City of Light (City of Mystery)

by Kim Wright

  That, of course, was assuming that Trevor was given access to his file. When Delacroix had first said Trevor was in Paris, Rayley’s optimism had soared and he had briefly indulged in the notion that Trevor had come bearing the insignia of Scotland Yard, on order of the Queen, and thus would muster the full if somewhat grudging support of the Paris police. But upon deeper reflection, he had abandoned that idea. If Trevor was traveling not with Davy but rather with the civilians - Tom, Emma, and Geraldine Bainbridge - it must be because he was traveling not under the auspices of Scotland Yard, but rather as a private citizen. Geraldine had evidently come along as the money.

  So the odds were that Trevor had not gained access to Rayley’s file as all.

  It was disheartening, true, but Rayley tried to stay focused on the fact that at least Trevor was in Paris. That was cause for hope, however slim, and got him to considering how he might manage to send some sort of message.

  Rayley gazed up at the window, which had traded the artificial illumination of the streetlight for the more natural glow of the sun. Despite the fact the window was so high that no man could reach it, further precautions had been installed in the form of bars which were spaced rather closely. A shoe would not go through them. Nor would a tin cup. A glove would, of course, but the glove would have to we weighted with something. None of the items in Rayley’s paltry inventory met the needs of being heavy enough to be successfully thrown such a significant distance without being too large to clank against the bars. He looked around the cell. He needed something else.

  7:55 AM

  To their horror, Tom and Emma found Geraldine not only up and dressed but in the breakfast room, scanning the morning paper and finishing a cup of tea. If she was surprised to see them straggle through the front door in workman’s clothing, she hid it well. She merely sat back in her chair, folded her paper, and regarded them with a steady stare.

  “You’re both very lucky,” she said mildly, “that I am such an avowed liberal.”

  “Oh Gerry, it’s not what it seems,” Emma began, and then her voice immediately faded because she honestly couldn’t imagine what it seemed.

  “Emma had a theory she wanted to test,” Tom said hastily. “About bodies in the river-“

  Geraldine silenced him with a shake of her head. “Trevor is out sending a telegram to Davy,” she said. “And he will return at any minute, so I suggest you save your explanations for another time and go straight to your rooms. Emerge as soon as you can, and dressed in a manner that would suggest you’ve had a pleasant night’s sleep. Anything else will only distress him and he is under too much strain as it is.”

  Emma and Tom both nodded and started down the hall.

  “And darlings,” Geraldine called out, just as they were at their respective doors. “One more thing. I love you both, exactly as if you were the son and daughter that I never had. But don’t ever expect me to lie on your behalf to Trevor Welles again.”

  8:29 AM

  A half hour later only Emma and Geraldine were left in the apartment. Trevor had returned from his errand to the telegraph office in time to see Tom seated at the breakfast table, yawning and stretching in such an exaggerated manner that Geraldine had been forced to kick his shins in order to rein in his performance. Emma emerged from her bedroom door a few minutes later, back in her navy day dress and claiming that she had never slept so well in her life. And then, after Tom had made short work of a plateful of eggs served by the disapproving Claire, the men had been off to the station, leaving the women to finish their tea in peace.

  “Now do you want to tell me, my dear?” Geraldine said.

  Emma confessed her full story, which Geraldine calmly absorbed, smiling a bit when they got to the point about Tom swapping Cousin Claude’s clothes for tattered pants and a stained blanket.

  “Poor Claude,” Geraldine said. “I must replace his rowing jacket before we leave. How do you propose to finish your experiment?”

  “By returning to the bridge and walking 7250 steps in the opposite direction.” Emma said. “Somewhere in that vicinity I think we shall find the place where the bodies were put into the water. Tom says he’ll be back by midmorning.”

  “Midmorning?” Geraldine shook her head. “Trevor will keep him far too busy for that.”

  “I know. But it’s a dreadful part of town and Tom has made me swear that I won’t go alone.”

  Geraldine pushed her cup back. “I quite agree with Tom,” she said. “You mustn’t go alone.”

  London

  8:45 AM

  Davy went through the dockmaster ledger books three times after breakfast and did not find any of the names he sought: Armand Delacroix, Isabel Blout, or Charles Hammond.

  But he did find one he didn’t expect. The queer name had jumped right out at him, practically shouting itself from the list of passengers.

  On the morning of April 11, the day before the first body had been found on the banks of the Seine, Henry Newlove had traveled from Dover to Calais.

  Davy was sitting back in his chair, pondering what this might mean, when a messenger boy showed up at the door bearing a telegram from Paris. He was a husky lad who seemed straight from the rugby fields, Davy was relieved to note, and could not have convincingly passed as female on a bet. Cleveland Street would forever change the way Davy perceived messenger boys.

  He tossed the boy a coin, then quickly scanned Trevor’s brief directions. For a moment he toyed with the idea of carrying the print to Paris himself, for it offered the perfect chance to join the others, to rise above these mundane clerical tasks and participate in the more glamorous world of international intrigue. But he knew this was not to be. Scotland Yard had professional couriers among its ranks and Davy, after all, had volunteered to man the fort here in London. With a sigh, he pushed to his feet. After he found the courier, he would wire Trevor with the news about Henry Newlove. The timing of that particular channel crossing had to mean something, did it not?

  Paris

  9:26 AM

  “It’s a workable print,” Carle confirmed, and although this was what Trevor strongly suspected, he was still flooded with relief. He and Tom had solemnly delivered the glass to the forensics lab at precisely 9:01 and one of the scientists there had promptly set to work. One of the many scientists, Trevor couldn’t help but note, but his envy of the enormous and well-staffed Parisian facility would have wait for a more opportune time. As for now, it was gratifying they could return with an answer so quickly.

  “With any luck, we shall have the other by late afternoon,” he said to Rubois, as Carle translated. “My best man in London is sending it.” There was no need to add that his best man in London was his only man in London.

  “Speaking of such, is there anything further that we need to tell Davy?” Tom asked. “I could dash out and send a telegram.”

  Trevor shook his head. “Nothing in the moment, and besides I have other plans for our morning,” he said. He turned back to Rubois and Carle and explained the need for the Calais dockmaster records, a statement that brought the signature sadness to the face of Rubois. Even if the man saw the need of such a request, which he probably did, he was doubtlessly wondering if he could spare the manpower to carry out the task.

  “A Scotland Yard courier will be coming through the port of Calais this afternoon with the fingerprint,” Trevor said. “Perhaps if we alert the dockmaster to divert him, he can bring the record books as well.”

  Rubois nodded with relief and Trevor wondered once again why a double murder and the kidnapping of a detective should remain such a low priority case. Apparently Rubois and Carle were the only ones specifically assigned, which was appalling. Of course, to be fair, he wasn’t sure how much attention Scotland Yard would directed toward a crime with exclusively foreign-born victims. Rubois left to wire the dockmaster and Trevor turned back to Tom.

  “Remember that list of addresses we found in Rayley’s notes?” Trevor asked. “It occurred to me last night, when I coul
dn’t sleep, that they were most likely tied to Delacroix. And Rubois confirmed that Rayley had come to him, in the day before his disappearance, and asked if there was any city property office where he might obtain the addresses of properties owned or rented in the name of Armand Delacroix.”

  “Good God,” said Tom. “He must have suspected the man from the start.”

  “Indeed,” said Trevor. “In the future we simply must become more uniform in our note taking, and begin sending telegrams with more than twenty words. Detection is no longer a puzzle to be turned and twisted and ultimately solved all within the brain of a singular man. Sherlock Holmes is fictional, after all. Modern detection starts as a blank map, with many people adding a point of interest here or a turn in the road there, until, there is an eventual moment when the whole route becomes clear.”

  “Quite,” said Tom. “Well put. But if the French police had the means to obtain a list of all the properties Delacroix owned, why the deuce haven’t they searched them? The odds are that Rayley is being held in one of them. Isabel too, perhaps.”

  Trevor grimaced, glancing in the direction of Rubois as he did so. “Rayley must have asked the question in passing and evidently Rubois had forgotten it until I reminded him this morning. A source of embarrassment based on the expression that crossed his face, although it shouldn’t be. There are so many small details in a murder case and it can be difficult to determine what avenues one should pursue and which are pointless. I still torture myself eternally wondering what manner of things we might have missed with the Ripper. But the point is that Rayley has done much of the work for us. Armand Delacroix was a man with fingers in many pies, and the list is long, but I suggest we visit each of them, one by one. We can’t expect much help from the French, you know. I’m afraid it’s the two of us. ”

  “We’ll need a map,” Tom said. “Are any of the properties by chance by the river?”

  9:38 AM

  Rayley sat utterly immobile, watching the rat from the corner of his eye. It sidled up to the bit of black potato he had left by the foot of his cot and ventured a nibble. When the first bite went down unchallenged, the beast seemed to gain a bit of confidence. It began to eat more steadily, gradually losing any regard for his surroundings.

  A few minutes earlier Rayley had overturned his mattress and used a fingernail to scrape a few flecks of the dried regurgitation off the bottom. These he had stirred into the inch of water remaining in his tin cup. Chloroform was both colorless and odorless so there was no way of ascertaining if the flecks had managed to transfer any lingering traces of the drug into the water. Nonetheless, Rayley gamely dipped a corner of his torn knickerbockers in the mixture and set back on the bed to wait for the bit of potato to tempt one of his cellmates. It had not taken long.

  Rayley had timed his attack to be swift and definitive – much like the movement which had so effectively captured him. With the rat absorbed in his meal, Rayley dropped the chloroform soaked piece of his knickerbockers over him. He thrashed wildly for a moment, possibly because he was caught in the cloth. But within seconds, all movement stopped.

  Aware that he was holding his breath, Rayley reached down and pulled at the cloth. The rat rolled out, falling to the floor with a gentle thud where it remained, glassy-eyed, paws toward the sky.

  As an extra precaution, he stomped it. Then he scooped up the body, using his underwear as a protective mitt. As he did so he saw the label in the band of his knickerbockers. Morgan and Taylor, it read, the name of a men’s shop in London, one located not far from the gates of the Yard. Excellent. A sign that the sender of this particular message was English, not French. Another clue.

  Rayley ripped the label from the knickerbockers, bringing a bit of the waistband along with it. He removed his eyeglasses and paused for a moment, debating within himself if this part was entirely necessary. We was nearly blind without his spectacles and had attempted no task without their assistance for years, not even a chore as mild as a nighttime trip to the chamber pot in his rented room. But a rat stuffed in a glove then wrapped in London-bought knickers was in truth a rather obscure message. The addition of a piece of Rayley’s thick eyeglasses, no doubt the aspect of his persona most people who knew him would mention first, would seal the deal.

  He took off the eyeglasses and carefully pressed the lens on the left side. It slipped from the frame with a little pop and Rayley placed it in the glove first, where it came to rest in the part where the fingers met the palm. The rat was inserted next and then the glove was tied closed with the strip of cloth bearing the name Morgan and Taylor.

  He did not know how many times he threw the bundle. He had never been a good cricket player as a lad and he was further hampered by the fact that, with one lens missing from his spectacles, the whole world seemed to have slanted on its axis, leaving him as strangely off balance as if he were standing on the deck of a ship. His first tosses fell embarrassingly short of the window and he was sure the lens in the base of the glove must have shattered in one of these opening volleys. But he kept throwing, strangely energized by the fact he had a task, even one as unlikely to meet with success as this one. In time his aim improved. The ridiculous glove, bearing the perhaps even more ridiculous message, sailed between the bars of the window, presumably to land somewhere on the river bank.

  Rayley replaced his mattress on the bed and lay down. The sustained effort had exhausted him. He closed his eyes. He may have dozed. He would not have hazarded a guess to how much time might have passed before the cell door opened and Gerard entered, carrying the same things that Gerard’s presence always brought: Water, food, pain, and the assurance that somewhere in Paris, Isabel Blout was still alive.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  London

  9:16 AM

  Since Trevor and the others were in Paris, Davy was no longer expected to take his midday meals in a pub with the rest of the team. Which also meant that he didn’t have to worry about being called a mummy’s boy if he did not. So for the last three days he had been able to do what he would have preferred to do every working day - return to his own house at noon to eat lunch with his mother. She worried about the late nights he’d been keeping lately and at breakfast this morning she had promised to bake a kidney pie for lunch. It was Davy’s favorite of her customary dishes and one that she believed had an almost supernatural ability to “boost the blood,” thereby returning the ill to robust health, or, in this case, at least compensating for several missed nights of sleep.

  She was a bit taken aback to see him coming into the kitchen so early but, just as he’d expected, the pie was already made and was warming in the oven. Sitting down at the scarred kitchen table where he had been spent so many happy hours, Davy found himself doing what he had never done before, the very thing he had sworn to never do. He found himself telling his mother about his work. He spared the woman the details of the boy- girls, a world she likely would not have grasped and which only could have the effect of upsetting her if she had, but when he told her of the circumstances he’d found at 229 Cleveland Street, her wide brown eyes had grown even wider. Evelyn Mabrey was a kind-hearted woman, who had raised four sons of her own, and the very thought of boys going without a proper luncheon was enough to wound her to the core.

  “You must bring those lads some food,” she said. “The pie is almost finished and there will be apples in the bin.”

  This was exactly the response Davy had hoped for. Ever since he had dispatched the courier with the fingerprint, he had been thinking of ways to get more information about Henry Newlove from Mickey and his fellow musketeers. Mickey had predicted that Charles Hammond had run to Paris with Tommy, but the news that Henry had crossed the channel as well was an unexplored piece of the puzzle.

  “Yes, please mum, pack up a basket with whatever you can spare,” Davy said. “I need these boys to talk and boys talk best on a full stomach, but don’t they?”

  The woman nodded decisively and within minutes Davy was on his way
across town lugging a woven basket crammed full of not only a kidney pie, but also jam, bread, apples, and a rather illogical jar of pickles.

  When he arrived, the place looked much the same, indicating that the bobbies had not yet arrived for their own bit of tramping about. The door was still nailed shut, with the same warnings about the Queen and Scotland Yard posted proudly in the center, albeit a bit faded with rain and time. Despite the fact that boys were being employed instead of girls, the Cleveland Street case was apparently being treated like any other prostitution raid – a workaday and essentially victimless crime. Davy was relieved. Over the last two days, his thoughts had returned several times to Mickey and the other boys. It was good to know that they had not been tossed out of the only home they had.

  He walked to the back yard and looked up at the roof. Still the cracked window, the webbing of ropes across the roofline. “It’s Davy Mabrey,” he called out. “Mickey, lad, are you there?”