Avery & Blake 02 - The Infidel Stain (3 page)

BOOK: Avery & Blake 02 - The Infidel Stain
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The dumbshow over, the diners returned to their food.

‘That’s him,’ said Blake.

‘Lord Allington? What is he doing here?’ I drawled, doing my best not to sound too interested.

‘He is Chairman of the Committee for the Rescue of Destitute Lascars. The Navigation Acts forbid Lascar sailors from working their passage back on the ships that brought them to England. Once their ships dock they’re left onshore until they can find another passage, but English ships don’t want them because they’ve mostly got little English. A few freeze to death on the docks each winter. This place feeds them and tries to find them passage. It’s run on charitable donations; Allington gives the most. Today’s his first visit.’

‘So you approve of him – Allington?’

‘Won’t know till I meet him.’

I rolled my eyes. ‘Who is the white woman in the apron?’

‘Mohammed’s wife; they met in Dublin. The child is their daughter – Noor or Nora.’

‘And why are we here?’

Blake finished his rotee. ‘Collinson mentioned Allington had an interest in the place and I suggested we meet here.’

‘Perfectly talkative when you want to be,’ I muttered, not quite loudly enough for him to hear, though he looked up sharply. ‘And what does he want with us?’

‘Don’t know. But I say again, you’re not obliged to take part.’

‘Allington is an admirable man. If he were to ask for my services,
I should feel inclined to say yes. Unless, of course, you would rather I did not.’

Blake gave nothing away. His brow hooded his eyes; his mouth was a straight line. ‘It’s up to you. You’d be paid.’

‘Money is neither here not there,’ I said, though this was not quite true. ‘Look here, Jeremiah, I should be more than content to embark on another endeavour with you, but not if I am regarded as a useless piece of baggage. If that were the case, I should rather know now, and take myself home.’

‘I don’t know if you’ll be useful. I don’t know what the job is.’

‘How encouraging to find you have such faith in me,’ I said, ‘given that I have travelled so far.’

A young waiter now appeared at the table and murmured in Hindoostanee that we were awaited upstairs by the grand sahib. I glanced at Blake’s shabby get-up and wondered what a lord would make of him.

‘Did you really have to come attired like this?’ I said.

‘Suits me to go through the streets like this. People don’t remember a poor man.’

‘I think you will be fairly memorable to Viscount Allington. And please, Blake, mop your face. You look like a piece of wet fish.’

He ignored me, pulled on the remains of a pair of gloves that looked as if they had been half eaten by exceedingly hungry cats, then retrieved the rest of his bundle. Twice he stopped at a table to greet a diner, who looked up companionably and exchanged a few sentences, mostly in dialects I did not know. The young waiter led us through a tiny dark kitchen full of huge steaming tureens and pots, and up a flight of rickety stairs. We continued through three bare but clean dormitory rooms hung with hammocks, next to each a sad roll of possessions. As we approached the door at the far end of the last, it was opened by the black-and-gold footman and there stood Mohammed and his wife, with the child now holding her mother’s hand. The proprietor grinned at Blake and raised his eyebrows as they left and we entered. The Viscount and his companions were clustered round an old deal table, looking over a number of ledgers. The man in the brown cape beckoned
to us grandly. ‘Your Lordship,’ he said, ‘Mr Blake and Captain Avery.’

The Viscount stood between the brown-caped man and the lady like the apex of a triangle; both looked expectantly up at him as at an admired saint in a religious painting. He was perhaps five years older and a little taller than me, and clean-shaven. Had he not held himself with the confidence and poise of an aristocrat, one might have described him as lanky. It was clear, close to, that his severe black clothes were immaculately cut and of the finest wool; I suddenly felt my own garb to be both frivolously bright and cheap by comparison. On the table, along with his beaver hat, were a fine silver-topped cane and a pair of silk gloves. His most distinctive features, apart from his pallor and slenderness, were his large pale-blue eyes, which were ringed with long dark lashes and gave him an air of unworldliness and a slightly effeminate look – one, I suspected, that women liked. This effect was not altogether mitigated by a head of thick, lustrous dark-brown hair worn slightly longer than the fashion, and dark brows.

Brown Cape, whose short, stubby figure and punctilious gestures could not have been more in contrast to his master’s languid gracefulness, said, ‘Lord Allington thanks you for responding so speedily to his summons.’

The Viscount inclined his head and took us in. The sight of Blake in his full glory caused him to blink several times and for some moments he was unable to tear his eyes away, nor to moderate his slightly appalled expression. I was convinced then that Blake had deliberately dressed in his worst in order to conjure just such a reaction, and felt a burst of irritation. The Viscount’s gaze alighted upon me; his relief was tangible.

‘Gentlemen, I hope you will join me in prayer,’ he said, bringing his long delicate fingers together, and bowed his head. I followed. Blake looked stonily ahead.

‘Dear Lord, show us the way. Give us the strength to gain self-mastery, to do good, to help the weak, the lost and the fallen. To see evil and to lay waste to it. To fight wickedness and to defeat the snares of pride, vanity and indolence. Amen.’

After a considerable silence His Lordship opened his eyes, looking dazed, as if he were having to drag himself down from some higher heavenly plane.

My knowledge of Anselm Bertram Vickers, Viscount Allington, derived from
The Times
and political gossip from my father’s circle in Devon. He was a member of the new Tory government, but better known as a philanthropist and for his religious piety – not qualities readily associated with the aristocracy. He was very well connected. Through his mother alone he was related to the Earl of Aberdeen and the Duke of Buccleuch. He chaired a legion of committees of charitable and religious organizations which were especially devoted to the needs of children. In Parliament he had attempted with some success to prevent young children from working in mines, mills and as chimney sweeps. He had seen through laws to improve the treatment of lunatics, and had led the thus far failed campaign to reduce working hours in factories and mines to ten hours a day. There were those who said that his work denied poor families the chance to bring home a decent income, and that he was at least partly motivated by the desire to confound the rich mill and mine owners of the Whig party. As for his personal life, he was unmarried but considered highly eligible. I had seen him described as ‘the prince of philanthropy, with the looks of an angel’. It was also widely rumoured that he was on very ill terms with his father, the famously unpleasant Earl of Pewsey, who had tried and failed to stall Allington’s inheritance of a fortune from a great-aunt, and that the two could not be in the same room together. Since Allington was a Tory, my father more or less approved of him, though he was suspicious of the Viscount’s churchiness and philanthropy. He delighted, however, in the fury Allington’s campaigns inspired among the opposition, the Whigs, whom he regarded as the enemy.

Brown Cape began to speak, but His Lordship raised his hand.

‘Gentlemen,’ he said. ‘I asked Sir Theophilus Collinson to recommend two men with a strong sense of duty, two men incorruptible and undeflectable. He named you. I must admit, this was most agreeable to me. Apart from this refuge for the poor Lascars, I am
on the Indian Board of Control and am much concerned both to improve the lot of the natives there and to combat the evils of Hindooism.’ At this, Blake’s brows twitched into the briefest frown. ‘Your association with Xavier Mountstuart was for me no small added incentive for seeking you out,’ His Lordship continued. ‘I applaud your brave efforts to save him at the hour of his death.

‘Captain Avery, may I congratulate you on your various acts of bravery, most recently on the Afghan campaign. The Company’s loss is England’s gain. Mr Blake, Sir Theo likes to say of you simply that you have a talent for “finding things”. I know, however, that your exploits are something of a byword.’

I will confess that it was exceedingly pleasant to find myself complimented by Lord Allington. At the same time I had the strongest feeling that Blake had taken against His Lordship and was about to say something disobliging, and that the whole enterprise would collapse before it had begun. I did not wish this to happen and so I struck out before he could.

‘Your Lordship, I know we would both be glad to help in any way we may.’

Blake said nothing. I judged he would hate an untidy contradiction and it felt peculiarly satisfying to have outmanoeuvred him, if only for a moment.

‘Perhaps you might tell us about the task you have for us,’ I continued.

Lord Allington turned to his female companion, who had thus far barely shifted her attention from him. ‘The subject is, I fear, not one suitable for ladies’ ears.’

‘Come, Allington, there is no real reason for me to depart,’ she said.

‘My dear,’ he said, warningly.

‘But, Allington—’

He raised his hand and she fell silent. ‘Mr Threlfall,’ he said to Brown Cape, ‘would you see my sister back to the coach?’

The lady sighed loudly and gave us a mutinous look. ‘The footman will escort me,’ she said stiffly, lifting her skirts and rustling noisily from the room, the silent footman gliding behind her.

‘Gentlemen.’ The Viscount unmeshed his fingers and pressed them on to the table, staring into its unpolished surface. ‘I have a dark and ugly task to ask of you. I do not know if it may be resolved, but I think it must be attempted and I believe that the act of doing so will cast light into the dark places where it is most truly needed. The matter concerns an unsolved murder – two, indeed.’

I felt a thrill of shock, and also of excitement.

‘One took place three weeks ago, in the back streets below Drury Lane – a hive of degeneracy but also of great poverty and wretchedness. It was not some drunken brawl or cheap revenge played out upon the street. The victim was the poorest sort of printer, of chapbooks and the like, and he was attacked in his own shop.’

‘Printers, even poor ones, are hardly the most wretched in London,’ said Blake sullenly, for the first time. Looking up, Lord Allington became instantly once more mesmerized by his appearance.

‘Your Lordship,’ I said, ‘I see you are surprised by Mr Blake’s attire. I should perhaps explain that he is accoutred thus so as to pass easily through the lowest and poorest parts of the city – just such places as you describe. In India this skill saved my life. Indeed, I would go so far as to describe him as a very “master of disguise”.’

Lord Allington nodded and looked patently relieved. Blake glared at me but said nothing. I had judged once again that his natural antipathy to complicated explanations would make him loath to contradict me, and so – for the moment – it proved.

‘Please, Your Lordship, pray continue,’ I prompted.

‘I know nothing personally of the victim, but we have been able to obtain copies of a police report as well as several descriptions of the body from those who found it. Mr Threlfall has the papers. As I said, the man was a printer and his name was—’

‘Wedderburn, my Lord,’ Mr Threlfall supplied smoothly.

‘Yes,’ said Viscount Allington. ‘His premises were in Holywell Street, a poor and dishonest neighbourhood, as you will know. The circumstances of the murder were strange and bloody, there were no witnesses, but the manner in which his body was discovered has impressed itself most dreadfully upon everyone who saw it.’

Mr Threlfall retrieved from his leather bag a portfolio and handed it to his master. His Lordship studied it for a few moments, shut his eyes as if in distaste, then handed it back to Threlfall, opening his blue eyes wide. He spoke in a low, urgent voice.

‘The matter was almost immediately abandoned by the police for lack of evidence. But the body was found in an exceptional and horrible state. It was very particularly draped – spreadeagled, indeed – across the printing press, as if the assailant had taken very particular pains to place it there. Its face and neck had been cut, carved even, so that it was hardly recognizable. It was covered in blood – in monstrous quantities, and on the hands this had been mixed with ink. The stomach had been … well, the only way to describe it is sliced open, like some butchered creature. Moreover, this abomination was committed as the man’s family slept quietly upstairs.’

He paused for a moment, and exhaled as if to rid himself of the horrible picture the words had conjured.

‘Good heavens!’ I said.

‘As far as the new police’s hurried researches could tell, he had no debts, nor any particular enemies.’

‘I’ve heard nothing of this,’ Blake said musingly. ‘You’d expect to see something in the press, a broadside or two at the very least, or a ballad. Especially if the man was a printer.’

‘There were a number of brief mentions of the murder in the press the day after it occurred, but since then, nothing.’

‘You mentioned a second murder – Your Lordship,’ Blake said, and the tiny pause between the words insinuated an unmistakeable sliver of disrespect which Lord Allington affected not to notice, though he straightened his back even more and it seemed to me his manner became even loftier.

‘Not long after I learnt of this crime,’ he said, ‘news of another death was brought to my attention. Another printer, by the name of …’

‘Blundell, sir,’ said Threlfall.

‘Thank you, Threlfall, six weeks ago. The matter was complicated because there was subsequently a fire at his premises, but I have it on good authority he was murdered in similar, if not
identical, circumstances, and the fire came after. He lived in the area of Monmouth Street by Seven Dials. The police have concluded that he died accidentally in the fire.’

‘Surely even without the newspapers, such tales would have spread by word of mouth, Your Lordship? Comparisons made?’ I said.

BOOK: Avery & Blake 02 - The Infidel Stain
2.27Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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