Honor's Kingdom (2 page)

The elder Mr. Adams turned to the younger, who had lost his high green color and now looked blue as fresh milk in the pail.

“Henry, have Moran make arrangements for a proper burial. Something appropriate to the dignity of a religious office.” He
spoke again to the inspector, but somehow included the Foreign Office boy in his remarks. “We shall undertake to notify the family. In the meantime, the legation will assume the responsibility and costs for Mr. Campbell’s interment.” And then he looked at me. For he alone knew of my purpose in London at that hour.

“Major Jones? Have
you
any questions?”

Oh, didn’t I plunge into the foolishness, the moment I had the chance? Vanity it was that turned my head. I was all puffed up with my recent successes in the field of confidential matters, see. But pride comes before a fall, as my Mary Myfanwy would tell you.

Had I held my peace that day, lives might have been spared, and torments avoided. But I was sick with pride and wanted humbling.

“If I might, sir?” I said, leaning on my cane to spare my bad leg.

Mr. Adams glanced at the inspector, then settled his marble gaze on Pomeroy. “Major Jones has just arrived from Southampton. He’s been despatched by Washington to assist with legation matters.”

“This is extremely irregular,” young Pomeroy said. “He hasn’t presented his credentials. He dare not act in any
official—”

Mr. Adams nodded slightly, as if each nod were an expense to be tallied. “I shall present his papers to Lord Russell myself. Upon the next suitable occasion.”

“Begging your pardon, sir,” Inspector Wilkie put in. “But is the major some sort of a detective gentleman, then?”

“Major Jones is a military officer and a representative of the United States Government.”

“If I might, gentlemen?” I asked, all too anxiously. Nor was it pride alone that made me hasty. The stink was on the fierce side, as if it had been gathering reinforcements, and young Mr. Adams appeared on the verge of losing his battle with the contents of his belly. Even I longed for daylight and better air,
though, as a Methodist, I should find it elevating to ponder the mortality of the flesh.

They all looked at me.

“You said,” I began, addressing Inspector Wilkie’s indigo quills, “that the body was found here in London. In a basket of eels. And where, exactly, was the discovery made, sir?”

The inspector gave me a look as if I had gone silly as a drunken Frenchman. “And where in London’s a fellow going to find ’im a basket of eels entire but in Billingsgate, Major? Oh, a gent might find ’imself a nice eel pie most anywheres, or a nice ’ot cup of eels to swally down. But a whole basket won’t like to be seen nowheres but the Billingsgate fish market.”

“And when, exactly, was he found?”

“Why, this morning and most early, sir, as it’s Friday and the ’igh day of the fishmarket. Friday’s a great day for eels, and not only amongst the Papists.”

I shifted my attention to the coroner’s fellow. “Now I will tell you, sir, and most respectfully, I do not pretend to a scholar’s learning in these doings. Or to your evident skill, Mr. Archibald.” You must use a fellow’s name and praise him, see, if you want to soften him to you. “But I have been a soldier for more of my life than is sensible, and bodies I have seen aplenty. Now, I will ask your views, since you have knowledge of such matters. Hasn’t this poor fellow been dead for a number of days?”

The coroner’s fellow scuttled up close to the table and stuck a finger in one of the openings left by the eels. He wriggled the digit about most vigorously, testing the decay of the flesh.

Young Mr. Adams swept his head away.

“Right you are, sir, right you are,” the coroner’s fellow agreed. “I said it meself to Inspector Wilkie ’ere, soon as they brung ’im in. ‘That one’s ripe,’ I says to ’im, ‘ripe as a busting plum.’ ” He pushed his finger in deeper, added a second digit, and shook his wrist. “If it weren’t for the eels opening ’im up, ’e’d be swelled up twicet over with gas.”

“And how long would you judge he has been dead?”

The fellow shoved as much of his fist into the cavity as he could, then, satisfied, drew it out and wiped it on his trousers. “No less than two days that would be, sir, at the very least, and like unto three it’s been since the murderers took an axe or somewhat similar to the back of ’is skull. It’s my professional opinion as to ’ow the eels doesn’t account for the missing eyes, Major. It’s a curious thing how ’ard-enough blows to the back of a fellow’s ’ead can put ’is eyes right out. I’d wager that’s what ’appened. It weren’t the eels what et ’is eyes, though they made a nice enough meal of the rest of the good parson.” He smacked his lips. “Whoever bought them eels for ’is dinner has got ’im some fat ones.”

Handkerchief balled at his mouth, young Mr. Adams hastened from the room.

“Inspector?” I began anew, only to be interrupted by young Pomeroy, who had gone more than a bit green himself, what with all the corpse-poking and reawakened stench.

“This is irregular, unacceptably irregular. The man’s credentials have not—”

A last eel, disturbed in its slumbers by Mr. Archibald’s prodding, slithered out of the corpse’s side, slipped off the table and slapped the floor, then wriggled toward young Pomeroy’s gleaming town boots. He followed young Mr. Adams from the room and we lost the benefit of his further opinions.

The constable settled the eel with a smack of his billy.

“Inspector Wilkie,” I tried again, although my own bowels had grown somewhat mutinous, “if the eels were alive and capable of . . . of the efforts before us . . . then they were fresh-caught themselves, most like?”

“I’m not terrible knowledgable as to eels, sir, though I likes a nice eel pie. But I’d think as they was fresh caught. There’s none won’t buy eels rancid.”

I tapped the stone floor lightly with my cane. “Then someone took the trouble to put a corpse that had already been dead for a matter of days into a basket of fresh eels.”

“That’s ’ow I sees it meself, sir. I couldn’t of said it no better.”

“And you found the accusatory letter sealed in oilcloth and affixed to the Reverend Mr. Campbell’s person?”

“Sealed up all perfect, it was, and double tight. As if the parson was facing a storm at sea, Major. Next to ’is very skin it was, for safekeeping.”

“And you found a purse on him, but there was no money in it?”

“That’s right, sir. Killed ’im and robbed ’im blind, they did. He didn’t ’ave no watch nor chain, neither, though they left ’is shirt studs upon ’im.” At that series of remarks, I noted the slightest flinch from the elder Mr. Adams. “And a gent such as a parson or vicar allus carries ’im a watch,” the inspector continued. “Murdered dead ’e was, and robbed after. And them what ’as done it will be taken up and ’anged.”

“The murderers took the money, but put his purse back into his pocket?”

“That’s right, sir. Cool as Dandy Bill, they was. Typical of the more developed members of the criminal class, in my experience.”

I nodded. “And your certificate, as I recall, lists London as the place of death.”

“Well, ’e was found ’ere, sir, weren’t ’e?”

“But the basket of eels did not come from London, I take it?”

“Not eels of that quality. No, sir. Them wasn’t Thames eels, if I’m to judge. Though I ’aven’t studied eels as I ’ave the criminal class.”

“So he might have been murdered elsewhere? At any location within, say, two days travel of London? And,” I pushed on, with a grimace at the body of the parson, “it would appear that he was put into the basket of eels some time before it arrived at the fish market, given the extent of the . . . desecration. It must have taken the eels some time to do their work, see.”

Mr. Adams, who had remained steady as a statue throughout, grew restive of a sudden.

The inspector’s eyebrows stood to attention, thick as a rank of bayonets on parade. Outposts of his whiskers, they were, detailed to guard his forehead. “And why would anybody, least of all the low, murdering sort, go to all the bother of that, now? That wouldn’t be typical of the criminal class at all. No, sir, I’m afraid not. Why bring a fellow to London when ’e’s already dead elsewheres and better ’id right there, and spare the effort?”

“I don’t know. Unless it was important to the murderers that the body be found in London.”

“And why might that be, Major?”

“I don’t know that, either,” I admitted.

Inspector Wilkie gave us all a superior look, as if to say, “There you have it—the little fellow’s all bluster.”

“Not to worry, gentlemen,” the inspector assured us. “The Metropolitan Police will settle the matter, we will.”

“Inspector,” I pushed on, undeterred, “might you provide me with the name of the fishmonger who discovered the Reverend Mr. Campbell among his wares?”

“Oh, I expects we could do that, Major. Though the fellow don’t know a thing about it, there’s certain. For we give ’im a proper talking to. Shocked ’e was by the business, and none of the insolence of the criminal class about ’im, sir. Afraid we was going to seize up ’is basket of eels, ’e was, and cart ’em off and bankrupt ’im.”

“But you didn’t?”

“That’s private property, sir. And I can’t see ’ow as it figures. Eels is eels.”

Mr. Adams cleared his throat. Now, when great men clear their throats, little folk such as you and I must pay attention. I understood he wished to end the interview, though I could not yet know his reason.

“A last matter, Inspector Wilkie,” I said hurriedly. “May we take the letter with us until tomorrow? The one found on the body?”

“That’s evidence, sir. But I can ’ave a copy writ up.”

I shook my head. “No, I would need the original. But let that bide. May I call on you in the future, though? To examine the letter more closely?”

“That’s what we’re ’ere for, Major. Service to the public.”

Mr. Adams moved to absent himself, and when our superiors go we are tugged behind.

As the rest of us fled that urban cavern, the coroner’s fellow, Mr. Archibald, retrieved the luncheon bun from his pocket and muttered, “Eels, now. I wonder what the old woman’s bought in for supper?”

“FATHER, THIS IS INTOLERABLE,” Henry Adams said, with our hack caught in the swarm at the mouth of Bow Street and the summer’s warmth shrinking our collars. I do not think the lad was twenty-five, though you might have thought him born aged forty by his manner. “It’s the most shameless plot one could imagine. That letter . . .”

“Yes,” Minister Adams said, “it
is
shameless.”

“Surely, Father, something must be done. You
must
lodge a protest with Lord Russell at once.”

Young Mr. Adams seemed to me the mindful sort of youth who would rather watch and judge than do, but a bit of pink had returned to his cheeks and he was badly vexed by the day’s events. Matters of decorum excite such folk, though things of substance won’t.

“Whether there are Confederate agents behind this,” the young fellow pressed his case, “or English sympathizers with Richmond . . . you have to respond, Father.” American he may have been, but he had chosen to decorate his speech with the tones of London society. “Really, you
must
make it clear the letter’s nothing but a despicable hoax.”

Outside our cab, which was larger than those queer-shaped hansom rigs, a hawker summoned passers-by to an exhibition of “the Celebrated Australian Fat Boy” and a costermonger cried up his greens. The walks along the shops were as packed as a chapel on Easter Sunday, though somewhat livelier, I give you.
The air that drifted in to us was stinking, as a fellow expects in a great city during the summer, but it tasted fresh as April after the reek of the coroner’s cellar.

“Really, Father. You have to respond at once.”

“Calmly, Henry, calmly,” the elder Adams counseled.

“But, Father . . . if
The Times
were to learn of this . . . or to publish that letter . . .”

Mr. Adams rested both his hands atop the silver ball of his stick, as if facing nothing out of the ordinary. “We must expect that, I suppose. Given young Pomeroy’s attachments. Still, the Foreign Secretary will take a reasonable view of things.”

“I don’t like Pomeroy,” Henry Adams muttered. “He’s nothing but a Confederate lackey.”

“Actually, I’m fond of Pomeroy,” Minister Adams told his son. “He’s too conceited to have any guile.”

Our cab rocked to a stop again, for there was a great excavation in the middle of the street. A muscular navvy displayed half-naked strength, flinging dirt up to the surface, where it dusted a surveyor’s shoes. The clutter and clamor of building anew seemed to annoy each last alley. All London was hammers and shouts.

“And what about Palmerston, Father? After the affront he gave you over General Butler? He’s positively cheering on the Rebels, the old cad.”

Pestered sufficiently, the parent told off the son. As calm of voice as ever, Mr. Adams said, “The Prime Minister is entitled to his views, Henry. Our purpose is to prevent him from acting upon them. At all events, Mr. Palmerston’s bark is considerably worse than his bite. I would rather have him as he is, talking up the Confederacy and doing nothing, than supporting Richmond in silence.” He looked at me and the very force of his gaze pulled my attention back inside the window. “Your first visit to London, Major Jones?”

Twas clear our minister wished to move the conversation along to matters more congenial. They were a curious pair, father and son. The elder had that solid Yankee quality that
encourages you to place your money in his bank, while the younger struck me as nervous and weak of will, the sort of fellow who has every privilege and only disappoints. Doubtless, he read novels and attended the theater. And I wondered why a gentleman of good family and good health, in prime age for the army, was not back in America doing his part? But we must not be presumptuous in our judgements.

“No, sir,” I replied. “That is, I was here for some days. Years ago, that was. I was only a boy, then, and looked without seeing.” I gazed at the rippling wealth of the streets, unflawed but for a crippled soldier begging. “Grand, it is. I will say that.”