The Thieves' Labyrinth (Albert Newsome 3) (14 page)

‘Has Eldritch Batchem seen it?’ said Mr Newsome.

‘Indeed he has, though we do not know his thoughts on the matter. Mr Timbs shared it with him on the night of the performance. What do you make of it, George? You have some experience with
letters.’

‘As you say, the hand is indicative of nothing but an education. It does not even offer the courtesy of a “Mr”, but uses only the surname. It is a warning plain and simple. I
would say that the “we” is significant – a group rather than an individual. It might be an idle choice of word, but, of course, no mere individual could be behind a crime of this
size.’

‘Do you not wonder that the writer has thought to specify the name and type of the vessel?’ said Mr Newsome. ‘Only one is missing; surely no more detail is
necessary?’

‘Not at all,’ said Mr Williamson. ‘The merchant likely has more than one ship. Naming it reinforces that the note is authentic . . . and a seafaring man likes to differentiate
his vessels, hence the “brig”. Let us remember that there is such a thing as
over
-examining one’s evidence, Inspector.’

Mr Newsome coloured. ‘In that case,
ex-Sergeant
Williamson, perhaps you might tell us why the note appears on a theatrical flyer for Eldritch Batchem. Surely
that
is highly
suggestive, especially when we recall that the suicide William Barton had such a paper in his pocket also.’

‘Suggestive, yes – but conclusive of nothing. A coincidence is often just a coincidence. There are hundreds of the flyers about the streets at the moment. It would be a matter of the
greatest ease for our letter writer to take one from a hawker or simply pick one up on an omnibus.’

‘I take a different view of coincidence, myself.’

‘So what would you have us believe, Inspector?’ said Mr Williamson. ‘That somebody is attempting to implicate Eldritch Batchem in these crimes? It is rather an obvious attempt
if so, and rendered futile by the evident pleasure that the man himself seems to have taken from mentioning the flyer found in William Barton’s pocket. That in itself seems entirely dubious.
I gather nobody else examined the body of Barton but Mr Batchem, who evidently saw the opportunity for some self-promotion.’

‘Very good, gentlemen! Very good,’ said Sir Richard. ‘I am heartened to see two minds such as yours wrestling with the evidence, even if you are at odds. I feel sure that this
is a case we can solve before Eldritch Batchem does.’

‘Sir – may I enquire: what, if anything, the Metropolitan Police knows of Eldritch Batchem?’ said Mr Williamson. ‘I have read about him in the newspapers, of course, but
there must be more information.’

‘The man is a nonentity!’ said Mr Newsome. ‘He is a buffoon in a ridiculous hat, albeit with a degree of wit that appeals to the common man. He is a showman – not a
detective.’

‘I admit that I have very little to offer you,’ said Sir Richard. ‘My first thought was that he was one of the old Runners. You know that many of them have continued to work
privately since they were subsumed by the Metropolitan Police. However, I am assured by my contacts that Eldritch Batchem is unknown to them. In truth, the man seems to have appeared from nowhere.
His methods are oblique and his clients, understandably, do not speak. It is possible, indeed, that we will learn more merely by investigating this case alongside him.’

‘Hmm,’ said Mr Williamson, closing his notebook and putting it away in his waistcoat pocket.

‘I wish you both good luck in your respective endeavours,’ said Sir Richard, now standing. ‘There is much to be gained, and much to lose. Investigate according to the terms of
the document you have signed and we may soon be together once more. Until then, I have no plans to meet again until the case is solved.’

And so the two gentlemen went out into the streets with little more than a wordless glance as their leave-taking. For all their pliant discussion at Sir Richard’s behest, we might be
certain that each had withheld more than he had said. Now the
real
investigations would begin.

Inspector Newsome made his way hastily back to the galley waiting for him at Whitehall-stairs. A light rain had begun to fall during his audience with Sir Richard and the drops
were stippling the brown surface of the river. So intent was he in his thoughts, however, that he did not pause to curse the water beading upon his hat and coat, carrying with it the smuts of
numberless chimneys and the oily scent of the gasworks.

The fact was that he knew something greatly to his advantage in the
Aurora
case. Unknown to Eldritch Batchem, to the police commissioner and to Josiah Timbs, the inspector had spent the
earlier part of that morning seeking out the master of the missing vessel. It had been a matter of the greatest facility for him – wearing his persuasive uniform – to talk to a number
of clerks and sundry ship-owners at the Custom House until he learned that the
Aurora
’s master lived just north of Upper Thames-street. Thereafter, it had been no trouble at all to
leave his constables once again lingering afloat in his absence as he called upon a rare survivor from that fateful vessel.

It was, naturally, the purest ambition that had motivated the journey. Inspector Newsome had decided personally to solve the
Aurora
case even before Sir Richard’s contractual
arrangement, and his keen detective’s mind had made the paralogical leap native to all great investigators: what if the man he had pulled from the river was connected to the case at hand? Did
not his clothes bespeak a mariner of a mate’s rank? Was not the body fresh enough to have been in the water those few days since the ship went missing? And was not the chain about his ankles
highly suggestive of felonious activity? It was a pattern of supposition too tempting to ignore.

The master of the
Aurora
had opened the door within moments of Mr Newsome rapping on it. ‘Yes, officer?’

‘Sir – were you the master of the missing vessel
Aurora
?’

‘I am. Who are you? Did Timbs send you? Have you news of the ship?’

‘Thames Police, sir. I know that you have been questioned on the matter of the—’

‘Quite comprehensively. I saw nothing out of the ordinary. The procedure was as always when we dock in London, but for the delay in reaching our berth and the business with the lighter. I
believe I have nothing more to say on the matter.’

‘There is just one more thing, if you please . . .’

Mr Newsome reached inside his coat and gently removed a piece of paper folded into quarters. He opened it to its full extent and showed the pencil sketch of the not-drowned man to the master.
‘Do you know this face, sir?’

‘Why, yes – that is the very image of Hampton, the first mate. Is he . . . dead?’

‘I am not permitted to say, sir. I was merely asked to come to your address and ask you about the drawing – for the purposes of recognition only. I suspect that we have men looking
for him.’

‘It looks like a mortician’s illustration made after death. What is that mark on his cheek there?’

‘I am afraid I have no further knowledge. Thank you for your time, sir.’

Mr Newsome folded away the sketch, tipped his hat and began to make his way back to his waiting constables.

‘Wait! What is your name? Where did you obtain that picture?’ called the master.

But the inspector was hurrying back to his galley at Dowgate-stairs on his way to that meeting with Sir Richard at Scotland Yard. No doubt news of this impromptu visit would soon find its way
back to the commissioner, but not before he had exploited any advantage to be had and destroyed the sketch.

Accordingly, his first instruction to the constables on stepping back into the galley after his meeting at Scotland Yard was to row east to the large stretch of exposed mud near
Blackfriars-bridge.

‘Inspector Newsome, sir?’ said the first constable as the oars rattled thickly in the rowlocks. ‘We were talking while you went on your . . . errand . . .’

‘Congratulations, Constable.’

‘I mean to say . . . we have been asked by the superintendent at Wapping why our galley has not been seen more often in the Pool, where we are supposed to be on duty . . .’

‘And what did you answer?’

‘That we have been obliged, on occasion, to pursue suspected smugglers or to give chase to a ferry.’

‘Very good, Constable. Initiative is a fine skill for a policeman to have.’

‘But is it not rather a . . . a lie?’

‘A lie is a complicated thing, Constable. Sometimes it is truer than the truth, and often more preferable. You can rest assured that whatever duties you pursue in my galley are in the
strictest interests of justice. You may not perceive this immediately, but your job is to row and to observe. It falls to
me
to think one step ahead of the criminals on this pestilential
channel.’

‘Yes, sir . . . but . . .’

‘But you would rather be watching for wherries towing each other, or an overloaded ferry, or a lumper dropping a bottle of beer into his pocket, or any number of other such catastrophic
injuries to the morality of our nation – is that right? I wonder what you would do if you came upon a man being slaughtered in an alley by a crazed sailor wielding a knife. No doubt you would
enquire whether the knife had been legitimately purchased.’

‘I . . .’

‘Constable – what would you say if I told you that the names of you and your fellow here may one day be used with reverence by your colleagues when they speak of the crime you helped
me to solve? What today seems like a mild diversion from your ascribed duty will subsequently be called a great investigation by the historians of the Metropolitan Police.’

‘Well . . .’

‘Good. I am glad we have discussed the matter. Backstrokes now, gentlemen! Bring us alongside the mud here where these wretched beings toil in the mire.’

The ‘wretched beings’ alluded to were the unfortunate mudlarks of the Thames. ‘Mud’, however, was perhaps too charitable a description of the matter of the bank on which
the two-dozen-or-so filth-caked souls strode thigh-deep. Freshly uncovered by the receding tide, it was a glistening brown surface of semi-gelatinous slime on which departing waves had revealed a
timeless detritus of fractured clay pipes, shards of patterned porcelain, sodden coals, frayed rope and the ballooning bodies of cats or dogs washed eternally up and down the stream. The abominable
stench of it – soil from the great flowing bowel of the city itself – was nauseating.

‘You there!’ called Mr Newsome to a rain-sodden skinny boy nearest the galley.

The youth thus addressed was a pitiable sight indeed. Thin to the point of near starvation, he stood mid-shin in the loathsome stuff and wore tattered clothes so caked in multifarious
generations of wet mud, damp mud, drying mud, and desiccated mud that he half appeared to be born of it as opposed to visiting it tidally. He looked up with an expression of bestial awareness, his
hands dripping.

‘Yes – you there,’ said Mr Newsome. ‘Come closer, boy. I wish to speak with you.’

The youth blinked, and, unspeaking still, picked up his mud-laden basket and approached the galley with glutinously sucking steps. He wore no shoes, but the matter of the bank left dark
stockings of glistening opprobrium upon his pale legs.

‘Good. Have you been a mudlark long?’ said Mr Newsome.

‘Aye, since I wus so ’igh,’ replied the boy, holding his hand at the height of a five-year-old child (allowing, perhaps, for partially submerged legs).

‘Excellent. Do you frequent only this bank?’

‘No, sir. I goes all ’bout the river, right down to Cuck’old’s-point. There’s good pickin’ down yonder: I found nails an’ good copper down
Cuck’old’s. Found a gent’s watch once, too.’

‘Do you ever see strange footprints on the mud? Perhaps at an early tide? I do not mean footprints made by men or women, but by . . . by something else.’

The other mudlarks, bent double in their silent searches, had been moving gradually closer to listen. Now they paused, palm-deep, wrist-deep, elbow-deep, as if debating whether to return to the
primeval clay whence they came.

The boy turned to look behind him at an older woman whose dress was but a mass of dirt-stiffened folds about her.

‘What? What is it, boy?’ said Mr Newsome. ‘Does that woman know the answer to my question?’

‘Mary says she ’as seen the monster’s feet in the mud. She’s deaf, and she is . . .’ The boy glanced behind him once more and tapped his temple with a horrifying
digit.

‘Call her over. Call this Mary,’ said Mr Newsome.

‘
Mary!
Mary – come an’ talk to the buzzer,’ shouted the boy.

The crone raised her head, collected her basket and trudged towards them with ovine obedience. She paused beside the youth, her face quite devoid of anything that might be termed a thought or
feeling. Close to, a number of wiry silver hairs could be seen bristling at her chin.

‘Tell ’im ’bout the monster!’ prompted the youth with continued volume.

Something flickered in her rheumy eyes and she nodded, chewing at long deserted gums. ‘They’s a monster all right. I seen its prints – bigger than a man’s
’and!’