‘But you did not wish to join their company,’ Mr Dodgson prompted him.
‘I’d met Mr Basset at St Jude’s, and he told me I could do better with him.’ Levin leaned forward, pleading. ‘I only wanted to improve myself. Nothing more than that! A man may improve imself. Basset did!’
Mr Dodgson regarded the young man and nodded. ‘Samuel Basset was befriended at an early age and wished to pass on some of his good fortune to a likely young man. I agree, Mr Levin, the circumstances are such that a certain interpretation could be put on his actions. I assume you have done nothing for which you may reproach yourself.’
‘I only wanted to help,’ Levin repeated.
‘Of course, Mr Levin. Quite commendable.’ Mr Dodgson stood, as if to dismiss his student. Then he asked, ‘What did you think of Mr Peterson?’
‘Mr Peterson?’ Levin looked confused. ‘He was a gentleman with a strange sense of humour. He could be quite clever, with his stories and his jokes, but if he thought you held a secret, he’d never stop until he had it out of you. And he thought himself better than the rest of ’em because of his writing.’
‘It seems to have been common knowledge in this office that you and Mr Basset were, ah, intimate.’ Mr Dodgson winced at the necessity for mentioning the relationship.
‘I cannot ’elp what other people may think,’ Mr Levin said primly.
‘And there was a certain surprise that you had been discharged,’ Mr Dodgson went on, ignoring Mr Levin’s interruption.
‘I was not pleased,’ Levin said. ‘He called me Judas and said I was trying to take his place, but I was not!’ The last words were an anguished wail.
‘I understand that Mr Peterson tried to intercede for you,’ Mr Dodgson said. ‘That was kind of him.’
Levin swallowed hard. ‘Mr Peterson could be kind. He and Mr Basset began at Portman Penny Press together. Mr Basset told me that he had depended on Mr Peterson for good stories from the first issue. It’s not going to be the same here without him.’
Mr Portman stepped out of the inner office. ‘Levin, are the presses rolling?’
‘Yes, Mr Portman.’ The secretary turned to Mr Dodgson. ‘If you are quite finished, sir, I believe Mr Portman wishes to consult me.’
He bustled into the office, leaving Mr Dodgson and Dr Doyle to check the stairwell again. In the gloom of the darkening sky, the shadows cast by the gaslight danced and flickered. Mr Dodgson glanced at the lintel, then looked harder. One shadow was missing.
‘Dr Doyle,’ Mr Dodgson pulled the young doctor over to the edge of the stairs and pointed. Dr Doyle looked chagrined.
‘It’s gone!’ Dr Doyle exclaimed.
‘I thought I told you to watch that door carefully,’ Mr Dodgson hissed.
‘I did, except for the times that I had to let people by,’ Dr Doyle protested. ‘Levin was in and out, and Roberts just ran down. I think he had to fetch some water from the tap in the yard.’
‘Levin and Roberts. The two tall men, either of whom might have had reason to kill Basset,’ Mr Dodgson muttered to himself. ‘Come with me, Dr Doyle. We must find that dagger before someone uses it again!’
The last rays of the setting sun were making their way through the skylight as the two men walked up the stairs and into the artist’s studio.
The gas had been lit, but the artist was absent. A glance out the window confirmed that Mr Roberts was at the tap, holding a pail under the frigid trickle of water.
‘We must work quickly before he returns,’ Mr Dodgson stated. Once more he examined the inks, the woodblocks, the acids, and the plates that were ready for the etcher’s touch. Dr Doyle took on the task of sorting through the pile of papers on the central table.
‘Aha!’ Dr Doyle crowed triumphantly.
‘You have found it?’
‘Right under these proof sheets.’ Dr Doyle pointed to the dagger, now clearly seen to be coated with something brownish.
‘Roberts is tall and muscular,’ Mr Dodgson mused. ‘He has a violent temper, as we have seen. He disliked Mr Basset intensely, he had the opportunity to remove the knife from Mr Basset’s desk, and he could have nipped down the stairs in time to stab him. But why, then, should he bludgeon poor Mr Peterson, who, as far as I can tell, respected his artistic talent and wanted to include him in his latest venture?’
‘Of course, someone else could be trying to pin the blame on Roberts,’ Dr Doyle pointed out.
‘In that case, we have a madman on our hands,’ Mr Dodgson said. ‘Dr Doyle, I think the time has come to summon the police before this lunatic has the opportunity to move that knife and use it again.’
‘Let us only hope that Inspector MacRae will have the time to listen to us.’ Dr Doyle followed his mentor, determined that he would not fail him again.
Mr Portman had assembled the staff in his office. Now he beamed at Mr Dodgson and Dr Doyle with the enthusiasm of one who has completed his task and is ready to celebrate the event.
‘Mr Dodgson, have you completed your inquiries?’
‘I have found the murder weapon,’ Mr Dodgson said carefully. ‘I have examined the evidence and come to certain conclusions. I must have some time to think, Mr Portman, but I believe I can name the murderer tonight. Perhaps you should inform Inspector Calloway and Inspector MacRae and have them present when I do. And I should like Miss Harvey to be present as well.’
Mr Portman frowned for a moment. ‘I was going to invite you all to dine at the Press Club, but it would be most improper for Miss Harvey to attend such a party. I do not think her mother would permit it.’
‘Invite her, too,’ joked Howarth.
‘I suppose I must,’ Portman said with a sigh. ‘One can hardly ask a lady to join a party consisting entirely of gentlemen without some sort of chaperon. I know,’ he decided. ‘We shall meet at the Café Royal. I shall bespeak one of the private dining-rooms. There should be one available tonight since the newspapers will have everyone running for cover.’
Mr Dodgson frowned, then decided that a private room was quite different from the public Grill Room. ‘I strongly suggest that Mr Levin should be present as well, since he was here during that fatal afternoon.’
‘In that case, gentlemen, you are all dismissed for the day,’ Portman said genially. ‘I will be waiting for you at the Café Royal at eight o’clock.’
‘And I sincerely hope that was no idle boast,’ Dr Doyle murmured, as the staff of Youth’s Companion made their ways up the stairs to retrieve their outdoor garments. ‘Do you really know who killed Mr Basset and Mr Peterson?’
‘Oh, dear me, yes,’ Mr Dodgson said. ‘The difficulty will be in proving it. Logic, Dr Doyle, and a careful examination of the evidence will unmask the killer.’
CHAPTER 23
As the staff of Youth’s Companion prepared to celebrate their triumph over adversity, Inspector MacRae faced his counterpart from the City of London Police in one of the few private offices in the newly reconstructed Scotland Yard. The damage done by the Fenian bomb two years previously was still being repaired. Eventually, an entirely new building would be erected next to the old site, but for now the work of the Metropolitan Police had to be done while masons, bricklayers, plasterers, carpenters, and painters were wielding their tools, yelling their opinions of the bobbies, and generally causing havoc.
Inspector MacRae had managed to wangle this cubicle on the strength of his vital role in the defence of the nation in searching out Irish terrorists. Now he scowled over his desk at Inspector Calloway, who had wedged his bulk into a corner of the tiny office, making it even more impossible to move about. MacRae read the sprawling handwriting on the sheets before him carefully, trying to decide if Calloway was really trying to catch the killer of Samuel Basset or if he had already written it off as just another street hooligan out to grab a wallet. He himself had reluctantly come to the conclusion that the interfering scholar from Oxford and his annoying Edinburgh companion were right, and that this was one death he could not lay at the feet of terror
ists, much as he would like to. MacRae’s innate sense of justice would not let him hang a man for a crime he did not commit. The printer O’Casey may or may not have been a Fenian, but he could not have stuck a knife into the back of Samuel Basset. Neither did he bash in this Peterson fellow’s head with a brick, MacRae thought gloomily, as he read Calloway’s notes.
Calloway watched the Scotland Yard man peer at the reports through his spectacles and wondered how such a puny specimen had survived as a policeman all these years. In Calloway’s opinion, a policeman’s duty was to intimidate, and a scrawny bit like this MacRae would never deter a lawbreaker. As for MacRae’s obsession with Irish terrorists, that was all nonsense. Calloway’s grandfather had come from Belfast, and as far as he was concerned, the Irish could keep their miserable little island.
MacRae put down the papers with a disgusted snort. The autopsy report from one Dr Angus Ogilvie declared that Samuel Basset had died of a stab wound to the back, which had nicked the renal artery and caused massive internal bleeding. The blow to the head was immaterial. The murderer of Samuel Basset had to have been behind him; ergo, he had to have been one of the people inside the building at 4:45 in the afternoon. Since Oscar Wilde had been at the Café Royal from 4:30 onwards, that eliminated him.
MacRae glanced up at Calloway. The Londoner glared back at him, as if daring him to find anything against procedure in the carefully written reports. According to Inspector Calloway, the City of London Police had conducted the investigation into the murder of Samuel Basset in the manner indicated by regulations. They had searched the premises of Youth’s Companion in an attempt to find the murder weapon, but no murder weapon had been found. Calloway himself had interviewed the staff of the magazine to no avail. No one would admit to stabbing Samuel Basset, and all of them expressed deep concern at the demise of their dear friend and colleague, David Peterson.
MacRae felt frustrated. Every time he set out to conduct a proper investigation, he was called away to do something else. He had been on the scene at a murder and had been hauled off to deal with a riot. He had been at Bow Street early to give his evidence, and before he could wind up the case properly, he was sent back to Fleet Street. Before he could delve into the intricacies of the Youth’s Companion staff and who did or did not wish to remove Mr Samuel Basset from his position, he had been summoned back to Scotland Yard to direct the action against the latest wave of protesters marching down the Strand towards Trafalgar Square. It meant leaving the investigation in the hands of Inspector Calloway, a galling prospect to Inspector MacRae, who considered the whole notion of a separate police force for a square mile of territory in the heart of the city to be a medieval holdover unworthy of the nineteenth century.
However, he had no choice. In the eyes of the Metropolitan Police, two dead bodies lying in the morgue at Bart’s were not as important as several thousand live ones shouting slogans and waving cudgels at the windows of the clubs in St James’s Square.
It was into Calloway’s huge hands that MacRae had put the case, and those hands seemed to have managed to destroy evidence, let possible suspects slip away, and generally botch the job, in MacRae’s estimation.
‘Why didn’t you question that clerk Levin?’ MacRae demanded, as he flipped through the sheets of paper looking for the missing interview.
‘I tried,’ Calloway protested. ‘Every time I got near ’im, ’e were off wif some errand fer this Portman, wot ’as took over from Basset.’
‘Hmmm. Portman had rooms with Basset on Baker Street.’
‘Aye, them two were batchin’ it,’ Calloway said. ‘But Portman moved out five year since.’
‘I’ve been there and had a word with the landlady,’ MacRae told him, handing him a neatly written report. ‘It seems that our Mr Basset had a fancy for young men.’
Calloway sniggered. ‘One of them sort, were ’e? Weren’t that feller Wilde seen ’angin’ about? Maybe it wos ’im wot slipped the knife inter Basset.’
‘Oscar Wilde was nowhere near the place when Basset was stabbed,’ MacRae said with a touch of regret.
‘Which were when?’
‘We arrived just after five o’clock, and the man had just died, according to Dr Doyle,’ MacRae reminded him.
‘Doyle? That Scotty wif the big plaid coat?’
MacRae tried to overlook the ethnic reference and continue his summation of the case. ‘Autopsy report has the knife going in at an acute angle, meaning the killer was much taller than he …’
‘Or on them stairs,’ Calloway pointed out. ‘I don’t like to say it, but yon Scotsman were right. It ’ad to be one of them writers inside.’
‘And now what?’ MacRae asked the universe. The universe did not answer. Sergeant Hoskins did, summoning the two of them to attend a general meeting in the chief commissioner’s office at the very top of the building.
Chief Inspector Warren shot a warning glance at Inspectors MacRae and Calloway, the last of the inspectors and superintendents to arrive. Chief Commissioner Henderson, the august head of the Metropolitan Police, appointed by Her Majesty herself, was waiting for the group to assemble. Chief Commissioner Henderson was not pleased with them.
Chief Commissioner Henderson had been reading the afternoon newspapers, which were spread out on his desk. He eyed his troops with a steely gaze.
‘Do you know what has been going on?’ he asked in a deceptively mild tone. ‘Are you aware of the state into which our city has fallen?’ He tapped the newspapers. ‘According to The Times, last night’s disturbances were worse than the Chartist riots, a harbinger of things to come, and possibly the next step that will lead to a commune, like Paris in ‘Seventy.’
‘I doubt that, sir,’ MacRae ventured to say.
It was not a good idea. Henderson turned to see who had spoken.
‘Inspector MacRae, Special Branch, sir.’ MacRae saluted smartly.
‘In that case, Inspector MacRae, let me inform you that the London populace reads The Times. They believe The Times. And when The Times informs the London populace that the police are doing nothing, that is not good news for anyone. Are you aware that certain schools have closed and are sending their pupils home? There was a rumour bruited about that a mob is marching through the Commercial Road to Fleet Street to continue last night’s entertainment. The Southwark shopkeepers are boarding up their establishments. I hear the theatres are even cancelling tonight’s performances.’
This, more than anything, struck home. If the theatres were closing, matters must be serious indeed.
‘The Metropolitan Police are the officers of the law, but more than that, we are here to keep order,’ Henderson declared. ‘I want every available man out on the streets tonight. There is to be another of those rabble-rousing meetings in Trafalgar Square, called for seven this evening. I do not want a repetition of last night’s fiasco. There will be no violence!’
‘We can’t arrest Englishmen for listening to a lot of hot air,’ someone commented from the back of the crowd. ‘If these socialists or Fair Traders have been given official permission …’
‘We cannot stop them from speaking,’ Henderson allowed. ‘But we can stop them from acting on that speech. There will be no riot tonight, is that understood?’
‘Sir,’ MacRae interrupted the tirade. ‘Begging your pardon, sir, but Inspector Calloway and I were in the middle of a murder investigation.’
‘It can wait,’ Henderson decided. ‘The man won’t be any less dead in twenty-four hours. I have requested assistance from the City of London Police, to bring in extra constables and sergeants to protect South London, while the Metropolitan Police concentrate their attention on this meeting in Trafalgar Square. There are rumours of mobs gathering everywhere, in Bethnal Green and Camden Town, even Kentish Town. I wouldn’t be surprised if the artists in Bloomsbury and the, ah, ladies in St John’s Wood were up in arms. I want you all to be ready for anything.’
‘Yes, sir!’ Chief Inspector Warren saluted and turned to his me
n. ‘Dismissed!’ he ordered. ‘We will convene in Trafalgar Square!’
The policemen shuffled out of the chief commissioner’s office thinking bleakly about another night spent in the cold and fog. MacRae and Calloway trudged down to MacRae’s office, where they gathered their reports together and looked at each other in bafflement. For once the two of them were in agreement. Their murder case was being put to the back of the fire just when it was getting interesting.
A uniformed constable poked his head in at the door. ‘Inspector MacRae? Message for you.’
MacRae accepted the folded note, scanned it, then tossed it to Calloway. ‘And what do you make of that?’
Calloway read aloud, ‘ “Mr Nicholas Portman requests your presence at a dinner party at the Café Royal at eight o’clock tonight. Mr C. Dodgson will speak on the subject of the deaths of Mr Samuel Basset and Mr David Peterson.” Is the bloke barmy? Don’t ’e know there’s a riot on?’
MacRae scowled at the note. ‘If Mr Portman wants policemen, he will have to wait in line,’ he said. The thought of a dinner at the Café Royal reminded him of something else. ‘Have you had your tea?’ MacRae asked his Cockney colleague.
‘I ’ave not. Nor ’ave I ’ad me luncheon, barring a bite o’ veal and ’am pie bought off a stall in Fleet Street.’
‘Then we’d best have something now before we’re put out on duty again. It’s going to be another long, cold night.’
MacRae led Calloway to a small pub, where they ordered hot pies and pots of stout and compared notes in relative amity.
‘It ’as to be one of ’em, but I’m blasted if I know why,’ Calloway said between bites.
‘I had a look at Basset’s personal accounts,’ MacRae offered. ‘He’d been buying some men’s suiting, but not for himself. Find the fancy boy, I say.’
‘Shershay ler fammie?’ Calloway’s French accent was atrocious, but the sense was plain. ‘Which of ’em were in that office?’
‘The Italian with the fancy vest? The artist with all the hair?’ MacRae shook his head. ‘And that other one …’
The Problem of the Evil Editor Page 25