The Affair of the Porcelain Dog (3 page)

"Opium," I wheezed.

My eyes watered. My throat burned. From where he was, Lazarus had probably just got a whiff. I'd had a right snootful, but I wasn't so much feeling the drug as the weight of the memories attached to it--memories that I'd gone to a great deal of trouble to suppress. But more importantly, Goddard had said the statue contained the evidence that the blackmailer needed to put him away. These contained opium, which was not only legal, but was the cash cow of Goddard's enterprises. He certainly didn't need me to steal it for him. That meant there was something else inside the cursed cur.

Against the back wall, Lazarus was groaning and stirring. I lunged, grabbing the statue with both hands this time. He rolled on top of me again--but he was weakening, and I had the bloody thing, by God.

"Give it, Tim," I growled.

"I'll give you my other elbow if you don't let go."

I did let go--with one hand, to smash the base of my palm into his nose. I flipped over on top of him with a roar. Blood streaming down his face, he rewarded me with a cupped hand to my ear.

"You slap like a lady, too," I muttered, trying to pop my jaw back into its hinge.

"How does Goddard slap you?"

"Give me the damned dog."

He bucked me loose, sending me rolling into the wall this time. Statues rained down from the shelves, smashing on the ground all around me. I scrambled to my feet as clouds of opium powder rose from the floor. But the son of a bitch still had the dog.

"I don't think so, Adler," he said as I lurched back toward him.

He grasped my hand with a surprisingly effective wristlock and brought me down on my back. Gore dripped from his half-mad face as he grinned down at me. Eleven years separated the good doctor and myself, but in contrast to my luxury-atrophied state, Lazarus was in the pink of health. He might actually have gained the better of me that night had a sharp voice and frantic pounding at the front door not interrupted our struggle.

"Police! Open the door!"

"Oh, Constable, thank God!" I shouted, a little too enthusiastically.

I reached up and tweaked Lazarus's nose. He let go of my wrist with a cry, both hands instinctively flying to his injured snout. I rolled him off, and the dog fell neatly into my hand. I shoved it deep into the generous coat pocket and sprang to my feet. In a moment of inspiration, I pulled out my silver flask and gave Lazarus a face full of Goddard's best whisky. It was a sacrifice, but when the constable finally did pound down that door, I doubted the guardian angel of Stepney Clinic would care to explain how he'd come to be reeking of opium and booze and beaten to a pulp by a known male prostitute.

With a last backward glance, I thrust the window up and clambered out.

Miller's Court was a depressing stretch of crumbling pavement walled in by tenements. A single gas lamp illuminated the weeds sprouting from the cracks, turning pools of broken glass into diamonds beneath my feet. I'd spent my share of evenings there--furtive fumbles in shadowy stairwells, an hour of stolen sleep here and there in an alley--but this was no time for reminiscing. Inside, Lazarus was pulling himself to his feet. People were gathering back near the water pump where I'd performed my ablutions more times than I cared to remember. Suppressing a shudder as I passed by the room where they found poor Mary Kelly last November, I made to lose myself in the crowd.

On the far side of the yard, surrounded by a jeering throng, two men were tormenting a bear on a leash by whipping its hind feet with strips of leather to make it dance. It was a matted, malodorous brute with runny eyes and a dazed expression. It lurched as it stumbled in time to an accordion's dissonant wheeze. Bear and men wore matching waistcoats and hats, though the men's teeth had not been filed to stubs, nor had their fingernails been pulled out with maiming force. As many times as I'd listened to Goddard's argument that nature was ours to do with as we wished, I couldn't help but think that if there were any justice, the creature would one day have its revenge.

I pushed my way through the knot of unshaven, gin-smelling men, rough-faced women, and given the time of night, an astounding number of children. I tossed a few coins into the hat for the poor beast's upkeep. No sooner had my hand gone back into my pocket than a voice at my shoulder said,

"'Ello, there."

Before I could respond, a young woman threaded her arm through my elbow.

"You look familiar," she purred as she steered me out of the crowd and into the shadows.

"Anyone would look familiar who had enough money, I'd wager," I said.

She was about my age, mid twenties, and at first glance looked like any of the women one might encounter in Miller's Court this time of night--greasy hair loosely piled on top of her head, a week's wardrobe layered about her person, tattered hems dragging the ground.

"Lookin' for someone?" she asked.

"Not in the sense you mean."

"Don' 'ave to mean nuffin'," she simpered.

I shot her an irritated look as I disentangled our arms. Her face stopped me in my tracks.

She was Chinese, though she was trying to hide the fact with hair, clothing, and Cockney that was a bit too perfect. There were quite a few Chinese in London, but they tended to stay down in Poplar and Limehouse. One seldom encountered the women outside of these enclaves. One never encountered them unaccompanied and dressed like a common doxy.

"A little far from home, aren't you?" I asked as she reached again for my arm.

Her grip was strong. Even beneath the layers of clothing, I could see that she was unusually muscular. I glanced toward her throat for the telltale bulge, or a scarf hiding it, but found no evidence that she was anything but a natural woman.

Again I tried to wiggle out of her grip, but she held fast, pressing herself lewdly into my chest as if she intended to climb into my trousers with me.

I gave her a push.

Normally, I'm loath to strike a woman, but she was not what she appeared to be. She didn't belong there, and it was making me nervous. Now free, I walked quickly toward Commercial Road while she followed, keeping up her prattle.

"I could be anyfing you want me to be," she wheedled. She caught my arm and renewed her assault. "Come on, now. Wot's the gen'l'man's fancy this evenin'?"

"I prefer bull to cow," I said, as she made another attempt on my waistband. I twisted away and caught her wrist in a lock--the second time Goddard's training had come in handy that night. I pushed her off, harshly this time. Anger flashed across her face. Then a smug grin.

"You wait right 'ere, then. Maggie knows just wot you needs."

With a wag of her finger, the woman melted back into the shadows. I suppose she expected me to simply stand there and wait for whatever mischief she had planned for me. Not fucking likely. Commercial Road lay before me--a deserted path of cobblestones between walls of darkened shops. Unfortunately, Goddard's hansom was nowhere to be seen.

I ran.

I had once known the shadows and passages of Whitechapel like the back of my hand. I flew past boarded-up stores, massive tenement blocks, and locked warehouses. I sprinted through twisting alleys and even vaulted over a wall, blackening my hands and coat. My heart pounded with excitement--and no small relief that my street skills hadn't completely deserted me. Fewer than five miles stood between Miller's Court and York Street. It felt like coming up from the bottom of the sea as the dark, dangerous streets gave way to even pavement and well-maintained gaslights. I slowed to a walk. I might have kept running right past Regent's Park, but experience had taught me that doing so would have resulted in the immediate descent of all of the constables who should have been arresting murderers in Whitechapel.

As I rounded the corner of York and Baker Street, I almost cried out with relief. Our neighbors slumbered on behind red bricks and lace curtains, but Goddard had left his house lights blazing. I tried to calm my breathing as I ascended the scrubbed stairs, leaning briefly against one of the whitewashed columns that stood on either side of the porch. A warm rainbow of light shone through the stained glass panel Goddard had commissioned for the front door. I'd have collapsed against it had Goddard's man, Collins, not opened it just then.

"Mr. Adler," he said, as I slipped in under his arm.

Collins was an ox of a man, twenty-five years my senior, but fifty pounds heavier. I'd heard tell he'd been an amateur boxer in his youth. He'd never liked me, but he knew his place. At that moment his place was standing there on the black and white checked tiles, patiently waiting to take my coat over his tree trunk of an arm. Bent double in the vestibule, I panted like a dog and grinned. Two years of clean sheets and Egyptian tobacco, but I could still crack a lock with the best of them before sprinting five miles home.

"Your coat--" he began.

"Burn it."

I sloughed off the horrible tweed. Collins made no comment, probably because, all things considered, burning the coat was the most prudent course of action. He folded it over his arm and turned toward the servants' stairs.

"But before you do that," I said. "I should probably give Dr. Goddard his prize."

I stopped for a moment to appreciate the comforts of our home--the gentle hissing of the gas lamps behind their frosted glass sconces, the whiff of the excellent pork supper for which we'd unfortunately had no appetite, the vase of heavy-headed flowers on the vestibule table. Next to the vase was a silver tray upon which Collins bore in the post, three times daily--including, for the past four days, the lavender letters. Because of me, it was all safe--that is, once I turned the statue over to Goddard.

But where was Goddard?

Straight ahead of me the morning room door was shut tight, the lamps extinguished for the night. Neither footsteps nor creaking bedsprings sounded overhead. I glanced down the corridor to the left to the door of Goddard's study. A dim light shone beneath the door. Clearly, he'd lit his desk lamp instead of the wall lamps, whose generous light he usually favored. Did he not wish me to know he was there?

"The master is engaged, Mr. Adler," Collins said.

I frowned. I could hear the muted voices of two men behind the study door. Unusual visitors at unusual hours were part and parcel of sharing a household with the Duke of Dorset Street. But Goddard would sooner have entertained Her Majesty in his smallclothes than allowed the usual lowlife into his
sanctum sanctorum.

"Who's there with him?" I asked.

"I've taken the liberty of laying out a new set of pajamas," the manservant said. "The master commissioned them for you last week." He grasped my elbow, managing to pull me back a few steps before I dug in my heels. "Green silk with an embroidered dragon. I think you'll find this particular shade quite becomes your complexion--"

"Collins, who's in there?" I demanded, shaking free of him.

At that moment, the door cracked open.

I only had a glimpse of the visitor--a middle-aged man with the build of a scarecrow, a deerstalker cap and a newer version of the voluminous tweed hanging over Collins's arm--before Goddard's pale hand appeared on the man's shoulder and pulled him back.

"What the--St. Andrews?" I demanded, wheeling around. "Was that Andrew St. Andrews?"

Lazarus's particular friend was obsessed with Sherlock Holmes. He'd spent the last few years trying to get the press to refer to him as the Holmes of St. John's Wood, and now he was even dressing like him. No doubt he'd come here to accuse Goddard of sending the lavender letters. At least his arrogance had kept him from bringing along a couple of pet constables. Though that might not have been quite as bad in the end. Now that Goddard had set him straight, St. Andrews had an actual case to sink his teeth into: two sworn enemies receiving identical blackmail letters. But why didn't Goddard want me to know he was there?

"Shall I bring up the night tray after your bath, sir?" Collins asked, as if it hadn't happened.

"The devil take the night tray!"

Goddard had his secrets. It would have been laughable to expect a criminal of his caliber to share everything, even with his closest companion. And yet who was it that had taken an elbow to the gut over that sodding statue? I wouldn't embarrass him in front of St. Andrews, but Goddard would tell me everything before the night was out. Ira Adler is nobody's errand boy anymore!

"I will have that bath after all," I said primly. "With eucalyptus. And leave the jar."

Eucalyptus leaves were expensive. While Goddard had his little tete-a-tete with the Holmes of St. John's Wood, I'd use the rest of them.

"Certainly, Mr. Adler."

"And if Dr. Goddard finishes with his guest before dawn, inform him I've retrieved the object he sent me for. It's in the pocket."

I nodded toward the coat. Collins searched both pockets and turned to me with a frown.

I snatched back the coat to see for myself, but fuck me! The only things in there were my picklocks and flask.

"I don't understand," I said. "It has to be here somewhere."

But it wasn't. Not in the coat, not in my trousers, nowhere.

"Perhaps it fell out," Collins suggested.