The Incendiary's Trail

by James McCreet

  ‘It is not. It is the simple fact that I believe you have lost your sense of right and wrong. I am sure that even you understand we cannot have a serving detective who has aided a criminal to break out of prison. We would become the joke of the entire nation. It is better that you disappear gradually from view.’

  ‘Hmm. Hmm.’

  ‘It is really the best solution.’

  ‘Hmm. Have you behaved similarly with PC Cullen? Is he to be hanged?’

  ‘You need not be so melodramatic. The man is a capable policeman; he was following your orders and cannot be blamed for his actions. He is a simple man and quite in awe of the detectives. I have been no harsher with him than having him transferred to traffic duty on London-bridge.’

  ‘Where he may be trampled, crushed or maimed at any moment.’

  ‘If you say so. I can see you are tired, but I do have one further question before I leave. Have you had any contact with Noah Dyson since Friday night when we all came back to the city?’

  ‘I have not seen him or heard from him since that night – nor do I have any wish to. It was only through your machinations that we were introduced and there is no need for any further contact. Perhaps you will find him at home.’

  ‘Well, that is the thing. We went to his house the very next morning but there was no answer. We forced entry and discovered – it appears – that the man and his manservant have fled. The furniture remains, but the books and clothing have gone. I suspect that this occurred at the hands of the Negro even while we were at Vauxhall. The two of them seem to have vanished . . . do you find something amusing, Mr Williamson?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘If you have any information about his whereabouts, you are bound to deliver it. If he sends you a letter or one of his cryptic communications via a street boy or fancy-dress impostor, I trust you will contact me immediately. I must find him. He belongs on the other side of the world where he cannot damage the reputation of the Detective Force.’

  ‘Of course I will give you any information I have.’

  ‘Well . . . good. I trust you have heard about Dr McLeod?’

  ‘Yes. A tragic loss.’

  ‘Why would he kill himself? Do you suspect anything suspicious? He was connected to this case, however tangen-tially.’

  ‘I have no idea. I did not know him well. I suspect that few did. I was sorry to hear the news.’

  ‘Quite. Well, I will be leaving. I hope that we will remain in contact; if not professionally, then at least for the occasional cup of tea.’

  ‘I think not.’

  ‘That is a pity. Goodbye.’

  Now alone, Mr Williamson unfolded the letter he had received by post that very morning: the last letter written by Dr McLeod:

  Dear George

  I have no doubt that by now you have heard of my death and, adept detective that you are, have discerned the reason for it. I am the man you sought: the father of Eliza-Beth, the subject of Lucius Boyle’s blackmail and the unwilling accomplice in the murder of Mr Askern.

  These facts alone are enough to condemn me to eternal damnation, but they are nothing compared to my guilt over your treatment at the hands of Henry Hawkins. My part in a murder – hideous though it is – pales against the assault on my friend and colleague. Had I been a stronger man – had I not been motivated by the selfish desire to protect my name from infamy and taint – I would have come to you immediately. My death is my belated gesture of honesty. Now he can do nothing more against me.

  I do not know if you know the story of my past – of my youth. Mary Chatterton was – to my immature and romantic mind – a vision of beauty and perfection. I thought it was love. It was not. I knew nothing of the child until she wrote to me prior to her own murder. The blackmail started shortly thereafter.

  You will have guessed that he came to me on the night of the Oxford-street fire and compelled me to aid him in the murder of Mr Askern. Inspector Newsome had told me of Mr Allan’s secure address many times and I knew the protocol of entry. No doubt you have seen the note I wrote in Boyle’s name. It was also I who formulated the method of the killing – though I had hoped the combination of narcotics would merely stupefy Mr Askern. I was wrong.

  Boyle was in my house when the constables came to notify me of the Reverend Archer’s murder. He knew then what your fate would be. I tried to warn you that night, but you had to see justice done. If only my resolve had been so strong.

  I should have known that no man escapes his destiny. No man escapes his punishment. Mine came before the Judgment, and I will face it again at that time. I only hope that the motivations of my self-killing may be understood in its righteous context.

  Forgive me, George. Do with this letter as you see fit. My name is nothing to me now but an entry on a document and iron-chiselled marks on stone.

  Alexander McLeod.

  Mr Williamson held the letter in his hand with a feeling of commingled pity, sorrow and anger. He reserved the anger for himself for not having discerned the facts sooner. Had he done so, he might have prevented multiple deaths, including that of the doctor.

  Were there clues? In retrospect, he had to admit that there were, if only he had been able to piece them together. There was the body of Josiah Archer. Was the slip of paper in his dead hand – ‘I am watching. You will do my bidding’ – addressed to Mr Williamson as he had thought – or to the man who would very likely see it first, the man who actually did find it first: the doctor? Mr McLeod had paled at the sight of the handwriting. And he had just left the man who had written it.

  No doubt Inspector Newsome had told Dr McLeod of Mr Allan’s secret house and the means of entry to it. The letter accompanying Lucius Boyle to that address had claimed he had a ‘partially severed tongue’ – a decidedly medical-sounding explanation. Why not simply an ‘injured mouth’? Why any reason at all? Only Mr Newsome’s name was required to gain entry, but Dr McLeod had not known that when he wrote the letter. And the choice of murder weapon – a mixture of opium and hashish delivered to a man with respiratory problems – had a clinical genius to it that even Lucius Boyle might not have considered. Had the doctor also been forced to supply the change of clothes that Boyle had found before visiting the house?

  It was a ragged collection of clues that carried weight only after the death and confession of the doctor. And yet, hadn’t it seemed there was an equal quantity of clues against Inspector Newsome?

  Mr Williamson rubbed his eyes and looked into the hearth. The fire was dying and required more coal. His thoughts turned to Noah and he smiled again at the seemingly miraculous disappearance of the man. Where was he now? On a ship bound for the Indies or America? Or was he standing on the street outside dressed as a rag-picker, a cabman or a swell about town, watching over his erstwhile colleague? The man might well be everywhere – or nowhere: London’s very genius loci.

  The detective reluctantly left the warmth of his chair and bent to the bucket of coal before the fire died completely.

  With what emotions had Noah gazed upon the blistered countenance of his enemy? Had it been with relief? With anger? With pity? The face staring back at him had hardly been human. Rather, it was a liquescent parody of anatomy: bone and cartilage showing through black paper skin, eyes clouded with film, all trace of identity wiped clean by the purifying flame. It could be none other than Lucius Boyle. Nobody else had been in the balloon.

  There must have been no satisfaction in it. To have Boyle killed in a mere accident was a hollow victory. The cadaver seemed unreal – a mere effigy of the man Noah had known and carried with him as a talisman of vengeance for years. All vitality and threat had been purged from the body by the cleansing flame. Only ash was left.

  The men had travelled back to the city in a carriage provided by the assistants of Mr Lyme – the usual method of retrieving aeronauts. Few words had been exchanged on that trip, for the pursuit of Boyle had consumed each man in its way and worked its own web of animosities between them. No furthe
r mention of guilt or arrest was made; no more accusations were thrown. They would come later, as we have seen.

  On reaching the City-road, Noah had simply opened the carriage door as they turned a corner and stepped out into the night. Inspector Newsome had shouted after him, but he was gone. Gone back to the streets and the invisibility he had cultivated before his inadvertent capture. Gone so completely that even I did not know where he had gone – at least, for some time.

  Was there a second house that he had kept for years in anticipation of the necessity to flee? No doubt the loss of his property in Manchester-square was a painful one, though he had taken everything of personal value. The police could – and would – search it for clues to his whereabouts. They would search in vain. And then, suddenly, they would cease their attempts on the orders of Inspector Newsome, who would ascribe his unwillingness to continue to the futility of the search and the lack of manpower. The true reason, however, was quite different.

  Returning home late one night a few days after his meeting with Mr Williamson, the inspector ate a light meal and drank a gin and hot water, as was his habit. He performed his toilet, changed into his night shirt, extinguished the gas and got into bed.

  As soon as his head touched the pillow, he felt the object beneath. Sitting up with a jerk, he stepped out of bed and fumbled to light the gas lamp. Then he took a pair of brass tongs from the hearth and lifted the corner of the pillow as if a deadly serpent lurked there beneath.

  The object was a dagger. Noah Dyson’s dagger: the one that the inspector had confiscated all those weeks ago and later been obliged to return. The same one that Noah had held at Vauxhall Gardens and in the balloon.

  Mr Newsome looked phrenziedly around him, expecting to see the man emerging from the shadows intent on bloody retribution. But there was only silence. He moved to the window and pulled the curtains aside to look into the street, but saw nothing. He looked inside the wardrobe and under the bed and even in the bathroom before realizing he was overreacting. Noah was not in the house.

  Back in the bedroom he lifted the pillow completely and saw that there was also a note. He unfolded it with trembling fingers:

  Inspector Newsome

  You cannot change addresses as I can. Nor can you hide. Your pursuit of me will end immediately and I will suffer no further attention from the Metropolitan Police for as long as you live.

  I wish you a long and healthy life.

  Sincerely yours.

  Noah Dyson

  And thus the story concludes with Mr Hawkins’s hanging before the gates of Newgate. The patterers made more money on that day than ever before, hawking their tales and verses of Bully Bradford, Lucius Boyle and the third in that infamous trinity of murderers. And even today, the characters in that bloody parable stir memories of the two-headed girl, the woman of pleasure, the notorious murder of Mr Coggins, the death of a giant, the slaying of a priest. By and by, even the details of Mr Askern’s death emerged to further embellish the tortuous tale, which in some circles took on supernatural interpretations.

  Was Lucius Boyle really dead? they mused. He could not be killed, they said. He was still among them: wherever a face was covered, wherever unease rippled through a crowd, wherever flames crackled and smoke rose – he was there.

  Nonsense, of course. I have presented it all here as it truly happened. I may have taken the occasional liberty and embroidered the tale a little more than others who have sought to document it. But what is a writer without a little fancy in his pen? What is the city – or the man – that can be seen only at its surface? My ink flows within it, above it, below it. I, the writer, am its beginning, its middle and its end.

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks to the following, without whose help . . .

  My parents, for waiting

  Monika Wolny, for reading

  Jennifer White – card holder

  Jill Carey, for reading

  Barry Nicholls, for nurturing

  Will Atkins, for the chance

  Martin Bryant – unsung hero

  EAP – Lord help your poor soul

  THE

  INCENDIARY’S

  TRAIL

  James McCreet was born in Sheffield. He taught English abroad for several years before returning to the UK, where he now works as a copywriter.

  For my wife Moniczka

  Kocham cie

  First published 2009 by Macmillan New Writing

  This edition published 2010 by Pan Books

  This electronic edition published 2010 by Pan Books

  an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

  Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR

  Basingstoke and Oxford

  Associated companies throughout the world

  www.panmacmillan.com

  ISBN 978-0-230-75557-4 PDF

  ISBN 978-0-230-75553-6 EPUB

  Copyright © James McCreet 2009

  The right of James McCreet to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Visit www.panmacmillan.com to read more about all our books and to buy them. You will also find features, author interviews and news of any author events, and you can sign up for e-newsletters so that you're always first to hear about our new releases.