Lawless and The Devil of Euston Square (13 page)

“I have no idea what is prudent, and I suspect that, if you are honest with me, you do not give a fig for what is prudent and what is not.”

She smiled hugely. “Give me two minutes.”

Of course, I had meant lunch another day, for Wardle was expecting me at the Yard early afternoon. Before I could explain the misunderstanding, she had dashed off. I called out. “Miss–? Librarian!”

She popped her head around the door.

With acute embarrassment, I began, “I’m afraid you’ve misunderstood me… That is, it’s my mistake, for which I beg your pardon, must humbly, but I must hasten back to the Yard, else I will be in trouble, you see, with my inspector.”

She looked sceptical. “Keeps you under his thumb, does he?”

I laughed emptily, then lied, “He’s expecting a report on his desk this afternoon.”

“That’s all right,” she said. “Actually, I’ve already missed my lunch hour, helping you with your reading.”

“I’m sorry.” I frowned. “You’re right, you know. I would like to find your student of hydraulics. If by any chance you see him, could you ask his name?”

“I can do better than that. I can look through the readers’ cards.”

“Is that allowed?”

She grimaced. “Librarians are not bound by the same oaths as a doctor, although we feel a compunction towards the readers that prevents indiscretions. If the matter is important, however… It is important, I take it?”

I assured her that it was.

“I’ll find it.” She smiled conspiratorially again. “Shall I write to you through the penny post?”

“No,” I said. Wardle might ask questions if he saw letters arriving for me. “I’ll send a boy.” Worm and his subalterns tended to present themselves at the Yard every so often, available for chores. We arranged that one of the Worms would ask for her at the entrance a week hence. I must say, I rather enjoyed giving the impression that I had a legion of urchins at my disposal. “I’ll tell him to ask for Miss…”

“Villiers.” She held out her hand. “Ruth Villiers. I shall rack my brains, and the filing system, to discover the suspect’s name. The
suspect
! How exciting it all is. You have given me detective fever, Sergeant Lawless, and no mistake. I am sure I shall not recover until we have fathomed the depths of your mystery.”

She passed me the Edgar Allan Poe book. I pocketed it and hurried out.

GIVE IT UP

“What kind of time do you call this?”

After my exchange with Miss Villiers, I was terribly late. To my dismay, Wardle was sitting at my desk, on which I had left the spout report, expecting I would be back long before him. There was a strange aroma in the air and I felt as if I had been found out.

“Meeting go badly, sir?” I said as casually as I could.

He turned to me, tight-lipped. “This needs to be filed.”

“Yes, sir.” I thought of Miss Villiers’ eyes, bright with the fever. “I’m hoping there may be further developments–”

“Developments? You go down the British Museum and come back with developments? If you’re an academic, back to the library with you. If you’re a sergeant of the Yard, sit down and start filing.”

I laughed weakly, but he did not smile. I had made mistakes before, but this was my worst roasting yet.

“The case is closed. Says so here. Should further evidence arise, we only need the final report.”

“That report’s full of omissions, sir.”

“I don’t care if it’s full of woolly mittens. It’s the final report, and it’s stamped.” He took the other sheets from the envelope – the depositions, interviews and my old report – and crumpled them in his hand.

I stood there dumbly.

He threw the papers into the basket and stood up abruptly. “Now, if I’m not mistaken, you’re a little behind in your work, Sergeant.”

I sat down meekly and pulled open my drawer. I set some paperwork upon the desk. Reaching for my pencil, I felt the Edgar Allan Poe book in my pocket. Wardle paced over to the window and stood gazing out into the dark yard. I stared at the papers but my head was throbbing with the shame of his accusation. “Sir,” I burst out. “A man died and we gave no account of it.”

“A tramp, Watchman. Are we to panic over every old man who dies in the city?”

“Sir?”

“Do you know how many people are murdered every day in this city?” He strode across the room and opened the door. “Darlington!” he called out. Within moments my bright-eyed friend was hovering in the doorway. Wardle looked at him sardonically. “Darlington, in all London, how many killings per day?”

“I’ll ask the inspector.” He bounced out. There was a guffaw of laughter from next door, and Darlington was back. “He says the devil himself don’t know, sir.”

Wardle turned to me. “No more do I. What would you say, though, Darlington? Five? Ten?”

“At least, sir.”

“How many of these crimes admit of a solution, Darlington? Half?”

“Oh, less, I would say, sir.”

“A quarter?”

“I don’t know, sir. One in ten, maybe. One in twenty.”

“Thank you kindly.” Wardle closed the door and turned back to me.

“I see.” I swallowed, nervous to reveal the extent of my illicit investigations. “It seemed so strange, though, sir. Someone has gone to the trouble of defacing the hospital ward book.”

He looked at me sharply. “You’ve been at it, have you?”

“There were so many loose threads. I hoped I could tie things together.” I decided not to tell him about the mysterious hydraulics student at the library, not until I was sure I had something significant.

He glanced at his pocket book. “Watchman, I have a yen to take a walk. Will you accompany me through the parks in the direction of Paddington? Don’t look so startled. We’ll finish early, inspector’s prerogative.”

He maintained a grim silence, as we threaded through the Whitehall traffic. On attaining the peace of St James’ Park, we passed a dairyman, milking his cows to serve fresh milk to well-to-do nannies. The hot-potato man was having a field day with a regiment fresh in from the east. All conspired to ignore a singing beggar, whose sign proclaimed that he lost his legs in the Crimea; his rendition of “My Love Is Like a Red, Red Rose” recalled to me evenings in Edinburgh taverns and I gave him a farthing. The leaves were already turning brown, and there was a hint of autumn cool in the air as we headed toward the Palace.

“You’ve a stubborn streak, Watchman,” said Wardle.

I kept my silence, but I was relieved, for he seemed to have repented of his anger.

“That’s no bad thing,” he went on. “You’ve spotted certain omissions in that report. What you consider serious omissions. It’s doubtless led you to form a poor opinion of my previous sergeant, and of me to boot. Oh, yes. We inspectors must accept responsibility for our charges’ shortcomings. That’s one of the perils of duty. Not that there aren’t perquisites to balance. Allow me to explain. Our reports do not…” He sighed. “Not necessarily – contain all the information we’ve garnered.”

I looked at him in surprise.

“You reckon we were lacking in zeal. Didn’t pursue the routes presented to us. Swept things under the carpet, even. Let me tell you, I do not take lightly a public menace such as that bloody spout.” He frowned. “But I have satisfied myself that it was not engineered by any of the obvious suspects.”

We passed the Palace and headed up Constitution Hill.

“See, Watchman, you don’t spend a lifetime in the force without making contacts. Contacts with guilds. Partisan organisations. Political, commercial, questionable. We asked more questions than you might think. The mighty George Potter, for instance. You know him? Activist, trades unionist, author of the famous Document. I know George. I know his bloody father and all. It was nothing of theirs. How would it help them?”

Humbled, I simply nodded.

“We made enquiries, all right. Only, as my sources are, shall we say, private sources, I’m reluctant to name them. Not in reports of unfathomable incidents. The devils we know of, I checked up on.”

“And the devils we don’t know?”

“We’ll see them in hell.”

He fell silent again as we went up through Green Park towards Hyde Park Corner. I gazed in wonder at the grandeur of Mayfair’s fine hotels, its stately homes and gentlemen’s clubs. The further we distanced ourselves from the Yard, the more Wardle relaxed. He walked with a jauntier step. He looked around him at the trees and birds. Quite against his usual practice, he spoke freely and at length. He even took one of his hands out of his pocket.

“Wherever there’s people with money and people without, there’ll be killings,” said Wardle, as we crossed into Hyde Park. “And that’s everywhere in the world I ever heard of, outside of El Dorado, though I’ll wager they have their own axes to grind even there, over who’s the most blissful and why. Come to that, I don’t like the sound of a place where they’re all so bloody blissful. Sounds like a recipe for jealousy and discontent, which are the two greatest springs of crime that I know.”

He frowned as he spoke, as if he was trying to frame for me some of the hard-won wisdom of his years in the job.

“Understand this, son, there’s more petty retributions each day than you can dream of. Accidental deaths happening on purpose, if you take my meaning. Some things don’t add up all neat and pretty. You have to live with that. When a toff meets an untimely end, I grant you, there’s trails to be followed; bank accounts, deals, unsavoury affairs. I could tell you some stories. These lowlife killings, though, that’s a different story. Nobody knows anything, do you get it? As in, everybody gets the message, but nobody breathes a word. Not to outsiders, especially the likes of you and me. That’s why it pays to keep little chaps like Worm and his crowd on your books. There’s times even he won’t tell what he knows.”

We came to a riding path, spread with cinders. He stopped as a handsome couple rode past at a canter, a whiskered gent and a lady in a mantle of shimmering green.

“Your man,” Wardle continued, “he’s no more important than the rest. As to how he ended up in our files, rather than floating down the Thames at high tide with the rest, I can only think that some of the city’s criminals have a more finely tuned sense of humour than others. I’ve no intention of paying them the compliment of my interest. What that fellow did to end his days there, I do not know. You could spend your life investigating it, I warrant you, and end up knowing less than you do now. They only kill their own, for the main. I say, let them get on with it. Haven’t we enough work without inventing more for ourselves?”

“Yes, sir. But if they commit further crimes?”

“We catch them then.”

“Yes, sir.” I was persuaded by Wardle’s down-to-earth clarity. He knew the ropes in a way I never would. I must simply trust him. At least he did understand my frustration; appreciated my doggedness even.

Still I felt disgruntled. As we left the park at the Lancaster Gate, I felt the frustration rise within me again. I had caught Miss Villiers’ detective fever, I suppose, and I simply wanted to know what had happened. “Isn’t it worth at least asking the questions, sir?”

“Maybe so,” he said, a sterner note creeping into his voice, “but that don’t mean you can go upsetting businessmen and interrogating employees without my say-so.”

I looked at him in dismay. I knew suddenly that his meeting that morning had been with Coxhill. The unusual aroma I had smelled in the office was Coxhill’s special tobacco. All my secret enquiries – Wardle must know everything, and suspect worse.

“It’s irregular. Bothering busy industrialists on a whim, especially on a case that’s closed. I won’t stand for it. I’ve defended your actions this time but I don’t want it repeated. Clockmakers and whatnot, all well and good, but use some judgement if you’re going to harass gentlemen. Clear?”

I nodded. But I felt a strange elation. “Sir, you met Coxhill? You must suspect them of something.”

He gave me a look, somewhere between respect and irritation. “Come on, Watchman.”

“Shouldn’t we investigate them further?” I said. “Their own engineer was quite plain that there have been mishaps and will most likely be more. Why did Coxhill deny it?”

“Protecting his interests.” Wardle’s face was grim. “Who knows with that Coxton? Strange fish, he is. I’m not stupid, Watchman. I don’t need you stirring up problems where there’s none. Making them nervous. Is that clear? You’ve gone at it like a pig at a tatty.”

“Yes, sir.” I hung my head. We had arrived at Paddington. I followed him towards the ticket hall. Yet I was damned if I was going to give it all up so easily. “Still, the timing can’t have been pure chance.”

“What’s that?”

“The spout went off when the late train came in. Surely that means someone was trying to embarrass him. Scare him.”

“How do you mean?”

“Coxhill was on that train, sir.”

“How do you know that?”

“He told me, sir.”

Wardle’s mouth twisted to one side. I didn’t know if he was exasperated or impressed. He nodded slowly. “Perhaps so, son. That’s why I’m keeping an eye on them. But you’ve got to learn, it’s not like fantastical stories in the penny press. You can’t expect it all to make sense. Often as not, you don’t get to the end of it.” He sighed. “You have good instincts, son. But don’t delude yourself. We’re fortunate enough to live in a civilised country, on the whole. But if someone wants to commit a crime, it’s damned hard to stop them. Any fool can buy guns, or gunpowder, and–”