The Investigations of Avram Davidson (29 page)

Hays started to put the report down, then sensed, rather than saw, that his assistant had something else to tell him; and waited.

“He had this in his mouth.” The Constable held out a screw of paper, unwrapped it. Inside lay a piece of fibre, yellowish-brown in color. “Cotton—raw cotton. A trifle, but I thought I'd save it for you. What do you think?”

Hays shook his head. “No idea. But glad you kept it. File it with the report. What's next?”

“Lady robbed of a diamond heirloom ring wants to see you about it, personal. Englishman with letter of introduction from Lord Mayor of London. Three candidates for the Watch. Man from Eagle Hotel with information about the gang of baggage-thieves. A—”

The High Constable raised his hand. “That'll do for the while. Lady first…”

*   *   *

T
WO NIGHTS LATER
there was a wild fight involving the crews of three ships moored in South-street. The Night Constable-in-charge was new to the post and, not trusting to his own ability to discriminate between riots major and minor, sent for Hays. He came quickly enough, though the brawl was over by then; most of the men had either stumbled aboard their vessels or staggered away for further entertainment. The few who insisted upon continuing the affair had been hauled off to the Watch-house to meditate on their sins. And several of the spectators vanished the instant they saw the High Constable's well-known figure come in sight.

But by that time something else had developed.

“Hold up your lanterns,” Hays directed his men. “The gaslight from the street is so dim I—that's better. Ah, me. More sailors must die ashore than at sea, I think.”

The alley was wide enough to accommodate only two men, and one of these was dead. Hays patted the pockets of the peacoat, was rewarded with a jingle, and thrust a hand inside. “Thirty cents.”

For thirty cents a man could eat well and drink himself into a stupor and still have enough left for a night's lodging if he was sober enough to want more than the floor of the city to sleep on. Men were killed for much less than thirty cents. Therefore—

Word had gotten around, and a knot of night-crawlers, still excited from the fight, crowded into the alley, pressing and craning for a glimpse. Hays rose and looked at them; at once several caps were pulled low and faces sunk into collars. He held out his staff. “Clear the alley, citizens. Just so. Constables, take the body out. Has a cart been summoned? Lay him down here. No, don't cover his face. I want him identified, if possible.”

It proved easily possible. The dead man was identified before his coat touched the sidewalk. “Tim Scott. Everyone knew Tim Scott. Poor Tim. Poor Tim's a-cold.” (This last from a gentleman later identified as a play-actor at the Park Theatre.) “Spent his money like a gentleman. Who saw him last alive? Well…” A reluctance to be identified in this capacity was at once apparent.

But other information continued to come forth. “Not so long ago Tim bought wine for everyone at Niblo's Gardens. And segars. Yes, segars, too, for all the gentlemen. Did this more than once a night, and for more than a few nights, too.… Enemies? Not a one in the world.”

“I suppose his friends killed him, then?” Silence again. Cart-wheels rattled, and the crowd, gathered from all the dram-cellars whose yellow lights beckoned dimly through dirty window-panes, parted. As the body was lifted into the cart Hays removed his hat, and—one by one—reluctance evidently springing not so much from contumacy as from ignorance that this little gesture was customary or expected—one by one the greasy hats and dirty caps came off. Then the cart clattered away again. The crowd, still eager for excitement, stirred restlessly.

“All good citizens,” said Hays, “will now go home.” He did not expect the suggestion to be taken literally. If “home” was a lumpy, dirty pallet on a filthy floor it naturally had no appeal to match that of a brandy-shop or an oyster-stall, where some of the “good citizens” were even now heading to satisfy newly-awakened or previously-ungratified appetites; even if “home” was the streets, the mud, filth, and dim lights were no deterrents—there was nothing better at home. In the streets there were at least company and excitement. But the crowd dissolved, and this was all Hays had hoped for.

The next day Hays paid a further visit to Tim Scott, now naked on scrubbed pine-boards. Constables Breakstone and Onderdonk accompanied him. Both young Watch-officers had taken to heart Hays's almost constant insistence on the importance of “trifles,” which was more than could be said for most of the Watch, to whom a crime was insolvable if not accompanied by a knife with the knifer's name burned in the hilt.

“How much would it take to treat the house at Niblo's to wine and segars several times a night, several nights running?” Hays asked, looking at the dead man's face. The death pallor could not dispel entirely the tokens of sun and wind.

“More than a sailingman would be likely to make on a coasting voyage,” Constable Breakstone said. He was the son of a ship-chandler, had grown up along the water-front, and knew its ways. At Hays's look of inquiry he continued, “Tim had said his last trip was on a coaster, but he didn't say where to. Besides, he hadn't been gone long enough for an overseas voyage. But that money in his pocket, sir, it wasn't the last of what he'd had.”

“You mean there's more somewheres?”

“No, sir. I mean that he'd spent it all some time ago. He'd been cadging off the lads since then. Then the other day he said he was going to get some more. He turned up at Barney Boots's gin-parlor last night with a dollar, and the thirty cents was the last of that. And he was heard to say that this was just the beginning—that he was going to get more very soon. I asked did he have a particular friend, and it seems he did—Billy Walters. Some think they'd sailed together on this last trip. But no one has seen Billy lately. And that's all I know, sir.”

Hays nodded. “That's a good bit to go on. Meanwhile—” He lowered the sheet. “Just so. I thought these would show up better today.” On the dead man's muscular throat were two sets of small and ugly marks. “Strangled, you see. And strangled from behind, too. Either someone crept up on him unbeknownst, or he knew the man behind him and wasn't expecting violence. Mr. Breakstone, hold the body up. Now you, Mr. Onderdonk, stand behind him. Let's have your hands. Big ones, a wide spread—just like these. Let your fingers rest where I place them.”

One by one he placed the young man's fingers so that each rested on one of the finger marks, or as near to it as possible. Leaving them so, he peered at the skin of the dead man's back. “Just so. Jabbed up his knee, used it as a lever, grabbed the throat, and squeezed. Tim Scott was a strong man. This fellow was stronger. Had finicking ways, though. All right, let him down.”

Breakstone covered the face. “‘Finicking ways,' Mr. High?”

“Yes,” said Hays thoughtfully. “Let the little finger of his left hand stick out whilst he was doing his evil work. Like he was drinking a dish of tea. Mr. Breakstone—”

“Sir?”

“You might see that the word is passed among those who enjoyed the late Tim Scott's hospitality at Niblo's—and those who enjoyed his business anywhere else, like Barney Boots, for instance—that it would be the mark of a good citizen and a good Christian to contribute for funeral expenses.”

“I'll do that.”

“Let it be known,” said Jacob Hays reflectively, “that I particularly favor such contributions. Yes. Just so.”

*   *   *

C
RIME NEVER SLEEPS
, but it is no coincidence that in warmer weather it is more restless than commonly. As the shad run dropped off and Spring, on its way into Summer, continued to crowd the trees with green, the residents of those districts in which few trees grew seemed more and more to fall into those lawless ways from which they had taken a partial vacation during the Winter months. Which often proved unfortunate for visitors to those districts. Mrs. Jacob Hays, however, was unsympathetic.

“Do not tell me, Mr. Hays,” she said, “that you intend to spend the greater part of yet another night on patrol.” Her husband, as if obedience itself, did not tell her that, nor anything else—but addressed himself to his supper. “I cannot believe,” she continued presently, “that these people who get themselves into trouble are truly innocent of improper intention. What is a respectable person
doing
in the Five-Points? Tell me
that,
if you please, Mr. Hays.”

Evidently he did not please, for he said, “Mrs. Hays, good-evening,” rose, and departed. He had doubled the patrol in the Five-Points these nights, and that meant taking men away from other places. Wall-street and South-street would howl; well, let them. Or, rather, let them come out in favor of higher taxes to pay for the extra protection the city needed. Let them pave the streets, too, while they were at it; and put up more gas-lamps. Let them—

He stopped. There was some one very near at hand, some one who did not wish to be seen, some one in the pool of darkness which was the space between two buildings at his left. “I know you are there,” said Jacob Hays.

And from the darkness a low voice said, “There is a body in the Old Brewery.”

“There usually is. What floor?”

“Second.”

“Just so. What else?” But there was nothing else. His ears had heard no sound of departure, but he knew that whoever it was had gone. And he walked faster.

On Anthony-street he found Constables Breakstone and Onderdonk, gestured them with his staff to follow him. As he approached the looming hulk of the Old Brewery, the neighborhood was in its usual uproar—screams, shouts, obscenities, drunken songs, the raucous cries which would go on almost till dawn, and then begin again almost at once. Then—from somewhere—not in a shout or scream, not in any tone of hate, but with a sharp note of warning—“Old Hays!”—and silence fell.

That is, comparative silence: quiet enough to hear his own and his men's feet on the muddy sidewalk and then, as they entered the building, on the rotten wood of the floor, or, rather, on the accumulated filth of years which lay inches thick over the rotten wood except where the flooring had given way and left ugly, dangerous holes.

“Turn up your lamps,” he directed. It was small enough light they gave at best, though enough to keep them from breaking a leg. It was a wonder that the tiny lamps burned at all in here, the air was so foul. There was no railing on the sloping stairs, but still the three men gave the walls a wide enough berth, alive and rippling with vermin as they were.

And all the time there was a murmuring, a muttering, a whispering, a hissing from the darkness. Doors were ajar and dim lights shone and bodies slunk past, but no faces were seen. Rats' claws scrabbled. The stench grew more fearful, more noisome. Doors closed softly as they approached, opened after they passed. But the door at the end of the first corridor did not move, and behind it Hays found what he had come for.

The dead man was sprawled in a chair at the table, head backwards and upwards. A bottle had been spilled recently—the sharp odor of “brandy” (as the raw, white whiskey was called) filled the room and the liquor itself was still damp; but of the bottle there was no trace. Gift horses were seldom looked long in the mouth at the Old Brewery. The dead man's face was bruised, and blood welled from his nose and from a cut over one eye, an eye which stared in fierce amazement at the shadowy ceiling.

In his ribs on the left side a knife had been driven. It was still there.

They examined the floor carefully, but nothing was there except blood and dirt. In one corner was a foul-looking bed whose greasy rags yielded nothing. A cracked water-jug. An empty ditty-bag. And that was all.

As Hays ended his scrutiny of the room he saw that young Breakstone was intently looking at the dead man's face. The Constable caught his eye, and nodded. “I've seen him before, sir. He came into my father's place a few times, on and off, when his ships were in port, to sell his adventures. But I can't put my mind on his name or his ships! Maybe they will come to me, by and by.”

“Any big adventures?”

Breakstone shook his head. “I don't think so. A chest of tea. A few sacks of coffee or wool. A barrel of sugar or molasses. That sort of thing. Once, I think, he had a bale of cotton—that was the biggest.”

“Ah, well. Let me hold the lanterns while you get a grip on him. I'll go ahead and light your way. Mind your—” He stopped and bent over just as they passed through the door. Something was on the floor. He picked it up, stuffed it in his pocket, and straightened. “Mind your step. Careful, now.”

Slowly and gingerly they made their way down the corridor, down the stairs, and out to the street. And all the while, moved by invisible hands, doors closed as they approached and opened after they passed; and all the while there was a murmuring, a muttering, a whispering, a hissing from the fetid darkness, and the scrabbling of rats in the walls.

*   *   *

O
F COURSE
H
AYS
found out nothing when, the body having been carted away, he returned to question the inhabitants—particularly those in rooms adjoining the one in which the dead man was found. No one had seen any thing, heard any thing; no one knew any thing, or suspected any thing. By the time he had finished, his head was reeling from the foul air, and the street seemed deliciously cool and fresh in comparison.

As Hays and his men left the Five-Points they heard the unexpected quiet broken by what seemed like a howl from hundreds of throats—a howl of defiance, execration, an utterly evil triumph.

Breakstone half-turned, but his superior's hand kept him steady. “The water-front is no sabbath-school,” Breakstone said. “But it was never like that. At least you have the clean winds from the harbor, and the people give you a smile and a laugh and mostly folks try to keep themselves a bit decent in some ways, anyway. But those in the Old Brewery now—what makes them like that?”