by Tim Mason
“Thank you, sir.”
“I deeply regret having spoken to you as I did, Mr. Field.”
The inspector nodded.
“I do hope they soon find that man’s body,” said Albert.
The inspector was awakened a little before 3 a.m. He was driven by one of Klimt’s men to a stretch of railroad tracks about fifty yards from the scene of the day’s incident. The scene was lit by lanterns and torches, clustered in the woods.
“There is not much left of him, Mr. Field,” said Hauptmann Klimt, “as you can see.”
The face was completely obliterated. The torso was more or less intact; the long legs lay decorously together a little farther on, the feet bootless. Bits of gray uniform covered body parts here and there. In the flickering torchlight, the blood and the red piping looked black in color.
Field wrinkled his nose. “What is that smell?”
“Smell?” cried Klimt. “Why, you should know this smell very well, Mr. Bucket! It is the smell of death!”
Klimt’s men laughed, then fell silent at a glance from Field. He took a lantern from one of them and moved in a slow circle around the remains, searching the ground.
Too bloody early for him to stink like this, isn’t it.
Suddenly he stopped. At his feet lay the half-eaten body of a fox. The sweet-sickly smell was strong. Field looked back doubtfully at the human remains. He approached the torso again and crouched beside it. Reluctantly he lifted a bit of the gray fabric at the base of the spine and studied what lay beneath.
“I’ll need to know what the coroner says, Herr Klimt.”
“Coroner? There will be no coroner, of course! This matter is now gone forever, Mr. Field! In one hour’s time, all this, forever gone!”
In the morning the Queen was at the bedside of her beloved Prince, fretting over the fact that he might have been snatched from this world the day before. Then, with the morning post, she received another upset. It was a letter from a head butler at the palace, seeking to replace Monsieur Kanné as travel arranger now that he had been dismissed by Sir Horace Dugdale. This was news to Her Majesty. Livid, she summoned Sir Horace to the Prince’s suite and summarily relieved him of his position. She may have been fond of Dugdale, but she was fonder still of the Frenchman and was rather firm about making decisions concerning household staff herself. The Prince had propped himself up in bed to witness the courtier’s unhappy interview with Her Majesty. At its conclusion Albert caught the man’s eye and held it. For the first time, a flush suffused Sir Horace’s features. He dropped his eyes, bowed his way out of the room, and was never seen by anyone in the court of Victoria again.
The weather was fine and the Channel calm. Charles Field and Tom Ginty were well wrapped up, sitting side by side on the steamer’s deck, gazing at the gentle rise and fall of the gray horizon. The boy had not spoken a word during their first day’s journey from Coburg to Frankfurt and on the second day begrudged the inspector only monosyllabic responses to his inquiries. Field hardly cared. He was coming down with fever; by the time they boarded the cross-channel steamer, he was shivering. It was the opinion of the ship’s doctor that brisk open air was the best thing for it.
The hum of the engines and rushing splash of the great paddle wheels were irresistibly soporific. The inspector awoke with a jolt to find himself drenched in sweat. He shook out the robe that covered him and then pulled it tighter.
“Tom,” he said, over the noise of the steamer, “what was all that about a tail, then?”
The boy stared straight ahead. He might not have heard.
“Tom?”
“What was that uniform he was wearin’, Mr. Field, and why was he a-wearin’ it?”
The gray uniform with red piping had been very much in Field’s thoughts. On their first day of travel it had come to him where he’d seen it initially: on the road to Rosenau with the royal party, the attendant at the railroad crossing; a slender man stooping to emerge from his hut by the tracks, bowing and tipping his cap to the Queen. A tall man in gray, outlined by a thin red stripe.
Since then Field had watched Decimus Cobb kill the crossing guard again and again in his mind. Each time, in the dead of night, Decimus laid the body across the tracks in the path of a night train. He might have let more than one train mutilate the body. The corpse was already in place on the day of the attack. If anyone had witnessed Decimus boarding the Prince’s coach before the “accident,” or leaping to safety after it, it would be the tall man in the gray uniform who would be under suspicion, the man who was now beyond questioning, beyond recognition. The horse would gallop on command, and the dead Prince would be thrown off. The boy would be left on the scene (or, more likely, also killed) while Decimus changed costume yet again and disappeared into the countryside.
It was all very far-fetched. The inspector glanced at Tom and found him still staring at the indistinct, shifting horizon.
“The man’s dead and gone, Tom. You needn’t worry about him ever again.”
Tom shot Field one fierce, accusing glance. Then the boy resumed his examination of the sea and sky divide. The inspector was drenched and shivering again. He rose to return to his cabin but faltered and stood trembling, clinging to the back of the deck chair. Tom stood, took Charles Field by the arm, and led him off below.
Part V
41
London
At the end of his long journey home, Inspector Field was carried from the coach and up the stairs to his bed. His skin was hot to the touch; his thoughts were confused, his speech rambling. Jane, weeping, bathed him from head to toe with cool wet cloths, again and again. Ugly red lines radiated from the wound in his upper thigh. Tom Ginty begged leave to keep vigil in the bedroom. The boy was silent and sober; at St. Thomas’ he had seen limbs taken off that were in better condition. Martha and Bessie came and left with broths, which went untasted. Doctors left the room looking grave, speaking to Mrs. Field in urgent whispers, but she always shook her head adamantly.
Sometimes the inspector was able to recognize his wife; a slow smile would spread across his face and he would reach up to touch her cheek. At other times it was hard to say what he was seeing.
“Stop him!” Field cried once. “The bishop is burning the women, can you not stop him?”
Once he laughed. “Come here, girl!” But when Jane rushed to his side, it seemed it was not his wife he was summoning. “That’s a girl! That’s a good girl!”
And then, bitterly, “I am the dog beneath the table.”
Several times he asked for Mr. Bucket, and then, each time, he wept.
On the third day the bedclothes were drenched as never before and in the night the fever broke. By the fifth day he was well enough to ask a question of Llewellyn when Jane was out of the room.
“How did you manage with Mrs. Andrews, Sam?” he whispered.
“She was already gone by the time I arrived, Mr. Field.”
“Where to?”
“God only knows, sir. Congratulations, sir.”
“What for?”
“Well, you got your man, didn’t you.”
The inspector lay back against the pillow. He closed his eyes. Llewellyn waited until he heard the long breath of sleep, then quietly left, confident his inspector would keep his leg, that he would live.
During his last days in Coburg, Albert was melancholy. Walking with his wife and daughter, he looked longingly into each valley. He breathed deeply of the pine-scented woods; he smiled wistfully at the tolling of the village bells. His eyes often brimmed with tears, which he would wipe hastily away. Once, though, alone with his brother, looking from Rosenau over the surrounding countryside, he broke down completely and wept, saying he knew he would never see his homeland again.
“Why would you say such a thing?” asked Ernest.
“The hounds of hell pursue me; they may have been chained for a day, but they are not to be turned aside.”
Victoria was aware of the change in Albert. On the eve of their
departure as he was wishing her a good night, she asked him about it, taking his hand and pressing it. The Prince smiled and squeezed hers in return. “Meine Liebste, you and I are quite different. You are full of life. You will give Death a good long chase.”
Back in London Albert threw himself into his labors again, working at affairs of state from morning until night but with a haggard, hunted look.
Jake Figgis found new lodgings near his own for Martha and Tom Ginty. At No. 2 Bow Street, the household returned to its former configuration: Charles and Jane Field at the mercy of Bessie Shoreham, their maid of no work, as Field called her. The wound in the inspector’s leg became reinfected twice, and he was unsteady for a time, employing a hated crutch to get about the house. Worse were the nightmares that plagued him. Again and again he tried to patch together dissected loved ones but would awake in a panic, finding he was missing a vital piece.
Commissioner Mayne gave the inspector leave to recuperate fully before resuming his duties. “Take all the time in the world, Charles! We want you in fighting trim again. You must have done well by the royal party. They seem pleased with you at the palace, although they are rather tight-lipped about what might or might not have happened over there, I must say.”
Mayne waited for Field to enlighten him, but the inspector remained silent. The commissioner’s smile faded. He drew some papers to him across his desk and picked up a quill. “That will be all.”
Field used his crutch to make his way out to the hackney coach that was waiting for him and hurried the short distance home. “Everything all right here, Mrs. Field?” he said the moment she opened the door to him.
“Of course, Mr. Field. You’ve been gone only an hour.” The inspector nodded distractedly and sat down heavily in the ground-floor parlor where he was spending most of his time these days to avoid climbing stairs.
Mr. and Mrs. Field received callers soon after, Sergeant Willette, down from Oxford and, with him, Sam Llewellyn. Willette was delighted to meet the inspector’s wife.
“So this is the good woman who took care of old Mrs. Andrews!” he said with admiration. Jane shot an alarmed glance at Llewellyn.
“Yes,” she said. “I sent her away with a flea in her ear. She won’t trouble us again.”
Both Willette and Llewellyn blushed.
“Quite so,” said the sergeant, “quite so.”
If Inspector Field noticed any awkwardness, he gave no sign of it. He seemed not to be attending. Even when Willette and Llewellyn explained their plan for dealing with the Reverend Carmichael and his crew, now residing in Oxford, Field appeared to be barely interested. He became fully engaged, however, when Jake Figgis came to call a few days later. It seemed that Tom was not the butcher’s apprentice he used to be.
“He don’t pay attention, Mr. Field. He stares about like he’s all the time frightened, and he don’t listen. He looks at the meat like it makes him sick. He won’t hardly touch a knife, sir! How can he learn the butcher’s trade if he won’t touch a knife? And his mother, well, she ain’t found another position, has she. I paid their first two weeks’ rent for them, but I cannot go on doing that. I am that fond of Mrs. Ginty, sir, I would do anything for her and her boy, but I am at my wit’s end.”
Field nodded thoughtfully. None of this seemed to surprise him. Field called in a favor from a friend in Covent Garden, and within a week Tom was engaged as an assistant at a flower stall. Another friend, a publican, took on Martha Ginty in his kitchen. Field paid their rent for the coming month. At the end of these efforts the inspector seemed pleased, and Jane rejoiced that her husband finally was showing signs of returning to life.
Oxford
Sergeant Willette and Constable Llewellyn watched discreetly from a window of the little Oxford shop, adjacent to what used to be Mrs. Andrews’ Guest House. They heard a pump organ playing a dirge. The shopkeeper dusted her shelves and whispered conspiratorially.
“It’s an old widow woman they’re doing this morning. Mother of four sturdy sons. Mind you, I never asked for no funerals at my gate, Officers. It’s lowering of the spirits, if you know what I mean. Still, the Carmichaels order a deal of eggs and loaves from me and I’m not one to turn away custom.”
A vibrant male voice could be heard faintly, rising and falling, followed by a ragged choral Amen. Not long after, the front doors were opened by a buxom, copper-haired woman in mourning dress. She had a young girl by the hand, also done up in professional mourning. They were followed by a casket borne by members of the dead woman’s family and assisted by two tall black-clad young men in top hats draped with crêpe. The casket was lifted onto an open hearse while the two horses, adorned with long black plumes, snorted and shat. More family members emerged. Finally, out came Reverend Carmichael himself, his head thrown bravely back, his long silver locks flowing from beneath his tall silk hat. The cortêge moved off at a slow pace. Willette and Llewellyn exited the shop and quietly took their places among the other mourners walking behind the hearse.
Constables halted traffic for the procession as it turned into George Street, the mourners glancing at each other, somewhat surprised at this show of municipal deference toward a working-class funeral. More constables appeared as the hearse began to cross the Hythe Street bridge, on its way to the Botley Road. Still more moved somberly to block the bridge on the far side; police on the near side formed a line there as well, halting the cortêge and trapping it on the bridge. Mrs. Carmichael’s voice rose in indignation, while the reverend shook his head sadly at a world where such things could happen.
Willette and Llewellyn moved forward toward the bier. At a nod from the former, two local constables climbed aboard the hearse and began to unscrew the casket. There was a murmur from the crowd and a screech from Mrs. Carmichael, who grabbed at the legs of one of the policemen before being restrained by another. The casket lid came off and the constables winced at the odor that emerged. One of them gingerly lifted a bloody, dripping burlap bag from the coffin, and the other held up an empty dress. There was a moment of stunned silence from the mourners and then angry shouts from the family. They surged toward the reverend, surrounding him while Mrs. Carmichael shrieked and kicked.
“She’s at the infirmary!” shouted the reverend, warding off the blows. “You can still get her if you’re quick!”
Sergeant Willette sent his men in to intercede. In the mêlée, the little girl in black ducked beneath flailing arms and made for the town side of the bridge. Llewellyn pushed his way after her, but by the time he made it to the end of the bridge, she was nowhere to be seen.
Belinda, aka Blinky, had not gone far. She was observing Constable Llewellyn closely from behind a farmer’s cart, halted with all the rest of the traffic by the ruckus on the bridge. The handsome officer was looking this way and that in confusion, searching for her, she was certain. She remembered him and his big comforting partner who had taken her by the hand and promised her food and safety. Their promises had come quickly to ruin and she had been snatched. No, it was better to trust no one. Belinda stayed where she was until the crowd on the bridge broke up and her hated black-clothed master and mistress were taken away in handcuffs. Then she slipped round the cart and doubled back to the railway station.
She was small and quick. She had boarded trains before without a ticket; it really wasn’t so difficult. Her mistake lay in forgetting for a moment that she was dressed in the full gear of a funeral mute and much less inconspicuous than she normally was. A porter saw her flash into a closet at the rear of the train. He quietly summoned the conductor.
“Runaway, I expect,” whispered the porter.
The conductor merely shrugged and turned a key in the closet door, locking Belinda in. “Let the London police worry about getting her back to her masters.”
For Sergeant Willette it was a gratifying day. The Carmichaels, husband and wife, were arraigned on multiple charges, along with their two young men. Sergeant Willette was able to recover the corpse of the widow before
she was taken apart by medical students at the Radcliffe Infirmary and to subpoena the surgeon who allegedly had purchased her. Willette divided his time between these proceedings and the Botley Road cemetery, where gravediggers were raising mounds of earth and vacant caskets. It seemed the Carmichaels had been energetic.
Llewellyn was less pleased with his own efforts. To lose the little girl a second time, just when he had been so close to rescuing her, was galling. He crisscrossed the town all afternoon with no result. Finally he gave it up.
42
Coburg
As the last of the leaves fell and a sharp wind swept the countryside round Coburg, rumors traveled from farm to farm: whispers of a phantom who glided like a mist in the night and made off with small animals. A suckling pig, a chicken, a goat. Farmyard dogs were found, silenced with throats slit. A suit of clothes went missing from one homestead, a pair of men’s boots from another, and a fish knife from a third. The driver of a night mail coach, sensing a presence in the road ahead, shone his bull’s-eye lantern into the darkness and swore he’d seen two spectral eyes staring back, unblinking, before they vanished. When a farm girl disappeared, the stories reached the ears of Hauptmann Klimt.
He traveled alone to the woods where his men so expertly had hidden the burial site of the would-be assassin a month earlier and stood there in the biting cold, pondering his choices. Klimt’s stock with Duke Ernest and others in high places had risen because of his recent clandestine labors. To have it suggested he might have buried the wrong man and let the mad assassin go free would not do. No, he decided, these rumors were all a lot of rubbish. The sort of tales old women spin to frighten the young. He would not give them another thought.