The Devil's Workshop (23 page)

“I can’t think.”

“But you
did
think. I saw your face. You know whose bag this is. You know my doctor friend, don’t you? You’ve met him!”

“No. I don’t know him.”

“Shh. We’ve told each other enough lies for one day.”

Day heard fabric rip and felt something flutter against the calf of his left leg. There was a bright flash of pain and a burning sensation.

“What did you—”

“You lied to me just now.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t speak Latin, but I speak German well enough, Walter Day. Do you know what the word
karstphanomen
actually means?”

“My leg.”

“It’s bubbles of air, karstphanomen is. Pockets in the earth. These men, this doctor and that policeman in the next cell, and who knows how many others . . . they call themselves that, and they believe they mete out justice. They believe they do good work while hiding in the pockets of society. Do you believe that?”

“They were wrong to keep you here.”

“Oh, most certainly. There’s no question of that. But what do you think of their notions regarding justice and law?”

“It’s my job to uphold the law.”

“And what about justice?”

“They’re the same thing.”

“No, Walter Day. The Karstphanomen are right about that, right about that one little thing. They’ve got everything else
wrong, but they’re correct when they say that the law does not concern itself with justice. And yet, these men contradict their own beliefs. They hide away down here in the dark and do evil things and think themselves good men. Isn’t that silly?”

Day said nothing. He could feel something warm running down his leg, trickling into his shoe.

“Perhaps we should cut the earth away and expose them, pop their bubbles, let them bleed out onto the surface. After all, if they’re so convinced they’re correct, why should they hide?”

“What did you do to me?”

“You won’t die yet. Not of this, at any rate. I said I wouldn’t kill you today and I think it will take a bit longer than that for you to bleed to death.”

“Don’t do this.”

“I must go. But I’ll be back soon to hurt your friend and to talk to you some more. Maybe I’ll even stop the bleeding. I really do enjoy talking with you. I think this relationship is going to be interesting for us both, Walter Day.”

“Listen, let us out of here and I’ll do what I can to see that you’re not hanged.”

“Oh, how lovely of you. What do you think, maybe they’ll let me rot in the asylum? Or maybe they’ll even let me go free! I greatly appreciate your overture of friendship, but let’s wait and see what tomorrow may bring. It’s been a very long day for me and, despite the fun I’m having, I’d like to see the sun again. Then I’d like to visit a lady and get a good night’s sleep.”

“Visit a lady?”

“Yes. I haven’t enjoyed the company of a woman in a very long time.”

“No, please don’t.”

“Good night, Walter Day.”

Jack stood and took a step toward him, blocking the light and casting himself in silhouette. There was a rustle of fabric and the hood was pulled roughly over Day’s face. He heard Jack walk away, his boot heels clocking against the earth. Then silence rushed in and Day felt himself alone in the dark once again.

A
nother wagon was already stopped outside the gates of HM Prison Bridewell when Hammersmith’s carriage arrived. Inspectors Blacker and Tiffany were at the back of the other wagon with the door open, and Blacker had his weapon drawn. They both stepped back, prepared for anything, but they relaxed visibly when they saw Hammersmith.

“We’ve got one of them,” Blacker said. His smile was as big and guileless as a child’s. “Gave us a merry chase, but he never stood a chance.”

“You’ve got one, too?” Tiffany said.

“We caught the cannibal,” Hammersmith said. “Napper.”

“Good show, old boy,” Blacker said.

“Which one have you got?”

“Hoffmann,” Tiffany said. “The one killed his cousin’s lover.”

“Let’s reunite these old friends,” Blacker said. “I’ll bet they’ve missed each other.”

Tiffany nodded at the dark interior of their wagon, where Hammersmith could see a person waiting. “All right, all’s clear,” Tiffany said. “Back out slowly, now.”

“Wait a minute, Nevil, and I’ll help you with yours,” Blacker said. “These children they’ve got driving the wagons today aren’t of much use.”

“Hey!” The driver of Hammersmith’s wagon scowled down at them. His nose was dusted with freckles, a cigarette dangled from the corner of his mouth. “I didn’t have to be here, you know. Got other things I could be doin’ today.”

“Yes, I’m sure,” Hammersmith said. “No insult intended.”

“All right, then.”

The boy went back to reading his scandal magazine. Hammersmith stepped to the back of the other wagon and pulled the truncheon from his belt. He watched carefully as the prisoner Hoffmann moved backward to the wagon’s edge and perched there awkwardly, craning his neck to see the ground three feet below him, his wrists cuffed in front of him. Hammersmith held the end of the truncheon against the back of Hoffmann’s knees while Blacker and Tiffany kept their revolvers pointed at the prisoner.

“I’m right here,” Hammersmith said. “There’s a ledge here under the wagon’s lip. You can’t see it from where you are, but I’ll guide your foot onto it and make sure you don’t fall.”

“If you do fall,” Tiffany said, “or make any other movement that I don’t like, I’ll put a hole in you.”

“He’ll do it, too,” Blacker said. “Inspector Tiffany’s in a mood today.”

Hoffmann nodded and licked his lower lip. It was hard to tell from Hammersmith’s vantage point how tall the prisoner was, but he seemed abnormally thin. He was older, with a few strands of grey hair that arced up over the top of his head. He had the habitual squint of a man used to wearing spectacles, and Hammersmith wondered if he’d lost them in the escape. Hoffmann bent his knees and felt behind him with his left toe. Hammersmith used the truncheon to guide his heel, and Hoffmann found the ledge. He leaned sideways against the inside wall of the wagon and eased himself down. Hammersmith used the flat of his left hand on Hoffmann’s back and helped him the rest of the way to the ground.

“Thank you,” Hoffmann said.

“Don’t talk to me.”

“But I can . . . you know, I can help you. I know where one of the others are. I mean, where he is. One of them that escaped with me.”

The three policemen looked at one another.

“You’d help us catch him?” Hammersmith said.

“I would,” Hoffmann said. “I would help you if you were to put in a good word to the head warder for me.”

“We don’t make promises to criminals,” Tiffany said.

“It’s gonna . . . it’s going to be harder on us this time round. In Bridewell. I mean, the head warder. He’s gonna . . . he’s going
to hurt us, take away meals and our time outside. And he’ll take away our tea. I like teatime most of all.”

“You killed a man,” Blacker said. “Tea seems like the least of your worries.”

“Where is he?” Hammersmith said. “If you know where one of the others is, tell us.”

“Promise first. Promise you’ll talk to the head warder. Just a word to him. Just a good word from you, it’s all I ask. A recommendation. I’m not asking for more than that. I know I’ve made mistakes and I don’t ask for forgiveness or special favors. Tea is all. A piece of toast is all. It’s not much, is it? A piece of toast? Maybe a spot of jam. But not necessarily. I didn’t mean to say jam. It’s too much to ask. Toast is all I need. Please, just toast.” Hoffmann’s voice grew more shrill as he pleaded with them. Hammersmith looked away from him at the two inspectors.

“I don’t like making bargains with criminals,” Tiffany said.

“And I don’t like standing out here like this,” Blacker said. “Let’s get him inside and locked up. Then we can talk.”

“Do you think he actually knows something?”

“I do,” Hoffmann said. “I do know something.”

“Maybe he does,” Tiffany said. “But we’ll find the other men without him.”

Tiffany tugged on Hoffmann’s elbow and led him toward the gates where a blue-uniformed warder was watching them.

“It might be worth finding out what he knows,” Blacker said. “Or thinks he knows.”

Hammersmith saw something move at the far corner of the high stone wall. It appeared at the periphery of his vision and
moved fast toward the little cluster of policemen with Hoffmann.

“Move,” Hammersmith said. “Get him through the gates.”

Blacker didn’t even look up. He pushed Hoffmann forward and immediately closed the gap behind him. Tiffany moved into the lane, his Webley revolver already up and aimed. Then he lowered his weapon, just as the figure resolved itself in Hammersmith’s vision as a young boy on a bicycle. The two policemen looked at each other and then looked over at Blacker, who had managed to get Hoffmann through the gate and was only now turning to see if he could help the others.

“Well,” Blacker said, “we know how to move fast when we have to, don’t we?”

“And when we don’t have to,” Tiffany said. He scowled at the boy, who skidded to a halt in front of him. “Move along, son. Police business here.”

“Was lookin’ for police, sir.” The boy gulped and took several deep breaths. He was sweating and his hair was tangled from the wind.

“Someone sent you?”

“Yes, sir. A second, please. Catchin’ me breath.”

“Is it the Yard?”

“No, sir. The prisoners, sir. The ones who escaped? Mrs Pye’s seen two of ’em, and on my very street, sir, where I live.”

“Two of the prisoners? Who’s Mrs Pye?”

“Lady lives on my street, sir. Gave me a penny to ride up here and tell you.”

“How did she know we were here?”

“Anybody, sir. Said to tell anybody I saw.”

“Where are they?”

“Phoenix Street, sir. Not far. I’ll show you. They’re livin’ in a house over there. They hurt Mr Michael and took his house, but Mrs Pye, she went right in like it wasn’t nothin’ and she untied Mr Michael and saved him, sir, but he don’t got a tongue no more. They cut it out of him, if you can believe it.”

Tiffany turned to Blacker. “Leave him.” Then to the gatekeeper. “Can you take him from here?”

The warder nodded. “I got him, all right.”

“Good. Let’s go.”

Blacker squeezed out through the gap in the gate and the warder swung it shut behind him with a mighty clang. Hoffmann twisted away and threw himself against the bars of the gate on the other side.

“No,” he said. “I can tell you where he is. The strange one. The Harvest Man. I can tell you. I only want toast in return. That’s not so much to ask! Tea and toast!”

“The hell with you and your toast,” Tiffany said. “We know where the other fugitives are now. We don’t need your information.”

“Toast!”

Tiffany ignored him. He and Blacker hopped up into the back of the waiting wagon. The boy on the bicycle circled around so he was facing back the way he had come. He jumped on a pedal and rolled away from them down the lane.

“Follow him,” Tiffany said.

The boy up top sighed. He picked up the reins and gave a
haw and the old horse out front took a tentative step and then another and the wagon began to move.

“You coming, Sergeant?”

Hammersmith nodded and allowed himself to be pulled up into the back of the wagon with the two inspectors as the horse gained momentum and chuffed along after the waiting bicyclist. Hammersmith stared out at the weeping prisoner clinging to Bridewell’s gates and wondered how Inspector Day was faring.

At least, he thought, the remaining prisoners were hiding in a house on Phoenix Street while Day was safe and sound, far away from it all.

I
s he gone?”

Day shouted at the rocks around him, not daring to hope for an answer. He knew that there were two men with him, one on either side, both shackled there by Jack. He did not know the man to his right, the one who might be dead, but Adrian March was only a few feet away, to his left. And if March was still alive . . . How long had it been since he had last heard him? An hour? Two?

“He’s gone.” March’s voice came wavering through the rock. He sounded drugged or addled.

“Adrian?”

“I’ve dropped it, Walter. I dropped the lockpick.”

“Were you able to—”

“No. I couldn’t get the proper angle on the thing. I’m older, I suppose. I used to be able to hold those tiny things, but my fingers . . .”

“Adrian, you sound . . . Has he hurt you?”

“Of course. But he won’t kill me for some time, I think. He’ll keep me alive as long as he can. It’s a shame I don’t have my little jailer’s gun with me today.”

“Jailer’s gun?”

“Cunning thing. I sent you one, but you don’t have it here either, do you? Shaped like a key, it is. Holds a single bullet. A single bullet’s all it would take, one way or another, Jack or me.”

“What’s he done to you?”

“He has started with the wounds he gave Annie Chapman. One of his victims. They were the last wounds we inflicted on him before he escaped.”

“What kind of wounds?” He didn’t know what had been done to Annie Chapman. The photographs and drawings of Jack’s victims were horrible things to look at, but he had never read the autopsy reports. When Saucy Jack had committed his gruesome deeds, Day had been a country constable, riding his bicycle down winding lanes, giving warnings to children who stole apples from the market.

“He has cut my cheeks and my stomach,” March said.

“Oh, God!”

“Not as bad as all that, actually. Of course, he’s gone further than we ever did with him. I believe he’s cut something vital in my cheek. I don’t seem to be able to speak properly.”

Which explained the sound of March’s voice, slurred and heavy.

“Will you live?” Day said.

“For a while yet. Until he tires of me and kills me.”

“Adrian, I think I may have lost my leg.”

“You will lose more than that. And I will, too.”

“No. Nevil will come for us. He’s relentless. He’s probably already looking. He’ll find us, I know it.”

“There are miles and miles of tunnels down here. No one will ever find us.”

Day stared at the black inside of the hood and swallowed hard. He could feel icy panic in his chest. But panic didn’t help. He and March needed to stay alive long enough to find some means of escape. Otherwise, Claire would be left to raise their baby with no income, no prospects. He supposed she would go back to her family. They’d take her in. They’d be delighted to. And she was lovely. She would remarry, and some other man, somebody who wasn’t so afraid to be a father, would raise Walter Day’s child as his own. Day could see the future without him and he saw that he would be forgotten.

Unless he could escape.

He began again to grasp at his palm with his fingertips, twisting his elbow around, trying desperately to inch the cuff of his right sleeve up his arm. If he could just reach the cufflink, he might have a chance. All he had to do was find one tiny sliver of metal and slip it into a hole somewhere above him in the dark.