The Queen of Bedlam (10 page)

“Murder! Murder!” the young man shouted, and then he seemed to see Matthew for the first time and he held up his arms for mercy as he all but fell forward, his face bleached and his reddish-brown hair wild. “Who’s ’at?”

“Who are-” He recognized the face then, by the lantern’s glow and the added light of the lamp nailed up to the Smith Street cornerpost. It was Phillip Covey, one of Matthew’s friends from the orphanage. “It’s Matthew Corbett, Phillip! What’s happened?”

“Matthew, Matthew! Heesh all cut up!” Covey grabbed hold of Matthew and almost tumbled them both to the dirt. The smell of liquor off Covey’s breath nearly knocked Matthew down anyway. Covey’s eyes were shot with red and dark-circled, and whatever he’d seen had caused his nose to blow because gleaming threads of snot were dangling down over his lips and chin. “Heesh had it, Matthew! God help ’im, heesh all cut!”

Covey, a small-boned young man about three years younger than Matthew, was so drunk Matthew had to put an arm around him to hold him from falling. Still Covey trembled and flailed and began to sob, his knees buckling. “God Lord!” he cried. “God Lord, I near stepped on ’im!”

“Who? Who is it?”

Covey looked at him blankly, tears streaking his cheeks and his mouth twisted. “I dunno,” he managed, “but heesh all cut up over there.”

“Over there? Over where?”

“There.” Covey pointed back along Smith Street, and then Matthew saw the wet blood on not only the hand with the pointing finger but Covey’s other hand and red smears and grisly clumps of black mess all over Matthew’s white shirt.

“My God!” Matthew cried out, and when he jerked back Covey’s knees gave way and the younger man pitched down to the street where he blurbled and gagged and began to puke up his guts.

“What is it? What’s the noise?”

Two lanterns were coming from the direction of the Trot Then Gallop, and in another few seconds Matthew made out four men following the light.

“Here!” Matthew shouted; a stupid, confused thing to say in a moment of chaos, he realized. They were coming this way anyhow. To make things more clear, Matthew shouted, “I’m here!” which was perhaps the most ridiculous thing because at that moment the double lantern light fell upon him and there was a gasp and stumble as four men saw his bloody shirt and collided with each other like pole-struck oxen.

“Matthew? You’re all torn up!” Felix Sudbury aimed his light at Covey. “Did this bastard do it?”

“No sir, he-”

“Constable! Constable!” the second man behind Sudbury began to shout, in a voice that might batter in doors and break shutters.

Matthew turned away from this ear-shattering yawp and walked quickly past Phillip Covey, his lantern uplifted to reveal whoever lay grievously injured further along Smith Street. He saw no one lying within the reach of his light. Along the street, candles were showing in windows and people were beginning to emerge from their houses. Dogs were barking up a riot. From somewhere on his left Matthew heard a donkey heehawing, probably in response to that leather-lunged gentleman behind him who now cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted “Connnnstable!” into the night loud enough to surely alarm the fire-winged citizens of Mars.

Matthew kept walking south. Felix Sudbury called behind him, “Matthew! Matthew!” but he didn’t reply. Within the next few paces he made out someone in black kneeling on the ground under the red-striped awning that marked the doorway to the Smith Street Apothecary, closed for the night. A solemn face turned toward him. “Bring the light here.”

Matthew obeyed, but not without reticence. Then he saw the entire picture: two men were kneeling over a body stretched out on its back. A black pool of blood shimmered in the English dirt. The man who’d spoken-none other than Reverend William Wade-reached up as Matthew approached and took the lantern to give more light to his compatriot.

Old Dr. Artemis Vanderbrocken also held a lamp, which Matthew had not seen because the reverend’s figure blocked the light. The doctor’s instrument bag was beside him, and Vanderbrocken was leaning over peering at the body’s throat.

“Quite a cutting,” Matthew heard the aged physician say. “A little more and we’d be burying a body and a head.”

“Who is it?” Matthew asked, leaning over to look but not really wanting to get that close. The coppery smell of blood was heavy and sickening.

“Not certain,” answered Reverend Wade. “Can you tell, Artemis?”

“No, the face is too swollen. Here, let’s try the coat.”

Sudbury and the others joined the scene, as did several people from the southerly direction. Another drunk pushed forward to see, his pock-marked face ruddy with ale and the liquor smell hanging ’round him like a dank mist. “It’s me brother!” he suddenly shouted. “Dear Christ, it’s me brother, Davy Munthunk!”

“It’s Davy Munthunk!” hollered the yell-king, who was standing right behind Matthew and almost took his ears off. “Davy Munthunk’s been murdered!”

“Davy Munthunk’s been murdered!” somebody else shouted down the street.

A second ruddy face pushed through the crowd at knee-level. “Who the fuck murdered me, then?”

“Watch that mouth!” Wade said. “Stand back, all of you. Matthew, are you honest?”

“Yes sir.”

“Hold these.” He gave Matthew a dark blue velvet wallet, bound with a leather cord, that was heavy with coins. Then he handed over a gold pocketwatch. “It’s got blood on it, be careful.” He seemed to see Matthew’s gore-smeared shirt for the first time. “What happened to you?”

“I was-”

“Here! William, look at these!” Vanderbrocken lifted the lantern and showed the reverend something Matthew was unable to see. “Ornamentation,” the doctor remarked. “Someone has a wicked wit to go along with that blade.”

“We have to leave him,” Matthew heard the reverend say. “You’re sure he’s dead?”

“Sorry to say, he’s already travelled far beyond this world.”

“But who is it?” Matthew asked. He was being pushed and shoved as others formed a crowd around the body. In just a brief span, if Matthew knew the mob mentality as he thought he did, the muffin man would pull his wagon up to the spectacle, the higglers would start hollering for attention, the harlots would flirt for late-night customers, and the pickpockets would start sharking for loot.

Reverend Wade and the doctor stood up. It was then that Matthew caught a glimpse of what might have been a light blue nightshirt under Dr. Vanderbrocken’s gray cloak.

“Here.” Wade returned the lantern to Matthew’s hand. “You look and tell.”

The reverend stepped aside. Matthew moved forward and shone the light down upon the dead.

The face was a red and swollen shockmask. Blood had streamed copiously from mouth and nostrils, but the hideous cutting was across the throat. Yellow cords and glistening dark matter were laid bare in that cavity, which looked like a grotesque and gaping smile under the sag of the chin. What had once been a white linen cravat was now black with matted gore. Big green flies were at work on the wound, as well as crawling about the lips and nostrils, oblivious to the shouts and furors of the human kind. As much as Matthew was distressed by the ugly violence, he also found himself focused on details: the rigid right hand resting on the belly, the fingers and thumb splayed as if signifying surprise and, in a way, acceptance; the touseled, thick iron-gray hair; the obviously expensive and well-tailored pin-striped black suit and waistcoat and the glossy black shoes with silver buckles; the black tricorn lying just a few feet away, which as Matthew looked at it was crushed under the clumsy boots of the onlookers who pushed forward in an excitement nearing frenzy.

The dead man’s face was unrecognizable for its swelling and death-convulsions, which seemed to have unseated the jaw and thrust it forward to expose the glint of the lower teeth. The eyes were thin slits in the mottled flesh, and as Matthew leaned closer still-as close as he dared, with all that blood and the whirling flies-he made out what appeared to be distinct cuts just above the eyebrows and below the sockets.

“God, what a mess!” Felix Sudbury said, standing alongside Matthew. “Can you tell who it is? Was, I mean?”

“Make way! Make way for a constable!” came a hoarse shout, before Matthew could respond. Someone was trying to fight through the crowd, which didn’t give a damn to part shoulders.

“Murder! Oh Lord, murder!” a woman was screaming. “My boy Davy’s been murdered!” Then, before the constable could get through the madhouse, the two-hundred-forty pounds of Mother Munthunk shoved into view, pushing people aside like ten-pins. The woman, wife of a sea captain and keeper of the Blue Bee Tavern off Hanover Square, was a fearsome sight in her kindliest disposition, but tonight behind her wild mane of gray-streaked hair, her hatchet-nosed face, and eyes black as London’s secrets she was frightening enough to make even the drunk Munthunk brothers bleat.

“Ma! Ma! Davy’s alive, Ma!” Darwin shouted, though with all this racket it would’ve been hard to hear a cannon go off over your right shoulder.

“I’m alive, Ma!” hollered Davy, still on his knees.

“By God, I’ll skin ye raw!” The hulking female reached down and with one huge scabby hand plucked Davy to his feet. “I’ll whip ye ’til your mouth farts and your ass cries ‘Mercy’!” She got her fingers locked in his hair and he howled with pain as she pulled him from one storm into another.

“Make way for a constable, damn it!” Then the constable pushed through, and Matthew recognized him as the little barrel-chested bully Dippen Nack, who carried a lantern in one hand and brandished a black billyclub in the other. He took one look at the corpse, his beady eyes in the rum-ruddy face grew twice their size, and he squirted away in a blur like any rabbit would run.

Matthew saw that with no control over this crowd the scene of the crime was being stomped to ruins. Now some people-perhaps those who’d been roused from their last round at the taverns-were daring to come in and look closer at the face, and in so doing they were stepping on the body as those behind them pushed forward to get a gander. Suddenly beside Matthew appeared Effrem Owles, wearing a coat over a long white nightshirt and his eyes huge behind his glasses. “You’d best move back!” he warned. “Come on!”

Just as Matthew was about to retreat he saw the boot of a staggering lout step right down upon the corpse’s head, and then the lout himself stumbled and fell across the body. “Get up from there!” Matthew shouted, anger flaming his cheeks. “Get back, everyone! It’s not a damned circus!”

A bell began to be rung steadily and deliberately, its high metallic sound piercing the uproar. Matthew saw someone pushing through the human shoals. The ringing of the bell caused people to come to their senses and make way. Then High Constable Lillehorne appeared, holding a small brass bell in one hand and a lantern in the other. He kept up the bell-ringing until the noise quietened to a dull murmur. “Step back!” he commanded. “Everyone step back now or you’ll spend the night behind bars!”

“We just wanted to see who it was got murdered, that’s all!” protested a woman in the crowd, and others shouted agreement.

“If you want to see so much, I’ll volunteer you to carry the body to the cold room! Anyone wish to make that trip?”

That shut everyone’s trap up good and proper. The cold room, in the basement of City Hall, was Ashton McCaggers’ territory and not a place citizens wished to go unless they required his services, at which point they would be beyond caring.

“Go on about your business!” Lillehorne said. “You’re making fools of yourselves!” He looked down at the corpse and then directly at Matthew. His eyes widened as he saw the bloody shirt. “What have you done, Corbett?”

“Nothing! Phillip Covey found the body. He ran into me and…got this all over me.”

“Did he also loot the corpse, or is that your own doing?”

Matthew realized he was still holding both the watch and the wallet together in one hand. “No, sir. Reverend Wade took this from the coat.”

“Reverend Wade? Where is the reverend, then?”

“He’s-” Matthew searched the faces around him for Wade and Dr. Vanderbrocken, but neither of them were anywhere in sight. “He was just here. Both he and-”

“Stop your yammering. Who is this?” Lillehorne aimed the light down. To his credit, his expression remained composed and emotionless.

“I don’t know, sir, but-” Matthew opened the watch’s case with his thumb. There was no scrollwork monogram inside, as he’d hoped. The time had stopped at seventeen minutes after ten, which might be an indication of when the spring had wound out or when the trauma of a falling body had broken the mechanism. Still, the watch was an indicator of lavish wealth. Matthew turned to Effrem. “Is your father here?”

“He’s right over there. Father!” Effrem called, and the elder Owles-who also wore round spectacles and had the silver hair that Effrem was soon to possess-came through the crowd.

“Are you giving the orders here, Corbett?” Lillehorne asked. “I might have a spot for you in the gaol tonight, too.”

Matthew chose to ignore him. “Sir?” he said to Benjamin Owles. “Would you examine the suit and tell us who made it?”

“The suit?” Owles distastefully regarded the bloody corpse for a moment, but then he hoisted his courage and nodded. “All right. If I can.”

A suit would bear the maker’s mark in its weave and structure, Matthew surmised. In New York there were two other professional tailors and a number of amateurs who did clothes work, but unless this suit had made the voyage from England, Owles ought to be able to identify the workmanship.