Murder as a Fine Art

by David Morrell

  “Show me the rest of the wall.”

  Behind the privy, at the rear of the small back area, that portion of the wall also had streaks in the soot at the top.

  “That’s where the killer went over,” Ryan decided.

  The mob in front of the house sounded more unruly.

  “Let us in, so we can see what the bastard did!” someone shouted. “Strangers is what done it! Anybody who knew Jonathan wouldn’t’ve hurt him!”

  Ryan told the policeman who’d been watching the back door, “Sounds like the other constables can use you out front. Take a position in the alley. Block anyone from coming toward the back. Don’t be afraid to cause lumps if you need to.”

  “Right, Inspector. Anybody who tries to pass me will have a headache.”

  The constable stepped into the fog, heading toward the adjacent wall. The light from his lantern dimmed, then disappeared.

  Ryan listened to the scrape of the patrolman’s boots as he climbed over. Then he directed his attention toward Becker. “I need you to come with me.”

  “Right, Inspector.”

  Ryan pulled himself to the top of the wall and considered the fogbound darkness on the other side. “Hand me your lantern while you climb up. Be careful not to go over at the same place the killer did. We want to come down next to where he landed.”

  When he dropped to the bottom of the wall, Ryan’s feet sank alarmingly into mud. He let out a sharp breath and almost slid down an incline, stopping himself by grabbing Becker.

  “It hasn’t rained. Why is mud here?” Ryan asked in confusion.

  “Yes, the ground behind the shop is as dry as stone.” Sounding equally confused, Becker took cautious steps down the slope and aimed his lantern. Its beam pierced the fog enough to reveal the source of the stronger-than-usual odor: a drainage ditch filled with murky, greasy liquid. “God help us, this is where the neighborhood’s privies drain.”

  A carcass floated in the filth, possibly a dead dog.

  Ryan almost gagged on the stench. “Do you believe cholera is caused by breathing miasma?”

  “That’s what my mother always warned me.” Becker’s words were forced, as if he held his breath.

  “Have you heard of Dr. John Snow?”

  “No.” Becker spoke through tight lips.

  “I worked with him during the cholera epidemic three months ago. Snow is confident that the disease comes from drinking bad water, not inhaling foul air from it.”

  “I hope he’s right.”

  “Believe me, so do I. Let’s make this quick. Lower the lantern toward the mud. There’ll be footprints.”

  “There.” Becker pointed. “Deep ones.”

  “Beauties. Lower the lantern a little more. See, these don’t have hobnails in the soles, either. The prints are clear enough. I can make plaster casts.”

  “Heard about that. Never seen it done.”

  “You mix water with plaster of Paris until—”

  An animal grunted.

  Ryan tensed.

  The next time the animal grunted, the sound was louder and closer.

  To the left.

  “A pig,” Becker said.

  “Yes,” Ryan agreed, uneasy.

  “Sounds like a large one,” Becker decided.

  London had all kinds of livestock scattered through it. Farmers moving to the city or else laborers doing their best to survive often found a small space in a courtyard in which to keep an animal for food. Cows, pigs, goats, lambs, chickens—their sounds were as much a part of the city as the rattle of coaches and the clop of hooves.

  But pigs served a double purpose. Not only did they provide meat; they also were garbage eaters. Like the ever-present ravens, they were important in London’s fight against being buried in its slops.

  The pig grunted again, the sound on a level that was even with Ryan’s groin.

  “If they’re hungry enough, they’ll attack people.” Becker held his lantern with one hand and pulled out his truncheon with the other. “I saw it happen once.”

  The lantern revealed a metal bracket in the brick wall. Becker hammered his truncheon against the bracket. The truncheon had a steel tip that made a ringing sound. “If that pig comes any nearer, it’ll foul these footprints. You won’t be able to make casts of them. But while we’re standing here, the killer’s getting farther away.”

  “What are you thinking?” Ryan asked.

  “Someone needs to follow his tracks,” Becker told him. “Someone else needs to protect these footprints. Go. You know what to look for. I’ll stay and keep the pig away from the footprints.”

  “Are you sure you want to do that?” Ryan looked doubtfully toward the smothering darkness.

  “Anything to catch the bugger who did this, Inspector. Go. Take the lantern.”

  “And leave you in the dark?”

  “The alternative is you’d be in the dark. Without the lantern, how could you follow the tracks? Catch him.”

  “And if I don’t catch him, maybe the prints you’re guarding will help identify him? Very well.” Ryan reluctantly took the lantern. “Thank you.”

  “Can I ask a question, Inspector?”

  “Of course.”

  “What would I need to do to become a detective?”

  “You’re making a good start.” Ryan assessed where the footprints led to the right, opposite where the pig was. “I’ll bring back the lantern as quickly as I can.”

  He twisted its metal top, allowing more air to reach the burning wick. The light increased. Aiming it, he proceeded along the muddy slope. He heard the pig grunt yet again and the steel tip of Becker’s truncheon hitting the bracket, ringing in the darkness.

  Ryan stayed close to the wall and followed the footprints. He moved warily, mindful that the killer could have remained in the area. As tendrils of fog wrapped around him, he heard rats, their claws scraping across stones. After five minutes, he reached the rough pavement of a garbage-strewn alley on his right and saw where the footprints left a track of mud. A cat raced in front of him, howling at something.

  The remnants of mud lessened, but before they stopped, Ryan came to a hazy gas lamp at the end of the alley. Puzzled, he noticed that the last traces of muddy footprints went toward the wall on his left and then proceeded into the street. The voices of the mob came from the right, from the direction of the shop.

  Everyone would have been so distracted by the commotion that they wouldn’t have noticed the killer step out of this alley, Ryan thought.

  But why did he go toward the wall here?

  Directing the lantern, Ryan kicked at the garbage. Filthy rags flew, along with broken glass and urine-reeking remnants of wooden crates.

  Something pale caught his attention. He kicked more garbage away and stooped to inspect what he’d found, his chest tightening when he identified the ivory on the handle of a folded razor.

  WHILE INSPECTOR RYAN STUDIED THE RAZOR, Constable Becker stood in total darkness, feeling the fog drift across his face. The wall muffled the noise of the crowd on the street outside the shop, so the only sounds seemed to be the hammering of his truncheon and the grunting of the pig. The noise the animal made was deep and guttural, like someone with consumption trying to cough up blood.

  “Get the blazes away from me!” Becker shouted, hoping to scare the animal into leaving.

  But the pig didn’t retreat.

  In fact, the sounds it made seemed closer. Becker imagined that he saw its indistinct shape in the fog. He’d been raised on a farm and knew that pigs could be as heavy as two hundredweight, but that was if they had plenty of food. Would the garbage this one scavenged, and the animal corpses it came across, be enough for it to grow that large? Even if the pig weighed two-thirds of what he feared, that would be enough to knock him over if it charged in the darkness, especially when he had trouble holding his balance on the muddy slope. His father had once lost his balance and fallen while feeding pigs. Big, ugly, and nasty, they had attacked. Their sharp teet
h had torn chunks from his father’s legs and arms. Alerted by his father’s screams, Becker had thrown rocks at the pigs, distracting them while his father struggled over the fence, blood streaming from him.

  Becker strained to shut out the memory just as he strained to assure himself that it was only his imagination that made him think he could see the pig’s shadow growing in the fog. His effort not to inhale the foul odor from the excrement-filled ditch made him dizzy. Had Ryan been telling the truth that cholera was caused by drinking foul water rather than breathing its miasma? The odor was so terrible that Becker felt nauseous.

  The pig snuffled closer.

  Becker wanted frantically to leap toward the top of the wall, climb over, and drop to the safety of the courtyard. But he kept thinking about the five corpses in the shop and his promise to protect the killer’s footprints. He was determined not to be a constable all his life. He was twenty-five years old. He’d tried a variety of spirit-crushing jobs, working sixty hours a week in a brick factory before he realized that his height as well as his muscles would help to qualify him as a policeman. He’d been patrolling the London streets for five years, mostly in the worst areas of the city, putting in more hours than at the brick factory, walking twenty miles each night, with only one night of rest every two weeks.

  Nonetheless, as much as he was repelled by what he encountered, he was proud that being a policeman allowed him to apply his mind as much as his strength. He had a chance to stop people from being brutalized. But someone like Inspector Ryan had a much greater chance to do so, not to mention that a detective’s salary was £80 per year compared to the £55 that a constable earned. If stopping a vicious pig from trampling these footprints was what it took to make a better life for himself, then by God he would stand firm.

  His resolve was tested as he heard a second pig grunt in the swirling fog.

  The second pig was in the opposite direction. Flanked by the two animals, Becker kept hammering his truncheon against the wall.

  “Get away from me, you sons of whores!”

  He suddenly heard the first pig charge through the mud. Judging the distance of the sound, he swung his truncheon with all his might and felt a solid impact. In the darkness, the pig squealed so fiercely that it reminded Becker of the sound they’d made every market season when his father had slit their throats.

  Straddling the footprints that he’d sworn to defend, he swung his truncheon again—and again!—repeatedly feeling a jolt. The pig wailed and knocked against him, as tall as his thigh. Its weight shoved him so forcefully that he almost toppled into the drainage ditch.

  Protect the footprints!

  Crouching for balance, Becker swung as the pig swept past him. Striking a haunch, he felt his weapon sink into flesh. The pig squealed. Becker reversed his position, careful that the footprints between his legs weren’t damaged.

  Both pigs were now on one side of him. He was no longer forced to divide his attention. But if they charged together, he had no hope of stopping them before they knocked him to the muck and tore at him.

  “You want to fight? Here!”

  Becker stepped forward, putting the footprints behind him, better protecting them. He swung the truncheon with all his strength and was shocked by the unexpected impact. The resultant wail was a combination of pain and fury. But the animal’s fury was greater. Again, the first pig attacked. Or maybe it was the second. Becker had no way of telling as he swung, missed, and was startled by teeth gripping his sleeve. The teeth yanked. He pulled in the opposite direction.

  His sleeve ripped. He fell. The footprints! Don’t land on the footprints! Twisting, he veered from them. With a groan, he collided against the wall. The muck gave way, causing him to slip down onto his side. His metal-lined helmet clattered away. The pigs charged. He kicked with both feet, striking snouts and teeth, his fear creating the hallucination that he was on a new contraption he’d recently seen, something called a bicycle, his feet pumping wildly, except that he was sideways and the thick soles of his boots weren’t pressing against pedals but striking eyes and ears and mouths. He screamed and struck harder, squirming with his back along the wall. No! Too close to the footprints!

  AS DETECTIVE INSPECTOR RYAN studied the folded razor he’d found, the lantern began to dim. He twisted its top to allow more air to reach the wick, but the adjustment had no effect. If anything, the lantern became weaker. He shook it, didn’t hear any coal oil splashing in it, and knew that he would soon be in darkness.

  He had just enough remaining light to see that, when he opened the razor, there was blood on the hinge and the blade. After closing it, he placed the razor in a coat pocket.

  The lantern went dark. If not for the gas lamp beyond the alley, he wouldn’t have been able to see anything. To his right, he heard the noise of the crowd in front of the shop. He stepped from the alley and made his way over slippery cobblestones, going from one murky lamp to the next, following the voices. Near the crowd, dim lights from windows added to that of the streetlamps. Owners who lived in rooms behind their shops had been wakened by the commotion and struck a match to their lanterns, making it easier to see.

  When he came to the backs of the mob, he shifted toward the shops on the right, trying to squeeze along them.

  “Hey, watch who you’re pushing!” a man complained.

  “Police. I need to get through.”

  “You don’t look like any peeler to me.”

  “Plainclothes detective.”

  “Right, and I’m Lord Palmerston. Ain’t that right, Pete? I’m bloody Lord Palmerston.”

  “Yeah. Lord Cupid. That’s you.”

  “And this bloke thinks he’s Queen Victoria, the way he’s pushing.”

  “Really, I need to get through. Please make room so I—”

  “Piss off, mate.”

  Smelling gin on the man’s breath, Ryan went toward the middle of the crowd and again tried to move forward. He showed the policeman’s lantern in the hopes that it would give him some authority. “Make way. I need to reach the shop.”

  “Where’d you steal a bobby’s lantern?”

  “I’m with the police. I need to get through.”

  “Yeah, right. Where’s your badge? Sod off.”

  Ryan suddenly felt a hand in his coat pocket. A dipper was trying to steal from him. He slammed the lantern against the pickpocket’s arm.

  The would-be thief shouted, “He’s got a razor in his pocket!”

  “Who? Where?”

  “Him! He’s got a razor!”

  When Ryan tried to pull away, hands grabbed him, shoving him against a lamppost, jolting him.

  His cap fell off.

  “Red hair!”

  “He’s Irish! We found the killer!”

  “Listen to me! I’m with the police!”

  “Then what are you doing with a razor in your pocket? Anybody seen him around here before?”

  “No way! I’d remember that red hair!”

  Feeling naked without his cap, Ryan tried to pull away.

  “You’re not going anywhere!”

  A fist slammed into his stomach.

  Ryan doubled over. Gasping for air, he swung upward with the lantern. As a man groaned, Ryan shoved him toward several other men, one of whom fell to the street. A gap opened. Hurrying through it, Ryan kept swinging the lantern.

  “Don’t let the killer get away!” a man shouted.

  With the crowd in pursuit, Ryan saw the alley he’d just left and raced into it. But away from the streetlight, the darkness would be so thick that he couldn’t continue running for fear he’d crash into something and injure himself so severely that he couldn’t escape. The dim streetlamp revealed a board from a crate near where he’d found the razor. He grabbed the board and stepped fully into the gloom. When the mob reached the alley, the first man charged into it, and Ryan whacked the side of his head.

  Wailing, the man scurried back into the street.

  “What are you stalling for?” someone ye
lled. “Get in there after him!”

  “You get in there!” the first man shouted back, rubbing his bleeding head.

  “What’s the trouble?” a voice demanded.

  “Constable, we found the killer! He’s in this alley! He’s got a razor!”

  “Step back!”

  A harsh light glared through the fog.

  The glare came closer.

  “Police!” the voice announced. “Identify yourself!”

  Ryan recognized the voice. The constable behind the lantern was one of the men with whom he shared a dormitory room near Scotland Yard.

  “Hello, Constable Raleigh.”

  “How do you know my name?”

  “Is the blister on your left foot any better?”

  “The blister on…? Good heavens, that red hair. You’re Detective Inspector Ryan!”

  “Pound him!” a man yelled from the street.

  “Give me your truncheon,” Ryan said.

  The constable obeyed.

  “Take out your clacker,” Ryan told him.

  The constable pulled his clacker from his belt and flipped open its handle. In the light from the lantern, the metal on the clacker’s blade looked formidable.

  Ryan’s shapeless coat held all kinds of objects that came in handy. He removed four strands of wool.

  “What are they for?” the constable asked.

  “To save our hearing.”

  Ryan balled two of the strands and put one into each of the policeman’s ears. He did the same for his own ears. The plugs of wool muffled noise without shutting it out.

  “I learned something,” the constable said.

  “Aim your lantern and sound the clacker as loud as possible. We’re going to clear a path back to the shop. Ready?”

  “With pleasure.”

  “Then let’s establish some order.”

  “Get that Irishman out of here!” a man bellowed from the crowd.

  The policeman aimed the lantern. “Make way!” Gripping the clacker’s handle, he swung the blade fiercely.

  “Move!” Ryan bellowed, stepping forward. He held the truncheon in one hand and the board in the other. “Clear the street!”

  The mob stumbled away.

  “Go!” the constable boomed, swinging his clacker as hard as he could.