The Devil's Workshop (5 page)

“Don’t you? If it was an accident, why is there no record of that train being sent out? Why was the train empty? Why has no driver come forward?”

“Perhaps he was thrown clear,” March said. “Or he might have walked back through the carriages and been in the end of it when it derailed. He could be lying under the rubble at the prison even now. In fact, that may account for the confusion there. The extra body of the train’s driver.”

Sir Edward stared at Adrian March for a long moment. Then he straightened his back and shook his head. “No,” he said. “No, that train was deliberately tampered with. And I think someone at Bridewell knows about it, was a part of the scheme.”

“Scheme?”

“Yes, scheme. Someone broke those prisoners out. Why?”

“Did he . . .” Day said. “Whoever did this, did he intend to free a specific individual? Or is it possible the train was the real target, do you think?”

“A very good question, Mr Day,” Sir Edward said. “This had to have been very carefully planned, in my opinion, and it took a great deal of courage, a great deal of intelligence. I do not think wrecking an empty train was the goal.”

“If we determine who has escaped, we may be able to lay our hands on the person who masterminded the thing.”

“That is my thinking.”

“Jimmy might be the better man for this,” Day said. “He is more methodical than I tend to be.”

Sir Edward smiled at him. Day was sticking up for his
sergeant, trying to get them assigned to the manhunt in order to make Hammersmith happy. He admired the attempt almost as much as he was annoyed by it.

“Inspector Tiffany does not have the same knack for talking to people that you do, Mr Day. Nor does he leap to interesting conclusions the way that you do. Jimmy Tiffany’s methodical practices are more useful to me in the pursuit of escaped prisoners.”

Day tried one more tack. “This doesn’t seem like it’s a Murder Squad assignment, sir. Nobody’s been murdered.”

“Every convict currently outside those walls is a murderer. Murder has most certainly been committed. I just hope no fresh murders are being totted up by that lot while we sit here worrying about who ought to be catching them.”

“My apologies, sir.”

“Of course. Mr Day, there’s one more thing you should know. One of the escaped men, one that has been confirmed for us, is named Cinderhouse.”

Day’s eyes went wide and he leaned forward in his chair. “The same?”

“Yes, the same man you and Sergeant Hammersmith apprehended last year.”

It had only been a few months since the Yard’s official tailor, the man who had fitted every policeman for his uniform, had revealed a secret taste for small children. Cinderhouse had murdered an inspector and, later, a constable in his efforts to evade capture. It had been Day’s first case, the first case of the newly formed Murder Squad. Cinderhouse had killed Sergeant
Hammersmith’s closest friend and paid a threatening visit to Claire Day before finally being caught and brought to justice.

“He knows where I live.” Day stood suddenly, almost knocking his chair over backward.

“Sit.”

Day hesitated, and Hammersmith pushed himself back from the desk to stand beside him.

“We should check on Mrs Day,” Hammersmith said. “She’s pregnant and alone.”

“Please,” Sir Edward said. “Mr Hammersmith, would you sit back down, too?”

Both men reluctantly pushed their chairs back to their former positions and sat down.

“I share your concern,” Sir Edward said. “You must trust me. I have given the situation some thought. There is no reason to think this man Cinderhouse will go to your home or try in any way to strike back at you or your family. He’s no doubt trying to get as far away from London as he can right now.”

“But sir—”

Sir Edward held up his finger to cut Hammersmith off. “But just in case,” he said, “I have sent a constable to guard your home.”

“Only one man?”

“He is all I can spare. But Constable Winthrop is a good lad. I chose him personally. A very large fellow, and very bright. Claire will be safe, I promise.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now, you three get to the prison and find some answers for me. I’m certain we’re being manipulated and I don’t like it.”

Day rose without a word and went to the door. He held it open for Hammersmith and nodded to Sir Edward before leaving. Adrian March lingered a moment, as if he wanted to say something privately to the commissioner, then he, too, rose and left the office. Day closed the door after them. The sudden silence was almost startling.

It was going to be a long day. Sir Edward hoped that every escaped prisoner would be back in a cell by nightfall. He only wished he knew how many they were supposed to be looking for. And why they had been set free in the first place.

G
riffin had carried his keys right past the guards without being searched. A simple matter of money exchanging hands. One of the keys, a master for every cell in Bridewell, had been put to use in the escape. Another skeleton key had been used to open the cabby stand. Now he used the third key to unlock the back door of St John of God Church. He stopped inside the doorway and listened. All was quiet. He crept forward through what seemed to be a storage room full of shadows. Shapes that might have been piles of old curtains, extra pews, spools of braided cord, crates of books. Remembering his instructions, he stopped in the center of the room and knelt beside a threadbare rug. He pulled it aside and ran his fingertips over the floor. A seam ran perpendicular to the grooves in the smooth
wood. He got his fingernails into the seam and pulled until one of his nails bent back. There was a flash of pain and he felt sudden moisture. He was bleeding. He wiped his fingers on the leg of his trousers and felt around his neck for the chain, raised it over his head and felt for the flat teeth of the largest key. He jammed them sideways into the seam and pried at the floor until he heard a soft pop and a square chunk of wood, roughly two by two feet, came loose. He smiled and lifted the wood up and out, set it next to him.

There were other ways to access the tunnels beneath the prison, but this was the fastest.

He put the chain, with its keys, back around his neck, tucked it under the front of the stolen warder’s jacket, and sat on the edge of the opening in the floor. He could feel cold air wafting up at him, curling around his ankles and up under his trousers. He kicked his feet out and found a ledge three feet down in the dark. He tested it, then put his weight on the ledge and scooted forward. Held on to the lip of the opening and felt forward with one foot until he found another narrow ledge farther down. A staircase. He kept one hand on the cold wall and the other gripping the edge of the hole in the floor above him and moved cautiously down. The air grew colder and then warmer; the square of slightly brighter darkness above him shrank, then disappeared as he went around a shallow curve in the tunnel wall. He stumbled and nearly fell when he reached the bottom, expecting another stair and stepping down too hard on a stone floor.

He took a moment to catch his breath and remember the instructions he’d been given. There was, he’d been told, a lantern hanging from a hook on the right-hand side of the wall three or four feet from the bottom of the stairs. He ran his hand along the stones until his fingers encountered a hook, but there was nothing hanging from it. They had forgotten. Or they had left the lantern in the wrong place.

There had been far too many mistakes made tonight.

But of course, that was why there was a backup plan. That was why they needed Griffin.

There was no time to waste. He oriented himself and began walking, slowly, shuffling along so as not to trip over anything in his path, one hand always on the gritty wall beside him, until he saw a light far ahead.

Griffin slowed down and edged sideways along the tunnel, trying to be invisible. The silhouette of a man cast a blunt-edged shadow up and along the curved wall. Griffin’s foot scuffed up against an old timber, and a pile of bricks tumbled down from the other end of it, scattering in the dirt. The man turned and held the lantern high. He was bald, and the harsh paraffin light made his skin look yellow. Cinderhouse. The escapee swung his head back and forth like a snake and squinted at Griffin.

“Your name is Griffin,” he said.

Griffin sniffed and stepped out into the fuzzy pool of light. “It is,” he said.

“You’re following me?”

“No.”

“Then you got the message, too,” the bald man said. “Just like me. Telling us to hide down here.”

“Yes.” It wasn’t entirely a lie. He had sent the message to the other prisoners, but had included himself.

The bald man nodded. “You came by the well?”

“The well?”

“You came down here through the old well?”

“I came down a staircase.”

“A staircase?”

“Hidden beneath a church.”

“Look!” The bald man held out his free hand. It was bleeding and covered with fresh blisters. “I hurt myself climbing down that well.”

“There must be more than one way to get down here,” Griffin said.

“Where are we?”

“I was going to ask you that.”

“There are buildings down here. Have you seen?”

“No. It’s dark.”

The bald man nodded again. “This was hanging from a post.” He held up the lantern so that its light spread out across the wall beside him. “I think we’re in the old city.”

Griffin looked up at the high-timbered ceiling, arched and weathered by long-ago rain. They were in a courtyard that had once been aboveground. Tunnels branched away from them in several directions, and Griffin almost smiled to think that those dark ominous mouths had once been sunny footpaths. London had sunk into the mud and had been rebuilt on top of itself.
Thousands of people had once walked down the road they now stood on, but it had been covered over and forgotten. The yellow lantern light revealed blank brick walls, yawning glassless windows, doors sagging on ancient wooden hinges.

“Yes,” Griffin said, “I think we are.”

They both jumped as a fox ran across the courtyard and disappeared down a dark tunnel, its orange tail a blur.

“Do you think people live down here?”

“I suppose it’s possible.”

“Listen,” the bald man said. “Listen, we could stay down here. They’d never catch us.”

“We?” Even in the dim glow of the lantern’s light, Griffin could see the need in the bald man’s eyes. This was not a person who did well on his own.

“Well, yes. We’re right under their feet.” The bald man chuckled, a rasping, uncertain sound. “They’re right up there, looking for us. And they’ll never find us. Not in a lifetime of searching.”

“You think not?”

“No. I mean, what if they came down here? What then? Why, we’d simply move to a different spot and they’d pass right by us because we’d know the area down here and they wouldn’t. It’s a perfect maze. We’d be safe forever.”

“I see,” Griffin said. “And we could simply fetch ourselves down to the market on the corner for a loaf of bread and a fish pie, could we?”

“Well . . .” The bald man shook his head. “I didn’t say it would be easy, did I?” He pouted. “We’d have to go above
sometimes. Of course we would. Only once in a while, and only to get food and other necessities.” He sniffed and looked around at the abandoned façades. “I’ll bet if we were to clean one of those storefronts out, we’d find it a perfectly suitable place to live. After a time, we could even bring others. Have a little community of our own. Even a child or two running about in this courtyard. There’s all the room in the world down here. And wouldn’t a child just brighten the place right up?”

D
etective Inspector Adrian March, late of Scotland Yard, stopped Day at the edge of the murder room, where the railing gave way to the entrance hall.

“Walter, my boy,” he said, “so good to see you again. How is my favorite pupil?”

“I wish the circumstances were better,” Day said. “Were you introduced to Sergeant Hammersmith?”

“I only just met him in Sir Edward’s office.”

Hammersmith smiled at March, but the retired inspector didn’t smile back at him. His eyes traveled up and down Hammersmith’s misbuttoned jacket and settled on a bloodstain halfway down his left sleeve.

“I’m frankly surprised the commissioner had nothing to say about your attire, Sergeant,” March said.

As if on cue, Sir Edward’s office door opened and he called out, “Hammersmith? Is Hammersmith gone yet?”

“I’m here.”

“I’d like to see you.”

“Yes, sir.”

The sergeant turned to Day and grimaced. “Well, I suppose I know what that’s about.”

“Did you have no clean shirts today, Nevil?” Day said.

“I had one. I really did. Hanging up neat as you please in the closet, ready to put on in the morning.”

“What happened to it?”

“It’s still there, I imagine. It was hanging next to this one, and in the dark . . .”

“Nevil, you ought to have all your shirts washed at once. Then you won’t have this sort of problem.”

“But I can’t wash the shirt I’m wearing on wash day.”

“Don’t hang that shirt back up,” Day said.

“I might need it again.”

“Then don’t eat soup on wash day.”

“Never again.”

Hammersmith trudged back across the room and the office door closed behind him.

“Is he any good as a policeman?” March said.

“Nevil?” Day said. “He’s better than I am, I fear. Absolutely relentless once he’s on the scent.”

“You’re describing a dog,” March said. “And I’ve seen many dogs that were better groomed.”

“He’s a good man.”

“If you say he is, then he must be.”

“He is.”

“I see you’re wearing the cufflinks I gave you. Tell me, have you kept up with your lock skills?”

“I’ve still got your old set of keys,” Day said. He reached for the breast pocket of his jacket and came away empty-handed, a puzzled look on his face.

“Were you looking for this?” March held out a well-worn leather case.

“How did you . . . ?”

“You must be more aware of the people around you. I was easily able to lift this from your pocket.”

“That’s very good.”

“I’ll teach you how to do it.”

“Did you look inside the case? I’ve added to it a bit. Two new picks and a handful of keys to fit some more recent locks.”

“Really? You know there are ways to reduce the number of tools you’ve got to carry around. You could get by with just three keys and a pick or two,” March said.

“You haven’t lost your interest, then? Since leaving the Yard?”

“On the contrary, I’ve become even more keen. Do you know there’s a gun I’ve found that looks exactly like a key?”

“Like a key? But it holds bullets? How big is it?”

“Oh, very small. It only fires one bullet, and the aim is dreadful, but it’s quite cunning, really.”

“I’d like to see it,” Day said.

“I’m glad to hear you say so, because I’ve sent you one.”

“You haven’t.”

“I found two of them and I thought to myself, ‘Who would appreciate a thing like this more than my dear friend Walter Day?’
”

“You shouldn’t have. When did you send it? I haven’t seen it arrive.”

“I should think it would have got there yesterday. But really, watch for it any old day now.”

“I shall. Thank you so much.”

“When this is over, you must stop by the house. You’d be astonished by some of my recent finds. In fact, I have something I very much want to talk to you about. A proposition, you might say.”

“I’m intrigued.”

“By God, how I’ve missed your company. You have a knack for making a person feel like he’s the most interesting fellow you’ve met. Do come for dinner. I’ll have Jane make something special. And bring your lovely wife. How is Claire?”

“Oh, she’s huge. The baby can’t come fast enough for her at this point.”

March laughed. “Don’t worry. It’ll come all
too
fast, and it will grow even faster. You’ll wonder where the time went.”

“I already do.” Day glanced at the clock and grimaced. “Mr Hammersmith isn’t coming back out of the office, is he?”

“You’re anxious to get to the prison?”

“Of course. It’ll be daylight soon, and we’ve got to get on the trail of those men before they hurt anyone.”

“I’m not sure about all this. What will we possibly be able to accomplish at the prison itself? The escapees are long gone
already, and I don’t think it matters all that much how many men we’re after, just so long as we catch them all.”

“You may be right,” Day said. “Ours is but to do and die, as the poet says.”

“Yes, of course. Orders are orders. I tell you what, though: If I see one of those prisoners outside the walls, I’ll shoot first and worry about capturing him later.”

“You’ve got your weapon?”

“I’m always armed, my dear boy. And not only with single-shot jailer’s guns. Made an enemy or two in my day, and it never hurts to be cautious. But I tell you what: You go ahead to the prison and I’ll wait for your sergeant here.”

“You’re sure?”

“Absolutely. It’ll give me a chance to get to know the lad. And you can get started unknotting Sir Edward’s little mystery.”

“Right, then. Good of you. I’m off. See you in a bit.”

Day closed the railing behind him and hurried away down the hall. Adrian March paused to glance at the closed door of Sir Edward’s office and clucked his tongue. “Bloody disgrace,” he said.