The Thieves' Labyrinth (Albert Newsome 3) (25 page)

Eldritch Batchem – the man’s name could not be kept separate from the events. His very absence from the dock that day was perhaps the most suspicious fact of all – this man who
seemed to live upon the stage and the page of popular interest. If ever there was a case to truly set the man’s name down in investigative lore, this would be the one.

Then there was the most curious, and perhaps the most significant puzzle of all: the noisome little man who had leapt from the police galley two days previously. Why had he been watching Mr
Newsome, and on whose behalf? Why had he chosen the cold and filthy embrace of the Thames rather than a gaol cell? And how did one explain the sewer smell described by Baudrons if indeed the little
man had drowned (as he surely must have with the irons about his wrists).

As for Mr Williamson, he was obviously pursuing the case with vigour – and contrary to the document he had signed in Sir Richard’s office if Noah’s constant presence was to be
correctly understood. Evidently they had already investigated the Waterloo-bridge incident and the receivers of illicit silk merchandise. What was next? In his previous role, Mr Newsome would have
had them followed, but now he was handcuffed by the loathsome uniform of the Thames Police.

And, again, he cursed his inability to follow first hand the investigation at the tobacco warehouse and the spirit vault. His erstwhile colleagues at the Detective Force were good men, but they
lacked his tenacity, his fire, his latitude in interpreting the letter of the law.

Amid such a chaos of clues, there seemed to be only one common strand, one clear course of action. And it lay in the sewers.

The extent of the public hunger in those following days for details of the London Dock murders can hardly be conceived. In the lesser journals and street scandal sheets,
hastily sketched images of the spirit-blanched barrel corpses and the half-baked legs of Josiah Timbs (who had indeed been proved to be the corpse) had people crowding around the street patterers
to pay their penny for a twin tale of terror. Even in the better newspapers, each detail was sought and discussed with a degree of attention more often reserved for the coronation or death of a
monarch. None, it seemed, could resist the delicious horror and the commercial significance of the deaths, which together contributed the ingredients of a perfect story.

Indeed, as an iron rod upon a church spire attracts the bolt from the aether and channels it to the earth with crackling fury, so the
Aurora
case became the new focus of the current
investigative mania. Everybody, it seemed, in every club and on every omnibus, had thoughts upon the matter and discussed them at length. Constables, meanwhile – more often figures of
derision or distrust – quite revelled in their new attractiveness to a population positively galvanized to know more.

It was, in short, a situation highly fortuitous for a man of my talents. I could barely produce enough articles, opinions and quasi-fictitious eye-witness accounts from my cell at
Horsemonger-lane, and each day saw an almost constant parade of printers’ boys to and from my small table. All the while, news came to me from these canny lads and from the visiters of other
debtors, who were quite giddy with the novelty of the latest great murders.

‘Have you heard?’ said young Charles, that garrulous demi-relative to our worn tailor Burley. ‘Have you heard about the shocking murders at London Dock?’

‘O yes,’ said Burley, himself seeing only the benefits of a fatal immersion in brandy.

And as I wrote nearer to my release from debt, the
dramatis personae
of the notable case itself were engaged in various activities across our great city . . .

John Cullen was grievously tired. For the last few mornings, and according to his own suggestion at Mr Williamson’s house, he had been attending the crush of hopeless
humanity that gathered before the London Dock at seven-thirty each day that they might be permitted to work themselves into exhaustion for the price of a few more days’ reprieve from
hunger.

As a big man, he was able to push his way to the front of the crowd at the gates and had been fortunate enough to be chosen each day by the calling foreman (who, in truth, required many more men
due to the persistent north-easterlies). At least, Mr Cullen was ‘fortunate’ if that word described the opportunity to blister one’s feet in the crane wheel, risk one’s
fingers in the winches or strain one’s back moving cargo upon the wheeled trucks. He had so far ventured his hand at all such endeavours, and liked none.

He had, however, been offered the chance to associate with all manner of lumpers, balers, hoisters, packers, whippers, shovellers, warehousemen, lockers and general seamen in his activities
about the dock. And his initial stilted attempts to glean information had become, with regular practice, the occasional artful expletive and some acquired riverine idiom, a relatively effective
interrogation technique. The tough working men of the docks may have been frugal with their words, but a phrase here or a hint there was enough for the investigator to catch a scent.

On that particular day, he could be found inside the sixteen-foot treadwheel with five others, working the ropes that powered the cranes that hoisted the bales from holds and swung them into the
warehouses. The noise of footfalls and the grinding axle was constant, but the men liked to talk as they completed their halting thirty miles a day.

‘’Ow long yer been dockin’, mate?’ said Mr Cullen (in his improvised argot) to the fellow walking to his left.

‘O, for a couple of years. I am a watchmaker by vocation, but . . .’

‘Aye – I knows ’ow it is. Times is ’ard. Yer ’ave to do what yer can to bring in the pennies.’

‘That’s certainly the case, Mr . . . ?’

‘Call me John, mate. Look ’ere – I’ve heard talk that there’s ways to make a bit extra. Some of the old ’ands say there’s extra unloadin’ to be
done, “unofficial” like. Yer ’eard about that?’

‘Well, I . . .’

‘We’re all mates here, ain’t we? If there’s a shillin’ to be made on the sly, I’m not particular about who’s payin’.’

‘I have not done it myself . . . but I have heard other men say that some vessels are unloaded further after leaving the dock. They take some lumpers with them. That is what I have heard .
. .’

‘Aye,
that’s
the work I’m after. Enough of this ——— walkin’ in circles, says I!’

The six men trudged on, boots resounding, all of them gripping the rough rope supports for balance. Around the dock, other treadwheels ground away at their own labour for hour upon hour. Then
finally came the shout to halt for a break. Mugs of beer were passed hurriedly through the struts so the walkers could refresh themselves before turning to walk in the other direction.

‘You should talk to Rigby, the foreman of the eastern wharfs,’ muttered the man to Mr Cullen’s left, wiping the drink from his lips with the back of a hand. ‘He sometimes
has extra work.’

‘Is that right, mate?’ replied Mr Cullen in a similarly conspiratorial undertone. ‘I’ll see about it when I get out of this ——— wheel. My thanks to
yer.’

Benjamin’s expression as he sipped his coffee was one of intermingled disgust and incredulity. Before the large plate-glass window of that Ludgate-hill coffee house, an
itinerant ‘Negro band’ was going about its performance with the absurd gusto of their kind. Replete with coarsely blackened faces, exaggerated woolly wigs and tattered straw hats, the
five-man
troupe
jigged spasmodically and sang travesties of American slave songs to the unfaithful tune of a lone guitar – all quite oblivious to the genuine specimen of ebony humanity
observing from the window behind them.

He
was dressed, as ever, in the manner befitting a gentleman about town: a fine dark suit, well-made boots, and his silk top hat worn at a quirky angle. Indeed, he seemed even more
resplendent than usual, perhaps as a sign of defiance against the attempts of that article in
the London Monitor
to cow him. One-eyed he may have been; half-strangled he may have appeared;
tongueless and silent though he was, a mere journalistic slur was not enough to keep him at home.

And as Benjamin watched the mock Negros bring shame to their true race, one of them – perhaps sensing the gaze of ageless accusation upon them – turned and saw his dark audience. His
song dried in his mouth. His feet ceased their idiot jig. He elbowed his neighbour to turn. The others also stumbled to a pause. Then all five stood transfixed: preposterous of garb, risible in
endeavour, and diminished in dignity.

One ventured to raise a smile and a wave of ‘brotherhood’, but abandoned the gesture in the face of its piercing monocular response. In a moment, they were gone.

Benjamin returned his gaze to the silk emporium directly opposite: the reason for his continued tenancy at the coffeehouse window. Noah had earlier recounted the details of his encounter at the
shop and made clear the task: keep a lively eye for anything suspicious, anything out of the ordinary. At some point in the day, an agent of the smugglers was likely to arrive (provided Inspector
Newsome had not since returned to reveal the truth about that spurious representative of the Swiss National Opera). As to the possible appearance of that agent, there was but a single tenuous clue:
the woman in the shop had referred to him as ‘somewhat eccentric’ and had wrinkled her nose on thinking of him. It was barely suggestive, but perhaps it would be enough.

Benjamin ordered another coffee and leafed through his newspapers once again for any articles he may have missed. The customers entering the silk emporium during the morning had been entirely
conventional: well-presented ladies with their mothers, gentlemen of a certain age purchasing for women not their wives, sundry tradesmen . . . but nobody who appeared to be associated with
smuggled silk – nobody who appeared conspicuously cautious, watchful or sly. By noon, he had begun to think it a quite futile task.

Then, as the clock struck one and the endless coffee had finally become gall in his mouth, there was a man in the street who looked like he might very well wrinkle a nose or two. A short fellow,
with a boy’s face, no hat, and clothes that seemed never to have been washed was looking artlessly about him as he approached the shop and loitered at the entrance to the rancid alley
alongside it. Here was no
connoisseur
of fine silk. The odd little chap gave a final appraisal of the street and then disappeared quickly into the alley.

Benjamin readied himself.

And within minutes, the pestilent man re-emerged into the flow of pedestrians to set off eastwards, appearing not to notice the tall Negro walking some dozen yards behind him.

Noah Dyson was also out among the crowds, reflecting that, despite the maddening clatter of the carts, the pungent dung, the unending bustle of the faceless multitudes and the
discordant hawker’s chorus, he was more at home here – a nameless, street-swallowed stranger – than he had been anywhere in the world. Here was his childhood playground, his
school, his stage, his home.

At the same time, however, the city was as much foe as friend. Eyes were everywhere and a man might be observed from a thousand places as he walked. Accordingly, Noah was again attired in his
ingenious reversible coat and carried a discreet palm-sized mirror so that, by means of innocuous gestures, he could glance behind him any time he felt an observing presence.

Among the numerous other things to ponder as he strolled – Mr Williamson’s increasing oddness among them – foremost in Noah’s mind was Eldritch Batchem. The man’s
temporary absence from the investigation, and particularly from the London Dock two days previously was highly suspicious. Could it be that the death of the ship-owner Josiah Timbs and the
concomitant loss of reward had diminished the investigator’s enthusiasm? Whatever the man’s activities, the repercussions from his article in
the London Monitor
could not be
forgiven. Something decisive had to be done about the meddling amateur – at the very least by discovering more about him.

Noah had so far discovered that his quarry had refined tastes. Eldritch Batchem customarily ate at the Albion on Aldersgate; he drank porter at the Cock in Fleet-street, and he took his coffee
and cigars at the Divan on the Strand (where he was known as a keen chess player, though an obstreperous loser). It had been at the latter address that a corruptible secretary had informed Noah of
the weekly delivery of fine Havanahs to a certain ‘E.B.’ resident at Mivart’s Hotel on Brook-street.

Of the many hotels in London, this was perhaps the most fitting abode for ‘E.B.’. Temporary home to deposed princes, disgraced lords, ladies travelling incognito and diplomats
engaged in political duplicity, Mivart’s was quite accustomed to the discretion born of secrecy. Here, a man was whoever his calling card proclaimed him to be, and more convincingly so if it
featured a crest. But where money buys silence, it might also buy favours when one knows the right porter, cook or chambermaid.

Thus, not ten minutes later, Noah was dropping a sovereign into the palm of a lad dressed in the hotel’s livery. The grinning fellow reciprocated with a wink and a key drawn ceremoniously
from his brocaded breast pocket.