by Tim Mason
“Well, I haven’t got it, Mr. Llewellyn. Get the crowd back and have a look round. Also, Stevie threw a bundle into the bushes back there—find it.”
“Yes, sir. I was sent to fetch you, sir. You’re wanted at the palace.” His voice dropped to an undertone. “It seems the royal family is not best pleased.”
“I imagine not,” muttered Field. “Thank you, Willis, you’ve been most entertaining.” To the policemen who had arrested him, he said, “Cover the corpse decent, you lot, and wait with him till the coroner arrives. My men, Llewellyn and Kilvert, are in charge here, you answer to them.”
“Where is Mr. Kilvert, sir?” said Llewellyn.
“He stepped round to No. 42. What did you make of the fellow who took the shots at Her Majesty?”
“Lunatic.”
“Like the others, you mean?” said Field, and Llewellyn nodded. “But, Sam, the assassin wasn’t acting alone, was he. I’m guessing Little Stevie here was set on deliberate to get me out of the way, and the gun I thought he was raising against the Queen will turn out to be a lump of coal or something like that. Come to that, if any of us had seen Hatchet-Face pointing a bundle of rags in Her Majesty’s direction, he would have had our full attention, I think you’ll agree. Whoever engaged Stevie promised him a sovereign if he was successful in distracting the police.” Field held up the bloody coin he’d found in the corpse’s pocket. “This one. Whoever did that was dressed in a butcher’s bloodstained clothes and pushing a butcher’s barrow. ‘Meet me here, Stevie,’ says the bloke, ‘after you’ve foxed Mr. Bucket. I’ll give you this shiny coin.’ Which he does, and whilst Stevie stuffs it in his pocket, the butcher slices his throat. The body was supposed to go in the barrow, covered with a butcher’s cloth and wheeled far away, only something interrupts the killer and he’s got to make off quick, leaving Stevie where he lay.”
“What about the ear?”
“Haven’t a clue, have I. But I reckon Kilvert will find the kitchen at No. 42 in a state, ’cause of the usual butcher never arriving this morning. Don’t you see? For the first time in all these attempts on Her Majesty’s life, we’ve got a real live conspiracy, but instead of hunting it down, I’ve got to go and squander precious breath on a gaggle of court folk.”
With that, Inspector Charles Field turned and strode through the staring crowd.
“Whatever has become of my hat?” he muttered under his breath. “Never mind. Too bloody hot, in any case.”
Constable Kilvert found distress in the kitchen at No. 42 St. Albans, just as Inspector Field had predicted. Cook indeed had been expecting a leg of lamb and a half-dozen hens for her mistress’s supper party. They were never delivered.
“Just put yourself in my place, Officer, if you will. Wot am I to do now, wiv guests expected and Mistress such a sharp ’un?”
Kilvert had a suspicion that Cook, an ample woman in her forties, was rather a “sharp ’un” herself, as her little kitchen maid’s red eyes and soggy handkerchief testified.
“There, there, Cook,” said Kilvert, in low, comforting tones. “Perhaps the butcher was delayed by the commotion in the Mall. He’ll come by-and-by.”
“I have me doubts, Officer,” shrilled the woman. “The man drinks!”
“Shocking.” (Kilvert was, in fact, a teetotaler; strong drink made him bilious.)
Moments later he rejoined Llewellyn at the crime scene. A wagon had drawn up to receive the corpse of Stevie Patchen, and the coroner’s men were supervising the operation.
“Look at this, Josiah,” said Llewellyn, showing him a crude toy gun made from two wooden blocks, nestled in a bundle of rags. “Found it in the bushes, just like Mr. Field said I would.”
“He’s a wonder, is Mr. Field. Any sign of the missing ear?”
Llewellyn shook his head.
“Sam,” said Kilvert, “where would you go to find a drunken butcher?”
“Let me think for a moment,” said his partner, as though people were forever asking him just this.
In the shimmering midday heat, the butchers’ stalls of Smithfield Market reeked of flesh and blood and dung. On the street, sewage moved sluggishly through narrow channels toward open drains. Smoke rose from a dozen firepots, blurring vision, tickling the throat, and muffling the cries of those who still labored here. Recently much of the market had been shut down, following years of protest at the stench and the cruel treatment of the beasts (protest led in part by Charles Dickens). There were now more humane slaughterhouses in the northern borough of Islington. To the public, though, Smithfield remained synonymous with meat, and a contingent of the Worshipful Company of Butchers’ Guild continued there, even as railway tracks were being laid near the site and construction begun on a new market. The area had resounded with the cries of men and dying cattle for nearly a thousand years; now there was the additional din of construction.
Tom Ginty, aged fourteen, butcher’s apprentice, ginger-haired and freckled, blinked sweat from his eyes as he collected offal from the hog that his master, Jake Figgis, was jointing. The other butcher attached to his stall had gone off early that morning and not returned (Drunk again, said Jake), so Tom’s workload was heavier than normal. But he knew how lucky he was. To have a chance of someday becoming an initiate of the Butchers’ Guild was more than enviable. It was only because of his dead father having been mates with a few of the Worshipful Company that he’d been accepted as ’prentice—that, and a payment of one pound six that his mother had conjured from God knows where. Tom knew that if he were to put one foot wrong, there would be a score of lads waiting to take his place.
Which was one of the reasons he was reluctant to say anything to anyone about the man who struck him as odd.
Tom took him at first for another butcher because of the bloody apron he wore, but he didn’t move right for a workingman. He seemed to glide, as though he were on skates, crossing a frozen pond. His smile seemed frozen as well, Tom thought, as he glanced up from his work and shoved his sweat-matted red hair back from his eyes.
Like he’s livin’ in a cool day somewheres else, but he ain’t enjoyin’ it, smile or no. Like he’s this toff who just stepped in shit.
Tom’s eyes dropped down to the man’s feet.
Red shoes?
But they weren’t shoes; they were made of cloth, like a baby’s bootie, only red. Or mostly red. And now the man (it’s a gentleman, no mistake, the way he moves), weaving his way through the crowd, paused, stooped, and undid the strings at his ankles. When he stood and moved on, he’d left the red things behind and was wearing gleaming black leather shoes. The scraps of red cloth were quickly trod over by the shifting throng and were lost to Tom’s view. The gliding man’s smile remained unchanged.
He’s coming this way.
Tom felt a tingle of fear. Maybe it was the fixed smile. Tom looked up at Jake, who, drenched in sweat, was still fully engaged with the hog. When Tom looked back, the gentleman was gone, vanished, lost to the ever-moving crowd of buyers and sellers.
Tom felt a huge wave of relief and wondered why.
It’s the heat, i’n’it.
Something white fluttered past his line of sight. It was reflex: offal bucket in one hand, Tom put out his other and caught the flying cloth before it hit the pile of bloody rags that accumulated each day behind the butchers’ stall. It was wet and red and sticky. Tom looked up in time to see the gliding man, now apronless, as he glanced back over his shoulder; in time to see the man with coal-black eyes return his stare; in time to see a frown suddenly cross the smiling face.
The gentleman, never releasing the boy from his intense gaze, smiled again, put a finger to his lips, and shook his head. Then he turned and glided on into the crowd.
2
Inspector Field sat gingerly on the flimsy ornate chair on which he’d been placed, hoping it wouldn’t shatter beneath him. He’d been led to this gilt room in the palace by Commissioner Mayne and Sir Horace Dugdale, a member of the royal household. Sir Horace was watchful
and almost entirely mute; Mayne was angry.
“A conspiracy?” said Mayne, incredulously.
“At least three in it, sir,” said Field. “The shooter, the decoy, and whoever set it up and topped the decoy.”
“I have talked to the shooter, or tried. He’s raving, the man could not conspire to do up his boots!”
“Even if he is insane, that don’t mean he acted alone!” Field, easily angered, checked his rising heat and lowered his voice. “He might have been recruited because he was off.”
That Detective Inspector Charles Frederick Field should find himself in Buckingham Palace, even to receive a dressing down, was something of a miracle. The son of a sometime publican in Chelsea, Field had nourished high ambitions as a boy—but they did not lie in this direction. There were few people on earth apart from his wife who knew that, as a young man, Charles Field had wanted more than anything to be an actor. A life on the stage would be his escape from the sour brutality of his parental home.
In pursuit of his passion, Field had committed to memory long stretches of Shakespeare. He created disguises for himself and went out in public as a whole gallery of characters. He adopted alien accents and strange walks. A beloved sister, long since dead of typhoid fever, used to fashion his costumes late at night when her own work was done. Young Charles Field went out as rich man, poor man, beggar-man, thief.
One day his father, drunk since the night before, caught him at it yet again (posing as a young gentleman) and beat him senseless. Bloodied and bruised, Field left his hated home and his much-loved sister to fend for himself. He was fifteen years old when he became a member of the Bow Street Runners, London’s ragtag prototype of organized law enforcement. When the Metropolitan Police Force was established in 1829, Field signed on. Its first commissioner was Sir Robert Peel, and the public, immediately suspicious of this new force, began calling the constables “peelers” in dubious tribute to Sir Robert. Since then, Field had risen through the ranks. He had solved some of the most notorious murders of his day. And then he’d been discovered by the wide-ranging novelist and commentator on London life, Charles Dickens.
The novelist had merely followed the inspector through night patrols of the city’s most squalid and dangerous neighborhoods and recorded Field’s interactions with the rogues and criminals he encountered. Dickens’ “On Duty with Inspector Field,” published in Household Words in 1851, created a sensation.
The inspector himself, however, couldn’t understand it. “It’s not me,” he told his wife. The detective read and reread the account, baffled. “It’s pure invention, it’s not a bit like me!”
“Never mind, Mr. Field,” she said. “It’s made a famous man of you.”
Jane Field’s observation became even more true in the wake of the 1853 publication of Dickens’ Bleak House and the appearance of the morally ambiguous Detective Inspector Bucket on the world’s stage. Everyone knew the character had to have been modeled on Field.
Now, years later, the publican’s son sat in the palace, arguing his position with knights of the realm. And then, shockingly, Prince Albert himself walked into the room, unexpected and unannounced, and Field saw his career coming to an abrupt end. He fell silent and stood with the other two men.
That’s done it. I’m through. The wife is going to be upset, poor girl.
Field had caught glimpses of the Prince over the years. He remembered Albert as a strikingly handsome young man with almond-shaped, piercing blue eyes, a trim little mustache, and thick dark head of hair, erect of bearing and slender of build. Now the man before him, at age forty, was considerably altered: his hair thinning and combed over, he had sallow, puffy skin and a weary stoop. He still possessed the penetrating blue eyes, but what a contrast he made to his vivaciously plump and healthy Queen!
Prince Albert seemed to be studying Field as well. “Her Majesty is recovering from a grave shock,” he said finally.
Commissioner Mayne and Sir Horace both bowed their heads, and Field followed suit. He had never heard the man speak before; he was surprised by the thickness of his German accent.
“Fortunately, she is endowed with great strength. Unfortunately, she has had to endure this sort of shock on more than one occasion in the past.”
Am I supposed to apologize? No—don’t speak unless he asks you a direct question. Please, God, don’t let him ask me a direct question.
“Detective Field, as I saw this morning’s events, you arrived late and you left early. Turned tail and ran, as a matter of fact.”
Take me out and shoot me, please. Draw me, quarter me—anything but this.
“I was most distressed by what I observed of your behavior. Now, however, I see that you are quite literally covered in what I can only imagine to be blood. So there must be more to the story, is that so? You had reasons for acting as you did?”
“I did, sir. A common criminal, known to me, was planted in the crowd on purpose so I’d find him, sir. Or so I now believe. Thereby I was took out of the way, sir.”
“If this were true, it would suggest conspiracy rather than lunacy,” said Albert, glancing at Commissioner Mayne. “What leads you to believe this, Field?”
“Because of the bloke, um, individual, being found by myself moments later with his head halfway sawed off, sir.”
Mayne cleared his throat and said, “Sir, if I may, we believe this to be an unrelated matter. We have the actual assailant under lock and key, sir. I assure you, the man is quite mad. He is incapable of conspiring with anyone, I would say, but he will no longer pose a threat to the Crown.”
The Prince Consort’s eyes flashed with sudden anger. “No indeed, Commissioner, nor will he be properly punished for his actions. He will be found ‘innocent by reason of insanity’ and cosseted in an asylum whilst you and I and all the world know he’s anything but ‘innocent.’”
Albert pointedly turned back to the inspector.
“Mr. Charles Dickens has written about you and your detective work, sir. Her Majesty and I have quite enjoyed his accounts of your manner of dealing with the criminal classes.” The Prince’s small mouth turned up in what the detective took to be a smile. “Mr. Bucket is a thoroughly unforgettable character. Not entirely savory in his practices but highly entertaining.”
The little head tilt seemed to be working, so Field repeated it.
“Her Majesty saw you this morning, Field. Even in all the tumult and danger, Her Majesty took note of you. The Queen said, ‘Oh, look, there’s the Bucket fellow!’ The Queen has a regard for your fictional self, and it caused dismay to see you run off as you did. I shall attempt to explain your actions as you’ve explained them to me.”
The Prince moved toward the door. “It would be a shame to see the real Mr. Bucket fall from favor.” With a tart nod to Commissioner Mayne and Sir Horace, the Prince was gone.
The commissioner turned to his subordinate. “Come along, Mr. Bucket. I’ve got a conspirator I’d like you to meet.”
3
A turnkey led them through the crowded maze that was Newgate Prison. It was a clamorous place, a little city in itself, with guards leading shuffling knots of manacled prisoners to and from work details, and wives and children coming and going, bringing food and drink to incarcerated family members. Commissioner Mayne was speaking furiously above the din.
“As though little Stevie Patchen didn’t have at any given moment in his miserable life a dozen enemies at the least, eager to do him in! Queuing up for the privilege! He was a two-faced, two-timing, lying, backstabbing son of a whore!”
Sir Horace Dugdale, following behind, made it clear by his placid demeanor that such language was quite inaudible to members of the royal household.
“The miracle is that it took this long for someone to go and actually do it!” continued Mayne. “Am I wrong, Field?”
“Of course not, sir,” said Field in what he hoped were conciliatory tones.
The jailer stopped before an iron door, turned the key, and swung i
t open. A draft of cool, dank air swept out. The young man within, perhaps twenty-five years old, looked up from the bench on which he sat with his hands splayed on his thighs.
“I keep my mother’s teeth in a jar,” he said, his tone pleasant.
“Do you now,” said Field. “Does she not need them?”
The young man smiled wistfully and shook his head. “Not where she is.”
His bland hairless face was bruised and one ear was stained with dried blood; his clothing, too, had been torn and soiled in the scuffle during his arrest. The constant movement of his tongue within his mouth suggested a missing tooth.
“What’s your name, lad?” said Field, gently.
Commissioner Mayne answered. “Philip David Rendell, six and twenty years of age, a bookkeeper until recently. Abandoned his position and his lodgings in Islington a month or so ago. Dropped out of sight altogether.”
“Son,” said Field, as though the commissioner hadn’t spoken, “your name?”
“Philip, sir.”
“Is your mother in heaven, Philip?”
The young man barked with sudden laughter. “Not her! She got herself into a cupboard and couldn’t get out, the cunt!”
Mayne groaned while Sir Horace examined the ceiling.
“Why did you fire those shots this morning, Philip?” asked Field, unperturbed.
“Angel told me to shoot.”
Commissioner Mayne snorted. “Perhaps it was a conspiracy of angels.”
“What did the angel look like, Philip?”
“Eyes like coals, and the glory of the Lord shone round about him.”
“Was he a big man, like me? Or a smallish one, like . . .” Field’s eyes strayed toward Commissioner Mayne, but then he thought better of it.
“Tall enough,” said Philip Rendell sternly, looking Field up and down, “but you, sir, are no angel.”
“Too true,” said the inspector, ruefully shaking his head, “too true. Where’d you get the gun from, lad?”