Murder as a Fine Art

by David Morrell

  Ryan motioned for the beggar to approach.

  Wheels squeaking, the beggar complied.

  “Edward, my good man,” De Quincey said from the coach, out of view of anyone who might be watching for him. “Did you receive any more reports?”

  “This Colonel Brookline you’re lookin’ for, a boy on a dustman’s pony cart followed him to the docks this mornin’.”

  “Which docks?”

  “The boy couldn’t get close enough to find out. Brookline was in a police wagon with three constables.”

  “Constables? A police wagon?” the commissioner repeated with concern. “I know nothing about this.”

  “Can you spare a shilling for this unfortunate man?” De Quincey asked.

  The commissioner dropped a silver coin into Edward’s cup.

  “Thank you, guv! My blessin’s to you!”

  “Keep receiving reports, Edward!” De Quincey called as the coach moved forward.

  “The docks?” Becker asked. “But there are a dozen of them.”

  “Given Brookline’s background, I suspect only one set of docks would interest him,” De Quincey replied.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Brookline served for twenty years in India. The comments he wrote in my books refer to all the people he killed there. Because of opium. People he killed for the British East India Company. He emphasized the company in his notes.”

  Ahead, two streetwalkers stood on a corner.

  “Becker, please ask the driver to stop,” De Quincey said.

  The women looked hopeful as the coach halted.

  “Doris. Melinda. How excellent to see you again.”

  “It’s my favorite little man,” Doris said, batting her eyes.

  Melinda guffawed toothlessly.

  “I have work for you,” De Quincey said.

  “Wait, aren’t these the streetwalkers we questioned at Vauxhall Gardens?” Ryan asked in confusion.

  “Better send for the police wagons again,” De Quincey told him. “Tonight we have need of these fine ladies and their companions.”

  “Father, what on earth are you talking about?” Emily demanded.

  16

  A Sigh from the Depths

  BEGINNING AT THE TOWER OF LONDON, London’s docks extended east along the Thames. In the early 1800s, the city had expanded those docks until they formed the largest harbor in the world. By 1854, one third of those docks were used by the British East India Company. Ships carrying opium, tea, spices, and silk came up the Thames and entered a channel cut into the northern bank of the river, proceeding via locks to immense basins bordered by quays, one basin for imports, the other for exports. The basins were so large that two hundred and fifty vessels could anchor in them at one time.

  Shortly after dark, a police wagon arrived at sturdy gates. Brookline descended from the wagon and approached a guard, who raised a lantern to Brookline’s face and nodded in recognition.

  “Back again?” the guard asked. Several other men stood behind him. A cold wind buffeted their coats.

  “Lord Palmerston’s orders.”

  Brookline pulled out his credentials.

  “No need. I saw your badge often enough.”

  “His Lordship remains concerned about a rumor that someone plans to take advantage of the panic in the city and cause trouble on the docks.”

  The repeated reference to Lord Palmerston had considerable effect. As home secretary, Palmerston controlled security for the docks as well as for everything else within the country. As a previous foreign secretary, Palmerston was also guaranteed a position on the British East India Company’s board.

  “God knows, there’s plenty of panic out there,” the guard agreed. “Last night, a mob forced a bunch of sailors to barricade themselves in a warehouse over at Shadwell Basin. Nearly killed ’em. We can use any help His Lordship wants to send us.”

  The guard unblocked the gate and motioned for the driver to bring the police wagon through.

  “The rumor we received concerned the opium warehouse,” Brookline told him.

  “Take a look. Do whatever you need to.”

  The wagon proceeded past the lanterns of other guards.

  At the warehouse, the wagon stopped, and the three men dressed as constables climbed down. In reality, they were all former members of the same regiment in which Brookline had served in India.

  The cold wind slapped waves against the wharf. Lanterns swung back and forth in the distance as guards patrolled the waterfront.

  The men disguised as constables lit lanterns of their own and entered the warehouse. On three other occasions, Brookline and his companions had come here, pretending to check security, using the tall sides of the wagon to give them cover as they accomplished their real purpose. For safety, gunpowder kegs were often small—five inches across and eight inches high. In December they could easily be concealed under an arm, hidden by voluminous winter clothing.

  Brookline and his companions made sure that no one else was inside the warehouse. Then they went from stack to stack of burlap-covered opium bricks, verifying that the powder kegs remained concealed within the stacks throughout the warehouse. They added others. From twenty years of experience, Brookline imagined the sickening odor of the lime with which the opium had initially been treated in India.

  “I leave tonight,” he told the men.

  “So soon?”

  “I’ve come under suspicion. It’s time I made a strategic withdrawal.”

  They smiled at the military joke.

  “You’ve done what you agreed to,” Brookline continued. “Tomorrow, after the fire destroys numerous buildings, there’ll be few people in the city. The banks and businesses that remain will be unprotected. Take your rewards as you find them. No one will stop you, especially when you’re dressed as constables. Make sure you burn the buildings that you steal from.”

  “And you? What’s your reward?”

  “For starters, the destruction of all this opium.”

  “And then?”

  “After half of London burns, maybe the panic will become extreme enough to cause a revolution.”

  “You always like to talk about a revolution,” one man said.

  “The army’s supposed to protect England, but in India, all we really did was help noblemen become richer by selling more opium. I lost count of how many people I killed because of those wretched noblemen and this damned stuff.”

  “So now you kill English people instead.”

  “Necessary casualties. The system needs to be obliterated. I like the idea that the noblemen who profited from our killing are now terrified.”

  “You take your revolution. We’ll take the money.”

  “A fair trade. You won’t have trouble leaving the city in the hearses you stole. Dress as funeral directors and put corpses in coffins on top of the money you confiscate. No one will interfere with you.”

  “The sooner we start, the better. Let’s tell the guards at the gate that everything looks as it should.”

  “The fuses are timed for ten minutes?”

  “Yes. By then, we’ll be safely out of the area.” The man pulled away a burlap sack, exposing a fuse between opium bricks. “Light this one. It leads to many others.”

  Brookline struck a match.

  “Stop!” a voice ordered.

  A HALF MILE AWAY, a hansom cab rattled over cobblestones, approaching Ratcliffe Highway.

  Inside, Margaret Jewell became agitated as she recognized the dreary streets. “No! You didn’t tell me we were coming here!”

  “I realize this is difficult.” Emily touched her arm. “We need your help.”

  “You can’t possibly realize how difficult it is.”

  The cab turned onto Ratcliffe Highway. Normally the street would have teemed with activity. Tonight it was eerily deserted, fear having emptied it.

  “Take me back! I swore I’d never look at this place again!”

  “Margaret,” Becker said, “your so
n needs to be stopped.”

  “That’s why I went to Scotland Yard!” Even in the faint light from the streetlamps they passed, the elderly woman turned her face so that her scar didn’t show.

  “You, Margaret. You’re the one who can stop him,” Emily said.

  The cab reached its destination.

  Margaret looked out the window and moaned.

  What she saw was the linen shop that in 1811 had been owned by Timothy Marr and where John Williams had slaughtered his first four victims.

  Her voice was now so low that Emily and Becker could barely hear her. “You can’t force me to go in there.”

  “Not there,” Emily assured her. “Across the street. My father and Commissioner Mayne arrived earlier and found a place for us to wait.”

  She and Becker eased Margaret from the cab, turning her so that she couldn’t see the shop.

  The wind chilled them.

  A door creaked open. Only darkness seemed beyond it.

  “In here, Emily,” her father’s voice said.

  As their eyes adjusted to the interior shadows, it became clear that the place was a grocer’s shop. The smell of flour hung in the air. Packages of biscuits stood on shelves next to patent medicines.

  Becker quickly shut the door and took Margaret to a chair by a counter. She kept her eyes away from the window and trembled.

  De Quincey went over to her. “Margaret, I’m Emily’s father.”

  She didn’t reply.

  “Thank you for coming. Your presence is immensely important.”

  Margaret made a sobbing sound but still did not reply.

  “This gentleman is Police Commissioner Mayne. He is very grateful to you, also.”

  “Why did you bring me here?” Margaret demanded in anguish.

  “We believe that tonight your son will do something even more terrible than his previous crimes.”

  “How could that be possible?”

  “We believe he plans to blow up the British East India Company docks. In this breeze, the flames will almost certainly set fire to London.”

  “What?”

  “After that, he will leave the city, perhaps forever, but not before he comes here. His obsession with his father’s murders, his compulsion to revisit the past—these make me believe that he won’t be able to resist seeing Marr’s shop one last time.”

  The room became silent.

  “John Williams.” It was strange to hear Margaret use the full name of a man she had once loved. “God damn him. God damn me. God damn the child we created.”

  Even in the shadows, the scar on her cheek became visible as she turned her head and stared through the window.

  “Back then, this was a boot shop. The night John Williams waited to confront Marr, he told me he stood in the shadows over here, next to this shop. He watched me leave on the punishing errand that Marr gave me. Marr claimed he wanted oysters for his family’s supper. What that terrible man really wanted was to scare me by making me walk in the dark. After I disappeared down the street, John Williams entered the shop and…”

  Tears trickled down Margaret’s face.

  “If you help us,” De Quincey said, “what was set in motion forty-three years ago will finally stop.”

  STOP!” A VOICE ORDERED.

  With the match paused near the fuse, Brookline jerked his head toward the direction of the voice. It didn’t come from anywhere around him. Instead it came from above.

  One of Brookline’s companions raised his lantern. The edge of its illumination stretched faintly toward the roof, where a face appeared—Ryan’s. He had hidden on top of the stacks of opium bricks.

  Doors opened, the force of the wind crashing them against the outside walls.

  Constables rushed in. Holding truncheons, they aimed their bull’s-eye lanterns at Brookline and his companions.

  Squinting from the painful glare, Brookline lit the fuse.

  “No!” Ryan shouted.

  The flame streamed sparks and smoke as it proceeded along the fuse, most of which was hidden under the opium bricks.

  Ryan slid down a stack, his boots scraping against the burlap.

  The moment he landed on the echoing wooden floor, he lunged to grab the fuse.

  He never reached it. With eye-blinking speed, Brookline drew a knife and sliced Ryan’s arm.

  Crying out, Ryan clutched his arm and darted back.

  “How many constables do you have here?” Brookline asked him.

  One of Brookline’s companions provided the answer. “Looks to be about a dozen.”

  “And a half dozen over there,” Brookline’s second companion added, pointing toward a group of patrolmen who entered through a farther door.

  Bleeding, Ryan made another grab for the fuse, only to dodge back as Brookline swung the knife again.

  “You didn’t bring enough help,” Brookline said.

  His three companions now had knives in their hands.

  The constables converged on them. But what Brookline most cared about was making certain that the fuse, sparking and smoking, disappeared into the opium stacks.

  “Now,” Brookline ordered.

  Their movements were startlingly rapid. Before the constables could react, Brookline and his companions attacked with the skill and discipline that came from twenty years of combat in India and China. Acts that ordinary people would have been sickened to imagine didn’t merit a second thought for them, so accustomed were they to violence. The apex of the British military, they were the reason the Union Jack flew over a quarter of the world.

  Truncheons fell. Helmets dropped. Lanterns crashed. Cloth and skin shredded from the whistle of razor-sharp blades. Knives whipped faster than eyes could follow, a back-and-forth relentless blur. In a matter of seconds, bodies lay everywhere, men groaning, some breathing their last.

  Flames rose from lamps that had fallen and broken, their coal oil mixing with blood.

  “The stupid bastards believed they were equal to us,” Brookline said.

  “The gate will be blocked,” one of his companions warned.

  “We’ll go over the wall and make our way by foot to the hearses,” another said. “Nothing’s changed. The plan will work. Compared to India, this is cake.”

  “It was an honor to serve with you,” Brookline told them.

  “And to you, Colonel. I hope you get your revolution.”

  The roar of a shot filled the warehouse.

  Brookline’s three companions, who’d been hurrying toward a rear door, spun in surprise, seeing Brookline drop to his knees.

  DRIPPING BLOOD, Ryan cocked the Colt navy revolver a second time and fired, killing one of the men dressed as constables. While the remaining two tried to recover from their surprise, Ryan managed to fire a third time, the large pistol kicking in his hands. The muzzle flashed, smoke rising. His bullet missed, but the blasts were so deafening that they couldn’t fail to be heard from a distance. More guards would soon rush into the building.

  Amid the smoke, the two uninjured men suddenly raced away, their boots thumping across the warehouse. A far door banged open, the men vanishing into the night.

  Ryan watched Brookline topple from his knees and sprawl on his stomach.

  “I’m told that this type of revolver is what your man used to pretend to try to assassinate Lord Palmerston,” Ryan said.

  Wincing from the knife wound in his arm, he approached Brookline on the floor.

  “A calculated overload of gunpowder made the pistol explode without harming your man. By stopping what appeared to be an assassination attempt, you gained Palmerston’s greater confidence. Meanwhile, the apparent attack on a cabinet member helped spread the panic. No misfires with this weapon, though. The armorer who lent this to me made sure that the powder, the bullets, and the wadding were perfectly loaded into the cylinders.”

  Ryan stood over Brookline’s body.

  “Please, don’t die from the gunshot. I want to see you hang.”

  Abruptly Ryan
felt breathless. Wincing, he stumbled backward. Brookline’s sudden upward slash had been astonishingly quick.

  Ryan groaned, clutched his abdomen, and lurched away, striking the opium stacks. His knees bent. He sank to a sitting position on the floor.

  Brookline groped painfully to his feet, mustered strength, and walked toward him. As he drew back his knife, preparing to thrust at Ryan, shouts approached.

  Ryan raised the large, heavy revolver, managed to hold it with both hands, cocked it, and again pulled the trigger.

  The deafening shot missed Brookline. He stared toward the door beyond which the angry voices were louder. He watched Ryan fumble to recock the revolver.

  Amid the gathering smoke, he ran.

  Guards rushed into the warehouse. Shock paralyzed them as the rising flames revealed the bodies.

  “Brookline and two men dressed as constables ran out that door.” Ryan groaned. “They’re heading toward the wall around the docks. Brookline’s been wounded.”

  The pistol dropped from Ryan’s hand, thumping on his outstretched legs.

  Some of the guards raced toward the door. Others stomped on the flames.

  Men rushed in with pails from the docks, throwing water on the fires.

  “Gunpowder,” Ryan moaned to them. “Under the opium.”

  “Gunpowder?”

  Ryan tried to raise his voice. “The fuse is lit.”

  Amid smoke, Ryan gripped the stack behind him and struggled to stand. It seemed to take him forever to get on his feet. His pants felt wet, as if he had urinated on them, and perhaps he had—but he knew that they were mostly wet from his blood.

  “We need”—he coughed from the smoke—“to pull the opium bricks out and find the fuse.”

  “Did you say ‘gunpowder’?”

  Ryan yanked a burlap-wrapped package of opium from a stack, throwing it on the floor.

  “And a lit fuse?” someone else asked.

  Wincing, Ryan pulled another burlap package from a stack.

  “Let’s get the hell out of here!” a man shouted.

  “The wind will”—Ryan groaned—“carry the flames to the city.”

  He tugged more burlap packages from the stacks. “Found it.”

  Dizzy, he strained to focus his vision on the sparks. “Too many. Dear God, it spread to three other fuses.”