Honor's Kingdom (10 page)

FOUR

THE POLICE RIG RETRACED ITS EARLIER COURSE, BUT our progress seemed wickedly slow. London is an ancient city, see, and not fit for the size and speed of modern conveyances. The weather promised to grow hotter than a city likes or the Englishman finds customary. Twas the sort of day when even the thrifty housewife sacrifices a ha’penny for the baker to cook the family dinner in his oven, sparing her family the heat of her kitchen stove. Of late, I had cooked in Mississippi, where even springtime boils, and I had stewed a decade in the clay pot of India before that, so my beef was toughened. But Inspector Wilkie had the look of a pig turning on a spit, although I do not mean that disrespectfully.

“We’ll be blessed if the cholera don’t come over us,” he said. Then he thought for a moment and added, “Seven Dials is the Devil’s own place in a cholera year. The worst sweepings of London turn up in the lanes and closes. Irishmen, too. Pig dirty, every one of them. No, the Dials ain’t pleasant in the best of years. Provides all the social nourishment to grow up a criminal class. It’s a scientific wonder, it is.”

“And is this place in the City Mile, as well?” I asked. “Or does your authority extend there, Inspector Wilkie?”

“Even the City wouldn’t ’ave their likes. No, the Seven Dials runs off St. Giles and, sorry to say, it’s Bow Street’s own green pasture.” We jarred to a stop where a wagon loaded with tall crates blocked the way. “It’s always like this,” the inspector continued,
“with the loads from the India docks coming in. And every what-’ave-you going back out in trade. One of these days, all London will come to a stop.”

A boy called the latest news across the tangle of blocked carriages and carts, offering
The Times
for sale at thruppence. “Latest report from the Calcutta stock market, all just in,” he cried. “Cotton prices up in India, Manchester all in a great anxiety, read it ’ere first, gentlemens.”

Now, a good newspaper is an investment in our education, and its price cannot be counted as squandered. I waved him over and the lad dashed between wheels and horses and piles of waste dropped in his way. The edition was much thicker than our American papers, a dozen sides or more. I folded it up and put it in my pocket, for it is impolite to read in front of companions.

Wilkie watched the boy run off again and shook his head. “Now, who would cut the ’and from a living child, I arsk you that, Major Jones? Whether a fellow’s been to India or not, I don’t see ’ow as ’e could bring ’imself to do it.” He seemed genuinely at a loss, although a policeman sees more of life than most. “I ’ave a boy and girl of me own, you know. My Albert’s onto ten, and Alice seven. I wonder ’ow I’d feel if someone—”

“Tell me,” I said, wishing to ease his thoughts and turn us back to business, “what do you think the chances are of one of your men bringing in news of the boy?”

Troubled enough I was myself, for I could not but feel I was to blame. Had Abel Jones not come to London town, that luckless boy might still have had his hand. And his life. But I have told you of that already, and must not repeat myself, for a tale wants proper telling. Yet, the thought of that child returned to haunt me constantly.

Wilkie shook his head again, and the eyes in his hairy face approached despair. “If there’s not a thousand unwanted children in London, there’s ten thousand. And if there’s not ten thousand, there’s twenty. Live like rats, they do. One won’t be missed.” Below the quills of his eyebrows, something glistened.
“You wouldn’t believe the ’alf of what I sees, Major. And the little fellows what earns a penny or two from their misery are the lucky ones. A body loses faith in ’is fellow man, ’e does.”

“There is a higher faith that does not fail us, Inspector Wilkie.”

He monkeyed up his mouth and disappointed me. “I’m not one for the church, Major Jones, for I can’t see ’ow it ’elps. I only tries to live a scientific life, and to raise the young ones proper since their mother left us.”

“I’m sorry.”

He shook off his despondence and sat up. We passed St. Paul’s again, in shifted light.

“You know,” I began, for I had been thinking, “there is something that occurs to me. A thing I do not like.”

He turned my way, with curiosity lifting his mighty eyebrows. Beyond his form, a rat-catcher preened down the walk in his velveteen jacket, tame rat on his shoulder, ferrets in their cage, and a battle-scarred terrier heeling.

“Do you recall,” I continued, “how, yesterday, as we examined the late parson, I asked you if you might give me the name of the eel-seller?”

He nodded. “I does, indeed.”

“And who was down there with us? Besides the parson, I mean. Who knew that I was likely to ask the eel-seller questions before too much time had passed?”

He understood me then. I let him think on the matter for a moment. His thoughts troubled him and his face showed it.

“Well,” he said, as we passed a band of children delighted by a collapsed donkey, “there was you and me, but we don’t figure. And your Mr. Adams and son.”

“Above suspicion,” I said. “And you trust Mr. Archibald, of course?”

“Mr. Archibald ’as devoted ’is life to science.”

“What about the constable who assisted you?”

“Farmer? Sound as the Bank of England. Dependable as rain on a Brighton picnic.”

“And that leaves?”

He did not answer me, for he was figuring the lie of things, although he knew the name as well as I did.

“It leaves young Mr. Pomeroy,” I said. “Of the Foreign Office.”

“Mr. Pomeroy,” he began, carefully, “is a gentleman. You only ’ave to listen to ’im talk. And it’s famous ’ow ’is guv’nor’s got a pile. I don’t see ’ow Mr. Pomeroy could figure.”

“All the same, there is logic in it. He’s known to have Confederate sympathies and—” I stopped, wondering if I had said too much. For some of my purpose must remain concealed.

Poor Wilkie could not go the final step in the corridor of supposition. He was an Englishman, see, and such cannot think past the power of a birthright. Oh, sad it is. Inspector Wilkie might look down and spot a plenty of criminals, but when he raised his eyes he saw his masters.

I let it go. For the present. I had been thinking with my tongue, and that is never wise. So I changed our theme entirely as we clattered westward and the principal streets improved.

“Would you happen to have heard of a great revolutionary fellow, a German sort, one Mr. Karl Marx?”

“Can’t say as I ’ave. But what’s revolutionaries got to do with this?”

“Nothing,” I assured him. “It’s only that my Washington landlady has a certain attachment to him and thinks him the greatest fellow in the world. He lives in London and suffers great deprivation, I am told.”

“Well, he ain’t alone, revolutionary or not. What’s ’is name again?”

“Karl Marx. I believe he writes a great deal and wants to overthrow the established order.”

“Well, we’ll put ’im right, if ’e tries any nonsense around ’ere.”

“Might you inquire, on my behalf, and see if his address is recorded? My landlady makes him sound an interesting sort, although my friend, Dr. Mick Tyrone, thinks the fellow’s a fool.”

“I should say so,” Inspector Wilkie told me. “We’ll ’ave no revolutions around ’ere, thank you. ’Er Majesty wouldn’t allow it.”

I left it at that, for all of a sudden we had turned into a maze of lanes so littered with filth and waste they seemed almost barricaded. I am ashamed to say I saw a naked child at play, of an age that wanted schooling and bodily concealment. Surrounded by boys and girls in rags, he did not seem to feel a thing amiss.

“Seven Dials,” Inspector Wilkie said. “Where the Devil ’imself comes for dinner.”

THE RAMSHACKLE BUILDINGS, all tilted and tipping, snuggled as close as poor folk in the winter. Their ancient gables sought to meet above us, the way the weary lean in search of a shoulder. Fair blocking the light of day they were, and sheltering fetid odors of every description. Boards defended the street-level windows and makeshift rooms grew out of the upper stories, precarious as a drunkard’s reformation. Beneath our wheels, the cobbles gave way to mud and planks and carcasses. The driver grew unsure of the wisdom of taking the rig any farther, so the inspector decided we might proceed on foot. There is trouble to understand this world, see. Twas the richest city on earth, encompassing souls in the millions, an achievement to dazzle Mr. Gibbon’s Romans. Yet, here we were in Penury Lane, not far from Starvation Alley.

Sad it was to see a ragged mother sitting dull-faced on her tenement stoop, where the bit of sun that sneaked down was just enough to let her pick the nits from her child’s hair. And the infant lacked the vigor to squirm and squawk. Hard the gathered women’s voices were, and no tone under a shout come from their throats. Cursing a neighbor or calling a wayward child, they could not part their lips without profanity. Irish the half of them sounded, although I heard the lilt of Wales gone sour and plentiful English cackles in high complaint.

“And doosunt she get herself all tarted up, the minute her Tommy’s gone cartin’? When that Tommy Boylan hears tell of
her tricks, he’ll beat her like Cromwell’s drum. And she’ll have it coming, the slut.”

“Oi says to the old man, Oi says to ’is face, that Oim laving ’im out in ta gutter ta next toim ’e rolls back ’ere stinking.”

“She stole it, I saw ’er, I did.”

“Empty your shit-pot on my steps, will you . . .”

“Go on with you, Mabel. For I will not be told a single thing by the likes of you. I smelt the men all over her no sooner than she come in. And her always puttin’ on airs with her fancy collars . . .”

“‘Two and six, or I’ll ’ave you turned out,’ says ’e. Well, ’e mought as well ’ave begged a thousand pounds, the dirty Jew. And then don’t the filthy thing put ’is fingers—”

“‘Turn out the light,’ ’e tells ’er, for ’e don’t want ’er to see ’is shame. But she’s been done dab times enough, and she lights up a match the moment ’e’s bouncing and ready. And don’t ’e just ’ave a great sore on ’is lum, and painting ’imself as the innocent . . .”

Such were the gentlest tones we heard, and the stench of the place was as vile as its spirit. Airless and lightless, the Dials teemed with the wreckage of Adam and Eve. There is poor, I will tell you, when you do not find a single public house on a street—although I do not approve of them, in any case—but in their place front-room affairs, with trestle tables and gin swilled out of jars.

“Go lively,” a woman hissed to her sisters in poverty. “It’s the tallyman come.”

And there he was, indeed, alert as a scout on the cruel Northwest Frontier. Paging through his black book he was, hungry for overdue shillings and tardy pennies. The tallyman is fond when selling his wares, but fierce when wanting his payments.

The women disappeared, as if the fellow had plague and smallpox both.

Then we come onto a beggar, gathered against a wall in sightless squalor. Like boiled eggs his eyes appeared, where the
ball of the yoke hints through the hardened white. His nose was ripe with sores and his lips were scabbed. We might have been in the worst lane of Lahore.

“You there,” Inspector Wilkie said in an unhappy voice, “move along now. Begging ain’t allowed, not even ’ere.”

The beggar smiled up a blackness and made no move to rise.

“Begging? When did anybody see Old Joey begging? Following my perfession, I am, and werry skilled at it, too.”

We paused. Although we did not come too close to the fellow. Oh, I am a sorry Christian. Our savior took men such as that to his breast. I call myself a Christian, but hesitate to touch him with my boot. And we content ourselves with feeling shame at our weakness, although our shame has never helped another.

“And what, pray tell, is this profession of yours?” Inspector Wilkie asked, not without a weary edge of doubt. The policeman’s lot is one of repetition, enlivened now and then by sordid matters. I fear it is a life that cripples faith.

The fellow raised his boiled eyes toward us. “I’m a heel-reader,” he said. “And the finest perfessional heel-reader in England, Scotland or Wales, if I do say so myself, your honor.”

Now, this was a new thing to me. Although I have heard pattering in plenty, and am not unfamiliar with the conny-man, I had no inkling of the art of “heel-reading.”

Twas clear Inspector Wilkie knew as little as I did. “’Ere, ’ere,” he said, “get along with your nonsense. I never ’eard of such a trade, I ’aven’t.”

The rotting face took on a dignified, even sniffy look. “Well, it’s a rare craft, I give you that, your honor. A high craft and rare perfession. If a gentleman ain’t born with the gift, it won’t be taught in a lifetime. But Old Joey was born blessed. Try me, your honor. Just try me.”

“Try you at what?” Wilkie asked.

“A penny to me, if I reads you right, a ha’penny’s yours, if I tells you wrong.”

Now, that seemed an unfair mathematics. “Look you,” I intervened. “Whatever it is you do, my good man, it makes no
sense that you should gain a penny entire by your success, but only lose the half if you should fail.”

I have been a clerk in a counting house, see. And we Welsh know how many pence make a pound before we are out of the cradle.