“T-Tell me, Detective, what else did you happen to s-see in that book?”
It took Hy a minute to remember what book he was talking about. “I only had time to check back five or six weeks before Sealy’s death, to see if the two men had any dealings with each other—nothin’—and then ahead a couple weeks, just to see what he’d be missing. It seemed like all Dunbarton did was go to meetin’s with other insurance companies and banks. But there were two things that stuck out: Dunbarton had been going to a man named Benjamin Hoyle’s house every week for five weeks.”
“Benjamin Hoyle,” Lightner mused. “I know that name.”
“He makes guns—lots of ’em. Second biggest manufacturer next to Colt.”
“Perhaps it was insurance related?”
“Hoyle don’t use Dunbarton’s company.”
“Interesting. So Sealy’s name never showed up in D-Dunbarton’s calendar?”
“Actually, sir, none of the names were in the book—just addresses. For example, it just said ‘City Hall 10’ on two Wednesdays, and then Hoyle’s address on Fifth and Thirty-Sixth every Thursday at the same time. I went to both places for two weeks, figuring maybe I’d find out what went on. I didn’t get much from goin’ to City Hall. You wouldn’t believe how many people the mayor sees every day. The coppers who guard the doors said there were too many people to remember.
“Anyhow, I went by Hoyle’s.” He frowned. “The man must scare the livin’ daylights out of his servants, ’cause none of them would talk about who visited the house on any night—not even for money. Both times I stuck around for a couple hours. There were two private carriages, but they went round back with their passengers.” He glanced at Jasper. “Is that strange—goin’ round back?”
“It sounds as if they w-wished to hide their visit.”
“That’s what I figured. One of the carriages came both times. It was somethin’ else: big, glossy, black with windows all around—and gold splash guards, if you believe it. More gold trim on the doors, and the fanciest gold lamps I’ve ever seen. Oh, and two huge footmen ridin’ on the back. Still, I did get—”
“I’m sorry—but you said two large footmen?”
Hy nodded.
“How did you know they were footmen?”
“They’re the ones who have to wear all the fancy clothes—what’s it called?”
“Livery.”
“Yeah, livery. Is that footmen?”
“Usually. Do you recall what c-color their livery was?”
“Black with gold.”
Lightner nodded. “I interrupted you. P-Please go on.”
“I never did see the big gold carriage leave—I reckon it musta gone out the back way, which was guarded better than a bank. But I did follow one of Hoyle’s visitors who came in a hackney—a man named Amos Baker.”
The Englishman chuckled. “Well, well, well.”
“What is it, sir?”
“I heard that n-name yesterday from Mrs. J-Janssen. She claims Mr. B-Baker threatened her husband—that he said something to the effect that Janssen’s life wouldn’t be worth a farthing if he tried to worm out of the arrangement and failed to deliver the goods.”
Hy whistled. “Well, there’s one helluva connection.”
“What do you know about B-Baker?”
“He’s got a couple ships, and he started out as a captain. He still makes runs from time to time.” He gave Jasper a grim look. “He works with slave-takers.”
“Slave-takers?”
“Men who capture escaped slaves for money. Baker gets a boat full of runaways and takes ’em down to the Southern ports—supposedly to return them to their owners but really to sell.”
Lightner’s brow creased. “I thought s-slavery was illegal in N-New York?”
“It is, but the Fugitive Slave Law makes helpin’ a fugitive slave—or even not stoppin’ one—punishable by jail time and hefty fines. Police are supposed to apprehend any slaves and turn them over, but—” He shrugged.
“States don’t l-like being t-told what to do by the federal g-government?” Jasper guessed.
“Aye, a lot of coppers won’t knuckle under, but there’s some that do, mainly for the rewards—money and even promotions.”
“This is how Baker earns his m-money—reselling escaped slaves?”
“At least some of it. McElhenny threatened me if I tried to speak to either man. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t check on their alibis. Hoyle was out of town when Sealy was murdered—in New Orleans. He was here and had no alibi that I could tell for Dunbarton’s death. Baker was on one of his boats the night of Dunbarton’s death, but not Sealy’s.”
“And the m-mayor?”
Hy laughed. “You’re jokin’, right?”
“You s-said Dunbarton met with him at least twice.”
“Jaysus. You’re a dangerous man, sir. Er, beggin’ your pardon.”
“No apology n-necessary.”
“Does it make me a terrible copper that I didn’t check to see if Mayor Wood had an alibi?” Hy figured going after the mayor might have landed him in a worse place than the Tombs.
Lightner just smiled at the question. “Tell m-me about their p-politics—Sealy’s and Dunbarton’s. Were they r-reformers like J-Janssen?”
“It seemed to me their politics changed with their company, if you know what I mean. Both men were on the boards of a half dozen charities. Dunbarton gave money to both Wood and the candidate runnin’ against him in the last election.”
“So, not an ardent r-reformer, then.”
“I didn’t get that impression, no.” Hy stopped. “This is it, sir.”
They both looked up at the two-story clapboard house, which was leaning distinctly to the left. Hy climbed the splintered wooden steps and knocked, then waited.
He’d raised his knuckles to knock again when the Englishman said, “I’ll g-go look around back.”
Hy’s first impulse was to ask him to wait and not go on his own, but he knew the man wouldn’t appreciate a slight to his masculinity. Besides, just because he dressed and spoke like a dandy didn’t mean he couldn’t handle himself.
“You lookin’ for Doc?”
Hy turned to find a boy of about ten, his clothing cleaner than that of most of the children he’d seen on his way there but not by much.
“I am.”
“I can tell you and the flash gent where he is.” The boy’s bright blue eyes, the only bright thing on his person, squinted up at him, his lips pursed in a smile that said he knew one of them would pay.
He was right.
Hy might not be flush, but he could afford this sort of dun. He’d been bloody lucky his cousin Ian hadn’t sold all his things while he was in the Tombs—even if he’d rented out Hy’s room. Hy kept his money hidden in a hollowed-out Bible, knowing that was the last place Ian would look.
The boy stared at the coins in his hand, his small body taut and focused, like a cat about to pounce.
Hy held up a three-cent coin. “What’s yer name, lad?”
“Davy, sir.”
“Do ye hang about the doc’s house?” he asked, allowing his speech—which he’d been trying to clean up for the aristocrat—to fall back into familiar patterns.
The boy shrugged, and Hy made as if to put the coin back in his pocket.
“I live next door,” Davy said hastily. “I’m yer fella,” he added with a bit of a wheedle.
“This is for five answers.”
“One.”
“Three.”
“Done.”
“Where’s the doc?”
“Over at O’Reilly’s.”
“Was anyone else here today?”
“No.” The boy grinned.
Hy sighed. “Was anyone here last night?”
“Aye, sir—two coppers with a dead ’un.” He paused and frowned. “I wanted to watch what they did, but Ma dragged me in. So,” he said, holding out a grubby fist. “I reckon that’s three.”
Hy flipped him th
e coin.
Davy caught it and spun on his bare feet. “Doc didn’t come home last night,” he called over his shoulder, sprinting as if Hy would go after him and take back the coin. “That answer’s free ’cause I tricked ye before.”
Lightner came around the corner just then, his gaze inquiring as he watched the boy run off.
“Doc is at Molly O’Reilly’s—or that’s where he was headed last night. The boy said some coppers dropped off a body and that Doc ain’t been home.”
They looked at each other for a long moment.
“I want you t-to see the b-body before it turns putrid. Although in this h-heat—” Lightner let the thought hang in the humid air between them.
It took only moments to pry off the lock and hasp and open the door that led to a tiny surgery. The smell of death in the cramped room was eye watering.
A sheet-covered body lay on a trestle table and dominated the center of the room; the Englishman pulled back the sheet and snorted. “His shoes and socks are g-gone.”
Janssen’s feet were bare and swollen, his skin stretched like a gruesome sausage casing.
“It happens,” Hy admitted, ashamed for the men he worked with—men who’d strip a dead body they’d been entrusted to deliver.
“It h-happens in London too.” Lightner lifted the corner of the shirt to expose the knife cuts. “Take a l-look.”
Hy leaned closer to examine the gory wound. “This is pretty swollen, but it looks the same—other than bein’ on the left side.” He glanced up. “You think maybe there’s two killers? One who does the stabbin’ and one who does the chokin’?”
“P-Perhaps. I c-can’t imagine somebody making w-wounds like this using a nondominant hand.” Lightner picked up his cane and turned the amber knob halfway round until it made a soft snick. Then he pulled on it and handed Hy the short, thin-bladed dagger.
“That’s handy,” Hy said, turning the blade to examine it.
“It’s sharp,” Lightner warned.
Hy held the dagger as if he were going to stab something. “I’m right-handed and can stab with my left hand,” he demonstrated. “I can get a lot of force behind it, but it’s not the hand I’d use if I was strangling and tryin’ to stab a big bloke like Dunbarton or Janssen.” Hy handed Lightner the knife, which the Englishman took with his left hand. “You’re a lefty?”
“Yes, and I’m far less d-dexterous with my right.” He gave a slight smile. “For all that my various t-tutors tried to b-beat left-handedness out of me.”
The man was smiling, but Hy could see he was serious. For some reason, he’d not expected that a duke’s son would be subjected to beatings.
Lightner gestured to a blur of bruising at the front of the throat. “Do you see this?”
“What’s it from?”
“I’m thinking a knot in the r-rope would explain the crushed l-l-larynx. It was a method of g-garroting popular in India some t-twenty years ago. Have you s-seen such cases before?”
“Never heard of it.” Hy shook his head. “Why do that and all this?” He gestured to the bloody mess that was Janssen’s side. “Doesn’t that seem, er, I dunno—cruel?”
“It seems a gruesome—not to mention awkward—way to k-kill somebody.” The Englishman frowned, then said in a musing tone, “It almost seems as if the k-killer is sending a m-m-message.”
Hy blinked. It did? Before he could ask what kind of message, Lightner glanced around the room. “I d-don’t see any instruments, no place for p-paperwork. It doesn’t look as if m-much work gets done here.”
“Feehan is as useless as tits on a boar, sir. I’ve got another fellow I trust for this sorta thing. We can use him next time—” Hy broke off. “I don’t mean that I think there will be a next time.”
“I think it p-probable.”
“Based on what?”
“If this is the s-same killer, then they’ve n-not only gotten away with murder twice, but they allowed another person to pay for their crimes. They could have gotten away undetected, yet here they are, killing again using the s-same m-method. Why would somebody d-do that?”
“So you think it ain’t the same man?”
“That, D-Detective, is what I intend to f-find out.”
* * *
Jasper had thought the detective’s description of Murderer’s Alley was an exaggeration. In truth, Jasper didn’t feel safe visiting the location even in broad daylight with a hulking police officer beside him.
They held handkerchiefs over their mouths, as raw sewage filled the streets and was enough to make a man ill.
“Right here.” Law pointed to a stretch of filth-covered cobbles between two sets of rickety stairs that led down into rooms Jasper didn’t even want to think about. Overhead were dozens of glassless windows that had been made by removing sections of clapboard. People hung out of half of them, and others were covered in rags shifting listlessly in the heavy air. Jasper could tell by the sheer volume of waste clogging the street that there would be hundreds, if not thousands, of souls packed into the grim buildings.
The temperature in the closed-in alley was excruciating.
Jasper’s lightweight coat was not nearly light enough.
Paisley would run screaming back to England if Jasper knelt to examine the cobbles for signs of the earlier murders. Besides, there was so much filth—excrement, both animal and human—that it would be impossible to tell.
He tilted his head back to look up at the windows, and the dozen or so people who’d been looking out all disappeared, like so many gophers down holes.
“I’m finished,” he told Law, who heaved a sigh of relief, sweat running in rivulets down his reddened face.
They walked down the alley to Baxter Street, the buildings looming over them as if hurrying them on their way. Less than half a block away was Molly O’Reilly’s, whose door was propped open, music from an out-of-tune piano pouring out even though it wasn’t yet ten in the morning.
As they entered the saloon, Law leaned down and whispered, “That’s Lorena Paxton, sir—over by the bartender.”
“And she is?”
“She runs the place.”
“What of M-Molly?”
“Before my time.”
Madam Lorena looked up and saw them, her carmine-tinted lips curving into a carnivorous smile. She was a striking auburn-haired woman wearing a revealing gold-and-red gown that clashed violently with her hair. She looked younger than Jasper would have expected—surely not much more than thirty—but then he didn’t have extensive experience with madams and brothels. At least none that he remembered. He found them sordid, and even the most sophisticated decor could never dispel the feeling.
Not that Molly O’Reilly’s was sophisticated. Indeed, a thick patina of grit overlay every surface, including the customers—of which there were quite a few for such an early hour.
“Well, hello, Hy, you look like you’ve been to hell and back. I didn’t expect to see you.” The madam gave a raucous laugh. “Ever again, in fact.” Madam Lorena slid her arms up the big man’s chest and around his thick neck and yanked his head down, planting a loud, smacking kiss on his mouth.
“Good God, Lorie,” Law muttered, wiping red paint off his mouth, his battered face much the same hue.
The madam turned her sparkling brown eyes on Jasper. “Well, look at you.” She subjected Jasper to an inspection that left him feeling naked. “I know I’ve never met you before. But I can guess who you are: the English duke’s son—Lord somethin’-or-other—who rolled off the boat only yesterday?”
“That is p-p-precisely who I am—D-Detective Inspector Something-or-Other.”
She laughed, and Jasper appreciated the result, which was surely her intention in wearing a gown that was cut so dangerously low.
“Handsome and witty.” She cut Law a saucy look. “You drink on the house for bringin’ him to me first, Hy.”
Law tried to demur, but Jasper said, “Thank you; a drink would be l-lovely.”
“Wh
at’s your fancy, my lord?”
Jasper suspected she wasn’t talking about alcohol. “I’ll l-l-leave the choice to you, ma’am.”
“Oh, no ma’am-ing here—call me Lorie. I, on the other hand, will only call you my lord.” She leaned close, her full breasts pressing against his arm. “And I hope to be calling you often.” Her milky-white arm snaked around his shoulder, and she played with the hair at the nape of his neck as she whispered, “You can have anything you want, my lord.”
“That’s very g-generous, Lorie.” Jasper carefully disentangled himself on the pretext of taking a seat on one of the rickety stools. “As it s-s-so happens, what I’d like is to t-talk to D-Dr. Feehan, if he is still here.”
“Talk?” She pouted at Jasper and then turned away, gesturing for the barkeep. “Three of my finest, Jimmy. I need somethin’ to loosen up my lordship here.”
The bartender took a bottle from beneath the bar rather than behind it.
Miss Lorena turned back to Jasper. “Now you know that talkin’ wasn’t what I meant, honey.” Her look was teasing, but Jasper saw steel in her pretty eyes. “I’d like to welcome you to the Points all right and proper. If you don’t want me, that’s just fine. Trust me, sugar, it’s orl korrect if you don’t swing toward the ladies—”
Law groaned. “Lorie, dammit—”
The madam raised a dismissive hand at Law’s mortification. “I don’t make it widely known, but I’ve got some fine young gents I can provide for your pleasure, or one of each, if that’s your fancy. All on the house for a man like yourself.” She hesitated and added, “Provided you agree to sit here at the bar for an hour before an’ after.”
Jasper blinked. “You wish me to sit at your b-bar? May I ask why?”
“Honey, your voice alone is reason enough for me to fuck you. As for the rest of you?” She gave him another incinerating inspection. “Well, I could just eat you up with a spoon.”
Jasper had absolutely no response to that.
“You’ve got class. And class is good for business.”
Jasper considered telling her that a floor one’s feet didn’t stick to or more frequent bathing by both clientele and employees might also increase her business, not to mention her establishment’s prestige. Instead he said, “If I c-could speak to Dr. Feehan, I promise to c-come back and m-make myself … seen.”
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