Act of Murder (25 page)

‘I see. Is there anything else, doctor?’

‘Oh no, I don’t think so. Not with this one at any rate.’

‘What do you mean?’

Bentham raised a finger and gave him a mischievous smile. ‘If I hadn’t got your message about this unfortunate lady, I had planned to contact you anyway. It may be something or it
may be totally unconnected, but I think you might at least wish to take it into consideration.’

‘And what might that be?’

The surgeon escorted him to another part of the mortuary, a long, dark room that seemed somehow much colder than the examining room they had just left. Bentham lit a small gas lamp fixed to the
wall and picked up a small oil lamp which he also lit. Its tiny flame danced eerily as they moved quickly down a narrow passage with darkened alcoves spaced to right and left at regular intervals.
These alcoves, he knew, were the penultimate resting-places of those unfortunates who were awaiting some sort of interment at the expense of the parish. Poor, desolate souls whom no one came
forward to claim and for whom no one came forward to grieve. He shuddered and kept close to the feeble yellow light before him.

‘Here we are!’ Bentham announced like a museum guide.

Slevin followed him into one of the alcoves on the left. He saw the edge of a hard wooden slab and a pair of whitened feet with a piece of card tied to one of the ankles.

Bentham read aloud the name on the card. ‘Enoch Platt.’

‘Clapper!’ Slevin said.

‘You knew him?’

‘Oh yes. A character about town, you might say.’

‘Well, this fellow was run down by a tram in the centre of town.’

‘Accident?’

‘Oh, indubitably. Several witnesses, you see. He just staggered out into the path of the tram and, well, that was it.’

‘So what has this accident to do with my investigation?’

‘A coincidence. Involving the man’s clothes.’

‘His clothes?’

‘Yes. One of the assistants was about to throw them away – they were dreadfully filthy – when she began to sneeze. Before I could admonish her – we were in an examining
room, after all – she said it was hardly surprising, considering she’d just inhaled a mouthful of the vilest dust.’

Slevin grew more alert.

‘So I took the trouble of examining the man’s clothes.’

‘And you found asbestos dust?’

Bentham resembled an actor whose best line had been stolen and used by another. ‘As a matter of fact, I did. Your Mr Enoch Platt had asbestos dust all over his midriff. It matches exactly
the dust I examined on the body of Mr Richard Throstle.’

*

The police constable who had been despatched to Mrs O’Halloran’s lodging-house the previous night had searched the bedroom where Mr Herbert Koller was staying.
There was no sign of him, although he had evidently not planned to leave the town, for his clothes were still in the wardrobe and his suitcase was beneath the bed. When the policeman left, Mrs
O’Halloran sat in her front room waiting for the arrival of Mr Morgan-Drew, who would doubtless know what to do. It had been a terrible misjudgement on Mr Koller’s part to leave his
sickbed. Perhaps he had grown delirious and done something that was completely out of character?

When the actor-manager arrived, he had already seen the policeman standing outside and was alarmed to be told the reason for his presence.

‘But did he say what they wanted to speak to Herbert about?’

‘Not a word, Mr Morgan-Drew.’

Benjamin sat there, pondering the situation. But as the night grew on, he had no alternative but to accept Mrs O’Halloran’s advice and go upstairs to bed. He was certainly not
foolish enough to go out and look for him. After the lies Herbert had told earlier that evening, he would never deign to pursue him again. He lay down in his cold bed and waited for the tears to
come.

It was after one o’clock when he heard the sound and sat up in bed.

He moved across to the bedroom window. He lifted the curtain and peered down into the darkness of the back yard. At first he saw nothing. Then, from the privy halfway down the back alley, he saw
a murky shape detach itself from the doorway and run to Mrs O’Halloran’s back wall, where it raised an arm and was about to hurl another snowball at his window. Quickly, Benjamin undid
the catch of the window and swung it open.

‘Herbert!’ he called in his quietest stage whisper. ‘Herbert? Is that you?’

The figure froze and stooped low; from behind the brick wall came the familiar voice. ‘Let me in, for God’s sake! I’ll die of frostbite out here!’

‘One minute!’ Benjamin said and closed the window.

He crept downstairs and went to the kitchen, where he carefully unbarred the back door and opened it. A second later, Herbert, shivering, slid inside and urged his saviour to close the door and
take him to his room.

A few minutes later, as they lay together in bed, Benjamin could feel the chill on his skin, and a gloomy heaviness settle in the pit of his stomach. Despite his noble defiance, his vows of
earlier, he was once again in thrall to this mendacious young god. But he knew that, for the time being at least, there would be no point in hurling recriminations or even in asking questions. He
would let him thaw out first.

*

The two constables stood before Sergeant Slevin and tried to get their story straight. He had asked to see all those policemen who were present at the previous night’s
accident at the top of King Street, an accident that had necessitated the closure of the street and the diversion of all horse-drawn vehicles. For half an hour the situation had been quite chaotic,
and the unfortunate constables had borne the brunt of all manner of hostility. They had even come under attack from a flurry of snowballs.

‘We never saw where he came from,’ said one of the constables. ‘Bugger just turned up on King Street.’

‘Well some of them as saw the accident reckon he slunk out of the alley.’

‘Did any of them see him with anyone else?’ Slevin asked.

‘One bloke told me Clapper was seen talkin’ to some lasses. Mill lasses.’

‘Nah!’ said his colleague. ‘He weren’t talkin’ to ’em – he were yellin’ at ’em. They came up an’ said he’d had a right go at
’em.’

‘What did he say to them?’

The first constable screwed up his face to concentrate. ‘Dunno, sergeant. They said it were gibberish. But the bloke who told me, well, he knew Clapper. Or Enoch. Worked with him down the
pit an’ he reckoned Clapper were scared. Kept sayin’ to this chap that the Devil had got him.’

‘Got him? How?’

‘God knows. But he also said summat else. Kept sayin’ summat about somebody havin’ two eyes an’ two heads. Tried to get some sense out of him, but by that time Clapper
was well gone. Don’t make any sense, does it? Two eyes an’ two heads, he said.’

‘Anything else?’

The two constables shook their heads and Slevin dismissed them. As they left, the forbidding figure of the chief constable replaced them.

‘Another murder, sergeant? Are you collecting corpses, by any chance? How do you know when you’ve got a full set?’

‘Mrs Throstle was poisoned by phosphorus, sir.’

‘And it appears she was murdered under your nose.’

Slevin leaned forward and opened a thin folder. He took out a single sheet of paper and handed it to his superior. ‘Dr Bentham’s preliminary report, sir. You’ll notice the
reference to times of ingestion. He surmises that the poison – probably Rodine – was somehow given to the victim a few hours before her death.’

‘Had a chap commit suicide in the army with the blasted stuff. Mixed it in his curry and had the gall to eat it in front of us. Once he’d done, he said it was the best curry
he’d ever tasted and he would see us all in Hell. Medic said later his innards glowed like a firework display.’

‘There seems to be a link between the two shows,’ Slevin said, ignoring the digression. ‘That is, the play at the Royal Court and the
Phantasmagoria
at the Public
Hall.’

‘Really, sergeant?’

‘One of the actors, a Mr Herbert Koller, feigned sickness last night and missed the performance. Instead, he stood in for Mr Richard Throstle and gave the commentary to the lantern slides.
He had apparently known Throstle personally and was possibly involved in some business deal with him.’

‘Mr Koller, you say?’

‘Yes, sir. Are you acquainted with him?’

‘We have met. Where is the fellow now?’

‘I have constables keeping an eye on his lodging-house in Darlington Street. If he turns up there, they’ll bring him in, have no fear.’

‘Anything else I should know about?’

Slevin told him about Enoch Platt’s accident, and the curious coincidence of the dust matching the asbestos dust on Throstle’s body.

‘Asbestos dust, you say?’

‘Yes, sir.’

The chief constable was frowning. ‘It takes me back, sergeant. To India and the Punjabbers.’

Slevin looked up to the heavens for help. Not another reminiscence!

‘We used asbestos dust, you see? Smeared it all over our costumes during our famed production of
Ivanhoe.
The dust is used to show someone has been travelling, or fighting, or
both.’

Slevin recalled the tubs of powder he had seen backstage at the Royal Court. Another connection between the two productions.

‘Two eyes and two heads, you say?’ Captain Bell was shaking his head sadly. ‘What on earth does that mean? Poor imbecile had two eyes and no head. Not to speak of,
anyway.’

He smiled at his comment and bade his sergeant farewell.

Two eyes and two heads. Now what indeed had Enoch Platt meant by that?

A sharp knock at the door made him jump. Constable Bowery breezed in with the air of a man confident that the news he brought would excuse any breach of etiquette.

‘Sergeant! That Jameson bloke’s at the main desk.’

‘The manager of the Royal?’

‘Aye. Reckons he has summat we should know about.’

‘And what might that be?’

‘He knows someone who had a bit of a confrontation with Clapper not ten minutes before the poor sod was killed. Says he saw Enoch go up to one of his guests and grab him by the throat.
Says he stared into his eyes and yelled out that he was starin’ into the eyes of the Devil.’

Slevin glowered impatiently at his constable. ‘Who was the guest?’

‘Bloke called Jenkins, sergeant. Jameson says he sells hosiery.’

*

It was a problem Benjamin Morgan-Drew had faced several times in his life, although never as intensely as this. Never before had he felt such a burning desire for another human
being as he did for Herbert Koller. Now, as the two of them lay together, communicating by the softest of whispers, he knew that his feelings were at war once more. Herbert had lied. He had lied
about being ill and he had lied about where he had been. Lies and more lies.

‘You have to speak to the police,’ he said, regarding the ceiling with burning eyes.

‘You mean the ones who want to throw me in prison? The ones who wish to see me dangle at the end of a rope?’

‘That sounds like a line from a bad melodrama, Herbert. You know it won’t come to that.’

Outside the bedroom door they heard Mrs O’Halloran pass noisily along the landing. She had knocked once, and when Benjamin told her he did not require breakfast, she had huffed her way
downstairs muttering incomprehensible oaths.

‘How well did you know Mrs Throstle?’

‘I’ve already told you. I have confessed my duplicity, Benjamin.’ He sighed and repeated the tale once more. ‘I met her husband and he asked me if I would be interested
in working for him, delivering his vile drivel in public halls to stinking masses across the country. I refused, of course. My loyalty is to you and the company, as you know. But how could I refuse
the request of a poor bereaved widow?’

Benjamin gave a sad smile. Trust Herbert to turn an act of betrayal into one of nobility. ‘What, then, do you propose to do? Hide here in this room until you are discovered? Let me
accompany you to the police station and explain exactly what your arrangements were with Mrs Throstle. The fact that you were present at her unfortunate demise is neither here nor there. What
reason would you have for killing her?’

Herbert turned onto his side, away from Benjamin. ‘And then I would be free to rejoin the company?’

‘Of course. You will be Henry Corkett tonight!’

He watched Herbert take a deep breath and give a slight nod of acquiescence. If he could persuade Detective Sergeant Slevin of the boy’s relative innocence, then perhaps he would see a new
Herbert. It was a slender hope, he knew, a candle lit in a blizzard, but any hope at all is better than the dark shadows of despair. He’d seen enough of them.

*

Slevin’s men had been in Georgina Throstle’s hotel room since the early morning, and it hadn’t taken them long to find what they were looking for. Once he had
been apprised of the discovery, Slevin arranged to speak with Mr Jameson in the manager’s office about the encounter between Enoch Platt and Mr Jenkins, the hosiery salesman.

‘Last evening, while some of our guests were dining, I saw Mr Jenkins in the foyer,’ Jameson began. ‘He seemed a little – shall we say? – flustered, but I bade him
a good evening as he left and turned to resume my duties. Suddenly I heard a strange sound – a clapping sound – and I noticed a man dressed in filthy rags, standing on the steps below
Mr Jenkins and clapping in his face. He moved aside to get past, but the man blocked his way. He then grabbed Mr Jenkins by the shoulders, as if he were staring into his eyes. Of course, I rushed
to the entrance and immediately demanded he release Mr Jenkins. He kept his eyes fixed on his victim and yelled out, “The eyes of the Devil! The eyes of the Devil!” And then some
nonsense about two heads.’

‘What happened then?’

‘Mr Jenkins grabbed him, and there was a struggle. By now quite a crowd was gathering – I did what I could to help, but I can assure you, sergeant, it was most unseemly. With the
help of some of my staff we finally managed to extricate Mr Jenkins. I offered to send for the police, but Jenkins said it was of no consequence and we were to let the imbecile go.’