Crooked in His Ways

by S. M. Goodwin

  “I cannot p-promise such a thing. If you’ve d-d-done something criminal—”

  “It wasn’t criminal.”

  Jasper hesitated.

  “It wasn’t. And it didn’t hurt anyone.” Her eyes darted toward Mr. Vogel. She swallowed hard. “Except me—and … and another person.”

  “Hurt?”

  “No, not like that—I mean—” Unshed tears glittered in her eyes.

  Whether it was the horrific thought of being caught on the dance floor with a weeping woman, or Helen Vogel’s almost oppressive beauty, Jasper jerked out a nod. “Very w-w-well. Provided you’ve d-d-done nothing criminal, what you tell me w-will remain in confidence. But I must speak to you.”

  She nodded, her jaw wobbling slightly as she swallowed repeatedly. “Yes, of course. But not now—please, I’m feeling ill.”

  She looked it.

  Jasper wove his way through the dancers, leading her in the opposite direction from her husband—who appeared to be heading their way.

  “Did Mr. Beauchamp tell you something about me, my lord?” When Jasper hesitated, she said, “Please! If he told you, it’s possible he might have told other people.” She made a choking sound. “Good Lord, he might have said something to my husband. I don’t want to go home and learn—”

  “Shhh, Mrs. Vogel. As far as I know, your husband knows nothing. But you mu-mu-must get hold of yourself. We are attracting attention. I’m going to take you to sit down.” He looked down at her as he led her to a free chair, not wanting to say what he had to tell her while she was standing; she already looked on the verge of fainting.

  “What did Beauchamp tell you?” she hissed, again through a smile, this one far more tremulous than the last.

  “He is gone, Mrs. Vogel.”

  “Gone?” Her expression was quizzical, and Jasper believed she was genuinely confused.

  Of course you do—nothing quite like a pretty face to convince you of somebody’s innocence.

  It was his turn to grit his teeth. He waited until she’d lowered herself into her chair before leaning closer on the pretext of shifting out of the way of her enormous crinoline and saying in a low voice. “He’s been murdered.”

  “Oh my God!”

  Even though the music was still playing, her shrill outburst drew several curious looks.

  “Mrs. Vogel.” He used the quiet, firm tone that had always worked on subordinates in the military.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, her chin trembling. Her eyes flickered over Jasper’s shoulder. “Adolphus is coming,” she said through a smile that was more of a rictus. “I’ll come see you tomorrow—at your house. I can get away at three, I’m supposed to be at a—”

  “Helen, my dear.” Vogel’s booming voice was far louder than a full orchestra as he appeared from behind Jasper’s shoulder and stood in front of his wife, his hard black eyes on Jasper. “You are flushed, Helen. You’ve overexerted yourself.” Although his tone was gently chiding, Jasper heard the steel note of possession beneath it and knew that he was meant to hear it.

  Helen Vogel unfurled the fan that hung from her wrist, her eyes demure and downcast before her lord and master. “You are so good to be concerned about me, Adolphus.” It was like watching somebody soothe a wild slavering beast. “I’m just a little warm. Perhaps you might take me out onto the terrace for a moment.”

  Vogel preened beneath her submissive yet skillful handling, but his posture remained as rigid as a rooster’s. “I don’t think so, my love. I think it is time I took you home.”

  Vogel extended a hand, and his wife instantly complied, her expression caressing—almost worshipful—as she looked up into her far larger husband’s face.

  It was a performance that deserved a standing ovation.

  Vogel tucked her delicate hand beneath his arm, his smug expression turning venomous when his gaze settled on Jasper. “You’ll have to excuse us for our abrupt departure, er, my lord,” he said the words with a sneer. “But my wife is in a delicate condition and needs her rest.” The words were the human equivalent of urinating in a circle around his wife.

  The vulgar comment not only served to announce to anyone within ten feet both his sexual virility and his wife’s condition, it also deepened Mrs. Vogel’s worrisome flush and left her eyes almost feverishly bright.

  “Of course,” Jasper murmured, bowing to Helen Vogel. “It was a pleasure to m-m-meet you, Mrs. Vogel, sir.”

  As Vogel led his wife from the Astors’ ballroom, Jasper couldn’t help thinking that there was a man who would do anything to keep control of his most valuable possession. Perhaps even commit murder.

  CHAPTER 10

  July 3

  Jasper was just finishing his morning routine when there was a loud rapping on the door.

  He smiled; that wouldn’t be Paisley, who made the softest of scratching noises, if he knocked at all.

  He picked up a towel from the fresh stack his valet had left for him. “Come in.”

  John opened the door, his eyes going wide when he took in Jasper’s shirtless dishabille. “Oh! S-S-Sorry.”

  “It’s quite all right. D-Did you need something?” Jasper wiped his face.

  John was wearing pressed black trousers, a shirt, vest, tie, and a crisp apron tied around his waist. He looked like a miniature Paisley. He glanced around the room, clearly perplexed by it. Jasper supposed he would never have seen a gymnasium in Five Points.

  “What is it, J-John?”

  “Uh, Mr. P-P-P-P—bugger!” He grimaced. “Er, s-s-s-sorry. Um, he w-w-w-w-wants to know where y-y-y-you want your b-b-b-breakfast.”

  Ah, so Paisley was still miffed after Jasper had eaten in the kitchen. “I’ll eat on the t-terrace.”

  John nodded, dropped an awkward bow, and left, closing the door with a jarring thud.

  Jasper went to the bar Paisley had installed for him; it was just out of reach and he had to jump to grab it. He always saved lifts until last, as they left him boneless. He aimed for thirty but was usually satisfied if he could make twenty-five.

  He counted silently as he maintained his form and pulled his chin up to the bar. By fifteen, he was sweating profusely, his biceps and shoulders shaking. He dropped to the floor and walked a few circuits of the room, shaking out his arms.

  He’d rowed with the OUBC but had no memory at all of the activity. The only way he knew that he’d participated were a few rowing trophies that Paisley kept in the library whatnot, shiny and polished.

  Although he had very little recollection of it, he’d first developed an appreciation for the effect of exercise on his body and mind when he’d lived in Paris in the late forties. Like many other young men at the time, he’d joined Hippolyte Triat’s revolutionary gymnasium.

  In the decade since, he’d developed his own regime: sparring—only with bags after his head injury—push-ups, sit-ups, and lifts, and two sessions a week with dumbbells.

  Given the nature of his job, and the frequent confrontations he found himself engaged in, he was serious about maintaining his general fitness.

  He went back to the bar and resumed his exercise, his mind on the day ahead.

  In addition to his appointment here at three o’clock with Mrs. Vogel, he wanted to call on Miss Anita Fowler and then meet Law over at Frumkin’s house, hopefully to open the safe.

  His breathing deepened and his muscles trembled as he completed the last six lifts. His mind went blank, no room for anything but the oddly pleasurable burn in his upper body. When he dropped to the floor, he had to brace himself, hands on his thighs, to catch his breath.

  This morning was proving more grueling than usual because last night had been later than he was accustomed to; he’d not returned until after three, even though he’d left the Astor party at a quarter past midnight.

  He’d decided to walk back to Union Square, which was just around a mile from 350 Fifth Avenue.

  The last thing he remembered was pausing at a street corner and waiting for a carriage to pas
s.

  The next memory he had after that was of being shaken awake. He’d been sprawled on the steps of a large house on West Nineteenth Street.

  The manservant who’d found him had looked terrified, clearly aware—by Jasper’s clothing—that he was no vagrant or beggar.

  “Were you knocked unconscious, sir?” the older man asked, his expression pensive as he glanced around the silent, well-lighted street. “Do you think you’ve been robbed?” he asked, when the first question failed to get Jasper moving.

  Jasper had glanced at the ruby signet on his right hand and then felt for his watch and wallet before shaking his head. “No.” When he pushed to his feet, the world tipped and tilted.

  “Careful, there—steady on.” The man held Jasper’s elbow. “A bit bosky, sir?”

  Jasper gave a weak chuckle, his vision settling as the dizziness fled. “B-Bosky is more enjoyable than this.” He glanced down at the anxious man and gave what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “I’ve just b-b-been a bit under the weather of late,” he lied.

  The servant didn’t look convinced, but he bent and picked up Jasper’s cane, the Russian silver Venus de Milo, which had slid down the steps to the sidewalk.

  “Thank you.”

  “Will you let me fetch you a hackney, sir?”

  “No, thank you. I sh-sh-shall walk.” He smiled. “Really, I am f-fine and it isn’t f-far to Union Square.” The older man nodded. “But I am g-grateful you found me.”

  Jasper realized he was standing and staring blankly and shook himself out of his fugue, toweling himself dry as he considered his brief loss of time the evening before.

  He had been very, very lucky last night. It was the first time that he’d lost track of himself in almost two years. After he’d returned from the Crimea, he’d spent three out of every four days at least partially lost. Time had slipped almost drunkenly, a day feeling like a minute; minutes sometimes feeling like hours.

  He’d been experiencing more headaches of late but attributed that to the rather thorough beating he’d endured at the hands of a man named Devlin McCarthy several weeks earlier.

  The metal plate in his head never responded well to either heat or agitation, and McCarthy possessed fists like blocks of granite.

  In any case, he had evidentially sustained a bit more damage than merely getting his bell rung. He supposed that he should make an appointment with the doctor his London physician had referred him to.

  He couldn’t use Paisley to make the appointment, as he normally would, because his valet would sniff out the truth like a bloodhound and then he would worry and nag. And then worry some more.

  And then he would drive Jasper to distraction.

  Jasper tossed the towel onto the bench and then pulled on his robe. He would just have to make sure that Paisley didn’t find out.

  * * *

  Hy pounded on the door for the fourth time. “Mr. Hett!” he yelled. He stepped back and glanced up at the windows—just in time to see one of the drapes move and the sash window slowly lift.

  “Christ almighty,” a nightshirt-clad man shouted. “What bloody time is it?”

  “Eight o’clock.”

  Eight had been as late as Hy could stand to wait. He had to get over to the Tombs to get Wilfred Trimble out and then take the old safecracker over to Sullivan Street by noon. Hy had a feeling that dealing with the jailer at the Tombs—where he’d until recently been a resident—would be a time-consuming event.

  “What do you want?”

  “Are you Mr. Hett?” Hy asked, even though he recognized him from the drawing on the theater playbill.

  “Who wants to know?”

  Hy took his badge from his pocket and held it up.

  Hett groaned. “Oh, Christ.” His head dropped and Hy could hear him sigh all the way down at the front door. “Hold on a minute and I’ll be down.” The window slammed shut.

  Hy glanced around at the street as he waited. He rarely came to what New Yorkers called Kleindeutschland if he could help it. Something about the almost exclusively German area made him feel anxious. He figured that was because of his past associations.

  Hy had once been a resident of Kleindeutschland many years ago, when he’d lived in a one-room shack behind Eldridge with his Groβmutti Law.

  After his grandmother died, he’d become an orphan at seven, and a ward of the streets until Saint Patrick’s Asylum for Homeless Children—or St. Pat’s Ass, as its youthful denizens had disrespectfully deemed it—took him in after six months of starvation and terror.

  Or maybe the area made him anxious because it was crowded, deafening, and full of industrial workshops where immigrants toiled for a pittance.

  Whatever the reason, if Rene Hett was living here then he must have done something very, very wrong.

  Hy was just about ready to start pounding again when the door opened. Hett was still dressed in his nightshirt, but with a ratty silk robe over it and scuffed, filthy slippers on his feet.

  “Come in,” he croaked, turning away and heading back into the dim, sweltering, onion-smelling building.

  Hy followed him up rickety stairs to the second floor, his skin prickling with heat.

  Hett’s lodging was a big room with a small kitchen off to one side. One part of the room had been partitioned with screens, and he assumed it was Hett’s toilet area.

  “I need some coffee,” Hett muttered as he shuffled to the tiny coal stove that was already radiating an unbearable heat. He opened the door, tossed in a handful of fuel, and then straightened up with a pained grunt.

  Sweat trickled between Hy’s shoulders, and he breathed through his mouth. The odor of unwashed bodies and stale piss was oppressive.

  He saw there were windows on the north- and west-facing walls—Hett had a corner room—so why the bloody hell were they all closed?

  “I’m opening a window,” Hy said, worried he might pass out if he didn’t.

  Hett gave a dismissive wave without turning around.

  Hy had to kneel on the bed to get to the sash.

  The bedding moved beneath him.

  “Jaysus!” he yelped, staggering back.

  A head covered with tangled, unnaturally blond hair poked out from beneath the covers. The woman’s face was smeared with face paint, black streaks around her eyes and down her cheeks.

  “Who the hell are you?” she demanded in a flat nasal voice that said she came from across the river.

  “Never you mind, Nora.” Hett shoved Hy aside and then opened the window with a jerk. He motioned for Hy to follow him back to the kitchen, where he opened a third, far smaller, window—an unheard-of luxury—and then slumped against the counter. “Now, what do you want?”

  “Do you know Albert Beauchamp?”

  “Who?” Hett asked, his bloodshot eyes wide.

  Hy had seen Hett act in a play once—years ago, back when Castle Garden was still open. Hett had overacted that night; he was still overacting now.

  Hy just stared at the other man.

  Hett had been one of the names with an item beside it: Shakespeare quarto. Lightner had said they were valuable—worth a few hundred dollars, even.

  Hett’s eyes slid away. And then came back. He heaved a sigh. “Fine, I know him. Why?”

  “Tell me why he’s blackmailing you.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “How do you know him?” Hy countered.

  “How else—he’s one of my devoted followers.”

  Hy laughed.

  The other man bristled. “You’re offensive—and unless you tell me why you’re here, you can get the hell out.”

  “Why was he blackmailing you?” Hy repeated.

  Hett opened his mouth—probably to lie again—but then his lips twisted into a sneer. “Was blackmailing me? The bastard still is. Every bloody month.” He shoved a hand through his hair in a dramatic gesture Hy didn’t think he was even conscious of making. “I need something other than coffee,” he muttered, yankin
g open the cupboard door and pulling out a bottle of Old Tub. He lifted the bottle in Hy’s direction.

  “No.”

  Not only was it eight in the morning, but Old Tub was about the nastiest rotgut whiskey around; Hy would rather drink out of a mud puddle.

  Hett tilted back his head, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down three times before he removed the bottle from his lips, grimaced, and then sighed, smacking the bung back in before putting it away.

  He blinked up at Hy. “So, where were we—oh, that’s right, that bastard and his squeezing.”

  “You said you were still paying him—how?”

  “Twenty dollars a month, every month, to that bloodsucker of his.”

  Twenty dollars a month was a fortune—at least to a regular working man: Hy made nine dollars a week. Maybe some actors made more, but he doubted Hett was one of those.

  “Bloodsucker?” Hy repeated.

  “A lawyer—Gideon Richards.”

  Hy jotted down the name.

  “Hey—you’re not going to tell him I told you that?”

  He saw real fear in Hett’s eyes. Interesting. “Why is he blackmailing you?”

  Hett’s mouth screwed up so tight it looked like a cat’s arsehole. “Why should I tell you anything?”

  “Would you like to come down to the station with me? Maybe somebody there could explain why.”

  Hett groaned and threw back his head. “Fuck,” he whispered, before bringing his chin back down. “How do I know you won’t use what I tell you to have me thrown in jail anyhow?”

  It really was a shame how little faith people had in the police.

  “Did you kill somebody?” Hy asked.

  Hett flinched back. “No!”

  “Then you have nothing to worry about,” Hy lied. “What did you do?”

  Hett squirmed and huffed and sighed. “Fine. It was a while back—February of last year, and I needed money. Bad. Things had been—” He paused, chewed his lower lip, and then shook his head. “I helped a mate of mine get into a rich bird’s house while I—well, you know.”