The Incendiary's Trail (29 page)

‘Ow! Yer ’urtin’ me lug! It’s a sovvy – and I earned it fair an’ square, so get off me, bluebottle!’

‘So, you recognize me as a policeman.’

‘I smelt yer!’

Mr Bryant slapped the boy none too gently with an open palm while keeping hold of the ear. ‘Who gave you that letter to deliver, boy?’

‘What letter? Ow! Stob ’ittin’ me like that! It was a gent down on the Mall. Gave me a sovvy an’ says there’s another in it if I took a letter to this
address.’

‘So why didn’t you just take the first sovereign and throw the letter in a dustheap, you rapscallion?’

‘Two sovvies is better than one, ain’t it?’

‘What did he look like, this “gent”?’

‘I don’t know – like any gent. Only ’
e
had manners . . . ow! Stobbit! ’E was nothin’ paticlar, I tell yer!’

‘Did you read the letter? Be honest now!’

‘I can’t do readin’. I only knows some words like “gin” an’ “meat pie” an’ the like. Will you let go of me b— lug now?’

‘Not yet. What did he tell you? His exact words, mind.’

‘’E said “Take this letter to this address an’ there’s another sovvy in it for yer.” ’E said a blacky man will open the door and you must look in
’is gob cos ’e’s got no licker. If it is ’im, ’e said, give ’im the letter an’ ’e’ll give yer another sovvy. An’ that’s
all.’

‘Are you sure? I could have you in gaol in a moment if you are lying to me.’

‘Ow! Me — lug! Wait. There was somethin’ other – I think ’e meant it for you. He said someone might stop me an’ ask me about the letter, an’ if they did
I must tell ’em paticlar this message: “The pusood is now the pusoor.” Made me repeat it ’bout ten times to remember, ’e did.’

‘“The pursued is now the pursuer?”’

‘S’what I said, isn’t it? Ow! Stobbit, I tells yer!’ And the urchin twisted free to escape the grasp of Mr Bryant, who in any case was in a state of some surprise. He
looked about him and made his way quickly back to a point where he could view Mr Dyson’s house.

Benjamin was locking the door. The Negro tilted his top hat at an angle and began to walk with an athletic gait down Duke-street and along Edward-street towards the east.

Mr Bryant followed, signalling to his colleague standing on the corner that he should watch the house.

Mr Allan, it will be remembered, is the worthy who was overseeing the anonymous address where Mr Askern was safely ensconced. That very same morning, he was frying eggs and
bacon in the kitchen for the benefit of his various guests, some of whom might very much surprise the reader, and even the police themselves.

In its time, that unassuming address in an unremarkable area of London had accommodated thieves, informers, fallen women, potential victims like Mr Askern, and at least one murderer. Though it
might seem incredible, even the commissioners themselves did not know of its existence – or rather, they had not been told and affected not to know. What went on there was legally expedient
but judicially suspect. A man’s residency was no guarantee either of innocence or immunity from the gallows. It was a place – and a state – of temporary invisibility from which
one might emerge free, or damned.

Mr Allan started at the top of the building, knocking at a selected door and leaving breakfast and a newspaper before it before moving on to the next, always being careful that no resident might
see another. With each opening door, a bell rang out. A few in the past had been curious, but most were there in fear of their lives and were grateful for the anonymity. When he reached the
basement room of Mr Askern, he repeated the practised ritual again, knocking on the door with a ‘Breakfast, sir!’ and laying the plates and cups on the stone flags at his feet.

However, when he set about collecting the breakfast things an hour or so later, he was surprised, but not alarmed, to see Mr Askern’s food untouched. People reacted differently to their
stay, and a temporary loss of hunger was the least of their symptoms. So, honest Mr Allan simply took away the crockery and went about his daily business: taking delivery of coal and beer,
receiving his shopping in packages throughout the morning and fulfilling his role as amanuensis in the divers police correspondence he was obliged to read and write.

When the writer did not emerge from his room or eat his lunch, Mr Allan was still not alarmed. Such things had happened before. Nor did he feel any compulsion to notify Mr Williamson (of whose
unfortunate encounter he was completely ignorant). Indeed, it was only when the dinner remained untouched that Mr Allan thought to knock on the door – a gesture of personal concern rather
than of fear for the man inside.

‘Sir? I do not mind whether you eat, but I must ask you for a sign that you are healthy and not in need of aid. Sir?’

Silence.

‘Sir? You need not speak. Simply rap upon the table or make a sound if you are all right.’

Silence.

‘I am afraid I must forcibly enter if you do not give me a sign. Sir? Sir?’

Silence.

Mr Allan banged on the door to be sure that the inhabitant was not in a deep slumber. Still there was no answer. The situation was still not unprecedented: a man had once taken his own life in
the house and the door had been broken down. This Mr Askern did not seem the kind to kill himself, but any man discovers parts of himself that perhaps he had never before explored when forced to
spend time alone in the silence of an unfamiliar room. Mr Allan sighed and went to fetch his hammer and chisels. He hoped there would not be blood on the new mattress.

Mr Newsome put down Mr Bryant’s report and nodded to himself. Mr Bryant was a dedicated and thorough man. The inspector was reading the report in the back of a carriage on
his way to the safe house to which Mr Williamson had escorted Mr Askern, there to ask the writer what he knew of the bare-knuckle fighter Henry Hawkins. The swaying motion and start-stop traffic
was making him nauseous.

Mr Newsome folded the report and returned it to his coat pocket. It was clear to him, if not to Mr Bryant, that Benjamin had taken his curious route in full knowledge that he
was being followed and that there was some message to be gleaned from that strange peregrination. The letter would of course have to be recovered from the (now empty) Lambeth property with all
haste. If Noah Dyson did not show himself very shortly,
his
house would have to be searched again and the Negro interrogated more persuasively than on the last occasion.

These thoughts were still in his mind when the carriage stopped outside the secret house where Mr Askern was staying. He stepped down on to the street and bade the driver wait. The door opened
before he could knock, and the expression on Mr Allan’s face told him that the news was dire. The housekeeper beckoned him in and closed the door behind them.

‘Mr Newsome, sir! Thank G— you have come. I was about to send a boy for you. It is most strange . . . most dreadful and most strange.’

‘What is it, man? Is it Mr Askern?’

‘I cannot explain it, sir. There is no indication . . . there is no clue . . . I am at a loss . . .’

‘You are dithering! Speak plainly!’

‘Inspector Newsome – Mr Askern is dead. And my most recent resident has fled.’

TWENTY-ONE

Sergeant Williamson sat in bed with that day’s copy of
the Times
spread before him. His face was a gruesome sight. One eye was swollen and empurpled, while the
other was barely a slit amid a circle of bruising. His bottom lip bore a congealed cut where it had been split by Henry Hawkins’s fist, and his jawline was blotched red (which struck him as
ironic under the circumstances). He had lost a couple of teeth and it also hurt when he breathed, thanks to the energetic kicks of his assailant.

All of London was now talking about Lucius Boyle and the series of murders attributed to him, though they were still referring to him as ‘the General’ or the increasingly common and
popular ‘Red Jaw’. There had been only one reference to a ‘Lucifer’, in
the Observer
, but the name had not yet caught on. Mr Williamson squinted through puffy eyes at
the letter in
the Times
:

He smiled grimly, imagining the apoplexy of Commissioner Mayne on reading the letter. The smile made him wince. When the newspapers discovered the murder of the Reverend Archer,
the scandal would reach historic proportions and the pressure upon the Detective Force would become even more impossible.

The frustration of inaction itched under his bandages. Boyle was free. With each murder, he was rendering himself ever more invisible until the last tenuous connection to him was severed. No one
was safe, not even his closest associates – something Henry Hawkins would be wise to consider. Then the man would vanish again, most likely to another town or another country.

And what of Mr Dyson? The vacuum of information was quite infuriating. Until that night’s grievous beating, Mr Williamson himself had been the one who held all the knowledge. Indeed, his
gravest concern now was what he may have revealed during the encounter with Henry Hawkins.

He recalled falling to the floor and a heavy boot striking his stomach and ribs. He recalled the boxer’s face just inches from his own, that deep voice drifting to him through waves of
pain. Noah’s name was mentioned, as was Mr Askern’s. Then more blows and he had fallen into an oblivion of agony. Had he spoken as he lapsed? Had he given a word or a phrase –
spoken in his very anxiety not to speak – that had helped the criminal? He had told Inspector Newsome that he had said nothing. Only subsequent events would show if that was true.

Police Constable John Cullen knocked at the door and entered the room with a cup of tea, which he laid on the table next to the bed. ‘Here you go, sir. A nice fresh one for you.’

‘Thank you, PC Cullen.’

‘I would like to meet him that did this to you, sir. I’d show him the mettle of the Metropolitan Police, I can tell you.’

‘I am sure of it, but that is not how we enforce the law. What news is there? Have you heard anything from the other men in your division? I know how you constables talk.’

‘A very busy night, sir. A huge fire in Oxford-street – a gin palace went up like an arsenal. A lady burned to death in an upper floor and a fire engineer was badly
burned.’

‘Where on Oxford-street?’

‘A place called the Rose and Crown wine vaults – a new place by all accounts. And there was a murder: a fellow of no great consequence found at Hanover-square. Most probably a
drunken brawl.’

‘In Hanover-square? Do you have a name?’

‘I am not certain. I heard the name “Bill” but it’s not someone known to me.’

‘Hmm. Hmm.’

‘Bad news, sir?’

‘That seems to be the only kind these days, Constable. Tell me, when is Inspector Newsome expected? I need to speak to him urgently about the case.’

‘He said he would come today, sir, but did not say what time.’

‘Thank you, Constable. You may leave me now. Please show Inspector Newsome in the moment he arrives, even if I am sleeping.’