by Anna Elliott
Rook bit down on the coin, pocketed it, then shook his head.
“I thought that you knew everything that went on in these parts,” I said.
Rook drew himself up, affronted. “Wasn’t any of the regular cracksmen what conducts pannies around here, I can tell you that.”
It had taken me the past three years to even begin to understand the ever-changing language of East End slang. But I was reasonably sure that Rook had just assured us that Lovejoy & Sons hadn’t been burgled by any of the regular thieves who had staked out a territory here.
“What about this man?” I took out the photograph of Adolph Meyer I had shown to Clarissa.
Jack struck a match, holding it up so that Rook could see the picture.
Instantly, Rook sucked in a sharp breath and jerked away, as though he’d been yanked backwards by an invisible line.
“Nothing doing.” Hands up, he shook his head vigorously. “I don’t know anything about that cove. Don’t know, don’t want to know.”
“It’s worth double the payment we just gave you if you can tell us anything at all,” Jack said.
The lighted match’s flame cast eerie upward shadows on Rook’s face and allowed me for the first time to see his features: narrow, with a crooked nose, and pale eyes that were at the moment dilated with fear.
“And I appreciate the offer, mate, really I do. But I can’t spend your money if I’m dead, now can I?”
He started to turn on his heel, about to leave.
“Five times the usual price,” Jack said. “And you have my word that no one will ever know the information came from you.”
Rook turned in mid-step, one foot still in the air, and looked at us, his long nose quivering. The struggle taking place in his thoughts was furious enough to be almost audible: caution vs. greed.
“Money first,” he finally said.
“Half the money first. The other half if you tell us anything useful,” Jack said.
Rook hesitated again, then finally jerked his chin in another nod, thrusting out a hand.
Jack deposited a stack of pound notes onto his palm, and Rook stuffed them instantly into the inner pocket of his coat.
Jack had shaken out the match’s flame, and my night vision was still a little dazzled. I almost missed Rook’s hand coming back out of his pocket, quick as a venomous snake, with a knife clenched in his grasp.
Just as he moved to slash at me, I jumped to the side and aimed a hard kick into his knee.
Rook staggered, and Jack seized hold of him from behind, twisting Rook’s knife hand up behind him with enough force that the weapon dropped to the muddied ground.
Rook let out a yelp of pain. “Ow! You’re going to break my fingers!”
“And after I finish with the ones on your right hand, you’ve still got five more to go on the left,” Jack said.
Jack didn’t get louder when he was angry, he got deadly quiet and calm. Right now, his voice had gone flat and hard. He was monumentally furious.
“Did he hurt you?” he asked me.
“No. I’m fine.” Not for lack of Rook’s trying, though—which had been a stupid move on our criminal friend’s part. “Jack wasn’t joking about my shooting you.” I took out my Ladysmith, flicked off the safety catch, and aimed it between Rook’s eyes. “You realise that now you’ve attacked us, we’re never going to let you leave this alley without your telling us everything that you know.”
“I don’t know anything!” Rook’s gravelly voice had gone as high-pitched as it was capable of sounding. “Never seen the bloke before! I just thought I’d take the chance on foolin’ you, see? Grab the half payment you forked over and run.”
“Unfortunately for you, you’re a terrible liar.” I kept the barrel of the gun level. “Let’s try this again, shall we? Tell us what you know about Adolph Meyer.”
Jack must have increased the pressure on Rook’s hand, because Rook let out another yelp.
“Ow! No need to get rough.” He tried to turn his head to look at Jack over his shoulder. “I’ve always been straight with you, haven’t I?”
Jack’s voice was still dangerously flat. “Considering you just tried to kill the lady, I’d say your definition of the word straight needs work.”
“I wouldn’t have killed her!” Desperation crept into Rook’s tone. “I just meant it for a distraction—so’s as how I could get away!”
He wasn’t feigning; he genuinely was terrified.
“Tell us what you know.”
Rook licked his lips. “You don’t understand! You don’t go nosing on that cove unless you’re sick of being alive.”
I leaned towards him. “You have a choice. You can talk here and now. Or we can bring you down to Scotland Yard, where you’ll spend some time in a holding cell with whoever else has been arrested tonight. All of whom will hear Jack thank you—loudly—for being such a valuable source of information to the police.”
“You can’t do that!” Rook tried to swivel in Jack’s grip again, but Jack held him fast. “My life won’t be worth a rat’s sneeze if you put word out like that about me.”
“Exactly. If I were you, I’d take my chances with Meyer.”
Rook struggled ineffectually for another second than cast a fearful look around, even though the alley was deserted save for ourselves. “Fine. I’m not in the cracksman’s game, but now and again I hear things, you understand.”
“Go on.”
“Well, the first I hears of this German bloke is that he’s hired old Cranky Jem to pull a job for him.”
A flick of surprise went through me, and I saw Jack stiffen. “He hired someone to commit a robbery on his behalf?”
Whatever I’d been expecting, it wasn’t this.
Rook bobbed his head in confirmation. “That’s right. Wanted some kind of rare book or other swiped.”
“But not from Lovejoy & Sons?”
“Nah, it was some other bookseller’s. One in Great Ormond Street. Can’t remember the name.”
“And did your friend Cranky Jem succeed in stealing the manuscript?”
“Don’t know.” Rook shifted in Jack’s grasp, looking frightened again. “Never heard from or saw him again. Not because he’d been nabbed by the rozzers, neither. I’d have heard if he’d been bunged in Coldbath Jug.”
In other words, Cranky Jem hadn’t been sent to prison, or Rook would have known about it.
“You think the German man may have silenced him after he committed the robbery?”
Rook flinched. “Keep yer voice down! I don’t think anything—and I don’t know anything.”
“You do know more about Mr. Meyer than you’re telling us, though.”
“No! I swear!”
“You swear. Now why is it I don’t believe you?” Jack’s voice was level, almost expressionless, but all the same I looked at him sharply, trying to strain my eyes to see his face in the dark. If I were Rook and had any sense, I would be far more terrified of Jack right now than I was of Adolph Meyer.
Maybe Rook did in fact have enough intelligence to sense Jack’s mood, because he burst out, “All right, all right! The German cove—the one in your picture—rents a set of rooms on Betterton Street.”
I let out my breath. This was exactly what I had been gambling on: if Adolph Meyer really was using Lovejoy & Sons for purposes of his own, he would want a convenient bolt hole, from which he could keep an eye on the place.
Betterton Street was close by, a street that stood on the often-fluid intersection between London’s comfortably off working class and the desperately poor. The houses there would be a mix of labourers’ homes, tenements usually rented by recent immigrants, doss houses for the city’s indigent and homeless, and possibly with a thieves’ den or a house of ill-repute thrown in.
Adolph Meyer would be able to come and go, practically anonymous.
“What’s the address?” I asked.
“I don’t—ow!” Rook yelped again as Jack twisted his arm up. “All right, all r
ight, it’s number 39. I had a couple mates of mine think they were going to break in and rob the place a few months back. They’d seen this Meyer cove coming and going, thought he looked rich and might have something inside worth stealing.”
“And?”
Rook swallowed audibly. “And I don’t know what happened! All I know is the morning after they’d planned the break-in, the pair of them were found floating in the river with their throats cut and their legs broken, besides! You think I want that to happen to me? Whoever this German bloke is, he’s someone to steer clear of if you know what’s good for you. And if he finds out that I sent you his way, I’m a dead man!”
“He won’t find out.”
Rook didn’t look or sound reassured. He squirmed in Jack’s grasp. “Can I go now? I’ve told you everything I know, I swear—I mean—” He flinched, looking backwards at Jack again. “I mean, that’s the God’s honest.”
Jack’s eyes met mine over the top of Rook’s head, and I nodded. I didn’t think he was holding out.
“Go.” Jack gave him a shove towards the mouth of the alley, and Rook took off at a stumbling run.
“He really was frightened,” I said, as the sound of his footfalls died away. “He didn’t even stay to ask for the other half of his payment.”
“What now?” Jack asked. “Do we go and have a look at the address for Meyer he gave us?”
I considered, but shook my head. “No, we can’t risk putting Meyer on his guard. Not until we know what else has been happening.”
Jack nodded and bent to pick up the knife that Rook had also left behind.
“You’re all right?” he asked.
“The knife never even touched me. Rook may be a good informant, but he’s an amateur as a fighter. He telegraphs his every move in a fight before he makes it.”
I drew a step nearer to Jack, and this time couldn’t stop myself from asking, “What about you? Are you all right?”
Jack didn’t answer directly. Instead, he rolled his shoulders then looked down at me. “Were you worried?”
“Maybe. A bit.”
I hadn’t really thought that Jack would snap and do Rook a grave injury while we were questioning him. But he’d come closer to it tonight than I’d known him to before.
Jack was silent for a moment, running his thumb across the hilt of the knife. Then he shook his head. “I learned a long time ago that sooner or later, you have to stop blaming whatever trouble’s happened to you in the past for whether you choose right or wrong now.”
As someone who’d spent his childhood growing up along on London streets and back alleys every bit as filthy as this one, Jack was in a position to know.
“Rook’s no prize, but beating him when he was already disarmed and no threat to anyone—that’d have been wrong. It’s that simple.” Jack slid the knife into the back of his waistband, then said, in a different tone, “Tangling with Meyer’s likely to be more dangerous than meeting with Rook.”
“I know.” Nothing that Rook had said about Adolph Meyer’s character had come as a surprise. Any man who could contemplate making a profit from the sale of a weapon that would kill millions was not a threat to be underestimated.
“But we have something that Meyer doesn’t,” I said.
“What’s that?”
I took Jack’s arm, leaning against him. “You have me, and I have you. Now let’s get back to Baker Street so we can make sure that Mr. Meyer and his confederates never get the chance to create more tragedy and horror in the world than there already is.”
CHAPTER 10: WATSON
Lestrade and I were in the basement of Lovejoy & Sons, along with old Lovejoy and two constables. Holmes was in the shop above us. Clarissa had been sent up to her bedroom by her father.
The dead assassin Parker lay behind us, awaiting the mortuary wagon. At Lestrade’s instruction, one of the two constables stood guard at the foot of the stairs, beside the body. Holmes had removed one of Parker’s shoes and taken it upstairs. From a hole in the sock of the shoeless foot, the dead man’s big toe protruded.
Lestrade gave it a wry glance. “The assassin business must not be too profitable then,” he said. “Parker appears to have been in need of funds, wouldn’t you agree, Mr. Lovejoy?”
Old Lovejoy sat on one of the wooden storage crates, arms folded, legs spread, his worn brown shoes planted firmly on the flooring stones.
“I know nothing of the man,” said Lovejoy.
We had been over the stairs with an electric torch and had found bloodstains. From the condition of the body, dirt-smudged and dishevelled, it appeared that the fatal wound had been inflicted at the top of the stairway and that Parker had immediately been tumbled down the stairs, where, if he were not already dead, he had been left to die.
Lestrade shrugged. “Well, speaking of funds, Mr. Lovejoy,” he continued, speaking over his shoulder, “would you say your shop has been doing well of late?”
“I fail to see what that has to do with the current situation,” Lovejoy replied.
“Were you paying your assistants a comfortable wage?”
“Ah. I see. You are wondering if Günter had a motive to commit some sort of robbery. In fact, I was not paying either of my assistants very much, nor was I paying them very promptly. I pay my daughter Clarissa nothing at all. We have been in arrears in most of our accounts these days, and our creditors are getting quite impatient, to tell you the truth. I have very nearly lost our lease for being behind in my monthly rent.”
Lestrade nodded, as if the answer had given him satisfaction.
Then he suddenly wheeled round.
He was holding a metal box, about twelve inches square and six inches deep.
Lovejoy blanched when he saw it. He stood up with his arms still folded and his legs spread, as though in a fighting stance.
“Would you kindly open this, Mr. Lovejoy? It appears to be locked.”
“I know nothing of it,” Lovejoy said. “I have no key.”
“Then I shall,” said Lestrade. The constable handed him a lock pick and the metal box was soon open.
Several stacks of banknotes nearly filled the box.
“Would you care to explain this, Mr. Lovejoy?” Lestrade asked. His eyes bore the glint of triumph. “It appears to be roughly two hundred pounds. Quite a substantial sum, I would say.”
Lovejoy seemed about to speak. Then he shut his eyes and clamped his jaw and shook his head, standing mute.
At that moment Holmes appeared on the stairs, descending carefully to avoid the bloodstains. Soon he stood before us. Lestrade nodded. “What have you found upstairs, Mr. Holmes?”
Holmes was looking at the box in Lestrade’s hands.
Lestrade continued, “I have here a box of banknotes. I have a little theory about it, but I would appreciate knowing what you have found before I take any further action here. After all, we must go where the evidence leads us.”
“Indeed. A few questions first,” Holmes said. He turned to me. “Watson, this evening, I should like to go over your movements one more time. First, you collided with the fleeing man, then you saw Mr. Lovejoy upstairs in the doorway, and you entered the bookshop. What happened next?”
“I saw the light from the open basement door. I thought someone might be down there who needed help. I hurried down the stairs and found the body.”
“Leaving your footprints on the steps, and smearing the blood droplets with the soles of your shoe.”
Momentary indignation surged through me. “I was not concerned with evidence—”
“Nor should you have been. I understand. Now, what about the back door? Did you see it open?”
“Why, no. Mr. Lovejoy called it to my attention.”
“I asked if I might close the door and Dr. Watson said yes, I was to do so,” said Lovejoy.
“Whereupon you did,” said Holmes, “leaving your footprints all around the doorway and obscuring those of anyone who may have entered. The rain had stopped, but the pavement o
utside the back of the store was still wet enough for water to be brought in and footprints to be made. We now have no way of ascertaining whether any were made, either by the dead man or by anyone else. Other than you, of course, Mr. Lovejoy.”
Lestrade was having a few whispered words with the second constable, who then quietly moved to stand behind the bookstore owner.
“Is that what you found, Mr. Holmes?” Lestrade asked.
Holmes nodded.
“Then I see how it happened,” said Lestrade. “Thank you, Mr. Holmes, for supplying that information. Mr. Lovejoy, you are under arrest for the murder of the man who lies dead here. You are not obliged to speak, but anything you do say may be written down and used in evidence against you in a court of law.”
Lovejoy gasped. “You cannot mean it!”
“Oh, but I do,” said Lestrade. “It is all as clear to me as if I had been here to watch it myself. You and your crony German assistant were waiting for the delivery of a packet we happen to be looking for, one that has been stolen from her majesty’s courier. The man Parker, obviously down on his luck and willing to accept relatively minor delivery tasks, was to deliver the packet to you, and you in turn were going to hand it over to your known customer, Adolph Meyer. Parker came here. You and your assistant were ready with this strongbox of cash to pay him. Had he produced the packet, you would have come down here and retrieved the bills. But he did not. Enraged, you stabbed him. Or your confederate Günter did—it is all the same in the eyes of the law. You and Günter pushed him down the stairs. Günter got blood on his hands while doing so. He fled, and that is the blood that smeared Dr. Watson’s coat. With Günter gone, you, Mr. Lovejoy, attempted to cast doubt on the situation. You opened the back door. You were probably going to make up a story of hearing a noise in the basement and finding the front and rear doors open, indicating the presence of two intruders plus the victim.
“But Dr. Watson’s arrival spoiled your plan. You did the next best thing. You pretended to know nothing of the intrusion and called his attention to the open back door. But Mr. Holmes’s inspection of the footprints shows that only yours are visible.”
“I am innocent!” Lovejoy exclaimed.
