have dragged me to my death below.
I opened my mouth to call out, but it was too late. The world seemed to fall silent.
The clock gained speed as it fell, tumbling down onto the body of the crane. When it hit the ground, I turned my face away. Not from any danger. More a kind of shame at the destruction of a beautiful thing.
The crash echoed over the mob, rebounding off the grand hotels across the square like a great explosion. I looked down to see the merrymakers shrink back, as shards of glass scattered wide, glimmering in the dim light; a second sound reached me, of the pieces splintering, like the fizzing of a frantic Roman candle.
The mob redoubled their whooping. Within moments, children darted out from the crowd to claim their spoils. By the time I descended, there would be damn all evidence of the clock left. Everyone applauded one last time, as if it were the finale to a fine show of fireworks.
THE NIGHT PORTER
The porter wore a beard as tangled as if he were fresh off a whaler from the Southern Seas. “On my watch,” he moaned. “A body, on my watch.”
“A body?” I stared at the bundle of blankets piled in the corner. Wardle had not said the man was dead. I considered for a discreditable moment taking a blanket for myself, for I was soaked to the skin and shivering.
“One half instant I close my eyes, and there she blows. There she blows! Poor cove’s blowed himself clean apart, so he has.”
“Calm yourself, man. Tell me all that has happened since you came on duty.”
“This repair man, it was, see. Early evening, he turned up. Weren’t expecting him none, but he was that pleasant—”
“From the hydraulic company, was he?”
“Nobody never tells me nothing.” He screwed up his brows. “Anywise, the fellow went about his business in exemplatory fashion. Full of wit and the argot, he was. Spoke Thieves’ Latin and costermonger’s Aye-talian. We had a time, we did. He was highly sympathetical, not like most, that don’t see the hard road I travel on.”
These effusions seemed a trifle excessive. There was an aroma in the air which made me suspicious. I spotted a bottle beneath the man’s chair. Sterner enquiries revealed that it was a gift of poteen furnished by this same repair man. They had shared a toast, or two, to Queen and country. In fact, when pressed, the porter had no clear recollection of the repair man at his work at all. It was not even clear what the man was meant to be repairing.
“Was it the crane he was fixing, or the clock?”
“The clock?” A haunted look came into his eye. “I’ve kept watch over that accursed piece this sixmonth. Ticking, tocking. Tocking, ticking. Drive a man mad.”
“Here?” If he were telling the truth—and I doubted he had the wit to lie—then his phantom repair man must have whisked the clock away, removed the mechanism and then winched what was left on high. I glanced around the rotten little shed. “Why in God’s name did they keep the clock here?”
“Should have gone up long since, but for the lock-out, see. Glad to be rid of it.”
“The lock-out?”
“That’s right. George Potter and his Most Worshipful Association of Master Carpenters. A nine-hour day he wants, and woe betide them as flaunt him.”
“You mean the masons’ strike?”
“What stone you been hiding under? He’s took out all the guilds, since them nine stonemasons fell from the scaffold up the Westminster Palace Hotel.”
I thought of my escapade up the crane and shuddered. “Do you see the masons’ hand in this?”
“Bain’t got the foggiest, me.” He gave a theatrical shrug. “Like as not it’s the Imperial after the Independent again.”
“The what?”
“Gas Wars, I mean to say.”
“Ah yes.” The gas companies were in the habit of blowing up each other’s pipes in territorial disputes. There had been an explosion at the Imperial Gas Works, down by King’s Cross, not two weeks previous. “You blame the gas men, do you?”
“Did I say that?” He stared wide-eyed. “I’s just mentioning, sir. No more, no less. You won’t hear no rash alligators from this particular quarter.”
“Nothing would surprise me,” I murmured, “after the drop you’ve taken.”
“Oh, sir. Have mercy,” he blinked. “I never touches it, me, in the normal run of things, not on duty at least, I don’t. I’s dutiful to the extreme case. Only, this evening—”
The door flew open and in barged Hunt, huffing and puffing as if to blow down the station. “Bloody gauges and levers. I’ll string them up, I will.” His trousers glittered with glass, but he was not chastened in the slightest. He turned on the porter. “Here, is it you that’s let some monkey tamper with our machine?”
The porter seemed to fear him terribly. “I got a wife, sir, and children—”
“Shut up.” Hunt prowled back and forth across the tiny space. “Blithering fool. This the coward that blew himself up, is it?”
“A body, on my watch!” He hid his face in his hands.
“Got what he deserved. Undermining our business. Let’s have a look-see.” Before I could object, Hunt pulled away the heap of blankets.
A musty odour arose from the body. All manner of charges I had drawn up in the bleak hours of night duty, but I had not seen anyone killed. The last corpse I had viewed so close was my mother’s, when I was a child.
The dead man was middle-aged, perhaps older. His face was stone grey, with dark blotches that looked like bruises, though they might have been dirt. His clothes were clean but shabby. Was this really the orchestrator of tonight’s entertainment? He didn’t look like a militant radical, nor a master thief.
Hunt stared at the body and turned quite pale. It seemed strange that I, the novice, should be unperturbed by the corpse, while this beast fresh from a Crimean battlefield stood mesmerised.
Although there was no doubt that the man had breathed his last, I felt obliged somehow to confirm it. I said a quick prayer, then bent over him. My stomach lurched to feel his neck so chill and hard. I felt ashamed to think I had been exulting in the mystery of that night with him lying there cold and dead.
Yet where were the signs of his death? There were no traces of blood; his limbs seemed regular and in good order. His clothes were sopping wet and his features rigid. But his hair looked clean, and his mouth was serene and smiling. I was particularly struck by that smile.
Was he an unskilled labourer, who botched his attempt to work the crane, after dampening the porter’s vigilance? Had he meddled with the clock and fallen, blasted by the water burst? Could it have been a booby trap?
At the sound of Wardle’s voice outside, I went smartly to the door. Coxhill was with him, talking earnestly to two men with notebooks.
“Compensation?” Coxhill was saying. “Pshaw! It should be we that receive compensation. Litigious bloody society we live in. It was the end of ancient Athens and it’ll be the end of us.”
“Ah, Watchman,” said Wardle. He looked past me into the hut, then manoeuvred so as to block the newsmen’s view.
“Sir,” I said quietly, “the man’s dead, sir.”
“Is he, now?” The inspector glanced back at Coxhill, eyes narrowed, but he was fully occupied giving the papers something to write
about.
“Inspector,” said one of the newsmen, “can you spare us a moment?”
Wardle turned back to me brusquely. “And the clock?”
“Yes, sir. Somebody’s been tampering—”
“Gunpowder? Explosives?”
“No, sir, but somebody’s taken—”
“Enough.”
“But, sir,” I insisted, desperate to show off my discovery. “Half the clock’s been—”
“I said, that’s all for now, son.” He looked past me; Hunt was still staring at the body. “Don’t be giving nothing away. Not till we know who we can trust.”
“Inspector?” whined one of the newsmen.
Wardle jabbed a finger up at my lapels. “Written report, on my desk, Friday.”
I hesitated. “My superintendent, sir—”
“Which station?”
“Brunswick Square, sir.”
“I’ll have a word.”
“Thank you, sir.” I blinked at my good fortune, to be included so firmly in the enquiry. “Should I take the body somewhere, sir?”
He looked surprised. “What’s that?”
“For post-mortem, or something of the sort?”
“Why not?” he said, nodding to himself. “Mr Coxhill, step inside, would you?”
“Inspector?” The reporter raised his pencil in anticipation. “Jack Scholes, local rag. I understand someone is injured?”
“Blown himself up, has he?” said Coxhill, pushing past me. “Damned fool.”
Wardle eyed him cannily. “Watchman, take that body down yon college mortuary. Ask for Simpson, he’s our man nights.” He lowered his voice. “I want to know how he died. And when. Exactly when. Don’t take half-cock answers, mind. I’ll have another word with the toff and his guard dog.” He turned to confront the newsmen, gritting his teeth as he shut the door behind him.
“Dash it all, I can hardly bear to look.” Coxhill was blathering away to himself. “Blighter’s family are bound to try it on. It’s too beastly.”
I watched him closely. “Am I to understand that this is your own repair man, Mr Coxhill?”
“Repair man? Our machines don’t need repairs. No, no.” He tugged at his beard. “Not one of ours, is he, Hunt? Hunt! I say, do buck up.”
The terrier looked away from the body, subservient again. “Never saw him before in my life, sir.”
All of a sudden, the night porter piped up. He gaped at the corpse, then he stood up, clapping his hands in surprise.
“Hulloah!” he said. “That ain’t him! When me and your inspector was dragging him in, I didn’t see it, I was that upset.” Drunk, you mean, I thought to myself. “No, sirs, I didn’t see it in the dark and the wet and all, but that ain’t the same fellow. My man had these intensitive eyes. Trust those eyes with your life, so you would. I’d know him anywhere. This! This is a different codger entirely.”
EUSTON EVENING BUGLE
9th November, 1859
LAST TRUMP SOUNDS FOR LONDON
The metropolis is doomed. Veteran reformer, Mr Edwin Chadwick, prophesies the imminent demise of the capital in his pamphlet published today, “Smell is Disease.”
How wonderfully smell concentrates the mind. For years Londoners have been dying in their cohorts of cholera, typhus and worse. Yet it took the “Great Stink” of last summer to convince panicked parliamentarians to stomach the cost of the Sewers Bill. Poor Mr Disraeli, clutching a handkerchief to his sensitive nose as he ran from the chamber!
Still, our reliance on Progress and Capital to cure our maladies seems increasingly vain. Thus far, the Metropolitan Board of Works’ monumental expenditure has effected only an embarrassment of traffic jams and a shortage of bricks. The stink lingers on.
DEVILS AT EUSTON SQUARE
Last night, a water-powered crane—called an “hydraulic devil”—burst outside Euston Station, killing a vagrant. A sizeable crowd applauded, as passengers from the late train were greeted with an impromptu fountain. Inspector Wardle of Scotland Yard insists that readers of the Bugle may go safely about their business. Nonetheless, the use of hazardous machinery in defiance of the builders’ strike must be cause for alarm.
Another alarming local development sees the Metropolitan Railway sink a preliminary shaft at Euston Square next month. In approving the short-sighted plans of the Hon Mr Charles Pearson, championed by that misguided publication, the Clerkenwell Horn, the Traffic Select Committee has ignored the Bugle’s manifestly superior proposal. Our “Crystal Way” would have spanned the city with road, rail and pedestrian tiers, triumphantly solving congestion in a feat of engineering to make the world gasp.
“Shameless profiteering will lead London to the same dismal end as Rome and Babylon,” predicts Mr Chadwick, in his Sanitary Committee pamphlet. “We stand in need of drains, not trains.”
The Bugle awaits with curiosity the collapse of tunnels, annihilation of property, and subterranean fumigations that must inevitably result from Pearson’s infernal undertakings.
ROYAL CELEBRATIONS
None of which can dampen the frolics of the younger royals. Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, returned to Windsor Castle this morning.
Following a spirited start to his university career, rumour has it that he is to be created a duke. Tonight Prince “Bertie” sets aside a raucous social schedule to celebrate his eighteenth birthday with the Queen and the Prince Consort.
Amongst such banquets and honours, may the ills of the capital remain to him but a distant murmur.
ANONYMOUS TELEGRAM, 8TH NOVEMBER
“To Roxton Coxhill & His Rotund Friend”:
GUY FAWKES WAS A GENIUS.
THE CADAVER
It was perhaps unwise to take a cab, especially as my wage was only nineteen shillings a week, lodgings not included, and Wardle had made no mention of reimbursement, but I had no idea what an interest London cabmen take in matters that don’t concern them. I didn’t feel I could ask the man to help me shift the corpse; at least, not without a substantial tip. Fortunately, Worm & co. offered their services.
Worm organised his chums with a grim efficiency, and a sort of tact, which made my earlier eagerness seem all the more inappropriate. He called upon Numpty the matchseller, and the Professor, a precocious tyke with an upturned nose. How three children and I lugged a stiff, wet corpse from the hut to the cab and the cab to the hospital without attracting the suspicion of morbid bystanders I will not relate, but Worm and his tired companions made a fitting sort of cortège. The Professor put on as brave a face as you could wish to see; but I did repent of involving them in such dark business when I saw the poor wee fellow brush away a tear.
Worm refused the coins I offered. “On the house, Watchman,” he said with a wink. “Just bear us in mind, eh? Taxing time you’ve had tonight. Teetering on top of that thing like a tomtit up a tree. We was that worried, we could barely look. Good luck, eh, Watchman.”
While I waited for Simpson, uncomfortable in my vigil, I took the notion to check the dead man’s pockets. There was nothing to identify him. No personal effects. Just a couple of coins. There was no more I could think of to do.
I sat down, dead tired of a sudden. The last time I had been in hospital was when I gashed my thumb in father’s workshop. My recollection of the Edinburgh Royal Free was incomparably bright and clean beside this dark, shabby locality.
Twenty minutes later, a corpulent man with starched cuffs breezed in.
“Another cadaver? Wonderful. Caro data vermibus. Flesh given to the worms. Ca, da, ver, you see. It’s an acronym, of sorts.” Simpson glanced up at me for the first time. He raised his eyebrows at my sodden clothing, then turned back to the corpse. “Not a classical scholar, I take it? Never mind. You’re Wardle’s new man, are you?”
I coughed uncertainly.
He made the briefest examination, glancing at the face, the chest and especially at the feet, nodding knowledgeably. It was hard to credit that this informed him of anything. “What’s the purpose
behind bringing me a tramp?”
“He’s dead. Is that not sufficient?”
“People die every day, Constable. That’s not reason enough to waste my time. Wardle rarely requires inquests for vagabonds. What is it he wants to know?”
I frowned, recollecting my instructions. “When and how he died.”
“Let us not be coy, Constable. If you wish, we shall lay bare his innards. If not—”
“I do not need to know what he ate yesterday, if that is what you mean.”
“Yesterday?” he laughed. “This fellow did no eating yesterday. But come, have you a specific query?”
I restrained myself from a sharp reply. “How did he die, man?”
“Bruising. Severe. To head and chest. Internal bleeding.” He thought a moment. “I would hazard that cerebral failure preceded cardiac, but it’s impossible to be sure, so long after the fact.”
I stared at him. “What caused these injuries? The man was involved in an accident. I want to know what happened.”
“I am a doctor, Constable, not a clairvoyant.”
“Was violence done to him?”
“I cannot say. The bruising suggests that he fell heavily, but I cannot rule out the use of blunt instruments.”
“I see. When did he die?”
He wafted a hand through the air. “We cannot know exactly.”
I mustered my patience. “Could you see your way to giving an estimate, doctor?”
“If that will suffice.”
Lawless and the Devil of Euston Square Page 3