The child gave up screaming, and grew still. Mrs Greaves regarded it suspiciously, then poked it to see whether it moved. Satisfied when it did, she looked up at Lonsdale.
‘Did anyone else earn sudden, inexplicable amounts of money?’ he asked.
‘Oh, yes, but they all came to bad ends. I told Joe he’d go the same way, but he wouldn’t listen. Now look at him.’
‘Do you know their names?’ asked Lonsdale, hopes rising.
‘First was Len Baycroft – he disappeared last summer. Mind you, none of us miss him – he was a nasty piece of work. Then there were the Johnson sisters, Long Lil and Bill Byers, but I ain’t seen none of them for a while.’
‘Did Joe – or any of them – ever say anything to make you think whatever they were doing was dangerous or illegal?’
She gave a sharp bark of laughter. ‘No, but no one would hire the likes of Joe, Cath or Len if they wanted angels. Of course what they were doing was against the law, although none of them would tell me about it, so I don’t know what they did for their money.’
‘Were any of them worried or afraid at any point?’
Mrs Greaves thought carefully. ‘I think Cath was. She had a blazing row with Joe the day they were killed.’
The baby drew breath for another howl, so she stood up quickly, to allow more room for bouncing.
‘What about?’ he asked.
‘It was something about telling someone something. She said they should, he said they shouldn’t. They were still arguing the last time I saw them.’
The baby vomited suddenly and spectacularly, and Hulda only just leapt out of the way.
‘Now look what you done,’ said Mrs Greaves. ‘That’s enough. I want you out.’
Almost immediately, a thickset man with a large black beard appeared.
‘Are they bothering you, Helen?’ he asked. ‘Do you want me to throw them out?’
‘We’re just leaving,’ said Lonsdale, before the man could oblige.
Mrs Greaves’s burly protector shadowed them down the stairs, and watched as Hulda set a rapid pace down Mermaid Court.
‘You’re going the wrong way,’ said Lonsdale, as she turned a corner.
‘I know,’ muttered Hulda. ‘But I want to get away from that place as quickly as possible. It was worse than Hades!’
Lonsdale took her arm and guided her back towards London’s more civilized face, glancing back every so often to ensure Mrs Greaves’s friend was not following them. Because he was looking for a man with a beard, he failed to spot the small, clean-shaven man who pulled his Müller cut-down low against the gathering chill of a clear evening, and began to dog their footsteps. Behind him, in a silent procession, were five others.
‘So, we make progress at last,’ said Hulda as they walked along Great Maze Pond, a road along the side of Guy’s Hospital. The daylight had almost gone, and the gas lamps were lit, but a thick fog had rolled in from the river while they had been with Mrs Greaves. Lonsdale pulled the collar of his top frock up around his neck to keep out the gathering chill.
He nodded. ‘Cath told me that at least six people had died, and Mrs Greaves gave us names of five who are missing. They are doubtless the same.’
‘So, when Donovan was killed, Walker decided she’d put a stop to whatever was going on, and worked on Greaves to support her. But both were killed before they could talk.’
‘The five people Mrs Greaves mentioned seemed to have one thing in common,’ mused Lonsdale. ‘None of them was missed. Her comments suggest that she just woke up one day and realized she hadn’t seen them for a while. The same is true of Jamie’s friends – he’s the only one who cares about them disappearing. And Donovan lived alone, with no friends or family.’
‘I see where you’re going with this, Lonsdale. You think someone is targeting the unwanted and unloved, and that Walker and Greaves were involved in it until she decided she had had enough – although her conscience took a while to prick, if she was paid as much as Widow Greaves seems to think.’
Lonsdale took a detour around a deep puddle. ‘It was kind of you to give Mrs Greaves that ring,’ he said.
‘I assumed she wouldn’t tell us anything unless we won her over. And I felt sorry for her in that disgusting place.’
‘At least she’ll put it to good use, getting her furniture back. Her husband would have …’ Lonsdale stopped suddenly. ‘What was that?’ He peered back into the darkness of the swirling fog.
‘I didn’t hear anything,’ said Hulda.
They stood silently, but all they could hear were sounds from the nearby Barclay Perkins Brewery. The business of producing ale was a round-the-clock concern, and clanks, hisses and the restless whinnies of drays could all be heard emanating from behind a glass-shard-topped wall.
They had just started to walk again when Hulda exclaimed, ‘I know the answer!’ She slapped her forehead dramatically. ‘And it’s obvious!’
Before Lonsdale could respond, he heard running footsteps behind them. He whipped around to see six scruffy men hurtle out of the gloom. Hulda scrabbled for her gun, but two of the men were already on her, grabbing her arms before she could reach it. She kicked out furiously, and one attacker doubled over. But the other four advanced on Lonsdale, one of them brandishing a broken bottle.
Unlike in his other recent encounters, this time Lonsdale was prepared to fight. The man with the bottle lunged, so Lonsdale stepped neatly to one side, seized him by the collar, and used his momentum to bowl him into one of his comrades. Both went sprawling, and while the others’ eyes were fixed on their fallen colleagues, Lonsdale landed a right cross directly in the face of one of them, breaking his nose and dropping him as if he were poleaxed. The other he felled with a sly kick to the groin. Meanwhile, the man with the bottle picked himself up and advanced again. Lonsdale feinted to one side, then launched an attack of his own, landing three short right jabs that left him reeling.
He glanced over to see how Hulda was faring. It was a mistake. The man he had kicked used his inattention to grab him around the knees. When the other two moved in, Lonsdale ducked the first punch, then lost his balance, falling backwards over the man who clung to his legs. As he landed, his scrabbling fingers encountered a spoke from a broken cartwheel. He rolled away, jumped up, and swung it at the man who was trying to grab his legs again. There was a sickening crack as wood met head, and the man collapsed into a puddle.
The remaining two assailants both drew knives. One, more confident than his crony, feinted to his left and then lunged at Lonsdale, who flinched backwards as the blade whipped past his face. The fellow grinned, tossing the weapon from hand to hand in a display of careless dexterity. He lunged left, narrowly missing skewering Lonsdale, who jerked hard to the other side. Thinking the reporter was still off balance, he lunged again, but Lonsdale landed a heavy blow with his makeshift cudgel, making the knifeman howl in pain. Lonsdale advanced on him, but before he could strike again, the man hurled his knife in a last-ditch attempt to kill and fled. The remaining man followed suit.
When Lonsdale looked over to Hulda, it was to see her brandishing her revolver with a menace that any eighteenth-century highwayman would have envied, while her two assailants also took to their heels.
‘Are you all right?’ Lonsdale asked her.
She nodded. ‘Although I would feel better still if this damned thing had not jammed and I could have disabled one. Then we could have questioned him before taking him to hospital.’
‘Right,’ said Lonsdale, not sure whether he should be relieved or disappointed.
‘Their leader was the one who threw the knife,’ Hulda went on. ‘The fool thought I would be easy prey and decided to lend his own talents to dispatch you. It was a serious mistake on his part. I heard one of them call him “Pauly” when they ran off, although I’m not sure if that was from “Paul” or was a last name.’
‘Regardless, let’s leave before they return,’ said Lonsdale, uncomfortable with the way Hulda was shaki
ng and prodding at her pistol. ‘We should be able to catch a hansom from the front of the hospital.
He led the way quickly, although his one attempt to remove the firearm from her irritable attentions earned him such a glare that he did not try it again. He was glad to see a hansom outside the hospital and glad also that the entrance was so brightly lit and busy. No one would attack them there. Then he remembered what she had been saying before they were attacked.
‘You were about to tell me the answer to all our questions,’ he said, waving to the cab, then opening the door to help her in.
‘I was,’ she said, closing the door and calling her address to the driver. ‘But it’ll have to wait until tomorrow, because I need to think about it.’
‘No!’ cried Lonsdale. ‘You cannot make me wait. Besides, this is the only cab, and who knows where I might find another. Can’t we share?’
‘We live in different directions, Lonsdale, and I’m too tired for messing about with detours. I shall see you tomorrow.’
With wordless disbelief, Lonsdale watched the hansom disappear into the fog.
It was some time before Lonsdale found another hansom, by which point he was seriously considering visiting Hulda’s home and making a scene in front of her parents, landlord, or whatever other unfortunate individuals were forced to endure her company. He thought about her claim to have solved the mystery, and wondered what her explanation could possibly be.
He did not reach home until midnight. Going straight upstairs, he threw his dirty clothes in the linen basket and washed quickly, and not very carefully, in some cold water in the long, narrow bathroom that had been installed on the same floor as his bedroom. Then he threw on an old, comfortable dressing gown and went downstairs. The sitting room smelled of expensive cigars, and Lonsdale recalled with a pang that Jack had invited Emelia’s family to dinner, and had asked him to join them. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, and the prospect of seeing Anne was delightful. But, with everything that had happened in the last two days, it had completely slipped his mind.
Blocking out the prospect of a tirade from Jack, he meandered into the drawing room. There was still a red glow in the embers of the fire, so he poked them about and added another log. He then poured himself a large brandy and sat in Jack’s favourite armchair. Running all the new information through his mind, he heard the clock of Trinity Church on Bishops Road chime one, but he had fallen asleep long before it tolled again.
There was a brief moment of bewilderment when Lonsdale woke the next morning, and he opened his eyes to something other than his bedroom ceiling. Then he heard the servants chatting on the floor below, so supposed he had better be up and about, too. He stood and stretched, stiff from a night in the chair and aware that his bruised knuckles throbbed painfully. He supposed ‘Pauly’ and his friends would also be sporting some impressive bruises that day.
He was hungry, so he made for the kitchen, drawn there by the warm aroma of fresh bread. The kitchen was steamy from the clean clothes hanging from frames on pulleys that were hoisted high up to the ceiling. Every Thursday was laundry day in Jack’s household, so all had been washed, beaten, boiled and wrung the previous day. Lonsdale thought with disgust of the filthy items in his bedroom, which would now wait nigh on a week to be cleaned.
The housekeeper was sitting near the fire, reading The Daily Telegraph – one of three newspapers Jack had delivered – before it was ironed and sent upstairs for his breakfast. She jumped guiltily to her feet when Lonsdale arrived.
‘Sorry to disturb you, Mrs Webster,’ he said, taking a seat at the large, scrubbed wooden table in the centre of the room. ‘Do you mind?’ He thought she well might, as the kitchen was chaotic. Dirty pans were everywhere, while the daily battle with ‘blacks’ – the small pieces of soot that blew inside the house from every door and window – had obviously not yet been initiated. Hillary was chatting at the door with the milkman, and, judging from her giggles, the topic was not of matters dairy.
Lonsdale felt a surge of irritation that they should take advantage of his brother’s benign nature. Jack’s staff had a relatively easy existence – as long as meals were on time and the house superficially clean, Jack tended to leave them to their own devices. However, their days of idleness were numbered, as things would change when Jack married Emelia.
‘May I help you, sir?’ asked Mrs Webster, regarding him oddly.
‘Is there anything to eat?’ he asked, and then chastised himself for such a foolish question. Of course there was something to eat: it was a kitchen. ‘Something that’s ready now?’
‘You should’ve said if you needed to be up early, sir,’ she said, hastily scrambling to oblige.
‘Not much in the paper,’ said Lonsdale, lingering only because he knew they wanted him gone – the atmosphere was rather frosty. ‘Other than Ireland, of course. Hah! This is interesting! Lord Frederick Cavendish has been named Chief Secretary. I expected it to be Joseph Chamberlain.’
Mrs Webster looked at him out of the corner of her eye. ‘Were you expecting to see something particular, sir?’
Lonsdale thought it an odd question. He treated her to as searching a glance as the ones she was shooting at him. Then she handed him a plate of fried potatoes and what looked to be curry.
‘That was left over from Mr Jack’s meal with two legal associates yesterday,’ she said. ‘I don’t like foreign food myself – all them hot spices lead to violent tempers. Shall I carry that upstairs for you, sir?’
‘I’ll eat it here,’ said Lonsdale, sitting at the table and smiling after she made a show of chopping some onions. At least she would earn her keep for a few minutes that morning. ‘Crikey!’
He had taken his first bite of curry and could well believe that her cooking could lead men to do violent things. Seldom in his life had he tasted anything quite so powerful, which was a considerable achievement, given some of the places he had visited.
‘Tasty, is it, sir?’ she asked.
‘Very,’ said Lonsdale. His mouth and lips burned, and he had the feeling that if he spilled any on the table, it would sear a hole and drop through onto the floor. ‘How much chilli powder did you put in it?’
‘About a pound, sir. It’s what gives it that lovely red colour.’
‘I see,’ said Lonsdale, wondering whether Jack had managed to eat any of it, and if it had later interfered with his evening entertaining Emelia’s family. ‘Is there any bread?’
She quickly cut him some, although she did not change knives, so the slice she gave him tasted of onions.
‘Lamson, who poisoned his nephew with aconite, is in the news again,’ she said chattily. ‘The Telegraph has letters he wrote to those relatives he didn’t have time to kill. Fancy a doctor poisoning his crippled nephew just for – oh! Sir!’
Lonsdale followed Mrs Webster’s surprised gaze to where Jack stood at the door.
‘Good God, Alec,’ he exclaimed. ‘I shall send for a doctor forthwith!’
A short while later, Lonsdale and Jack sat in the morning room, where, over a more appropriate breakfast, Lonsdale told his brother what had happened the previous night. The services of a medical man had not been required, as a glance in a mirror had revealed to Lonsdale that he had been less than assiduous with his ablutions the previous night and that one side of his face remained a dark blue-black. He supposed it explained why the staff had behaved so oddly towards him, and why Mrs Webster had asked what he was expecting to see in the papers – clearly she thought one might carry word of a brutal assault.
As Lonsdale told a horrified Jack of his experiences, he took an antimacassar from one of the armchairs, dipped the end in a vase of flowers, and washed his face.
‘Well, thank the Lord for that!’ exclaimed Jack, seeing his brother’s sinister-looking injury vanish. ‘However, this affair has gone quite far enough. I never approved of you entering the news trade, and nor did Father. But we accepted your decision, and I think we’ve been more than patient.
We were wrong.’
‘But it was only—’
Jack silenced him with an imperious hand. ‘While you might care nothing for your own reputation, you should at least consider ours. A scandal could damage my practice, and it could ruin the reputations of your father and brother in the Church. They might find themselves ousted from their current livings to some vile backwater.’
‘The Church would never do such a thing!’ objected Lonsdale. ‘And—’
‘Being attacked twice in two nights proves that what you are doing is dangerous and sordid. And worse yet, to allow a woman to accompany you …’
Lonsdale could see how that might appear to an outsider. He thought about the other women he knew – not least Emelia and Anne – and could not imagine embarking on such an adventure with them. To hide his chagrin, he wiped his face again with the antimacassar, then realized with a guilty start that he had ruined the thing, and that it was one lovingly crafted by Emelia. Reasoning that she had already given Jack enough of the things to furnish Buckingham Palace, and one would not be missed, he set it furtively on the mantelpiece, from whence he assumed one of the staff would dispose of it later.
‘It is hard to believe that you are risking your life for a story,’ Jack went on, pretending not to notice what was happening to Emelia’s lacework.
‘It isn’t just a story,’ Lonsdale said softly. ‘Cath Walker was murdered while she was trying to right a wrong. She deserves justice.’
Unexpectedly, Jack softened. ‘I can see that’s important. But if you want my blessing with this wretched career, you must promise to be more careful. In other words, try to emulate the dignified Mr Morley, who manages to be a journalist and maintain his respectability and his reputation as a scholar and a gentleman. I shall be married soon, and can you imagine what Em would have said if she had come downstairs and seen you looking like some Bermondsey bully-boy?’
‘Nothing,’ replied Lonsdale shortly. ‘Because when you’re married, I won’t be living here. I’ll need to find rooms of my own – which is another reason I must make a success of this story. I need The PMG to hire me full time.’
Mind of a Killer Page 19