The Affair of the Porcelain Dog (8 page)

"No," I said.

"No?"

"It's...its impossible. And unethical. Definitely. Now let me out."

"Unethical?" he asked with a bemused smile.

"Let me out. Tim, I'm begging you."

I saw spots. I screwed my eyes shut--which only made my pulse pound louder in my ears. I tried to breathe deeply, but couldn't get more than a few short gasps. Oh God. Oh God.

"Ira?" he asked.

I cocked one eye open, more than a little gratified to see from his guilty expression that he knew he'd taken his little joke too far. And yet he hadn't reached for the key.

We both jumped at the thud of Nurse Brand's fist against the dispensary door.

"Mr. Adler?" she called.

Muttering to himself, Lazarus crossed the room to let her in.

"Thank God," I panted once the door was open. I pushed him aside in my haste to get out of the miserable little room. "You might want to get a building inspector in there, Pearl. I swear the walls are caving in."

I leaned against the doorjamb, reveling in the cool rush of air. I knew it was the same stale clinic air that had been through a thousand sets of consumptive lungs, but in that moment it felt like a clean country breeze. Nurse Brand eyed me as if sizing me up for a straitjacket.

"I meant to tell you," she said warily, "Nate stopped by earlier this week. Asked about you."

"Nate?" I asked.

"Said I ain't seen hide nor hair of you in two years. All the same, he said if you was to turn up, I should tell you he lunches at the Criterion on Thursdays."

"Nate
Turnbull
?"

I'd known Nate almost as long as I'd known myself. He'd been born in the workhouse; I'd come at age three. He'd taught me to pick a pocket, tease open a lock, and charm an orange from a coster's wife. And later, much later, Nate had stumbled upon the knowledge that the money to be made working with one's hands was laughable compared to the price the less noble parts of the body could command. We'd been like salt and pepper, and he'd saved me more times than I could count.

I hadn't meant to cut him off when I left the 'Chapel. But I'd left under the shadow of the gallows. By the time that little misunderstanding was cleared up, we'd both moved on--I to greener pastures, and he to parts unknown. And when your home is whatever bed you can afford that night, it's difficult to receive letters.

Not to mention that Nate was as indiscreet as a tipsy kitchen maid. Not the sort of person one wanted lurking about the front door of the Duke of Dorset Street.

But now the man was lunching at an exclusive Piccadilly establishmment catering to the most fashionable men's men in London. The mind boggled.

"Thanks, Pearl," I said.

"You'll look him up?"

And that was the question, wasn't it? If I didn't, guilt and curiosity would eat me alive. On the other hand, the man could not be allowed anywhere near York Street.

"Too fine for an old friend, is you?" she sniffed, when I remained silent. "Wasn't so fine when you was beggin' me to check you for the clap. As for you, Doctor," she continued much more cheerfully, "Your...
friend
is here to take you to lunch as well, though I trust that it won't be at the Criterion."

Lazarus didn't even try to hide the pleasure that flushed his usually pasty features. I glanced toward the waiting room to catch a glimpse of St. Andrews. One might think it impossible for someone so conspicuous to lose himself in a room full of indigents, but it seemed he had. I looked closer, but saw only the usual suspects, plus one well-groomed young woman with the earnest air of a missionary.

As the nurse made her way back down the corridor, Lazarus looked out toward the waiting room and sighed happily.

"You're going to have to learn to be more discreet," I said. "If the blackmailer doesn't send you both to prison, your swooning will."

He gave me a look of distaste.

"I can't imagine what you mean by that. Besides, my romantic life is no concern of yours."

"Fine." I turned and started down the corridor. "Just don't say I didn't warn you."

Before I had gone three steps, he added, "You gave up any right to comment when you walked out of my surgery that night with Goddard. You'd never set eyes on him before. But the moment you did, it was as if nothing else existed. Not even the needle and thread I was using to repair the cut above your eyebrow. You didn't even say good-bye."

I whirled, meaning to meet his thoroughly undeserved self-pity with a torrent of harsh, well-chosen words. But there was no self-pity in his expression, only a devilish smirk.

"That was a good, sharp needle," he said. "I miss it."

"You--you're impossible, Lazarus," I sputtered. "Something I'm certain that St. Andrews will discover in time. But for now, allow me to wish the both of you a pleasant luncheon."

His laughter followed me all the way to the waiting room, where every drunk and consumptive in London seemed to have assembled. It wasn't until I was nearly to the door when Lazarus himself emerged. Planting himself in the mouth of the corridor, he called out in a nasal, slightly mocking voice that cut right through the din of the crowd,

"And regarding your little problem below stairs, Adler, you might try a little carbolic in your bath!"

Carbolic indeed!

The good doctor had effectively announced to half of East London that my bollocks were crawling with lice. I hadn't spent two years recreating myself in Goddard's image only to have some underpaid quacksalver cast aspersions on my hygiene. Emerging onto Whitechapel Road, I glanced in both directions before giving my thigh a desperately needed scratch.

The sun was beating down through the smog hanging over the city like an unwholesome meringue. Through the fog of my snit I heard the sudden sound of a harsh bell, followed by a stream of Italian curses as a scruffy ice-seller swerved his dilapidated cart out of my path at the last moment. He gave me an evil look as he mopped his jowls with a stained handkerchief.

Sweating, even in the relative comfort of my threadbare Whitechapel suit, I made my way through Stepney to Commercial Road. It was four miles back to York Street--plenty of time to gather my thoughts before I'd be expected to present Goddard with a sensible report. Of course, Goddard was at that moment in the chancellor's office, receiving his promotion. He would head straight from there to the tailor for some new clothes befitting his new position. Then to his club for a celebratory port, or, more likely, the London Athletic Club to find a few young men to knock about the boxing ring until his nerves were properly settled. Who knew when the man would actually return home? I certainly didn't fancy waiting for him under Collins's watchful eye--at least not until Collins expelled the bee currently in his bunghole.

On the other hand, there was plenty of time to make it to the Criterion for luncheon.

One thing was certain, though. If I walked another block in that heat and filth, I'd be hacking up lumps of coal for a week. Raising my handkerchief to my face, I set about flagging down a cab from the slow-moving chaos of Commercial Road. Moments later, a hansom nosed horizontally through the wall of carriages and pedestrians, pulling to a stop before me.

"The Criterion, Piccadilly," I told the driver.

As I unfurled myself across the bench, the driver flicked the reins over the horse's back. The cab lurched forward. We merged into the congestion, the horse's steady clip-clop fading into the cacophony of shambling cabs, street hawkers' cries, and the rise and fall of hundreds of shabby boots.

∗ ∗ ∗

Fewer than twelve hours had separated my first visit to York Street and my last conversation with my friend Nate. It was late December 1887, and I'd just been beaten to within an inch of my life--by a constable, for a change. Trade was winding down for the holidays--sordid back-alley fucks being incompatible with the spirit of Christmas and all. My Friday night assignations with Goddard were regular by that point. Goddard was generous, but not so generous that I could afford to leave him standing, even to sleep off such a beating as that.

When I did finally turn up at our lamppost that night, Goddard didn't raise an eyebrow at my appearance. One might expect an upper-middle-class academic to at least wrinkle his nose at a blood-crusted shirt and one eye swollen shut over a nose smashed all to hell. I should have understood when he simply handed me a bleached handkerchief and packed me into the private hansom he had waiting around the corner that Cain Goddard was more than the mild-mannered teacher he'd portrayed. But I was not in any shape to ask questions, or even to listen to that quiet voice of better judgment reminding me the worst things happen to whores foolish enough to accompany gentlemen home.

Had I been thinking, I might also have questioned the blase manner in which Goddard's manservant disappeared with my hat, coat, and boots the moment we arrived, meeting us in the bathroom with a tray of surgical implements and a steaming bowl of carbolic. For all of Collins's faults, he had a grasp of propriety that would put the Queen to shame. That he should not vocally protest the intrusion of some lice-bitten renter onto the premises told me he'd at least witnessed such a spectacle before.

"That will be all," Goddard told the manservant, sitting me on the shelf of the mahogany box surrounding his unimaginably large bathtub.

"Very good, sir."

The manservant had taken the liberty of running a bath--a hot one also laced with carbolic. As I sat there, steam puffed up beneath my shirttail, raising a carpet of gooseflesh across my back. Goddard sat down beside me, wetting his fingers in the bowl of antiseptic, and did the same with a bit of cotton.

"Who did this?" he asked, as he swabbed my lacerations with the cotton.

It was his conversational tone I remembered: as if he often passed odd moments sewing people up. When he was satisfied with the cleanliness of the wound, he threaded the needle.

"Come now," he said genially, "Give me a name. He'll pay."

I'd heard of the Duke of Dorset Street. Who hadn't? But to me, the name Goddard meant only ten bob every Friday night. I'd no reason to connect my client with the fearsome crime lord who ruled the East End with an iron fist. All the same, the businesslike way with which the man addressed the constable's grisly work put me on my guard. A loose-tongued rentboy rarely sees his next birthday, though, so despite the insistent questioning that followed--and the half bottle of expensive brandy he poured down my throat after I'd refused laudanum--I held my peace.

"You are a tough little nut," he'd chided as he tied off the last stitch. "But when tough nuts crack, they shatter. Think about it."

I opened my mouth, but he placed a finger over my lips.

"After your bath, come to bed. We'll talk."

I did eventually stumble into someone's empty bed that night. In the morning, Goddard was gone. Collins served my breakfast in the morning room, and told me I was expected for lunch at one sharp.

Then he threw me out.

I eventually stumbled back to the 'Chapel around eleven. I found Nate on Plumber's Row stuffing his face with a baked potato. He blinked at me over his breakfast, all dusky eyes and long lashes, before delicately licking his fingers clean. Not for the first time I marveled at this combination of an angel's face and the table manners of a wild boar.

"Hullo," I said.

I shivered. It was cold as buggery, but someone had slipped four half-crown coins into my trousers, and soon I too would have a potato warming each pocket. But before I could reach for my money, Nate grabbed my arm and pulled me into the shadows.

"Is you out of yer mind showin' yer face 'ere?" he demanded.

"Watch it." I jerked away, rubbing my elbow. "Ol' Wilson wrenched that arm straight to hell and back last night."

Nate's dark eyes had widened, as if with those words I'd somehow made his worst fears come true. He turned his back to the street, pulled his coat tighter around his thin shoulders, and tipped his bowler to a rakish angle.
Sans
potato, he could have them lining up around the block to buy him a drink.

"An' 'e 'ad it comin'," he said. "But, Ira, mate..."

It was a bright winter morning, but dread settled around us like a dark cloak as he related his horrifying tale. Constable Wilson, whose love for the bully club knew the bounds of neither decency nor fairness, had apparently dealt out one beating too many. At some point, while I'd been snoring away in Goddard's lavender-scented sheets, justice had caught up with the constable in the form of an assassin's jagged blade.

"An' they found 'im in that alley next to Crossing'am's," Nate finished. He drew a finger across his throat. "Cut open like a slaugh'er'ouse pig."

My first instinct was to dance a little jig. Wilson had been a menace. Ironically, the East End would be a much safer place short this one copper. But the combination of that quiet inner voice and the way Nate was looking at me made me think. Crossingham's doss-house was right across the street from the lamppost where Goddard and I had met every Friday for the past four months. That alone meant nothing. But Goddard had been both blunt and persistent in his questioning about my attack. When I'd refused to give up Wilson's name, he'd badgered me for other details from which one might identify a man. It had been almost as if he'd taken my beating personally. Who was Cain Goddard, I wondered, that he could divine Wilson's identity from my insensible ramblings in the space of a few short hours, and mete out such decisive justice?