by J. A. Rock
“Jacob’s Island?”
“It’s a wretched place, and I don’t doubt that people are stabbed there with some frequency. But here’s the rub. I know the fellow. Or rather, I met him. Earlier this evening.”
“My God! Who is he?”
“A drunk by the name of Howe.”
“How did you—”
“Listen. There’s a man from the Bow Street Runners, George Darling. He told me about the murder, but his supervisor isn’t sending anyone out to investigate. What’s one more gin-soaked corpse in a city brimming with them? Yet earlier tonight Howe spoke to me affectionately of his young daughter. And there is no mother to speak of.”
“That’s terrible.”
Gale stared at him.
“Did you tell this Darling fellow?” Chant tried.
“I did not.”
Chant was confused, to put it mildly. “Perhaps you ought to have?”
“The Runners do not, as a rule, like me, and I do not like them. They consider me a meddlesome nuisance who only exists to make them look like bumbling fools, and I consider them, well, bumbling fools. Darling is tolerable, but…” Gale ran a hand through his hair. “He shares his colleagues’ attitude toward the poor.”
Again Chant waited, as that seemed to be more effective than attempting to make the correct interjections in a story he still did not understand.
“I would like to locate this girl and see what insight she can provide into her father’s affiliations.”
“You are going to take the case of this Howe fellow?”
“Please don’t call it a case. And this is not a formal investigation. I only wish to have my curiosity satisfied. A fellow asking me about a missing dog and then turning up dead mere hours later—strange, is it not?”
“It is,” Chant agreed.
Gale looked away from Chant, and after a moment, sighed, then spoke. “All right, if you must know”—Chant could not recall asking to know anything, but he did not point this out—“I find it hard to put the girl from my mind. I have sisters. Far too many. I am cursed. But however I feel about sisters, I… I know that objectively, morally, it would be wrong not to find this girl and… see that she is provided for.”
And just like that, something in Chant’s heart gave. Gale might fancy himself a misanthrope. He might use words as a porcupine used its quills, but he was not quite the cynic he pretended to be. And Chant thought, for a wild instant, that he should follow this man off the cliffs of Dover if Gale requested it—simply because he knew Gale would keep things lively and unpredictable right until the end. “I agree. What do you need from me?”
Gale hesitated. “I… do not know how to talk to children. I find them strange and horrifying. If we can locate Howe’s house, and if we discover the girl there… could you speak to her in a way she will not find frightening?”
Chant opened his mouth slightly, unsure how to respond. “I suppose I can.”
“Ah, wonderful. I knew from the moment I saw you that you would not frighten children. Come. Let us go.”
“Where is it we are going?”
“I do not know the precise address, but it is in Jacob’s Island, and we will find it.”
For some unknown reason, Chant believed him. “Wait while I dress.”
“Do not—” Gale wrinkled his nose and then folded his arms around himself like some anxious praying mantis. He was not, as Chant had noted earlier in the night, a conventionally attractive fellow, and yet he was compelling. His body was too thin, almost spindly, and his personality was equal parts sharp and sour, but for all of that Chant sensed a carefully guarded goodness about him, buried so deeply that he doubted most people even suspected it was there. And his eyes were mesmerising; they clearly held some sort of mystical power over Chant since he couldn’t imagine why on earth he would be agreeing to step out in the middle of the night on this mad errand otherwise. “Do not wear your own coat. It may be best to borrow a servant’s, unless you want to advertise the size of your purse to the denizens of Jacobs Island.”
“Oh,” said Chant. “I shall... I shall see what I can borrow off the servants, I suppose.”
“Why do you live in such an unfashionable house?” Gale asked bluntly. “The whole of London knows your stairs creak. You are the third son of the deceased Earl of Farnleigh, are you not?”
“I am,” Chant agreed, a knot forming suddenly in his stomach. Had Gale made inquiries about his family? About his father? And if so, what had he learned? Best not to fret about it. “Have you asked about me, sir?”
“I certainly have not,” Gale said archly. He curled his lip. “I have simply read Debrett’s Peerage.”
“All of it?” Chant asked, astonished.
“Of course.” A scowl furrowed Gale’s forehead. “But you haven’t answered my question.”
If Gale had simply read Debrett’s—well, “simply” was hardly the word for such a task—then perhaps Chant could relax. He didn’t sense that this was a trap on Gale’s part to get Chant to reveal family secrets. But if Gale did make inquiries… Well, one did not have to scratch too hard at the surface to learn what had become of Chant’s family.
He steadied his voice. “If you must know, and clearly you must, from my bedroom I have the most enchanting view of the churchyard behind the house.”
Gale narrowed his eyes, the faint light from the nearest gas lamp giving him an almost malevolent appearance. “You like it for the view?” he asked slowly, as though there was something about Chant’s answer that he had entirely failed to comprehend.
“Yes,” Chant said. He gestured toward the doorway. “Now, I shall wake the hall boy and see if he has an overcoat to lend me. Will you go and try to find a cab, or shall we stand here all night being quietly bewildered by one another?”
Gale’s eyes narrowed farther until he was nearly squinting, and then, abruptly, he squared his narrow shoulders and began to stride towards the door on his long, thin legs.
And that, Chant supposed, answered that.
Gale brooded the entire way to Jacob’s Island. He attempted to review what he knew about the drunkard Howe, but he kept getting distracted by Chant, who seemed to spend an awful lot of time watching him. As the cab bumped along, it occurred to Gale that he ought to share some of what he was thinking with Chant. The idea of conversation pained him, but if he wanted Chant’s help in this endeavour, the man ought to know what they were up against.
“This man, Howe, worked at the dockyards at the Surrey Quays. That was near where I encountered him, in Rotherhithe. Though he lacks—lacked—education, he appeared to make up for that in brawn. He approached me earlier, wanting help to find his lost dog, but I declined to help him, and was rather short with him—”
“I can’t possibly imagine,” Chant murmured.
Gale ignored that. “And now he is dead.” Was there a connection? Was he mad to think one existed? He told Chant all he recalled of his conversation with Howe.
“The dog skipped off a ship,” Chant repeated. “Howe took the mutt home to his daughter. And then the dog ran away?”
“Those are the facts at present.”
“And he just happened to find you. The one man in London famous for solving mysteries.”
“They say Fate works in mysterious ways.”
“What the devil were you doing in Rotherhithe? And right before the ball at the Harringdons’?”
“Visiting a molly house,” Gale said bluntly.
Chant sat back, and Gale wondered if he’d offended him. Then wondered why he was wasting any time at all thinking about Benjamin Chant’s feelings.
He changed the subject. “I think it’s very likely the child has aunts and uncles and cousins, of course. Most people do. Entire infestations of relatives, like lice. This will most likely be a wasted trip.”
“You’re welcome,” Chant said.
“What?”
“Oh, I thought that when you said it would most likely be a wasted trip, the apology for dra
gging me along and the gratitude for my compliance was implicit.” Chant’s mouth turned up in a smile. “Perhaps I was mistaken.”
Gale ignored that too. “And yet he said the dog was a miracle, and that he and his daughter had been lonely.” He tapped his gloved fingers on his knee. “No, not a wasted trip at all.” He slanted a gaze at Chant. “Implicit apology retracted.”
“Noted,” Chant said amiably. He tilted his head. “For a man who affects coldness, I suspect you are kinder than you allow yourself to be perceived.”
“Yes,” Gale said dryly. “Not wanting a dead orphan on my conscience makes me a paragon of virtue, I’m sure.”
He stared pointedly out the window of the cab, refusing to be drawn into further conversation.
He wasn’t entirely sure why he’d sought out Chant for tonight’s odd adventure, and he didn’t want to dig too deeply to discover the reason because he suspected it would only serve to reveal his deficiencies. For a moment tonight, on the Harringdons’ terrace, Gale had felt almost naked under Chant’s gaze as though the man had the power to strip away all of Gale’s prickly layers with nothing more than a glance. Yet Chant had not been teasing about Gale’s obvious weakness, or cruel in any way, and while Gale didn’t trust the other man’s apparent good-naturedness, he was compelled by it all the same. Because there he was, sitting in a cab with him, hurtling over the bridge toward Jacob’s Island. Of all the labyrinthine mysteries that Gale had ever uncovered—twisted lies wrapped around layers of barbed deceit and usually hidden behind honeyed words—the idea that basic human decency might exist in the world was somehow terrifying to him. Chant’s touch had been solicitous, and Gale’s stomach clenched just thinking about it. Good Lord. At least Teddy and the other fellows Gale knew in the same manner had the common decency to touch only to signal that they wanted to swive. What the blazes was Gale supposed to do with concern? Yet it was Chant he’d sought out.
Gale pressed his mouth into a thin line and scowled out the window of the cab.
When the cab left them, Gale took off at a quick pace, having no wish to linger in any one spot. He could sense Chant’s easy amusement turn to discomfort as they wended their way through the shadows, rats skittering along the cobblestones to either side of them. He was reconsidering the wisdom of passing through this neighbourhood in the dead of night.
“Gale…what is this place?”
Gale didn’t answer. He had no time for nonsense questions. To their right, the moon glinted off the reeking water of a massive ditch. The foulness of the smell was indescribable. He’d never ventured so deep into a slum before; the seedier part of Rotherhithe had been his limit, and he couldn’t tell whether it thrilled or terrified him to find himself on such dangerous territory.
But they had come this far, and locating the girl was important to the investigation. Not that this was an investigation.
He paid a drunk a halfpenny to give him directions to Howe’s house and then, a street or two later, he paid a molly a halfpenny for directions that were less muddled.
His eyes were keen, but still he strained to make out anything in the dimness. Were it not for a small fire a beggar had made nearby, he might not have been able to discern Howe’s building from any of the others in the street, where they were packed in shoulder to shoulder as tightly as headstones in a crowded graveyard. The street was uneven, half the cobblestones sunk into filthy puddles, and a narrow open drain cut down the middle of it. It stank of shit. Gale counted down the ramshackle terrace houses as he passed them, stopping at the fifth. The molly had said it was the one with the green door; whether or not this house had a green door or not, Gale couldn’t tell in the darkness. The possibly-green door hung from one hinge.
“Gale,” Chant hissed.
“What?” Gale whispered irritably.
“I don’t…”
Gale was about to snap at him to finish, but forced himself to wait.
“I don’t like this.”
And Gale had thought Chant a man, not a shying horse who needed to be soothed, and he was an instant away from saying something to that effect. But there was real fear in Chant’s voice, and Gale could hardly fault him for it. There was a fair chance they would both end up dead in an alley, like Howe. The memory of Chant’s patience with him earlier that night was still strong. He took a breath.
“Nor do I. But we’ve reached our destination, Chant. If the child is not here, we won’t pursue her any further. I will get you home. I promise.”
He said no more, but stepped over a broken roof tile and climbed the steps. Chant stopped close to him, and Gale tried to ignore the soft sound of the other man’s breathing. They stepped inside the dark passageway. A faint light flickered at the far end of the hall; a hanging lantern. It did little to light their way.
Gale approached the nearest door. The molly had said Howe lived on the ground floor, first on the left. He rapped lightly on the door, and when there was no answer, he tried the knob. The door creaked open, a sliver of moonlight growing wider across the floorboards, casting shadow to the sides. He stepped inside, trying not to wince at the smell of mildew and unemptied chamber pots. The room was barely large enough to turn around in, and he unwittingly trod upon a straw mattress on the floor. He was now fully aware of what an idiotic idea this had been. All that would be accomplished here was that he or Chant would break an ankle. And yet as he brushed a hand over a rickety table, he felt crumbs not yet stale, and not yet carried away by vermin. The house was not empty.
“Elise,” he called softly. “Elise, come out, wherever you are hiding. We know you’re here.”
“I have no wish to offend,” Chant whispered. “But you sound rather like an axe-wielding madman indulging in a game of cat and mouse with his prey.”
“What would you have me say?” Gale asked, annoyed.
“If she’s here, she is probably very frightened. She does not know who we are or why we’ve come.”
“And you think she’ll be impressed if we announce our titles?”
It was too dark to see Chant roll his eyes, but Gale was certain that was what happened. “You said Howe told you she’d read the article about you? Let her know we’re on the case—”
“Do not call it a c—”
He was interrupted by… he was not quite sure what. One moment he was standing in the darkness, arguing with Chant, the next, he was lying on his side on the filthy floor, his head throbbing.
“Gale! Are you all right?” Chant cried out above him.
Blearily, he felt around on the floor until his hand closed upon a small but heavy bit of rock. Footsteps pattered toward the open front door. “Stop her,” Gale rasped.
“Elise!” Chant called out. “Elise, my name is Benjamin Chant. I’m here with Christmas Gale, the famous investigator—”
“Not an investigator.” Gale’s voice sounded as though he had swallowed chalk.
Chant ignored him. “He is here to help you find your missing dog.”
“I most certainly am not,” Gale objected, but the footsteps stopped. A moment later, a flimsy floorboard creaked, and a small face appeared above Gale, mostly shadow with a slip of silver across it from the moon.
“Christmas Gale?” piped a thin voice full of hope.
“Yes,” said Chant and knelt beside them both. “Christmas and I have come to help you, Elise.”
Gale pulled himself into a sitting position, trying not to groan.
“You’re really Lord Christmas?” the girl asked again.
“Joy to the world,” Gale muttered, rubbing the back of his head.
“D’you know where Flum is?”
“Flum, I presume, is the dog?”
“It’s short for Flummery.”
“Of course it is.”
“I’m sorry I threw a rock at you. I thought you was burglars.”
“Quite all right,” Chant said. “We intruded in your home. It was very brave of you to defend yourself. And I must say, I’m quite impressed by your a
im in the darkness.”
Gale scowled, though the effect was rather lost in said darkness. “Oh, impressed are you?”
Chant stroked briefly down his arm and took his hand, pulling him to his feet. The gesture should not have made Gale’s skin prickle the way it did.
Elise gazed up at them. “Pa ain’t home yet. He might be playing cards. He said he’d help me look for Flum tonight.”
Gale nudged Chant, hoping the man would take his cue and break the tragic news to the girl so they could move things along.
“Elise,” Chant said carefully. “In order to help you, we must know if you have other family in the area. Any siblings… aunts or uncles… cousins?”
“It’s just me and Pa.”
Gale’s stomach sank. Well, hopefully they’d be able to extract some useful information from her before turning her over to the parish.
“It might be best if we go somewhere we can have a proper conversation,” Chant said gently. “Suppose we take a cab back to my home—”
Gale interrupted. “That—seems—not to be the best idea.” In a low voice, he said to Chant, “We cannot just pluck a small girl from her house and cart her off to that creaky testament to bachelorhood you call a home.”
“That is an excellent point. Your household is full of sisters and is probably far better suited than mine to provide Elise with a meal and some warm clothes.”
“What are you doing, man?” Gale hissed.
Elise’s voice cut through the shadows. “I got to start work at dawn.”
“Where do you work, Elise?” Chant asked.
“The carpet fact’ry.”
“All right. Well, Lord Christmas is going to send word to the foreman that you are assisting him in an important matter, and—”
Gale made a strangled sound, which did not deter Chant in the least.
“And we shall go to Gale’s house for the time being.”
“I don’t think the foreman would like me missin’ work to go look for Flum.”
“Yes, ah, well, you see…” Here, Chant seemed at a loss.
It was too much—the throbbing in Gale’s head, the smell of the house, this absurd idea of Chant’s… If they didn’t get to the heart of the matter, they’d lose valuable time investigating Howe’s death. Not that they were investigating Howe’s death. They had come here to see to Elise. That was the whole of it, so—Oh, dash it all! “Elise.” His voice was louder than he’d intended. “Your father is dead, slain in a most brutal fashion. We require your help to find out who killed him.”