by C. S. Harris
“In the Thames?”
“Yes.”
“Convenient.”
“I suppose that’s one word for it.”
“And the publican you were telling me about before—Ian Ryker. How did he die?”
York let his head fall back, the big, homely features of his face tight with strain as he stared up at the ceiling’s ornate plasterwork. “They said he fell down drunk and broke his skull. I suppose it’s possible, but . . .”
“But?” prompted Sebastian when the vicar lapsed into silence.
“Ian Ryker might have been a publican, but he was a sober man. I never heard of him drinking to excess.”
“The incident occurred after he lost the license for his tavern?”
“It did, yes. There was speculation that he must have been drowning his sorrows over his misfortunes, but I never believed it.”
“How well did you know the son—the younger Ian Ryker?”
“Not well. He took the King’s shilling a few months after I arrived.”
“And returned last summer?”
“Yes. In June, I believe.”
“Was this before or after the father died?”
“Shortly after. He tried to get his father’s license renewed for himself at the Brewster Sessions in September, but they turned him down.”
It was not quite the story Ryker had told, Sebastian noted. “They turned him down because of his father?”
“Perhaps. Although if truth be told, I think they were afraid of the son and wanted him to move on—which he did, when he lost his father’s tavern.”
“They were afraid of him? Why? Because he was a rifleman?”
“That, plus he had a reputation for ruthlessness in his regiment—a ruthlessness not always directed at only the French.”
Sebastian studied the vicar’s half-averted profile. “You’ve heard something, have you?”
“What? Me? No, oh no.” The vicar drew his watch from his pocket. “Goodness, look at the time. You must excuse me, my lord. I’ve a sick parishioner I promised to visit this afternoon. His daughters are afraid he’ll not survive the night.”
“Of course,” said Sebastian. “Thank you for your time, Reverend.”
“Always happy to help in any way I can,” said the vicar, blinking rapidly, his face still turned away, his mouth working silently as if fighting to hold back a torrent of betraying words that could spill forth at any moment.
Chapter 27
Charlie Horton was up on a ladder at the rear of his slopshop, digging through a box on a high shelf, when Sebastian came to stand with his arms crossed at his chest and his head tilted back so he could look up at the former Thames River policeman.
“I’m hearing that Pym and Cockerwell are the reason you’re no longer with the Thames River Police,” said Sebastian. “Is that true?”
Horton went very still, one hand curling around the edge of the box, his entire body visibly tensing as he balanced on the ladder. After a moment, he said, “And now you’re thinking maybe I’m the one who killed them? Is that it?”
“No. But I am wondering why you didn’t mention it.”
Horton shifted his big hands to the ladder’s sides. “Ashamed, I suppose.”
“Why? Did you do something wrong?”
“I didn’t think so at the time. Just spoke my mind. But I should’ve known better.” The skin beside his eyes tightened with what looked like amusement tinged with a note of self-mockery. “I’ve learned to be a wee bit more careful.”
“You told me the other day that if John Williams really was the Ratcliffe Highway killer, then you thought he couldn’t have done it alone—that he must have had help.”
Horton climbed slowly down the ladder, then paused at its base, his hands still gripping one of the rungs. “Yes. Although like I said, I’m still of two minds as to whether he was guilty at all. The only things linking him to the killings were his friendship with the King’s Arms publican and his wife, and the fact that the blood-soaked maul that was used to kill the Marrs came from the Pear Tree.”
“How did you know where the maul came from?”
Horton shook his head. “I can’t take credit for that. The night of the killings, I took the maul back to the Thames Police offices, and that’s where it stayed. Nobody washed it, and it was so covered in blood and hair that it was nearly two weeks before anybody noticed there were initials punched into the iron head: a ‘P’ with what looked like an ‘I’ before it.”
Sebastian nodded. “Sir Henry showed me the maul. So what was the connection to the Pear Tree?”
“Seems the initials were supposed to be ‘JP,’ for a German sailor named Johann Peterson who’d left a chest of tools at the Pear Tree when he went to sea.”
“Why didn’t this Peterson take his tools with him?”
“Damned if I know. Makes no sense, does it?”
“So who identified the maul as being from the Pear Tree?”
Horton turned and began straightening a pile of rough shirts on a nearby shelf. “That was Robert Vermilloe, the Pear Tree’s publican. As soon as we discovered the initials, the Thames River Police printed up a handbill describing the maul and offering a reward for information. Between the initials and a chip it had out of the point, it was pretty distinctive. I guess Vermilloe must’ve heard about it, because one of the Shadwell magistrates hustled to take the maul to Newgate and show it to him.”
“Newgate? Vermilloe was in Newgate? Why?”
“He’d been in prison for something like seven weeks at that point. For debt—twenty pounds, I think it was.”
It was a hefty sum; a housemaid in a good establishment typically only made fifteen pounds a year. “Who was this debt to?”
“I’m not sure I ever knew, my lord.”
“And when the magistrate took the maul to Newgate, Vermilloe was able to identify it?”
“Oh, aye. Collected a good-sized chunk of the reward money, he did.”
“And no one found that a bit suspect?”
Horton shrugged his shoulders. “Some did—especially when his wife insisted she couldn’t identify the maul.”
“She did?”
“Aye. But then their eleven-year-old nephew piped up and said he was sure the maul had come out of Peterson’s chest. Seems he and his little brother used to play with it when they were at the Pear Tree.”
“Doesn’t sound as if the Vermilloes took very good care of the tools Mr. Peterson entrusted to them.”
“Thought the same, I did. Vermilloe always struck me as a slippery fellow. But I was inclined to believe the lad. I mean, a child wouldn’t lie about something like that, would he? The maul must’ve come from the Pear Tree, and it was the main thing had people convinced John Williams must be the killer.”
“How many people besides Williams, Vermilloe, and his young nephews had access to the seaman’s tool chest?”
Horton gave a rude snort. “Just about anybody came through the inn, from the sounds of it. And get this: While the boy identified the maul as the one he and his brother had played with, he also testified that it’d gone missing a week or two before the Marrs were killed.”
“He was certain of that?”
“Aye. It was another thing that never made sense to me—that Williams would take the maul and hide it someplace a week or more before he planned to use it. I mean, he lived at the Pear Tree; why’d he need t’ take it ahead of time? And where was he gonna hide it? In the room he shared with two other sailors—neither of whom could exactly be described as his mates?”
Sebastian stared out the shop’s front window at the dark clouds roiling and bunching overhead. “How long after Vermilloe identified the maul did Williams die? Do you remember?”
“Oh, aye, on account of it bein’ Christmastime. The magistrate took the maul to Newgate on Christ
mas Eve.”
“And when was Williams found hanging?”
“Two days later, on Boxing Day. People said that’s why he killed himself, because he figured the jig was up once they knew where the maul was from. But I didn’t see it that way, myself. I mean, anybody coulda taken that maul—anybody.”
“So why do you think Pym and Cockerwell were so intent on blaming Williams?”
“I don’t know,” said Horton with a roll of his shoulders. “Maybe because of the kind of man he was.”
“Meaning what?”
Horton kept his attention on the shirts he was folding. “He might’ve been a seaman, but he wasn’t exactly what you’d call a masculine man, if you get my drift?”
After talking to Mrs. Vermilloe, Sebastian rather thought he did. “What do you know about his background?”
“Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I’ve no idea where he came from. Some said he was Scottish; others said he was Irish, although he didn’t sound either one to me. There was even talk at the time that Williams wasn’t his real name. All I know is he had no relatives that I ever heard of. Certainly no one ever stepped forward.”
“Under the circumstances, that’s not surprising, is it?”
“I suppose not.”
“You think that’s why Pym and Cockerwell were so intent on identifying him as the Ratcliffe Highway murderer? Because he seemed friendless? And because they thought him . . . not masculine?”
“Well, that and because somebody informed on him. But like I said before, I never knew who that was. I think Williams was just an easy suspect, and then after he killed himself, they thought it made them look good to have caught the killer everyone was after. They was baskin’ in all that glory, and the last thing they wanted was for me to come along and say, ‘Now, hold on a minute.’ So they tried to get me to shut up. And because they were both vindictive bastards, they then got me fired.” Horton gave up trying to straighten the pile and turned to face Sebastian. “That’s all there is to it.”
“Where were you on the nights Pym and Cockerwell died?”
Something flared in the ex-policeman’s dark, narrowed eyes. “You are thinking I did it, aren’t ye? You’re thinkin’ I been carryin’ a grudge against Pym and Cockerwell these last three years, and it ate at me till I finally decided to pay them back. Then why am I botherin’ to make it look like the Ratcliffe Highway murderer done it? Hmm? You tell me that?”
“To make people question the magistrates’ haste in naming John Williams the sole killer, perhaps?”
Horton opened his mouth to say something, then pressed his lips together and shook his head.
“Where were you on the nights they died?” Sebastian asked again.
“In bed, asleep. But I’ve no way of provin’ it, if that was gonna be your next question. Don’t even have a wife t’ vouch for me. She died two years ago.”
‘I’m sorry,” said Sebastian.
But Horton only stared back at him, his face held tight and his dark eyes glittering with anger and resentment and what looked very much like fear.
Chapter 28
The girl said her name was Eliza Jones and that she was eighteen years old.
Hero didn’t believe the age and doubted the name. She’d found the girl lounging outside one of the cock-and-hen clubs on Old Gravel Lane, the flounce of her tawdry yellow gown hiked up high enough to show a stretch of bare leg, a bored moue on her lips as she called out to likely customers.
At first the girl sneered when Hero walked up and explained why she wanted to interview her. But the promise of a couple of shillings sharpened Eliza’s interest and made her considerably more cooperative.
“I been on the streets two—no, must be prit’ near three years now,” said Eliza. She was a small, skinny thing with limp flaxen hair, a sharp face, and enormous blue eyes shadowed with a worldly wisdom that Hero knew she herself couldn’t begin to guess at.
“Where were you before that?” asked Hero.
The girl wrinkled her nose and sniffed. “Bethnal Green workhouse.”
“You were there with your parents?”
“Nah. Lost me da when I was a little nipper, and m’mother died a few years after that. Had an aunt kept me and my little sister for a while, but then she got herself a new husband, and he didn’t like havin’ t’ feed us, so she turned us over to the parish.”
The girl swiped the back of a balled-up fist against her runny nose, and Hero handed over her handkerchief.
“Thank you kindly,” said the girl, blowing her nose hard.
“So you were fifteen when you left the workhouse?”
The girl shook her head. “Ran away when I was thirteen.” She’d obviously forgotten she’d just claimed to be eighteen.
“And your little sister?”
“She died the first winter we was in the workhouse.”
“I’m sorry,” said Hero.
The girl shrugged and dabbed at her nose again.
“Why did you run away?”
Eliza looked at Hero as if she were daft. “You ever been in a workhouse?”
“No.”
“They get you up before dawn, give you a pint of thin porridge for breakfast, then make you work all day pickin’ oakum. If you complain that you’re hungry, or cold, or that your hands are so raw they’re bleedin’ and you can’t work no more, they beat you with a stick and shove you in a dark hole and leave you there for days and days without anything to eat or drink.” She stared off into the distance, her face stark, her throat working as she swallowed. “I think that was the worst part, that dark hole.”
“But at least you were safe.”
Eliza wiped her nose with Hero’s silk handkerchief again. “You mean from other coves besides the schoolmaster and whoever else decided t’ have a go at me? There was this girl brought into the workhouse—Rose was her name. She said that on the streets, men’d pay me to do what I was being forced to do for the schoolmaster for free. So when she made up her mind to run away, I went with her.”
Hero stared at the young girl’s pale, wan face. She knew she shouldn’t be shocked by the girl’s story, but she still was. The city’s workhouses were almost uniformly hideous. The law required them to provide their occupants with a specified amount of food and drink and work them only so many hours a day. But the parishes frequently let their contracts to unscrupulous men who simply pocketed the majority of the funds meant for the poor, turned a blind eye to the sexual exploitation of the houses’ women and children, and worked the residents to death.
Hero glanced down at the list of questions she’d prepared and drew a deep breath. “How much do you make a day on the street?”
“Enough t’ get by. Got me a room with some other doxies. Sometimes a customer’ll get a bit rough, but at least nobody’s stickin’ me in some dark hole.” The girl shivered, and her eyes took on a glassy, haunted look of gut-wrenching terror. “I think I’d die if I ever had to go through that again.”
Hero hesitated and found she had to force herself to ask the next question. “I’ve heard that one or two of the magistrates around here like to pick up girls from the streets—especially the young ones.”
Eliza’s face suddenly went utterly blank. “I don’t know nothin’ about that.”
“What about the magistrate who was killed the other day—Sir Edwin Pym? You know anything about him?”
“No.”
“Who do you think killed him?”
The girl balled Hero’s handkerchief up in her fist. “I dunno. And as long as whoever’s doin’ it keeps killin’ magistrates and leaves us doxies alone, I don’t rightly care, neither.”
“You haven’t heard any talk?”
“About the killings, you mean? People talk about ’em all the time. But ain’t nobody knows who’s doin’ it.”
“Would you leave the streets if
you could? Not for the poorhouse, but to work in a factory or perhaps in domestic service.”
The girl laughed. “Ain’t nobody gonna hire me.”
“But if someone would? Would you do it?”
Eliza wrinkled her nose. “Nah. Heard about a girl fell into a hot vat of soap in a factory and was killed. And one o’ the girls I know—Martha is her name. She used t’ be a scullery maid. She had t’ scrub pots all day till her hands bled, and sleep on the floor in the kitchen. They never gave her enough t’ eat, so’s she had t’ steal food, and the cook was always beatin’ her. Why would I want that?”
“It’s not always like that.”
“Ain’t it? I like goin’ t’ the cock-and-hen clubs, and dancin’ with the sailors, and havin’ me some fun. I ain’t lookin’ t’ change nothin’.”
There were so many questions Hero wanted to ask, about how the girl kept from making babies, and what she’d do if she did make one, or where she saw her life in ten or twenty years. But the Chronicle would never publish any of that, so what was the point? To satisfy Hero’s curiosity? To somehow reassure her that the girl’s life wasn’t as bad as Hero feared it must be?
You can’t save them all, Devlin had told her once when she’d found herself overwhelmed by the tales of hardship and sorrow she heard from people on the streets. All you can do is tell their stories to others, in the hopes of prodding society into changing.
No, she couldn’t save them all, she thought as she handed Eliza her shillings and told her to keep the handkerchief. And the truth was, they didn’t all want to be saved.
Chapter 29
Robert Vermilloe was behind the bar pouring a couple of pints of bitter when Sebastian walked into the Pear Tree’s taproom.
The publican was a short man somewhere in his fifties, built thin and hard and wiry, with sparse, straight gray hair and protuberant light gray eyes. At the sight of Sebastian, he flexed his lips back from his teeth in the manner of a man confronting a difficult problem he wasn’t quite sure how to deal with.
“Heard you was askin’ for me,” he said, casting Sebastian a swift sideways look before returning his attention to the tankards.
