The Thieves' Labyrinth (Albert Newsome 3) (2 page)

‘I will not shake hands if you do not mind, Mr Blackthorne.’

The voice was undistinctive, carrying no particular accent or timbre, though the odd pointed beard seemed to lend his words an affable air. His mouth may have smiled, but a lady would have
noticed that his eyes did not as he kept his hands by his sides.

‘O, I . . . I apologize, Mr Batchem. Do you have evidence there in your hand?’

‘Perhaps, perhaps. You were quite right not to approach me, of course. The scene of the crime is critical in its purity and must remain unpolluted for the investigator to do his work. Had
you come to me, you might have stepped upon a clue and obliterated that single fragile fibre of truth.’

‘A clue, you say? Have you got to the bottom of this case already? I had heard that you have quite a prodigious—’

‘The investigator does not blunder into a solution, sir. He gathers all of the evidence and examines it through a fine lens until the minutest detail is revealed.’

‘So you have discovered some clues out on the bridge?’

‘There is a quantity of blood. The morning precipitation has diluted it somewhat, but I believe I have identified where the incident took place.’

‘The “incident”? You do not call it murder, Mr Batchem?’

‘I make no judgement at this juncture. I must talk to the toll-collector who witnessed the dying man and further cogitate upon my findings.’

‘But have you found a weapon, or evidence of another person on the bridge? Perhaps you can tell me at least this?’

Eldritch Batchem stroked the point of his beard, either in thought or irritation. ‘I found no weapon, but this means nothing. You know my methods, sir. You will receive a full report on my
findings later today. Then I trust I will receive my payment.’

‘Of course. But perhaps you will tell me whether I may now open the bridge. Have you completed your investigation upon the road and walkways?’

‘I have. You may.’

‘I thank you, and I look forward to that report.’

Mr Blackthorne made to shake Eldritch Batchem’s hand once more, but instead withdrew it with a curt nod and turned his attention to the
mêlée
waiting at the
barriers.

Soon, the rattle of carts and the subdued pedestrian chatter of early morning was flowing as normal past the toll-house, observing with morbid attraction the remaining blood of the dead man,
itself soon carried on hooves and wheels and soles into the streets of Lambeth or along the Strand until all trace of it was obliterated in the relentless commerce of the city.

In the toll-house, meanwhile, toll-keeper Weeton allowed his daytime replacement to take position at the barrier and awaited his interview with the investigator. Presently, Eldritch Batchem
entered the small space and appeared to scrutinize all that he saw with a comprehensive sweep of the eyes before extracting his notebook and turning his gaze upon Weeton, whose hands had barely
stopped shaking since the victim had first emerged from the fog.

‘You need not be afraid,’ said Eldritch Batchem, his voice sounding somehow distorted in the confines of the toll-house. He had not taken off his russet cap or his gloves. ‘I
will ask you only a few questions – the same that I have asked the other toll-collector.’

‘Very well, sir. But if I shiver, it is on account of the terrible occurrence rather than through fear.’

‘Indeed, though I am sure you have seen death before on this structure. You must have seen your share of suicides.’

‘I have seen them drop – yes, sir. But there is a piteousness in
their
deaths. They go willing to their ends. This man was not ready to die. I . . . I saw it in his
eyes.’

‘Let us not speak of such fanciful things. One may see whatever one likes in a man’s eyes. If I point out a man to you as a thief, a thief is what you see – no matter what his
eyes tell you.’

Weeton looked into the eyes of his interlocutor and saw only unblinking attention. ‘I cannot agree. I saw—’

‘Yes, let us discuss what you saw, and what you heard. An investigator must know every small detail in order to solve a case. You have said to others that you heard a metallic clink
shortly before the scream – is that correct?’

‘That is so.’

‘Have you heard such clinking sounds before during your duty?’

‘The fog is a trickster, sir. One might hear a cough from across the bridge as if it were by one’s side – or one might fail to hear a fellow shouting. I thought it came from
the bridge, but it may have come from the river: mooring chains, perhaps, beneath the arches.’

‘Inconclusive.’ Eldritch Batchem noted the comment in his book and underlined it. ‘What of the victim’s utterances after he fell?’

‘No words, sir. Just noises: breathing, groaning, cries of pain. I could barely hear anything at all, even in the silence at that hour.’

‘Was there anything in his hands as he fell?’

‘Nothing, sir. They were bloodied. I believe he lost his hat on the bridge, for Wilkins said he admitted a fellow wearing a hat.’

‘Indeed? Are you sure it was he: the same fellow admitted by Wilkins?’

‘I . . . I thought there was no other man on the bridge.’

‘I have not said so.’ Eldritch Batchem smiled and again stroked the end of his beard as if catching his interrogatee in a falsehood.

‘I believe he was the same. There could be no other.’

‘Very well.’ A further line entered the notebook. ‘May I see your hands? Both sides. Thank you.’

‘They are still shaking from the shock of it, sir. Why do you ask?’

‘To see if there is blood on them, or on your shirt cuffs.’

‘I am not sure what you—’

‘No matter. Did you look in the gentleman’s pockets once he had expired?’

‘Certainly not! What are you suggesting?’

‘Nothing at all. I am asking a simple question for which I require an answer.’

‘I did not, and the Bridge Company can speak for my good character if anyone maintains anything to the contrary. Am I a suspect in your investigation, Mr Batchem?’

‘In any investigation, one does not limit oneself to whom one suspects. The evidence is the silent witness and it alone is to be understood. You were the last to see the man alive, is that
right?’

‘I and the murderer.’

‘You will not speak of murder to anyone once you leave this place. It is not for you to decide. I am the one in possession of all information – not you. Now, look at this earring I
found in a recess. Do you recognize it?’

‘How would I? I do not examine the ears of every person who passes through my barrier each day. As long as the toll is correct—’

‘Please answer simply “yes” or “no”.’

‘No. People leave things on the bridge every day. I have a cupboard full of them here. Sometimes they come back asking after their lost articles – mostly they do not.’

‘I see. I trust you have been directed by Mr Blackthorne not to speak to any police constables?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Good. The police are poor investigators and I would not like them to muddy the waters. I go now to examine the body. Thereafter, the verdict will become public knowledge. Good day to
you.’

And with that, Eldritch Batchem stood, made a curious bow, and walked without further pause into the passing crowds, his russet cap visible for just a few moments before he vanished into the
crowd.

Toll-collector Weeton now felt the fatigue of the night’s experiences settle heavily on him. He picked up his book, took his hat, bade goodbye to the daytime toll-collector and set off
south along the bridge to his home in Lambeth.

At mid-span, though, he had occasion to pause in interest. It was hereabouts that Eldritch Batchem had been making his earlier investigation. No visible trace of the incident now remained among
the dung and dirt trodden by the traffic, but he leaned on the cold stone balustrade to linger where the man had died.

Daylight had arrived but weakly and light-grey cloud was striated with blue over the city. At this hour, the great chimneys of Southwark were still largely idle and the black pall of a million
household flues had not yet obscured the vista. St Paul’s towered above all in sculptural eminence, and countless black spires raked a distant band of pellucid horizon soon to be lost in
smoke. Over to the east, the slender Monument caught a flicker of nascent sun and briefly flashed its gilded crest. Here was the greatest city on earth, seemingly empty from this vantage, but
seething with life.

And death. As if remembering something, Weeton took his book – a rather torrid tale – from a pocket and turned to the page he had folded on hearing the scream. He put his finger on
the very sentence interrupted by that incident and traced it again:

Horror hides in darkness, and every heart resides in endless Night.

People passed – strangers all – walking with their own concerns along that patch of fatal roadway. Few knew of the crime at that time. In following days, however, that single death
would become just one element in a far more terrible series of events.

There were some who might have asked why Inspector Albert Newsome of the Metropolitan Police’s Detective Force had not been the investigator walking about Waterloo-bridge
that morning. Had he known of the incident, he would have been asking the same.

In fact, the inspector was sitting in a Thames Police galley beneath London-bridge at the very moment the toll-collector was making his way home. Perhaps it was the early hour, or the chill down
on the water, or the stiff blue uniform he was unaccustomed to wearing, but the inspector’s expression that morning was one of stubborn lugubriousness.

Even without the scowl, his face beneath the badged cap was one that seemed perpetually irritated. His twisted red hair and bushy eyebrows gave him a somewhat windy appearance, and his wiry
frame was the spring set to trap any criminal foolish enough to underestimate him. Unpopular he may have been, but other policemen spoke of him as ratcatchers are wont to speak of a champion
terrier: if not with fondness, then with a certain respect for his fortitude.

The two constables sitting facing him in the galley held their oars across their laps and were pleased to look out among the shipping rather than at their recently appointed superior.

‘There, sir – can you see?’ said one of the constables. ‘There is a wherry towing another, both with passengers. Shall we row upon them?’

‘I believe the security of the nation will be unharmed if we overlook that particular crime,’ replied Mr Newsome.

The constable knew well enough not to respond, and tried to avoid the expression of his fellow sitting behind him. The galley remained tethered to the chains under the arch, gurgles and
wave-slaps echoing strangely about them as the stream sucked past the mossy stonework.

‘Sir?’ offered the second constable. ‘Two ferries going there through the fourth arch at the same time, sir? Should we row?’

‘No, constable. We will not row. There has been no accident. No lives have been lost in that infringement of the shipping regulations.’

The wake of the ferries reached them and rocked the boat so that the oars rattled thickly in the oarlocks.

‘I say, Inspector,’ began the first constable who had spoken, ‘did you hear of the incident at Waterloo-bridge earlier this morning? A fellow of that division told me of it as
I came on duty.’

‘What incident? Another suicide?’

‘Possibly . . . but there has been talk of murder. A man had his throat cut in the fog before dawn. I heard that Eldritch Batchem was appointed by the Bridge Company. They say he is the
greatest detec—’

‘I will thank you not to use the word “detective” in the same breath as “Batchem”. The man is a nuisance and unworthy of the name,’ said Mr Newsome.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘A murder, did you say?’

‘Yes, sir. I heard that no weapon was found on the victim, but also that nobody else was on the bridge at the time.’

‘Curious, but it rather sounds like a suicide to me. The d—— river absolutely reeks today, does it not?’

‘No more than usual, sir,’ answered the second constable.

‘It is quite putrescent. Rotten eggs, mud, tar . . . and excrement.’

‘As I say, sir: the usual.’

The inspector reflected yet again on how many aspects of the river he despised. The black-brown water was the least of them: that frigid stew of hospital refuse, slaughterhouse effluvia, street
dung, city sewage, manufactory poisons and the saturated souls of innumerable suicides. Its very surface was variously a swirling solution of mud, a rainbow-hued slick from the gas works’
outflow, or an animal-corpse bath.

This magnificent Port of London, so called, was to him but a conglomeration of irritants almost beyond tolerance. From the bridge down to Horseferry Pier, it was nothing but a dense glut of
ships too diverse to enumerate, a passage barely three hundred feet wide winding between their pressing hulls. Not merely ‘boats’ – as his constables had been quick to inform him
– but colliers, schooners, punts, barges, smacks, skiffs, cutters, lighters, hoys, barks, merchantmen, wherries, and sloops.

No doubt there
was
one hundred million pounds of cargo in the warehouses of that district. No doubt it
was
the richest and largest free port upon the earth. But the marine
districts of Wapping, Shadwell, Limehouse, Poplar, Blackwall and Rotherhithe were nevertheless sinks of such notorious vice and infamy that no amount of precious ambergris or attar of roses could
mask their stench. Ratcliff-highway alone kept the undertakers of the east busy, whether from natural or unnatural deaths.