Private Dicks

by Samantha M. Derr

  "Accept, Your Majesty, by your pleasure and grace."

  "Then it is done. You are dismissed, Lord Locke, and take your bothersome prince with you."

  Teigh chuckled softly as he left the dais and joined Esmour, walking with him out of the throne room and into the castle halls. Esmour looked up at him, shivering slightly when Teigh's knuckles brushed his cheek. "I am an earl? I do not understand how that happened. I am just a robber turned inquisitor—" He stopped when Teigh covered his mouth with one finger.

  "I said that you are mine. I ask my father for very little, and do everything that he asks of me. I have always served faithfully and done my duty well. It was an easy enough request for him to grant me, and grant it happily he did. It pleases him more than he will ever admit that they call you his Lymer. Come along, poet, and we shall see about the formal papers before I take you to view your new holdings."

  Esmour shook his head in wonder and accepted the hand that Teigh offered him, letting himself be led away to assume his new duties and place as the man who belonged at Teigh's side.

  CASE 06: Regarding the Detective's Companion

  INVESTIGATOR: E.E. Ottoman

  It is raining when Jamie gets home, making the streets and steps leading up to his lodgings slick and treacherous and causing his crutches to slide a little against wet stone. He manages to climb the steps and unlock the door without falling, though. Once inside, Jamie slowly hauls himself up the short flight of narrow stairs to his rooms. When he lights the lamps in the sitting room, though, he sees that water has begun leaking from the ceiling into the corner by the window once again.

  "Damn and blast!" Rushing across the room as fast as his crutches allow, Jamie gathers up the papers and books within reach of the water as he nudges a basin under the steady trickle coming from the ceiling.

  Finally sure that none of his papers have been ruined, he moves towards the fireplace where a wheeled chair sits. Settling into it, Jamie lays his crutches aside with a sigh of relief before stretching his arms out and rolling his shoulders back. Finally relieved of some of the tension in his back and shoulders, he takes a small key from the pocket of his waistcoat. It is shaped rather like a clock key and when inserted into the keyhole on the arm of the chair, the small motor at the back of the chair comes to life with a hiss of steam. Jamie rests his hand on the wooden control box that allows him to guide the chair, pushing the knob on the top of the box forward and propelling himself closer to the fireplace so that he can stoke the flames with a poker.

  It's late enough that he won't be able to request tea be brought up to help ward off the cold, so instead Jamie guides his chair over to the desk and starts going through his papers. Work has been limited lately, not that work for him is ever plentiful. He tries hard not to think about the last case he had been offered—his last client had been willing to pay him twice what he'd ended up taking to have him set up her husband for a burglary he hadn't committed.

  Jamie rubs his hand across his face. He hates those cases most of all, the ones where he is forced to do disreputable things. It had been so obvious that the husband had been abusing her grievously, though. Plus, he'd needed the money.

  Father Hartgrove's voice speaks in his head, There is nothing wrong with the profession of clerk. Jamie can imagine Father Hartgrove frowning at him from across his kitchen table. It is a good, honest, reputable trade, he would say, one which you, my boy, happen to be quite good at.

  Jamie rubs his hand across his forehead. If he'd been able to hold onto a job in his own right, he'd have stayed a clerk forever. He might have been bored to tears, but Father Hartgrove had been right: he was good at it. However, Jamie knew none of the positions he'd held as a clerk were because of his talents in that area; instead, he'd held them because his employers all owed Father Hartgrove a favor or two. He enjoyed the private investigating far, far more though, which was why he had quit being a clerk in the first place.

  However, living as he did now, with only shady dealings and less than honest work to his name, makes him almost reconsider charity. The private investigating business has not been kind to him since he started. Clients only needed to get a look at the chair before they chose to take their business elsewhere.

  "Not everyone had even charity," he reminds himself, thinking of the helplessness and desperation in his last client's eyes. Besides, if not for Father Hartgrove's charity, he would have been dead at thirteen. Jamie's real father had died before Jamie was old enough to remember him. His mother and siblings had worked in the cotton factories, weaving cotton into cloth. Jamie had worked in the factory, too, until one of the wagons baring cotton for the mill had run him over when he was twelve. He was lucky; he should have died that day. Instead, he had been left unable to walk, and his mother had turned him over to Father Hartgrove because she could not afford to keep a child who could no longer work. If it hadn't been for Father Hartgrove, Jamie would have ended up on the streets with no prospects in life.

  So, he is lucky.

  Jamie guides his chair closer to the fireplace. The entire day spent out in the rain tracking down his contacts had rewarded him with nothing; no work, no cases, nothing. Sighing, he picks up one of the books from the side table.

  There are three piled on the table next to the settee: one on botany, one on the history of the Roman Empire written in Italian, which he is trying to teach himself how to read, and a novel about a scientist who creates a clockwork creature. The novel itself is not well-written—the plot is an obvious butchery of Mrs. Shelley's much more elegant tale—but Jamie doesn't care. He loves cheap penny novels. It's that book that he picks to amuse himself with for the evening.

  By the time the fire has burnt down, Jamie finds himself staring out the darkened window, wondering if the technology to create the kind of mechanized monster the novel describes does exist. He rubs his hands across the polished wooden arms of his chair as he puts the novel aside and picks up the book on botany to read in bed before banking the fire for the evening and turning the gas lights down as he makes his way to his bedroom.

  The man who made his chair had claimed the technology for such a marvel had come from the College of Natural and Computative Science, smuggled out against the wishes of the government. Jamie has never been sure if he believes such a claim. Yes, the technology the chair used was extraordinary, but he'd seen many such technological wonders being sold on the black market or in the backstreets of London.

  Yet if such things were from technological discoveries made by the college and smuggled out, there could be much greater scientific masterpieces still within those academic walls limited to elite scientists and the queen. They might have even found a way to make mechanical men.

  Jamie maneuvers the chair into his tiny bedroom, which is almost too narrow for the chair to fit in along with his bed and small night table.

  As he readies himself for bed, Jamie frowns at his own reflection in the tiny mirror above the washbasin. The mirror shows him a man with a rather thin face and a light smattering of freckles—which he'd always detested—across his nose, large green eyes, and light brown hair curling around his ears. His shoulders are wide, his chest and arms muscled from all of the years he'd been supporting himself on his crutches. The fact that he's clean-shaven makes his face look young, though he is well over thirty, too old to still be a bachelor living on his own, as both Mrs. Stanton and Father Hartgrove regularly remind him. Jamie notes the dark circles under his eyes and lines starting to appear around his mouth with a sigh.

  Turning away from the mirror, he guides his chair to the bed. A crank on the side of the chair causes the seat, back, and arms to rise off of the wheels by a couple inches, raising the chair high enough for him to grasp the headboard and pull himself onto the bed.

  He settles himself against the pillows before picking back up the book on botany. He reads about mushrooms and how to identify forms of fungus for another hour or so before setting the book aside and turning down the light. Tomorrow, he pr
omises himself, tomorrow a case will come. Still, though, he doesn't sleep easily that night.

  *~*~*

  Jamie wakes early the next morning after a fitful night of sleep. He dresses and shaves before guiding his chair out of his room. It had stopped raining sometime during the night, he notes as he moves into the sitting room. He opens one of the windows on his way past, since the steam his chair gives off tended to make Mrs. Stanton worry about the state of the wallpaper.

  Mrs. Stanton herself pushes the door open and comes bustling in moments later carrying a tray with breakfast on it.

  "The roof is leaking again," Jamie notes as she sets the tray down on the table.

  Mrs. Stanton shakes her head at that, moving around him and retrieving the basin. "I'll have one of my boys look at it, Mr. Griffith." She sniffs and gives him a shrewd look. "While I'm here I'll remind you rent will come due at the end of the week."

  Jamie tries not to squirm uncomfortably; he doesn't have the money, and he's quite sure that Mrs. Stanton knows it. "I'll have the money for you then," he assures her anyway.

  "Have a good breakfast." She gives him a small smile and carries the basin out of the room, shutting the door behind her. Jamie shakes his head. Her house might not be the best lodgings in London, but her rates where cheap, her cooking good, and she hadn't batted an eye the first time she'd seen his chair.

  He's finishing breakfast when someone clatters down the stairs and bangs on his door before letting themselves in. A slim, blond young man flings a letter and a copy of yesterday's Times down on the table, narrowly missing Jamie's egg.

  "Percy," Jamie greets with a small smile.

  "My mother has written me another letter." Percy slouches onto the chair on the other side of the table from Jamie and helps himself to some tea. "She's after me to come home and submit myself to an arranged marriage." Percy straightens the spectacles balanced on his nose. "I keep writing her and telling her no. Then she writes me back, distraught, saying 'why won't you marry'; 'why won't you come home'; 'why won't you be a good son like your brother Samuel?'" Percy grimaces and takes a hearty drink of tea.

  "It must be hard." Jamie moves the teapot to his side of the table before Percy has a chance to finish off its contents. He's already well-acquainted with Percy's trouble with his mother. "Father Hartgrove often tells me he wishes I would marry," Jamie offers helpfully, finishing his toast.

  Percy snorts. "Well, unlike you, I am not opposed to the idea of marriage; far from it, in fact. I am simply opposed the antiquated practice of arranged marriage. If us Jews wish to be taken seriously as modern men in the world …"

  Jamie chooses not to comment even though he privately thinks Percy is wrong about that. Jamie is not opposed to marriage as such, but he prefers the company of men over women when it comes to matters of his heart and bed.

  As Percy continues to rant about his mother, Jamie stops listening and instead pulls out his pocket watch. "Don't you have work?"

  "I do, in fact." Percy finishes off his cup of tea and gathers his letter. "I will see you this evening, then?"

  Jamie picks up the copy of the Times and opens it, smoothing it out and smiling up at Percy. "As long as we will be doing something other than discussing marriage or your mother."

  Percy smiles back. "This evening, and I will think of other topics to discuss." He rushes from the room then, and Jamie listens to him clatter up, then back down the stairs and out of the house.

  Jamie thumbs through the newspaper in front of him. Yet again he is without work, the rent due at the end of the week, and he is almost out of cab fare to boot.

  He finishes off his breakfast and then guides his chair around the table and towards his desk. When the knock comes at the door, he assumes it's Mrs. Stanton come to collect his breakfast tray and doesn't bother turning around.

  "Mr. Griffith, there is a visitor to see you." Jamie does turn at that, so Mrs. Stanton continues, "A Mr. Burton."

  "Come in."

  Mrs. Stanton enters, followed by Mr. Burton, a tall man with a striking black moustache.

  "I'm sorry to intrude, Mr. Griffith." Mr. Burton inclines his head. "I should have sent word that I was coming, but I only just received information on your whereabouts this morning."

  "It's quite all right. Would you care to sit?" Jamie smiles and gestures to the settee while throwing a look at Mrs. Stanton, who still lurks nosily behind his guest. She picks up the breakfast tray, throwing Mr. Burton one more look before shutting the door behind her on the way out.

  Jamie can feel himself shake ever so slightly, his heart pounding in his chest. A clerk, his brain tells him, or perhaps a personal secretary. Jamie has been a clerk himself often enough to recognize the faint ink marks on the bottom of the Mr. Burton's hands. He obviously made good money, too, judging by his suit. Jamie doesn't miss the look Mr. Burton gives him or, more importantly, his legs as he moves across the small room to the settee. Jamie smiles at the other man. He's used to people looking, or turning away in distaste; at least Mr. Burton has the courtesy not to stare overlong.

  Jamie moves his chair around so that he's facing Mr. Burton on the settee while also being in reach of his desk. He tries to get his excitement under control. He might very possibly be getting a case today, why else would Mr. Burton seek him out?

  "I'll get straight to the point," Mr. Burton says after he's settled himself. "You probably read of Professor Brown's tragic and untimely death in yesterday's paper."

  Jamie's eyes stray to the paper sitting unread on the table.

  "Well," Mr. Burton continues, "my employer is somewhat responsible for looking into the circumstances surrounding the professor's death, and we have several of the best private investigators in conjunction with the police working on the matter now."

  Jamie frowns and idly wonders why exactly Mr. Burton had been sent to him if they were not in need of a private investigator. He looks back up to find Mr. Burton watching him a bit more closely than he would like and keeps himself from shifting in his chair by willpower alone.

  "My employer has heard about your involvement in the investigation of the Doctor Crown affair," Mr. Burton tells him.

  Jamie stiffens, as far as he'd been aware, his name had never been made public in regards to that case. "A set of serial murders of women living here on the East End," he confirms. "He poisoned them with strychnine."

  "Detective Percington spoke highly of you, as have several of your other clients. We have also spoken with Professor Rolleston, a personal friend of the priest who raised you, I believe?" Mr. Burton leans back a little on the settee.

  "Yes," Jamie nods, wondering where this is going. "I worked for him as a clerk for about a year, about four years ago at this point."

  "Indeed," Mr. Burton says. "He taught at the College for Natural and Computative Sciences, mathematics if I am not mistaken?"

  "Yes," Jamie says, watching Mr. Burton closely and hoping to understand what he was getting at. "But he has since retired, I understand."

  "You have never been to the college, though." Mr. Burton watches Jamie in an all too knowing manner. "Which is a good thing, Mr. Griffith, for you will not be known there and my employer has a suspect in particular that he would like you to investigate more fully."

  Jamie reaches over to his desk and picks up a pencil and a notebook.

  "His name is Hallingsworth, Professor Robert Daniel Hallingsworth, and he teaches at the College for Natural and Computative Sciences."

  Jamie writes quickly as Mr. Burton speaks.

  "He is a brilliant scientist and engineer, but he has some, shall we say, rather peculiar and dangerous ideas. My employer is afraid these ideas might have driven him to unfortunate actions." Mr. Burton crosses his legs at the knee and clasps his hands.

  "Does your employer have any proof that this man has committed a crime?" Jamie asks, glancing up from his notebook.

  Mr. Burton raises his eyebrows at him. "This is what we are hiring you to find, Mr. Griffith."
<
br />   An ugly feeling settles into the bottom of Jamie's stomach. "I don't believe I follow you."

  Mr. Burton spreads his hands out in a placating gesture. "Professor Hallingsworth is a dangerous man, Mr. Griffith, make no mistake about that. Even if he is not responsible for the unfortunate fate of Professor Brown, it would be in the country's best interest to see him locked away."

  "And you want me to ensure that?" The sick feeling in Jamie's stomach has only doubled. He closes his eyes briefly, hating when he is right about these things.

  Mr. Burton smiles at him. "You will be well paid, I assure you, Mr. Griffith. My employer is willing to pay you ten times what you would normally make on a case, in addition to your expenses while investigating Professor Hallingsworth."

  In this moment, Jamie dearly wants nothing more than to order Mr. Burton out of his sitting room, or to tell him that Jamie is not so lowly and heinous a person as to convict a man of a murder he may not have committed.

  'And what if he is guilty?' whispers a small voice in the back of his head. 'What if this Professor Hallingsworth is responsible for this murder and you could be the investigator who brings him to justice?' He could play them, Mr. Burton and his employer, make them think he was going along with their plan enough to be able to do is own investigation. Surely if he was to find the real murderer they would have to drop this absurd plot to possibly frame an innocent man.

  "Well, Mr. Griffith?" Mr. Burton leans forward ever so slightly, clasping his hands again. "Will you take my employer's case?"

  Jamie makes his decision and nods his head firmly.

  "Good." Mr. Burton rises. "Professor Hallingsworth is looking for a new research assistant. My employer would like you to apply, under a false name of course, and I have taken the liberty of arranging for your letter of application, complete with appropriate qualifications and references. A copy will be delivered to you as well." Once again, Jamie feels Mr. Burton's gaze travel across his body, lingering on his legs. "He is of the opinion you will not be turned down."