The Poisoned Island (12 page)

John Harriott heads for the West End in a rage which has been building since the previous day. The Shadwell magistrates are once again attempting to preserve their own dignity at the expense of discovering a murderer. Those who know him worry about these periodic rages and what they might one day do to him, as if he were an old steam engine pumping water from a tin mine, permanently suspended between functioning, exploding, and expiring. The rages always blow out, often quite suddenly. At least he has the carriage ride from Wapping to Portman Square in which to calm down.

His destination does nothing to improve his mood. He is an old soldier and sailor who has nearly died at the hands of rebellious Hindoos and tigers, and he would prefer to be left in a room with either than with one of the slippery and clever denizens of Mayfair. Politicians, bankers, and noblemen make him twitch and fret.

There is one notable exception to this prejudice. Despite
his anger with Shadwell, Harriott is able to feel comforted that today, of all days, he should be visiting his one true friend in the salons of the west: Aaron Graham, the resident magistrate at Bow Street, and a most comfortable schemer and player of West End parlor games. Graham is smooth where Harriott is rough, accommodating where Harriott is brutal, and calm where Harriott is passionate. Graham, for his part, admires Harriott more than any man he knows. He cherishes the older man’s spirit, his energy, his patriotism, and his muscular honesty. They have some shared history. Both are ex–Navy men, with attachments to Newfoundland in particular, where Harriott had sailed on his first voyage and where Graham had served with distinction as secretary to Admiral Edwards and even, for a few years, as a sort of Chief Justice.

Even so, the warmth between the two men has cooled of late. There has been a shadow in their relationship—a tiger in their room, always ready to pounce. Aaron Graham’s late entry into the Ratcliffe Highway investigations the previous December have permanently changed John Harriott’s view of his charming friend. Blackmail and violence and something worse, something old and unspeakable, had come between the two magistrates, and it was taking the Devil’s own time to lift. The resentment still festers and dances around every lunch, dinner, and conversation Harriott and Graham have shared since that terrible time.

But they have kept up at least the appearances of friendship, maintaining those regular luncheons and occasional dinners. Today’s luncheon is a long-standing fixture in both men’s diaries. As his carriage makes its way towards Portman Square, Harriott ponders this latest coincidental conjunction of worlds, the affair of the
Solander
. He has been desperate to
avoid such collisions since the Ratcliffe Highway affair. Now it must be faced. Aaron Graham is very close to Sir Joseph Banks. Indeed, the man was an investor in the voyage which the
Solander
has just undertaken. What is more, Banks has a strong hold on Graham. He is able to force the Bow Street magistrate into actions which Harriott strongly doubts can be seen as entirely ethical, at least in policing terms. Harriott has sometimes wondered if his friend is occasionally guilty of dishonesty, such is Graham’s readiness to preserve the good name of men like Banks. And as for whether he has always had Harriott’s interests as his prime priority—well, that is the essential matter of the cloud that has fallen between them.

Today’s luncheon venue is new and intriguing. The Hindostanee Coffee House is an establishment just off Portman Square advertising Indian cuisine, the
hookha
and the finest Chilm tobacco. Mrs. Harriott would disapprove, for this smacks strongly of nostalgia for Harriott’s distinguished service in India. She also knows something of the illicit intoxication by which even men old enough to know better are sometimes tempted.

Harriott’s carriage emerges onto Oxford Street and makes its way down its full length, turning right before reaching Tyburn and then, after a block or two more, entering Portman Square, one of London’s grander spaces. Large and refined houses enclose a fenced green space in the center, filled with pleasing trees and shrubs. A few gentlemen and ladies are wandering and taking in the summer air.

The Hindostanee Coffee House is a block further north on the corner of George Street and Charles Street. The smell from the place pours out into the street, and Harriott’s nostrils quiver in memory of elephants, tigers, and Mahometans. His carriage comes to a halt outside and, with no little trouble
from his lame leg, Harriott descends. As he does so, three gentlemen emerge from the coffeehouse, rather more rapidly than would be considered good manners. One of them is shouting. The other two appear to be chasing him.

“There is a crack in the sky!” shouts the first man as he races down the street, the other two following. Harriott watches them go, puzzled and a little amused. Intoxicated young men are hardly an uncommon sight in London or in Westminster, but there is something striking about this scene: the first man apparently terrified, the other two embarrassed and determined to catch him. He continues to shout as he runs. “That’s how the rain gets in! The sky is cracking!” They disappear around a corner.

Harriott looks back at the coffeehouse with renewed interest and goes inside. The interior is furnished with bamboo tables and chairs and vaguely Asian drawings on the walls. Some of these look Chinese, not Indian, and Harriott allows himself a moment’s irritation at the owner’s lack of precision. There is a separate drawing room in which Harriott can already see some well-appointed gentlemen puffing away on
hookhas
, surrounded by rich and various smoky odors: tobacco, certainly, but other things as well, including something very much like hemp, which Harriott had come across often in India. He wonders if this explains the erratic behavior of the young man outside.

A harried young Indian boy greets him, and hearing the name “Graham” rushes Harriott through to the main dining room. This is actually a smallish salon containing no more than a half-dozen tables and surrounded by pictures of tigers stalking through opulent jungles. Graham is already seated in front of a colorful variety of dishes, set off with several bowls of gleaming white rice. He looks, as ever, immaculate.

“I asked them to wait, my dear Harriott,” says Graham, rising majestically from his seat as if performing in one of his beloved Drury Lane productions. “But these fellows do seem to be in an awful rush.”

Graham’s attire is almost as spectacular as the food which surrounds him. He wears a purple cravat within a pink waistcoat and pink breeches, with yellow stockings and a pitch-black wig which startles and craves attention. He is holding an equally black walking stick, topped with an elaborate silver sculpture which, to Harriott’s untutored eye, seems to be some kind of plant. He smells of gardens and galleries, even within the powerful aromas coming up from the food.

The old friends greet each other, and sit down to the feast, which they eat carefully and assiduously, conversing throughout. Graham in particular is possessed of that unique skill of the English gentleman, to eat and talk at the same time without ever missing his conversational cue or speaking with food in his mouth.

“Enjoy the meal, my dear Harriott. It may be the last chance you get.”

“How so, Graham?”

“This splendid place has recently been declared bankrupt. It’s being kept going by the kindness of friends and clientele, but I understand it could disappear at any moment.”

“A great shame. It has a splendid originality. I saw a young gentleman running from here as I arrived, shrieking the most extraordinary things.”

“It’s the
hookhas
. They put all sorts of things in them here, some of which you no doubt tried yourself while in India.”

“I was careful what I put into my mouth, Graham.”

“Indeed. The owner of this place, a certain Dean Mahomet,
is an interesting fellow. Made his fortune shampooing the heads of the wealthy, I understand. But this”—he indicates the coffeehouse with a grand wave—“was somewhat beyond him, and has become a terrible financial burden, I hear.”

“It is a shame.”

“That it is, Harriott, that it is.”

“And Mrs. Graham does well?”

At the mention of his wife, Graham does something rather odd. He puts down his fork and looks at Harriott directly and, Harriott feels, somewhat coldly. He frowns, and looks down at his meal again. When he looks back up, his face has been partly smoothed back into a mask of bonhomie.

“Sarah is
perfectly
well,” he says. He smiles at some private joke which Harriott does not understand. There is a bitterness in the smile which Harriott can detect but not decode. “I see so little of her. I am always at the Bow Street office or at Drury Lane. And she has her own
interests
, as I’m sure you understand.”

He looks at Harriott directly again, his eyes slightly narrowed, that harsh smile still in place. For a moment, Harriott feels at a complete loss. The conversation’s anchor has come away and he is drifting dangerously. He feels as he often feels in a West End salon—lost in a maze of secretive double meanings, as if every word had been detached from the thing it described. He struggles to find a word, but then Graham seems to shake his head, like a fastidious but damp dog, and the bitterness leaves his face. “And Harriott, what do you think of this? My son has been made post captain!”

Harriott roars at this, with pleasure and some relief but also with a stab of envy that the other man’s son should be thriving so well. His own sons have made no such impact on the world. But this envy is beneath him, and is quashed,
and under it lies the memory of that odd little moment of tension which followed his mention of Sarah Graham. They toast Graham
fils
with a fine claret which neither feels goes particularly with the food, but no matter.

Graham begins enjoying himself again. His eyes sparkle and there is obviously hope that, now, all will be well between them. “So, what of Wapping? What news from the river?” he asks.

“The usual pilfering and thuggery, but I do have something interesting for you. An odd murder, of a man recently returned to London from a long voyage.”

“Ah! The details, then, if you please.”

Harriott provides the said details, including the apparent lack of motive for a murder (he uses the word
motive
as if trying out a new French word, so unfamiliar is he with it, despite Horton’s apparent obsession with it).

“The man was strangled?”

“It would appear so. There are the clear marks of a man’s fingers on his throat.”

“Or a woman’s.”

Harriott glares at Graham, as if he were about to lash out at the man’s flippancy. But there is nothing flippant about Graham’s expression. He is concentrating, fiercely.

“Or woman. In any case, we find the circumstances most odd, Graham.”

“
We
find? Ah, yes—I can sniff the detective processes of your remarkable Constable Horton.”

“Indeed you can. He has been investigating further. But now Shadwell gets in the way.”

“Shadwell?”

“They take the case as their own, and have forbidden Horton anywhere near it. I swear, it is like the Marr killings all over again.”

“Perhaps I can have a word with Sidmouth. Though I fear he is rather keen on Markland; admires the man’s polish, he says. But why such a fuss, Harriott? Why should a death in Shadwell’s jurisdiction exercise the hopelessly busy magistrate of the River Police?”

“There is a further complication. I have not told you of the man’s ship.”

Harriott rather relishes what comes next, which does him little credit, but it is not often he can outmaneuver his clever Covent Garden friend.

“It is the
Solander
.”

At the mention of the ship, Graham’s expression changes from one of cheerful bonhomie to one of sudden and complete engagement. Something like apprehension passes across his face like the trail of wind on a smooth ocean surface.

“Extraordinary! Sir Joseph Banks’s ship?”

“The very same. You know the captain, Hopkins?”

“Indeed. Splendid fellow. Reliable, imaginative, cultured. Somewhat unusual for a sea captain, I would say, but as you know I have little interest in salty matters these days.”

“I met the fellow when the vessel arrived. He visited me at the Police Office.”

“So, this dead fellow was one of the crew?”

“So it would appear.”

“And he died on the
day
of the vessel’s arrival in London?”

“Indeed.”

“Well, Shadwell must be dealt with, of course.” Harriott notes Graham’s sudden passion for dealing with Shadwell. The mention of Sir Joseph’s ship has changed the shape of the problem, that is clear.

“I believe Horton should investigate this matter,” says Harriott.

“Horton? Yes. Very good. Horton’s new ideas seem just the ticket for this . . . situation. So, how do you proceed?”

“Carefully. The coroner will report on Monday, but I expect little to come of it other than an open verdict. The doctor who examined the body confirmed what Horton first thought—the man was strangled.”