The List Of Seven (27 page)

"It'll go better for us if we don't run, gov," he shouted over the din.

"'But Bodger was just about to tell us—"

"No worries; chances are ripe we'll be sharing a cell soon enough."

"But we're not here to play dice."

"Try telling the grasshoppers that. Rum go, but there it is."

Two policemen were moving toward them. Barry put his hands on top of his cap and advised Doyle to do the same. Doyle instead began walking lively toward the officers.

"Now see here," asserted Doyle, "I'm a doctor!"

"And I'm queen of the May," said the bobby.

The first blow caught Doyle along the side of the head.

Barry's concerned face was the first sight that greeted Doyle when he opened his eyes.

"Feelin' a bit wonky, guv?" asked Barry.

"Where are we?"

"The clink. Gaol. Pentonville, I fink." Doyle tried to sit up, and his head spun like a multicolored pinwheel.

"Easy on, guv," said Barry. "Quite the cue ball you're cultivatin' there."

Doyle raised a hand to the blood-pounding site on his forehead and found a swollen goose egg residing there. "What happened?"

"You missed the ride in the Black Maria. Bein' hauled into lockup was nuffink special. Been ten minutes additional since I set you on this bench."

As his vision stabilized, Doyle perceived they were in a large common holding cell, shared by a milling mix of roughnecks and reprobates, many of whom he recognized from the gymnasium dice game. The room was filthy and reeked to high heaven, a quality, traceable to the common latrine adorning one wall. Roaches the size of thumbs scuttled fearlessly around the margins and over the boots of men who seemed all too accustomed to their company.

"Ever been between the bars before, guv?"

"Never."

Barry regarded him sympathetically. "Not much to recommend it."

Doyle searched the faces roaming the cell. "Where's Bodger?"

"Bodger Nuggins is not among our numbers," said Barry.

"Was he in the Black Maria?"

"I would have to answer in the negative."

"Did you see him escape the gym?"

"No."

Doyle gingerly probed his throbbing head. "What have they charged us with?"

"Charged us? Nuffink'."

"They can't very well hold us here if they don't charge us with a crime."

"This is your first time, idn't it?" asked Barry with a subtle

smile.

"But this is all a dreadful mistake. Tell them we demand to see a barrister," said Doyle, with somewhat hollow conviction. "We have our rights, after all."

"Well . . . suppose there's a first time for everything," Barry replied, trying to make a good show of mulling it over.

Doyle studied him: The irony in Barry's musing quickly communicated the utter futility of pursuing what Doyle had assumed to be the ordinary channels. Instead, Doyle searched his pockets and fished out his physician's prescription notepad; the sight of the Rx gave him a jolt, as if he'd uncovered a relic of some long-forgotten civilization.

"Barry, can you secure me something to write with?"

Barry nodded and sidled over into the flow of convicts. He returned minutes later with a scrounged nub of a pencil. Doyle took it and scrawled out a hasty message.

"Now we're going to need some money," said Doyle.

"How much?"

"How much can you manage?"

Barry sighed heavily. "Stand over here, please, guv."

Doyle stood and shielded Barry from the rest of the room as he turned to the wall, unbuttoned a hidden flap on the in-side of his waistcoat, and pulled out a bulging roll of five-pound notes. "Will this do?"

"Just one, I think, will be more than sufficient," said Doyle, trying to conceal his amazement.

Barry peeled one note off and replaced the rest. Doyle took the note from him and tore it neatly in half.

"Cor ... wot'zat then?" gasped Barry.

"Do you know an officer here you can trust?"

"There's a contradiction in terms—" Let me rephrase that: Do you know one who can be relied upon to do a job for money?"

Barry looked out at the guards patrolling the corridor. "Could do."

Doyle folded the written note around half the bill and handed it to him. "Half now, the rest when we get word the message's been received."

Give it a go," said Barry, sneaking a look at the note as he moved toward the bars. He couldn't help but notice the note was addressed to Inspector Claude Leboux.

Two hours later, Doyle was summarily escorted without

explanation to a small room at Pentonville set aside for ques-

tioning of suspects. Minutes afterward, Leboux appeared alone, his mustache fairly bristling with anger. He closed the door and stared at Doyle.

"Hello, Claude."

"Corralled at a dice game, Arthur? I don't recall gambling as a vice you were given to indulge."

"I wasn't there to gamble, Claude, This is a clear case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Leboux sat opposite to Doyle, folded his arms, splayed out his feet, and toyed with one waxed end of his mustache while he waited for the next line of questions to coalesce in his mind. Trying to heed Sparks's repeated advice about mistrusting the police, Doyle weighed how much he needed to divulge in order to secure his release, without drawing down the unwelcome attention of Leboux's superiors.

"You look like a valet," Leboux finally said.

"There have been repeated attempts on my life by the identical parties who tried the other day. This is by way of avoiding detection."

"Why haven't you come to me?"

"I've been out of the city since you last saw me," said Doyle, thankful to employ some small grain of truth. "Leaving London seemed the safest course."

"Was it?"

"No, as it happens. These assailants have pursued me relentlessly."

"When did you return, Arthur?"

"Last night."

"Have you been to your flat?"

Petrovitch, thought Doyle; he knows about Petrovitch. "I haven't, Claude. I wasn't at all sure it would be safe." Doyle waited, summoning the bland countenance he employed in the presence of patients who had ventured beyond hope of recovery but weren't up to receiving the news.

"Your building was burned down," Leboux finally said.

"My flat?"

"A total loss, I'm afraid."

Doyle shook his head. Fire again. Not hard to reason who's responsible for that, thought Doyle. My flat gone. It wasn't the thought of losing his possessions that troubled him so— he'd considered those lost already. Now not only all evidence of Petrovitch's murder but the outrage they had visited to his

rooms as well was gone forever. A hot coil of anger went red inside him.

"Claude, I want to ask you something," said Doyle. "In your capacity as inspector."

"All right""

"Are you at all familiar with the name . . . Alexander Sparks?"'

Leboux looked up at the ceiling and squinted. After a moment, he shook his head slightly and took out a notepad and pencil. "Let's have it again." Doyle spelled it for him.

"That's the man who's after me. The one you're looking for. The man responsible for these crimes and perhaps a great many others as well."

"And what leads you to believe this is the man?"

"I've spied him pursuing me now on three different occasions."

"What's his appearance?"

"I've never seen his face. He's given to wearing black. And a cape, a black cape."

"Black cape ... what places is he known to frequent?"

"No one seems to know."

"Acquaintances?"

Doyle shrugged.

"Other recent offenses?"

"Sorry."

Leboux's cheeks filled with color. "Do you happen to know his hat size?"

Doyle leaned forward and lowered his voice. "You'll have to forgive my vagueness, Claude. He's an elusive figure, but there's a better than even chance this man is nothing less than criminal mastermind of the entire London underworld."

Leboux shut his notebook and shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Arthur," Leboux said, measuring his words like a printer. "You're a doctor. Well on your way to becoming a pillar of our community. I say this to you as a friend: You are not on the straight and narrow to reaching that post by running, around England dressed like a butler going on about plots to murder you in the night by mysterious kingpins of crime."

"You don't believe me. You don't believe I've been under attack at all."

"I believe that you believe that you have been—"

"What about what I found on the floorboards at Thirteen Cheshire Street?"

"Yes. I had that substance analyzed by our chemist—"

"You can't tell me that wasn't blood, Claude."

"That it is. It does appear that you did in fact witness a murder."

"Just as I told you—"

"The murder of a large hog."

There was silence. Leboux leaned forward. "It was pig's blood, Arthur."

"Pig's blood? That's not possible."

"Perhaps someone got carried away caning the Sunday roast," said Leboux. "A bit on the rare side for pork, if you ask me."

What did this mean? Doyle raised a hand to his throbbing head.

"You could do with a nice slab of rare meat about now for that knot on your bean," said Leboux.

"Forgive me, Claude, I'm a trifle confused. It's been a very trying few days."

"I don't doubt that."

Leboux folded his arms and gave him a look that was more parts police inspector than trusted friend. Feeling the leverage of Leboux's scrutiny, Doyle was prompted out onto an even less sturdy part of the limb to which he was so precariously clinging.

"John Sparks," he said, almost a whisper.

"Excuse me?"

"John Sparks."

"Any relation to the other gentleman?"

"Brother."

"What about John Sparks, Arthur?"

"Does the name ring a bell?"

Leboux paused. "Perhaps."

"He tells me he's in the service of the Queen," whispered Doyle.

That brought Leboux to a momentary halt. "What am I to do with this piece of information?"

"Perhaps you could verify it."

"What else can you tell me about John Sparks, Arthur?"

Leboux asked quietly, as close as he had come to an open appeal for Doyle's cooperation.

Doyle hesitated. "That's all I know."

They looked at each other. Doyle could feel bis bond with Leboux stretch to its breaking point; for a long moment there was no telling whether it would hold. Finally, Leboux flipped open his notebook, wrote down Sparks's name, closed the book, and rose.

"My strong advice to you is stay in London," said Leboux.

"Am I free to go then?"

"Yes. I need to know how to reach you."

"Leave word at St. Bartholomew's Hospital. I'll make a point of checking there on a daily basis."

"See that you do." Leboux stopped to offer a more considered opinion. "I don't think gambling is at the heart of your difficulty, Arthur; I don't think you're particularly well. If I were you, I would seek out the opinion of a doctor. Perhaps even the services of an alienist."

Fine, thought Doyle, he doesn't think I'm a criminal, he just thinks I'm mad.

"Your concern is not unappreciated," said Doyle humbly, trying not to offend.

Leboux opened the door and hesitated, without looking back. "Do you need a place to stay?"

"I'll manage. Thank you for asking."

Leboux nodded and started out.

"One more name, Claude," said Doyle. "A Mr. Bodger Nuggins."

"Bodger Nuggins?"

"He's a prizefighter. He was at the dice game but apparently wasn't apprehended along with—"

"What about Bodger Nuggins?"

"I have it on good authority the man's an escaped convict from Newgate."

"Not anymore he isn't," said Leboux.

"Sorry? I don't follow."

"We pulled Mr. Bodger Nuggins from the Thames about an hour ago."

"Drowned?"

"His throat was slashed. Like he'd been attacked by an animal."

chapter thirteen ANCIENT ARTIFACTS

IT WAS A LONG WALK FROM PeNTOiNVILLE PRISON TO THE CEN-

ter of London for a man with no coins in his pocket or food in his belly. He hadn't judged it prudent to press Leboux for Barry's release; he was still inside Pentonville and might be for some time. Prison held no surprises for Barry, and fewer now for Doyle. He had already missed his noon rendezvous with Sparks at Hatchard's Bookshop, and he dared not hire a hansom without the surety he could pay for its services at journey's end. Now that hope was gone. The road was muddy and slow going, passing wheels routinely baptizing him with spume. From their sheltered perches, the carriage trade stared down at him with suspicion, disdain, or, worse yet, looked through him as if he were a pane of glass. Doyle experienced a surge of kinship for the tramp's disenfranchisement from the propriety and narrow-mindedness of genteel city life. Riding high in their private coaches from one privileged location to the next, an endless roundelay of social engagements and leisurely luncheons and shopping and smug preoccupation with their beastly children, these upright citizens seemed a species of life as foreign to him as the electric eel. Doyle was stunned to discover he had more innate sympathy for Barry the East End burglar than for these bourgeoisie parading past him on the street. But weren't these prosperous gentlefolk the highest purpose of a civilized society, a permanent, expanding middle class able to enjoy the products of society's labors in safety and freedom? Weren't they the audience he himself aspired so strenuously to entertain, deepening their appreciation of the human condition by exposure to his craft? How close-minded they were! How effortlessly led to accept the values of school, church, or institution. The thought of exerting himself to touch the hearts of these unfeeling brutes in their hermetic carriages suddenly felt empty and profitless as their supercilious pursuit of a happy, carefree life.

Industrialized society demands a terrible tribute from its parishioners, thought Doyle. Did any of us realize how few of our ideas or feelings were truly, originally, our own? No, or how could we go on day after day, enacting the same lifeless rituals, repeating the same deadening actions, if we acknowledged their lack of meaning? So much of our ability to survive is predicated on the conscious limiting of our mind and senses. We're wearing blinders like the swaybacked dray pulling the beer wagon, peering out at the world through a spyglass, peripheral vision denied, excluded, and our choice in the matter removed because we've been taught from birth that such narrowing is compulsory. Because to remove the lens from our eye is to be confronted with the pain and anguish and sorrow we've shunted so diligently away from view. But the misery around us remains regardless, constant, immutable, a legless beggar by the side of the road. Suffering must be the inevitable tariff exacted from spirit for residing in human form. No wonder tragedy wields the only hammer stout enough to crack the resilient bubble of complacency we construct around our petty lives, shrouding our gaze from the furies that patrol the darker corridors of the night. War, famine, mass disaster. That's what it takes to wake us from this sleep. Terror and the sudden severing from everything familiar turns the trick quite neatly, too, I can attest to that, thought Doyle. The scales have surely been ripped from my eyes.