The Vice Society (19 page)

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And I do not want to hear from the Vice Society that you have left him in St Giles’s some evening at the mercy of the Irish.’

‘As you wish. May I ask if any progress has been made on my access to the Continental Club?’

‘I will meet somebody this very day, though it seems they are loath to admit even an investigating detective. Naturally, we could insist, but that is not the prudent way. Now – let us start afresh with Eusebius Bean.’

Sir Richard rang the bell once more and Eusebius appeared at the connecting door with a glass of milk in his hand. Inspector Newsome wondered whether there was a slight smirk to the man’s features, as if he had heard everything discussed in his absence.

‘I apologize, Eusebius,’ said Sir Richard. ‘As you may realize, your appointment is rather unorthodox. Perhaps we can try once more to create a civil atmosphere. Inspector?’

‘What do you know of this case?’ asked Mr Newsome somewhat uncivilly.

‘I know what Sir Richard has told me, what I have heard on the streets and what I have read in the newspapers – not necessarily the same things.’

‘Quite. Do any ideas occur to you? Any paths of inquiry we might follow?’

‘Mr Jessop seems like an important witness. Speaking to him again may prove fruitful.’

‘Yes, but he was quite insensible at the time. Perhaps, instead, you have an idea how we might get more truth out of Mrs Colliver? She is harbouring important truths.’

‘Follow her wherever she goes.’

‘That is not how we do things in—’

‘Wait – that is a reasonable suggestion,’ said Sir Richard. ‘We may have been watching the premises for the return of the mysterious young man, but have we been following the lady? Who knows where she goes? Perhaps she is reporting to the same person who struck that blow to her head, informing them of our investigation. Look into this.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said the inspector, knowing that this kind of espionage would be anathema to Sir Richard on any other case.

The smirk on Eusebius’s face seemed now quite unmistakable, his galactic lips attending to the glass with cool impassivity.

The day of his murder began much as every working day did for Mr Jessop, the bookbinder who had been rudely awoken on the night of the Holywell-street incident.

In his dim little room above a bookshop on Paternoster-row, he sat at his large table surrounded by the materials of his trade: boards, twine, knives, aromatic sheaves of Bermondsey leather, and pungent vats of glue from the Smithfield lanes. A large book press stood empty by his right hand. If he had a small bottle of gin beside him, it was only because the fireplace was rather inadequate and because the day was a particularly cold one.

Few people see these upstairs rooms. Indeed, few see anything on this narrow alley whose tall houses lean towards each other as they rise, banishing the light. And yet this is the Promised Land for writers with manuscripts beneath their arms, who approach publishers’ premises hopefully and run their fingers reverentially over the modest brass plaques on the doorposts.

Never mind that rejection, humiliation and penury await them here; never mind that the windows are full of weighty volumes that have – unsold – outlived the aspirations of writer and publisher alike; never mind that there are countless other writers ‘waiting to hear’ whether this time their novel/play/ biography/encyclopaedia will find favour with the publisher’s reader. For the writer, if nothing else, has imagination to succour the hungry years of failure.

No such creativity was necessary for Mr Jessop. With his gin and his fireplace and his steady flow of work, he was content enough. Had he reflected that he was perhaps the only man who had spoken to – and might be able to identify – the mystery young man of the Holywell-street case? Had he given any credence to the threat of that night: that he would be murdered if he did not forget all he had heard? Evidently not.

The door opened. A well-dressed young man stood framed there.

‘Mr Jessop?’

‘Yes, but the shop is downstairs. Customers are not permitted entry here.’

‘I am not a customer. It is you I seek.’

‘Do I know you? There is something familiar . . .’

‘We have met briefly.’

Mr Jessop looked at the young man, who was dressed in a fine overcoat, a silk top hat and tan kid gloves. The face, an impassive, ruddy-cheeked aristocratic sort, was not at all familiar.

‘No, sir, I cannot place you . . .’

The young man smiled and calmly opened his overcoat button by button. Mr Jessop saw that there was a policeman’s truncheon fastened to the man’s belt with a leather strap.

‘Are you a detective? I have already spoken with an inspector.’

‘No, Mr Jessop. I am not. And you may recall that you were warned not to speak to anyone about that night at Colliver’s coffee house.’

‘You . . . are you the gentleman that awoke me? I believe I recognize your voice.’ Mr Jessop glanced at the crescent-shaped leather knife on his desktop.

The young man saw the glance and smiled indulgently. ‘Evidently you did not seriously heed my warning. What have you told the police?’

‘Nothing. Only that I was awoken by a man I did not see or recognize and that he threatened me. That I heard some voices. Nothing, really.’

‘And yet more than enough.’

The young man shook his head as if his presence there were an inconvenience in the usual pattern of his day. He extracted the truncheon almost apologetically, stepping towards Mr Jessop so benignly that the latter did not even expect a blow. Thus, the tremendous blow upon his forehead quite stunned him and he toppled from the chair virtually insensible.

As he lay on the floor with blackness and bursts of light playing wildly behind his closed eyelids, he heard the scrape of the sash window being hoisted open. Cold air poured across the floor and tightened the skin where his shirt had come untucked. He heard the small table beneath the window being pulled away and footsteps approaching.

‘Here – let me help you up,’ said the young man, taking an arm. ‘Let us get some cold air to clear your head. I hope you have learned your lesson and will keep your tongue if those policeman return with questions.’

‘Ass . . . assuredly,’ said Mr Jessop, whose tongue was thick and whose legs were without strength.

He allowed the young man to take his weight. But as they approached the open window, they accelerated and a hand was placed on the back of Mr Jessop’s head, pushing it down. And suddenly it seemed they were rushing towards that gaping aperture.

He didn’t have time to scream as his knees hit the window ledge. Shock took his voice as he tipped head-first towards the street. Nor was there opportunity for any kind of cogent thought as the cobbles rushed to impact his scull and snap his spine with a smothered crunch.

Mr Jessop was dead.

THIRTEEN

Number 24 Holywell-street is an address familiar to many of those of London’s lesser writing fraternity, though they know it better as the Old Dog tavern. It has been host to generations of boastful failures for almost two centuries, and its timbers sag like the shoulders of a depleted hack: ink-stained and ruined with brain fatigue.

I was sitting there by the fire on that day, oblivious as the police to the two murders that had occurred earlier that morning. Fleeing the chill, I was making some amends to a manuscript and enjoying the warmth of the flames. Around me, more minor talents talked loudly with their fellows about literary matters of which they knew nothing but the sounds of the words in their mouths. Perhaps one or two had experienced the lifetime pinnacle of an article in the
Chronicle
or
Illustrated News.
Another might have had his pages taken by a publisher’s reader some months previously.
All
were ‘novelists’, moving from coffee house to library to bookshop in their endless journey towards the final chapter.

I had not seen Noah enter the place, but I knew he must have been there when I saw Benjamin. The tall Negro was an unmistakable figure who, as soon as he entered the taproom, caused a number of the writers to reach for notebooks. Synonyms began to flow and commas were spilled as their eyes followed him to a table in the corner, where he joined a man wearing a cabman’s overcoat: Noah Dyson.

Had those scribblers of the Old Dog known the true story of this pair – as I do – they might have soiled their very britches at the thought of the novels available to them at that corner table: tales of slavery, of transportation, of treasure, of murder, of robbery . . . Here were two men who had travelled the world together and lived a dozen lives. But that is a different story – one that I might share later. They were waiting for the arrival of another.

Mr Williamson entered from the street, bringing a breath of cold air into the hot fug of pipe smoke, beer and male conversation. He looked quickly around the room and walked directly to the corner table where he had seen Benjamin. Only on sitting did he realize that the other man was Noah. Though the man’s face was undisguised, his clothes and posture made him seem a different person from the one who had sat in the secret room above Temple Bar.

‘Mr Williamson – it is a cold one today, is it not?’ said Noah.

‘I have known worse. I am surprised to see you attired so. Are you seeking to avoid someone?’

‘Call it prudence. Eyes follow you, and now they may follow me. Will you have something to eat before we begin our investigations?’

‘Does this mean you agree to help me?’

‘I have given it some thought. There is a debt to be repaid, then I am free.’

‘I understand, and I thank you.’

‘Careful, Mr Williamson; let us not be reduced to emotion in a public place. What would people say about you then? Here is the waiter . . .’

A dour man with the mien of an undertaker appeared at the table and, without looking directly at any of the three men, reeled off his list in a disinterested monotone: ‘Roast beef, boiled beef, beef pie, haunch of mutton, boiled pork, roast veal and ham, salmon and shrimp, pigeon pie, and sheep’s trotter special.’

They ordered (Noah speaking for Benjamin), and began to speak again only when the waiter had retired.

‘You said something at Temple Bar about a man not needing to see in order to know,’ said Mr Williamson. ‘Will you tell me now what you were thinking?’

‘Tiresias: the blind seer.’

‘If you say so. What of him?’

‘You know of course that there is a cab station on this street. You may also have noticed old Joseph, the waterman.’

‘Perhaps.’

‘He is there at all hours: feeding and watering the horses, putting fresh hay in the foot wells, opening doors for a coin or two, holding the horses as cabmen come in here or to Colliver’s for a quick pie. The man must be ninety years old and he has been the waterman on Holywell-street for most of that time.’

‘I have read nothing of him in the accounts of that fateful morning. The police have not questioned him. He cannot have been at his station.’

‘Since we do not yet know, we will not assume as much. Let us remember that he is blind and has been so since birth. Who questions a blind old man as a witness – particularly when he seems to many to be deranged?’

‘And this is your “seer”?’

‘We will see. Or rather, you will see. You are to question him closely on the events of that night. I will be visiting Mr Poppleton in his shop.’

‘What do you expect to get from
him
?’

‘Mr Poppleton – whatever his other faults – is a man of divers intelligence and will likely respond more favourably to intelligence than to a policeman’s questions. I have an idea to dangle before him and see what reaction I get. Now – let us eat before we venture out into the cold once more.’

The food arrived with a clatter of pewter plates on the rough wooden tabletop and the three gentlemen set about their meals with good appetite. Despite himself, Mr Williamson could not help watching the peculiar ritual of the tongueless Benjamin, who chopped his beef pie into the smallest possible pieces, forked a quantity into his mouth and then appeared to suck upon the
bolus
quite contentedly before swallowing it whole with an immense gulp. After watching a few mouthfuls thus consumed, Mr Williamson realized he was staring rather than eating.

‘He tells me that he derives far more satisfaction from his food this way,’ said Noah. ‘Though his sensitivity to taste is unfortunately impaired by the lack of a tongue.’

Benjamin smiled that broad ivory grin and made a complicated gesture with his right hand.

‘He suggests that you try it yourself – just as you have seen it done.’

‘I . . . it hardly seems . . .’

‘It is a suggestion. That is all. You may ignore it.’

Mr Williamson looked at the pigeon pie on the plate before him and then at his dining partners, who seemed thoroughly intent on their meals. He chopped up some of the pie, took a large mouthful, began to suck on it . . . and immediately began to cough.

Benjamin’s great bass laugh rolled across the taproom and a huge black hand came down on Mr Williamson’s back to clear the blockage. They ate in silence thereafter.