The Pierced Heart: A Novel (20 page)

The irony of that exhibit number doesn’t escape Charles—everything about this wretched case seems to be conspiring to conjure the uncanny. But to judge of appearances there could be nothing more relentlessly pragmatic than the instruments in this velvet-lined box. One is a glass syringe with a scale etched on the side and a key-shaped closure; the other a brass scarificator—a metal knife for opening the vein which will leave (as Charles sees at once) a circular hole of exactly the same dimensions
as those found on the bodies of the girls. He looks round for someone to speak to but the gallery is sparse of people, of both the spectating and the selling kind, and it takes a good while to track down a shiny-faced young man with spectacles and very damp palms. He is clearly so far down the chain of command that he’s been lumbered with the evening shift, and seems, in fact, to be deputising for at least a dozen different exhibitors. Charles’s heart sinks as he watches him plough through a pile of manufacturers’ catalogues and ledgers, with apparently very little idea of where to find what Charles needs.

“So you don’t actually work for A. Ross and Sons?”

“Er, no, not exactly,” says the young man, becoming more flustered by the moment. “Mr Ross asked me to stand in. He’s attending a dinner engagement this evening. At the Royal Society.”

His spectacles are misting now and he takes them off and rubs the lenses on his handkerchief before carefully putting them back on. There are two sore red patches either side of his nose. “What was it you were after again?”

“A list of people who have purchased the Heurteloup scarificator since the Exhibition opened. It really can’t be that difficult, surely.”

“More so than you might think, sir,” says the young man, pushing his spectacles onto his forehead now. A large drop of sweat falls onto the ledger open before him. “I think you will have to come back tomorrow. I can’t make head nor tail of Mr Ross’s handwriting.”

“How many more times—this is an urgent matter. A
police
matter.”

“I’m afraid I can’t help that, sir.” He closes the ledger, and then picks up a pile of loose papers.

“Ah,” he says, a moment later. “This might be more to the purpose.”

“What are they?”

“Delivery receipts. I’m afraid there aren’t any names on these, just addresses, but they may be of some—really, sir, there’s no need for that—”

Because Charles has already seized the papers from his hand and
is going through them. Fifteen minutes later he has his answer: one scarificator was sent to Guy’s Hospital, four to Harley Street, one to Albemarle Street, two to Jermyn Street, and one to the Albany. And three of those addresses are within half a mile of Piccadilly.

Piccadilly is a glow of beautiful brick and stone frontages in the June-evening light, and none more so than the gloriously proportioned façade of the Albany. Then—as now—this beautiful Georgian building, with its symmetrical wings east and west, offers some of the most exclusive and envied apartments London can afford (though those wishing to appear well informed should be aware that it is fashionable these days to refer to it without the definite article). By 1851 its bachelor lodgings had already housed both the famed and the infamous—Byron and Gladstone both had rooms here, and on this particular summer afternoon those in residence include an eminent historian, several Lords, a clutch of MPs, and a notorious Irish swindler who will in due course give Dickens meat for the character of Merdle. At the Doric-columned porch of the main house a suitably obsequious porter in perfect white cotton gloves conducts him up to the first floor, then knocks on his behalf before bowing and discreetly retiring. He fully expects a similarly deferential manservant to open the door, so he is somewhat taken aback when the door opens. Because this man is clearly nothing of the kind.

“Baron Von Reisenberg?”

“Yes? Who are you?”

“Sergeant Samuel Wheeler of the Metropolitan Police, sir. Detective Branch. Can I come in?”

The nobleman frowns. “What is it you want?”

Sam looks back down the stairs, where two elegantly dressed and coiffed young men are slowly ascending the steps towards them, chatting in a modishly desultory manner. One of them looks up and gives Wheeler a frankly inquisitive stare.

“It’s a routine matter, sir,” Sam continues, turning back again. “But all the same I ’spect you’d prefer to discuss it in private.”

The Baron stares at him with undisguised antagonism. “Very well. But I can spare you only five minutes. I have an appointment that cannot wait.”

Sam bows and follows him through the dim vestibule into the sitting-room beyond. The walls are upholstered in red damask and hung with ornate frames, and there are so many pieces of furniture—sophas, Pembrokes, chests of drawers, even a piano—that the thick turkey carpet is barely visible beneath them. The blinds are drawn, and the room almost completely airless.

“Very nice,” says Sam, as he begins to wander about. There is a door to what is clearly a bedroom, but that is ajar. “You’re ’ere on yer own, are you, sir?”

“Of course I am alone. These apartments are designed only for one.”

“You didn’t bring yer own servants?”

“I find such attendance … irksome. My intention in hiring these rooms was to avoid such inconvenience by availing myself of the services of the establishment’s own domestics. Not that I consider my household arrangements to be any of
your
business.”

There is a pause.

“I repeat,” says the Baron heavily, watching Sam glancing at the papers on the tables, and the letters on a small silver tray, “I have only five minutes.”

Sam turns to face him. “Are you aware, sir, that four young women ’ave been murdered in London in the last few weeks?”

“I cannot believe that is so uncommon, not in a city of this size, with such a large population of cut-throats and whores.”

“Per’aps not, sir. But these killin’s are the most brutal I’ve ever seen. In fact none of us’s ever seen the like of ’em, and that’s a fact.”

The Baron eyes him calmly. “I have seen nothing of the kind reported in the press.”

“You ain’t likely to. If people knew, we’d ’ave a panic on our ’ands.”

“And you come here to tell me this? I assure you, Mr—er—Weller—?”

“Wheeler, sir.”

“—Wheeler. I, for one, am not so easily unnerved—”

Sam nods slowly. “I’m glad to ’ear it, sir. But that’s not why I’m ’ere. The bodies of these young women were found only a few yards from ’ere.”

“I still do not see how this should concern me, any more than any other resident at this address. For you have not called elsewhere in the Albany, I note.”

“And ’ow do you know that, sir?”

“I observed your arrival. I happened to be looking out of the window at the time.”

“I see.”

“And I repeat, why should you call on me, and not on any of the other tenants, some of whom, I am reliably informed, have led less-than-law-abiding lives?”

“That’s as may be, sir. The fact is we now ’ave evidence that the man we’re lookin’ for is a foreigner. Which rather narrows it down. As I’m sure you can appreciate.”

There is another pause, a blackly hostile pause.

“Are you accusing me of some involvement in these crimes, Mr Wheeler?”

“Just routine enquiries, sir,” says Sam brightly. “Like I said.”

But the Baron is no longer deceived by his superficial Cockney chirpiness. If he ever was. He laughs grimly. “London is full of foreigners at present. The police might take their pick of likely suspects.”

Sam smiles. “Ah, but there are rarver fewer, sir, as arrived just before these killin’s started, and lodge no more’n a mile away. Fifteen of you, to be precise. Accordin’ to the ’Ome Office. I’ve got a list of ’em ’ere.”

He takes it from his pocket and holds it out. The Baron pointedly does not touch it.

“There is no reason why anyone should connect
me
with these crimes,” he says eventually. “The very idea is ridiculous. I am a member of the Austrian nobility—a scientist, an industrialist—”

“Indeed, sir?” says Sam lightly, folding up the paper again and tucking it in his coat. “All the same, I’m sure you can understand that we ’ave a duty to ascertain whevver any of the persons on this list matches the description we ’ave lately received of the man as might be responsible for these ’einous crimes.”

The Baron’s eyelids flicker, and he turns away.

“The man in question was tall an’ wore a top ’at an’ a long dark coat.”

The Baron swings round. The policeman—this insolent little runt of a policeman—is staring at his clothes.

“I defy you,
Mr
Wheeler,” he says, moving slowly towards him, “not to go out onto Piccadilly and find a dozen men dressed in exactly that manner.”

“Funny you should mention that, sir, because that’s precisely where he were seen. On Piccadilly. Not four an’ twenty hours gone.”

He smiles again. “Where were you last night, sir? Between the hours of ten and eleven?”

The challenge is unmistakable now. Sam can hear his own heart—two beats, three, four—

“At dinner, here in my rooms,” says the Baron eventually. “As the steward downstairs will no doubt be able to confirm. But frankly, I see no reason why my whereabouts, whether last night or at any other time, should be any concern of yours. And now, as I said, I must ask you to leave.”

It’s gone five in the morning when Charles wakes from a sleep peopled by monsters to the sound of pounding on the street door. It’s one of Sam’s constables. A young man white-faced and terror-eyed.

“Sergeant Wheeler sent me,” he gasps, leaning against the door-post. “He says will you come.”

Charles starts to shake his head. “Please don’t tell me—”

“There’s been a break-in. At the morgue. That girl they found in Shepherd’s Market. Someone’s broken in and hacked her bloody head off.”

CHAPTER EIGHT
 

26 A
PRIL

We have been here now two days. Though where
here
may be I do not know. We came by night, with the blinds pulled down, and I saw only a courtyard and the man who came forward to take down the luggage, though by the noise nearby of people and carriages I guessed we were not far from some much larger street. We were brought up here, to this door, and this set of rooms that I could see at once have not been lived in for many months, so filthy they are with dust and so empty of any sign of inhabitance.
He
stood there, watching, as my little trunk was brought to me, then nodded without speaking and locked the door behind him. Where he lodges, I do not know, but it cannot be far, for he brings me my meals, but stays only to hand me the tray, and otherwise I am absolutely solitary, kept like a prisoner, in the dark. For he has bolted all the shutters and told me they will remain so. It is for my own good, he says, and the success of my treatment depends upon it, though why the darkness is so necessary, or in what my treatment will consist, he does not say. He allows me a lamp
turned low, while I eat, but returns within the hour to remove it, and I must write these pages quickly and then conceal them in my clothes, for I am sure he would take this journal from me if he knew I still possess it. For I no longer trust him, and he has seen in my eyes that it is so. That first night we came, I asked about the housekeeper he said would be here, and he looked me full in the face and said he had made no such promise, and I knew then that he had lied. And sitting here, on this narrow bed, hour after hour, the fear that has been growing upon me all those long silent miles since we departed all but overwhelms me, and I wonder in what else I have been deceived. Did he truly talk to my father, that last day, as he claimed? And if he did not, does my father even know where I have gone? My heart aches when I think of it—it is unbearable to imagine him returning to the house to find that I had vanished, leaving no message, and I curse myself for my own stupidity—for allowing myself to become so bewitched by this man that I sought—no, I
yearned
to have him to myself alone. For I have my wish now, in all its terror. I am truly alone, and utterly in his power. For the door to my bedroom cannot be bolted, and I lie awake at night, listening for his step.