Jewel of the Thames (A Portia Adams Adventure)

by Misri, Angela

  I crossed my arms, glaring at him.

  “The name’s Jenkins, Asher Jenkins, and I’m someone who's gonna help you,” he declared, clapping his hands. “I promised your guardian I’d teach you how to take care of yourself, and by God, that’s what I’m gonna do.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Are you … you’re a friend of Mrs. Jones?” I demanded. “Why didn’t you say so right away?”

  He shrugged his massive shoulders. “I wanted to see what you were about first. Get a feelin’ for what I’m dealin’ with.”

  My shoulders came up defensively as he took another casual sip of tea, glaring at another customer who seemed too interested in our discussion. “And?”

  “Eh?” he replied, swinging his gaze back my way.

  I blew out my breath. “And what do you see? What are you dealing with?”

  He looked me up and down. “A soft American who’s totally out of her element and thinks she can wander all over London like she owns the place. That’s what I see. But don’t you worry your head, little Miss Adams, I made a promise to Irene.”

  “To do what? Teach me how to box?” I challenged. “To muscle my way out of trouble?”

  He spat out his tea, causing even more of the café’s patrons to glance over and then quickly glance away.

  “You’re a boxer, possibly a professional one based on the number of times your nose has been broken and reset,” I said as he pulled a hanky from his pocket to clean his face. “I can’t believe you’d still be practicing that sport at your, yes, advanced age, so you’ve graduated into what? Professional intimidation?”

  “I call it trainin’, little miss,” he replied, pulling the hanky away from a lopsided grin and making me add a broken jaw to his list of very old injuries.

  “Well, I am not interested in being trained, Mr. Jenkins,” I said, standing and looking him in the eye. “Thank you for your interest, but I shall relay that message to my guardian myself. Good day.”

  He laughed, a great bellowing sound that seemed to come from his very shoes. “Oh you do that, Miss Adams. I only wish I was there to see you relay…” he guffawed again, “…that message.”

  I stalked off, the sound of his laughter following me all the way down the block.

  * * *

  It only took three hours of research at the Bodleian Library at Oxford to find newspaper articles crowing about the great boxer Asher “Bruiser” Jenkins. He had been quite a prizefighter in his day, but had disappeared in the press after 1895. Jenkins had been arrested twice in the 1890s on charges of theft, but only one of those had gone to trial, resulting in a three-year jail term he had served at Wandsworth prison.

  I sat back in my chair, stretching my sore muscles as I considered his connection to my guardian. They seemed to be from opposite ends of the social spectrum — how would they even have met? Finding no comfort in stretches, I stood, pacing around the oak table I had piled high with newsprint and anthologies of newspapers, taking a deep breath to enjoy the soothing smells of old books and paper. I had spent much of my free time in the Queen and Lisgar Branch Library in Toronto, where my mother had been a part-time librarian and where I had hoped to become a page someday. With effort, I shook my head free of the memories that would derail my current endeavor, glancing at the stately window to my left.

  The sun was setting, and I knew the librarians would want to close up soon, so with a sigh I picked up a few of the larger bound anthologies and walked them back over to the shelves I had found them on. I went back to my table, collecting up the newspapers and stacking them more neatly. These would need to be re-filed by the library staff.

  How did Bruiser Jenkins know Mrs. Jones? More importantly, how had she come to trust him enough to send him my way? What did they have in common?

  I suddenly thought back to the dream I had about the sound of splashing and the jewels that had been stolen, and remembered that had been on the night Mrs. Jones dropped by with the silks and jewelry from some exotic locale. A locale she had been very cagey about.

  “A locale where maybe a Turkish millionaire could buy a stolen tiara?” I whispered.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Early in the morning on Sunday, before the sun had even made its appearance, Constable Brian Dawes made his arrest.

  Into Scotland Yard was bustled a disheveled and sleepy Ben Fawkes. I waited at the Yard for the two men to arrive, and to witness Fawkes’s attitude — no longer grinning and at ease, but angry and squirming to get away.

  Brian and I had conspired to keep Fawkes in the Yard for as long as we could, so Dawes took his time with paperwork and questions, asking basic things over and over again until Fawkes was nearly pulling out his hair in frustration. I knew Brian would have to release him soon, so, giving him a nod, I proceeded to the next part of our plan.

  With not a little effort, I had convinced my professor and two of his best men to accompany me down to a spot I had previously scouted out on the east side of Westminster Bridge. Archer was only persuaded when I finally told him about chasing down the eyewitness he had hidden from me — and even then, I could tell he was just humoring me with this effort. I also knew that this was my one chance to prove myself with this case. It had to work!

  “I cannot imagine what Sergeant Michaels is going to say when he hears about this,” my professor whispered to me as we crouched behind some crates we had strategically arranged.

  “Sir, how much longer will we be here?” whispered one of the officers, his tiny mustache wiggling as he spoke. It was obviously itchy — was he new to growing facial hair?

  I shook my head, fighting off the distraction of a new puzzle. “If I am right, Professor, Officers, Sergeant Michaels will soon have one less case on his desk.”

  “How do we even know he will come this way, though?” the other officer muttered. “He could take any of the bridges to get across the water, and his home is not even on this side of the river!”

  “Because he will be coming from the Yard, and this is his destination,” I explained again, growing annoyed with these men. We had only been waiting fifteen minutes, for goodness sake! I acknowledged inwardly that part of my annoyance was actually worry I was wrong about this theory, but before I could follow that depressing path of doubt further, the man we had all been waiting for made an appearance.

  Across the bridge, walking at a very quick pace and turning around every few minutes to see if he was being followed, was Mr. Fawkes. Obviously, Brian had run out of excuses and had released him.

  “What th’ hell?” whispered one of the officers, also recognizing him.

  “Now, remember, don’t move until I say!” I warned the men as two of them tensed to leap out despite my earlier remonstrations.

  Meanwhile, Fawkes had gained the bridge and was suspiciously glancing this way and that. He stood there turning in a circle, looking down the river and up, until he finally seemed satisfied that he was alone.

  He reached over the side to grab a pole with a hook on the end the size of a man’s fist — used by fishermen and others to scoop up items that fell into the water — and leaned over the side. He fished with it for a few minutes and then triumphantly hauled up a sack that we had previously observed floating amongst the general garbage and flotsam.

  “Now!” I whispered excitedly as he got the sack in his hand and made to replace the hook.

  Whistle signals rang out from my group.

  “Halt!” yelled the officers in my cadre, quickly rushing out onto the bridge, to be joined by their fellows who had been hiding on the other side, alerted by the whistles.

  Within moments, Fawkes was once again in police custody, and even angrier than he had been early this morning.

  “’Ere! What’s this?” he demanded as the sack was wrested from his hands.

  I quickly covered my mouth and nose with my kerchief as one of the officers opened the bag. “Good God!” he exclaimed, nearly dropping the bag in shock at the stench.

  I had wrapped some clove
s and a stick of cinnamon into my kerchief in preparation for this moment, but I could still detect the rotten stink of death emanating from the dripping sack. There was yelling, and when I looked up, Sergeant Michaels making his way in the early morning light, followed by a defeated-looking Constable Brian Dawes. I hoped he had not gotten a tongue-lashing for his part in the morning’s work.

  “What the hell is going on here?” yelled Sergeant Michaels, huffing his way into our midst, where he cursed at the smell and pointed at the bag. “And what godawful thing is that you’ve dredged up from the river?”

  Meanwhile, the officer had gotten over his initial shock and reached into the bag to pull out a necklace of sparkling emeralds covered in gore, blood and matted fur.

  After a full moment of stunned silence, Constable Dawes recovered enough to say, “Miss. Bennett’s emerald necklace!”

  Everyone started talking at once, none more volubly than the unfortunate Fawkes, who was protesting his innocence at the top of his lungs. Several officers had stepped around to shake my hand, promising that they had never doubted me, and my professor was fairly glowing with pride at the compliments flowing all around.

  “Enough!” barked Sergeant Michaels. “You two, take Fawkes back to the Yard immediately!”

  The two officers holding Fawkes by the arms scampered away, one winking at me, the other tipping his hat deferentially.

  “And you — what else is in that bag?” he demanded of the officer holding the bag and necklace.

  “I believe it is a dead rat, sir,” he answered, confused and looking to me for an explanation.

  “Well, for heaven’s sake, close that bag back up and get everything back to the station for evidence,” Michaels ordered. “And clean that bauble thoroughly before you call on Miss Bennett!”

  Constable Brian Dawes was grinning from ear to ear, and I couldn’t help but return the expression — an action that drew the attention of the sergeant and my professor.

  “You two,” Michaels said, pointing to each of us in turn, “start talking.”

  Brian just shook his head and gestured at me, but my professor broke in. “Yes, Miss Adams, your theory has surely been proven, but how did you know?”

  I took a breath. “It was the smell, you see. That is what made everything clear to me finally.”

  “Made what clear?” interrupted Sergeant Michaels, flapping his arms dramatically.

  But my good professor simply raised his hand to let me continue.

  “You had your man, Sergeant Michaels, you knew who was responsible. What you didn’t know was why he was never caught red-handed,” I explained, pacing as I spoke. “That first day, when you brought Mr. Fawkes in for questioning, Madame LaPointe was unable to make a positive identification, but she remembered a smell.”

  Michaels looked surprised again. “How could you know that? I never wrote that in the report — it wasn’t a useful piece of evidence. The man worked as an assistant undertaker, of course he smelled bad!”

  “Except he didn’t always smell bad,” I pointed out. “The first time he was brought into the police station, Fawkes smelled normal. It was on a separate and, I thought, random run-in, that I too noticed what Madame LaPointe had noticed — that horrible rotting smell.”

  I halted and gestured in the direction the bag had been taken back to the Yard as evidence. “Both times the smell was noticed, Fawkes was holding a large sack. It seems fair to postulate that the sack was the origin of the smell, not Fawkes himself. But then there was the size of the sack. If you were planning to steal single pieces of jewelry at each robbery, why carry such a large bag? Madame LaPointe said the sack was full when he was escaping her rooms. Well, what was it full of to give off that smell? The tiara was the only thing reported stolen that night, so what else was in this sack?”

  I looked at the three of them, and only Dawes shrugged. But Michaels sputtered, “Wait, I don’t care about the size of the bag or the cursed smell. Are you saying that Fawkes would run past this bridge and throw his loot over the side! Are all the other jewels at the bottom of this river too? What manner of plan is that?”

  I continued as if I hadn’t heard him. “At first I couldn’t place the smell, but by chance I recognized it when I was near a butcher’s stall in the Smithfield Market. The smell was that of a decomposing body. Then, it was just a matter of understanding why Fawkes stuffed the dead body of an animal in a sack with the jewels he had just stolen.”

  “To dissuade anyone who found the bag from opening it?” my professor offered.

  “Maybe,” I answered, “but the night that Fawkes was caught, you had a half dozen officers down here searching for Madame LaPointe’s tiara. Your men wouldn’t have been dissuaded from searching a sack just because it smelled bad, would they, Sergeant?”

  “Certainly not,” he said stiffly.

  “In addition, as you said, his modus operandi was to fling his stolen goods into the river as he ran past,” I said, my fists bunching, “and that’s where his knowledge of dead bodies was useful to him.”

  I resumed pacing. “Fawkes knows that when a body first becomes a corpse, it is heavy, and the smell is there, but it gets worse as the body decays. He also knows that within twelve hours rigor mortis sets in.”

  “Yes, yes, but then why throw a sack full of jewels and a dead rat that would weigh the bag down to the bottom of the river?” snapped the sergeant impatiently.

  “Because in another twelve hours, the gases build up in the body,” I explained. “It’s called bloat, and it would have caused the sack, which had initially sunk to the bottom of the river, to float, buoyed by the trapped gases.”

  “Incredible,” said Constable Dawes.

  “Impossible,” said Sergeant Michaels.

  “Elementary,” said my professor with a grin.

  “I promise you, that is the second stage of decomposition. I researched the phenomenon thoroughly last week,” I insisted. “Fawkes knew this from his work, and used this to his advantage to carry out his crimes.”

  “I was there, sir,” Brian put forth, his eyes sparkling. “The images were disgusting, but Miss Adams had textbook after textbook describing the progress of decomposition.”

  “And you knew that twenty-four hours after the robbery, Fawkes would come down here desperately seeking his now floating bag,” summarized my professor with pride.

  I nodded. “Indeed. Throwing the bag into the river, Dawes knew that he always had a twenty-four-hour window to lay low or even be arrested. With his latest robbery on Friday, his twenty-four hours were up this very morning. The third stage of decomposition is heralded by the pressures of the gases finally escaping the body, often in violent ways. At which point the sack would eventually sink, to be lost to Fawkes forever.”

  Sergeant Michaels finally found his voice again. “And you surmised all of this?”

  “Extensive research and simple induction, sir,” I answered, hoping I didn’t sound arrogant, but unable to suppress the smile on my lips.

  He snapped his mouth shut, looking as if he wanted to say more. Instead, he just bowed slightly at the waist and, barking at Dawes to follow him, headed back at a quick pace toward the Yard.

  With a wink, my professor extended his elbow and we followed them back across Westminster Bridge.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The press made much of the case, but I asked for, and was granted, anonymity for my involvement. Indeed, Sergeant Michaels was quite happy to take credit for my work, but publicly, and at Scotland Yard, he shared credit for the capture with Constable Dawes, so I was well satisfied. In addition, the reward offered by Miss Bennett for the return of her emerald necklace was personally delivered to me by the most appreciative lady.

  It wasn’t until almost the end of June that my guardian showed up again.

  “Well, you have been busy,” she remarked as I ushered her into my apartments. She handed me her shawl. “I asked dear Mrs. Dawes to bring us up a spot of tea.”

  “Ha
ve I?” I answered, only slightly amused.

  She glanced at me, perhaps assessing my mood before she answered. Finding it jovial rather than sarcastic, she said, “Come, come, you have solved your first case — surely this is a moment to celebrate?”

  Mrs. Dawes trundled in with a precariously balanced serving tray. I quickly relieved her of it.

  “The ‘moment’, as you put it, was almost two weeks ago, Mrs. Jones,” I corrected respectfully, pouring us each a cup of tea as Mrs. Dawes exited the room.

  “Oh pish tosh!” Mrs. Jones said with a wave of her hand. “I’ve been abroad, and your professor Archer’s glowing letters took time to reach me in Lyon. I came as soon as I could. I was taking the baths, my dear, relieving my old ailments.”

  “Mmm,” I murmured, taking a sip of my tea as I regarded her.

  We sat in quiet assessment of each other for a few minutes, until I finally had to put down my cup with a sigh. “It will not do, madam. We must discuss Bruiser Jenkins.”

  She said nothing for a beat and then, “Ah, I was wondering if sending him your way was a mistake.”

  I nodded. “Of course it was, Mrs. Jones — sending a former thief to train me in … I don’t even know what — what could you be thinking?”

  “Of your safety, my dear girl,” she replied, putting down her cup.

  “So you sent a former boxer, a criminal who has spent time in jail, to protect me?” I demanded.

  She waved her hands and my gaze hardened, unwilling to be pushed off the subject this time.

  “That little escapade on the bridge scared me, and rightfully so!” she said, her eyes flashing. “You cannot be putting yourself in danger like that — you are a young impressionable girl! You are not Watson or Holmes!

  “No, I am not, madam,” I said coldly, “but even I noticed the ring you wore a few weeks ago that is now so obviously missing from your finger.”

  She threw up her hands. “I knew you made the connection — curse your bloodline! When did you know?”