The Detective and the Devil

by Lloyd Shepherd

  ‘Asked by whom?’ replied Harriott.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘I mean, how did you learn of our presence so quickly? Who sent for you?’

  ‘Nobody sent for me, Harriott. I am not one to be sent for. The Company keeps its own gang of ticket porters. One was sent to my premises on Lime Street to inform me of your descent on East India House.’

  ‘It is fortunate for all of us that you were home.’

  ‘My home is elsewhere. I am always to be found at my business premises on a working day.’

  ‘I would expect nothing more of a pillar of the City such as yourself. And what is your relationship with the Company?’

  ‘With this Company?’

  ‘Yes. With the Honourable East India Company.’

  ‘I am a Proprietor, sir.’

  ‘With how many votes?’

  ‘Am I being interrogated, Harriott?’

  ‘No indeed. But your interest in this matter is worthy of quantification, is it not?’

  ‘I fail to see the relevance of your question.’

  ‘Do you? Is that the same as refusing to answer it?’

  The two old men were now barely inches from each other, the one tall and frigid, looking down upon the other, who was outraged but maintained a brittle politeness.

  ‘I hold four votes,’ said Burroughs, finally.

  ‘Indeed? An influential man within the Company, then. A highly influential man.’ Harriott picked his hat up from the bench behind him. ‘And as such a senior fellow, I assume you are in full knowledge of the location of our meetings with the representatives of your Company?’

  ‘My Company?’

  ‘My apologies. The Company.’

  Burroughs sneered unpleasantly. It was the first expression of emotion on his face, and he looked as if a horse had just voided its bowels all over his foot. He turned without further comment, and began to walk up the corridor.

  ‘After you, Horton,’ said Harriott, as angry as Horton had ever seen him. ‘Let us follow the Proprietor.’

  Two men awaited them in a wood-lined room filled with exceptional furniture. One of them greeted Harriott with real warmth, explaining to the others that he and Harriott served together in India. Horton assumed this was Robert Ferguson, the man Harriott had demanded to see when they arrived. Ferguson did not introduce himself to Horton, and Harriott made no effort to introduce Horton to the room.

  If this was Ferguson, the years had been kinder to him than they had to Harriott; the Company man was elegantly dressed, straight-backed and vigorous, while Harriott dropped down into a leather chair with audible relief as soon as he had shaken his former comrade’s hand.

  Ferguson introduced the other man in the room, a rake-thin fellow who held his hands in front of him like a country vicar.

  ‘This is Elijah Putnam, senior clerk to our committee on private trade.’

  ‘Private trade?’ asked Horton. All eyes turned to him.

  ‘Gentlemen, this is my senior investigating constable, Charles Horton,’ said Harriott. ‘He has my complete faith. You can assume he speaks for me in all things.’

  No one asked why, if that was the case, Harriott had not introduced his constable sooner. And no one asked what in God’s name a senior investigating constable was. Even Horton had never heard the words before. The eyes of the other men assessed him as if he were a bag of indigo, and then looked back to Harriott.

  ‘We have a number of directors’ committees in the Company,’ said Putnam. He was a man of indeterminate age, the very model of the City clerk. His hands were held in front of him, and his head bobbed up and down as he spoke, like a nervous heron with a story to tell. ‘My committee is one of them. Benjamin Johnson was a clerk working to me.’

  ‘And what is “private trade”?’ asked Horton again, aware that his questions would annoy. Their eyes shifted back to him.

  ‘It is the trade conducted by the Company’s own officers and masters, with the permission of the Company,’ said Harriott, impatiently. ‘Now, Ferguson – you know why we are here?’

  ‘Of course we know. We read the newspapers. They are full of this matter this morning. A terrible business.’

  ‘These Wapping officers are here to ask some general questions only,’ said Burroughs, the alderman. Harriott scowled at him and at the word officers, and Burroughs spoke with a certain tightness of expression that indicated he knew he was being scowled at. ‘I am happy for this to occur, but would warn Harriott that this is highly irregular. He has no jurisdiction in this area, and it is somewhat unusual for him to be accompanied by a constable who asks questions in this way.’

  ‘We are not investigating anyone,’ Horton said, and the other men looked at him once again, and then looked at Harriott. Are you going to allow a subaltern to lead this conversation? said their faces. Harriott glared back and said nothing. Horton took this as permission to continue. ‘The murders took place in Shadwell’s district, but we are cooperating with Mr Markland and his fellow magistrates.’

  ‘Why?’ The question was Burroughs’s. ‘Are the Shadwell constables incompetent?’

  ‘Horton is unique,’ said Harriott, speaking directly to Ferguson as if seeking an ally in the room. ‘He has involved himself in several major cases, all of which have been resolved.’

  ‘Benjamin Johnson was killed, along with his family, at some point over the last four days,’ said Horton. ‘The murders were intense and savage and, at first glance, motiveless.’

  ‘Like the last Highway murders, then,’ said Burroughs. ‘Did you bury the wrong man, constable?’

  ‘If you refer to John Williams, Mr Burroughs, it was the Shadwell magistrates who interrogated him. Not I. And he was never charged with the killings.’

  ‘Then you don’t believe he did it? And the killer may still be at large?’

  ‘I said no such thing.’

  ‘You implied it.’

  ‘There are indeed aspects of the case which bear resemblances to the 1811 murders on the Ratcliffe Highway, as you have no doubt read in the press. We are of course seeking to ascertain whether there may be other connections. It may be, as Mr Burroughs says, that the Highway killer has returned.’

  Harriott snorted at that, and was about to say something, but Horton talked over him. This did nothing to endear him to the enemies he had made in the room.

  ‘Whoever was responsible, we need to establish why Johnson was killed. What was the motivation behind it?’

  ‘And you think the answer to that question may lie within this building?’ said Burroughs.

  ‘Perhaps. We are simply seeking to establish whether that might be the case or not. It is, you will admit, an obvious place to look.’

  ‘I will admit nothing, constable, and if I may, your tone is impertinent.’

  ‘Horton is only doing his job,’ said Harriott, dangerously. ‘And you seem oddly determined to prevent him, sir. Is there some reason for that?’

  ‘The Company can look after its own matters,’ Burroughs said, directly to Harriott. ‘If you wish to find out more about Johnson, we will do it for you.’

  ‘It would be better if you would allow us . . .’ said Horton, but was interrupted by the smiling Ferguson.

  ‘We do wish to assist you,’ he said, to Horton. ‘Mr Burroughs is quite understandably exercised by your presence here. We do not have many dealings with the criminal authorities. We have our own men to act as police. We deal with matters which are of enormous sensitivity. Secrecy is essential if our operations are to be maintained. It is a matter of the national interest.’

  ‘I fail to see how Benjamin Johnson’s death impinges on the national interest,’ said Harriott.

  ‘Indeed, so do I,’ said Ferguson, cheerfully. ‘But we have to be careful. If I give you free rein to storm around the Company asking questions, who knows what you will discover?’

  Who indeed? thought Horton.

  ‘We shall proceed like this,’ said Ferguson. ‘Putnam will
accompany Horton to the office in which poor Johnson worked. Horton can take a look at his desk and ask some questions of those who sat near him. In the presence of Putnam, of course. If those questions, in Putnam’s judgement, veer towards matters of a commercial nature, he will inform Horton of this. Will that be acceptable?’

  It was by no means acceptable to Horton, but he had to admit that it was unlikely he would have been given unfettered access to the internal functions of the Company. Harriott looked furiously at Ferguson, and seemed about to say so, but then he glanced at Horton, who nodded. Better to have some access than none at all, and talking himself into closed entities like East India House was not his magistrate’s forte.

  ‘That will be acceptable,’ Harriott said.

  Like a great heart beating in an unseen chamber, the noise from the indigo sale grew and then receded again as Horton followed Putnam into the depths of the gigantic building – down the whale’s throat and into its gut. They passed windows which looked out on inner courtyards deep within the property, doors festooned with oddly banal titles – Military Fund Committee, Freight Office, House Committee, Auditor’s Office, Law Suits Committee – and still they kept going. One ancient black door carried the legend Secret Committee, but it was a huge door with massive lettering and was clearly unembarrassed by its conspiratorial title.

  It seemed impossible to be walking for so long and still to be within the same building. Left turns followed right turns through a random progression of corridors and staircases. It was as if the geometries of the City were giving way to the strange secret histories of this extraordinary Company which now, after two centuries, encompassed an Empire.

  Putnam tried to make conversation as they walked, his head bobbing as they went. He was the same height as Horton, but his narrow back was bent, as if the head were too heavy for it. He seemed to have no fat on him whatsoever.

  ‘I did not know, constable, that you were involved in the Solander affair.’

  ‘You followed the case?’

  ‘Oh, indeed. Avidly so. The Otaheite connection, you understand. I travelled to that island myself, once.’

  ‘You were a seaman?’

  ‘No! Not in any sense, constable. I was sent by the Company to investigate bread fruit as a possible food source for our plantations in India. I have some knowledge of horticulture. I hated sailing. I was sick for weeks.’

  ‘It can affect people so.’

  ‘Yes, indeed. But Otaheite! Such a place. I sometimes think of returning – but then I remember the sea voyage!’

  ‘You found the island pleasant?’

  ‘I found it extraordinary. I carry its mark on me still.’

  ‘Many of the men of the Solander thought the same.’

  ‘Indeed. And some of them died for it, did they not?’

  Horton did not answer. They came to a plain door, a door very like all the dozens of doors they had already passed. Committee For Private Trade ran the legend inked onto its surface. Putnam opened the door and in they went.

  The inside of the office was dismal, lit by candles and a flickering fire. It might have been May outside, but here within it was mid-February, cold and gloomy. Horton wondered if it had in fact always been mid-February in this odd little chapel to the personal trades of the Company’s masters and officers. A dozen clerks sat at high desks, quills in their hands, beak-like noses bent over papers and ledgers and log-books, backs and shoulders bent not by the weight of burdens carried but by fingers following numbers across tables. These were the new monks of the modern religion of trade. They all turned to look at the three men who came through their door onto the outside world.

  ‘Do not let us interrupt you,’ said Putnam, as if the clerks were children and he was a headmaster showing round a prospective parent. ‘This is a constable from the River Police Office, come to look into poor Johnson’s death.’

  ‘The River Police? But Juh-Juh-Johnson did not drown in the ruh-ruh-ruh-river,’ said one of the clerks. Amidst this coterie of withered men, he was the tallest and thinnest of them all, his stammer ignored by him and by his colleagues. His eyes glittered in the light from the candle on his desk, and Horton noted how amused and intelligent those eyes seemed. There were precious few other signs of life in the room.

  ‘To your work, Lamb,’ said Putnam, and the clerk looked at him with a wider smile on his face, like a boy baiting an angry dog behind a fence.

  ‘Certainly, Puh-Puh-Putnam,’ he said. ‘I shall not stand ah-ah-ah-accused of interrupting any investigation involving the fa-fa-fa-fate of my poor friend Johnson.’ And with that the clerk turned back to his work, though not without the suspicion of a wink towards Horton.

  ‘If you please, constable,’ said Putnam. He led Horton to an empty desk, one of a pair – all the desks were arranged in twos. The unoccupied stool stood out like a ship without a mast.

  The clerk sitting at the adjacent desk looked up expectantly as Horton and his chaperone approached, as if he were waiting for them. The desk itself was empty – no papers, no quill, and when Horton opened the lid there was nothing in the space within.

  ‘Is this usual?’ he asked.

  ‘Is what usual?’ replied Putnam.

  ‘For the desk to be empty.’

  ‘All the desks are emptied each night by myself,’ Putnam said. ‘The papers are locked in the safe.’

  ‘So you read everything the clerks are working on?’

  ‘By no means. There would not be sufficient hours in the day. I have a broad idea of what areas are being covered, that is all. Occasionally I will look in greater detail. If I am asked to by a superior.’

  ‘So what was Johnson working on?’

  ‘He and Baker here dealt with correspondence from the Company’s Atlantic territories: St Helena and Tristan da Cunha. Also correspondence relating to activities on the western coasts of Africa.’

  ‘But only matters relating to the private trade of Company officers?’

  ‘The Company’s formal dealings with the Atlantic territories are somewhat smaller than with its main holdings in India, constable. We tend to cover other areas as well, as they are too small to be dealt with by other offices.’

  ‘What other areas might those be?’

  ‘Stores and provisions, mainly. These territories depend on the Company for the materials of life. They are not self-sufficient in the way India is.’

  Horton turned to the man sitting next to Johnson’s desk.

  ‘Baker?’

  ‘Yes, constable.’ The man was young and earnest, with a trace of Cockney about his accent, though it had been carefully smoothed down.

  ‘You knew Johnson?’

  ‘Yes, constable.’

  ‘Did you communicate with him?’

  ‘Not all that much, constable. Kept himself to himself. A fine fellow, but a shy one.’

  ‘And you both worked on St Helena matters?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I have a cousin who is a planter there. Just outside Georgetown.’

  ‘Do you?’

  Baker smiled.

  ‘I do not recall there being a place named Georgetown on St Helena,’ said Putnam, coldly. Baker looked at him and then looked back to Horton, who did not see the point of asking any further questions of this particular clerk.

  ‘Putnam, may I speak to you privately?’

  ‘Is there nothing else you wish to ask Baker?’ He smiled as he said this.

  ‘No. Nothing.’

  ‘Then let us retire to my desk.’

  ‘There is nowhere more private?’

  Putnam looked at the clerks.

  ‘You can assume that these men are devoid of hearing for the purposes of this visit,’ he said. None of the clerks lifted their heads – even the stuttering wit kept his eyes on his work. Baker had turned his eyes down to his own desk. He picked up a quill, and looked in vain for an inkpot that wasn’t there.

  Putnam went to sit at his desk, a lower affair situated at the end of the ro
om. He folded into the chair as if there were hinges at his waist and back, and indicated a chair for Horton to sit in. Horton felt like a parent of a misbehaving schoolboy who was behind on his fees.

  ‘I understand Johnson was recently given time off,’ Horton said.

  Putnam’s face changed, became colder and a good deal more careful, and Horton saw for the first time that he had information he was not expected to have.

  ‘Why, ah, yes. Yes, he was.’

  ‘Was he given many days off?’

  ‘A week, that was all.’

  ‘For what purpose?’

  ‘To visit his wife and daughter. I understand they were taken ill.’

  ‘Is the Company in the habit of being so charitable with its time?’

  From one of the clerks – Lamb, perhaps – came a noise that sounded almost like a chuckle.

  ‘It is in the gift of the chief section clerk,’ said Putnam.

  ‘Meaning yourself.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When was Johnson expected to return?’

  ‘I’m afraid I do not recall.’

  ‘And yet this only happened last week.’

  ‘Well, then, of course, he was to return this week. But then these terrible events transpired.’

  Putnam looked angry.

  ‘Well, then, my thanks to you. I shall disturb you no longer.’

  ‘Will that be all?’ asked Putnam, though his voice had adopted a newly sarcastic tone. The helpful heron-like clerk was gone. Horton wondered if he was now gazing on the true face of John Company. ‘You have no further questions?’

  ‘I certainly don’t think it would be fruitful to consume any more of your time. My thanks for your cooperation.’

  ‘Well?’ asked Harriott, after they had made their way out of East India House and back into a carriage, two Jonahs escaping from their cetacean prison.

  ‘I learned only this, sir: that they are hiding something,’ said Horton. ‘A new clerk had been placed next to Johnson’s desk. This clerk clearly knew nothing of him or his work. They were supposed to have been working together on St Helena business, among other matters, but I mentioned a fictitious town on that island, and the clerk did not notice. Putnam, the manager, had been told not to reveal anything, but he was forced to confirm that Johnson had recently taken a week off, as Amy Beavis indicated.’