by M. J. Trow
‘The spelling, for one thing,’ Batchelor said. ‘It is fake.’
‘It just looks like an uneducated person to me,’ Byng said. ‘Someone who just … well, who can’t spell.’
‘I have a way of proving it,’ Grand said, and leaned over to pull the bell which summoned Maisie like the Demon King. Sure enough, the echoes were still ringing when she appeared in the doorway. ‘Maisie,’ Grand said, ‘did you go to school?’
‘A bit, sir. I had to help Ma with the little uns most of the time, though.’
‘Well, sit yourself down a minute. No, don’t worry, Mrs Rackstraw won’t mind.’
Maisie amused herself for a moment with the thought that you didn’t have to be stupid to be seriously unintelligent. But she sat down as requested.
‘Now,’ Grand fished for a stub of pencil and took out his notebook. ‘Turn to a clean page and write down what I say.’
‘I’m no good at spelling, sir,’ she protested.
‘Not to worry. Just write this down.’ He read out the note, watching her pencil so he didn’t go too fast. ‘Lovely,’ he said when they had finished. ‘Well done. Thank you, Maisie.’ His smile could have toasted bread and Maisie wafted down to the kitchen on wings of love.
Grand passed the notebook to Batchelor and Byng. ‘See. The mistakes aren’t anything like the ones on your note, Selwyn. She can’t spell wife, true, and … well, I’m not sure what that word is … but she can spell beans, thousand and come. You see?’
Byng nodded reluctantly.
‘So I think this is from the kidnappers and we have a chance to catch them.’
‘But no police!’ Byng was adamant.
‘Why not? We don’t have to worry about Emilia now, do we?’ Batchelor was pragmatic but it was said kindly.
‘No … but …’
‘Don’t worry,’ Grand said. ‘No police, but we will be there. We won’t come with you so they will know we’re there, but we’ll hide somewhere nearby. How does that sound? Oh, and can you get ten thousand pounds?’
‘I’m not paying them ten thousand pounds!’ Byng was on his feet, a vein jumping in his forehead.
‘No, of course not. But you need to go to the bank, make sure you are seen by as many people as possible, and draw it out. It will take them a while, so you won’t be able to keep it secret anyway. Will you do that? We can keep you safe from having to hand it over.’
‘I haven’t had the trust money paid over, yet. Teddy and Micah …’ he pulled up short.
‘There’s no need to tell us all your business, Selwyn,’ Grand said, taking a swig of coffee. ‘But if the long and the short of it is that you now have ten thousand at your disposal, then that will be fine and dandy, won’t it? Do you want to meet here or at Durand’s Wharf?’
‘Er …’ Byng felt he had been railroaded somehow, he wasn’t sure how.
‘I think the Wharf,’ Batchelor said. ‘You know it, of course? Timber importing place?’
Byng did.
‘Shall we say a quarter to midnight. Mr Grand and I have a few errands to run first, but we’ll be there, I promise.’
And with that, Mr Selwyn Byng, recent widower and permanent coward, had to be content.
EIGHTEEN
The wind off the river was chill and had the whiff of October in it that all the river’s denizens had learned to dread. Under the scent of autumn leaves from the parks along its banks it was possible to discern the crack of frosty nights and the acid catch at the back of the throat that only comes from a couple of million chimneys belching the black smoke of cheap coal smouldering under a couple of million kettles and pans. Selwyn Byng clutched a large bag to his chest and burrowed his chin into his muffler. Nothing had been what anyone would describe as fun ever since Emilia had disappeared like a puff of thistledown between Eastbourne and London, but this night was the worst yet.
He was beginning to talk to himself. It was a habit which had worsened over the last weeks and he was trying to master it but even so, sometimes it just got the better of him. ‘Where in God’s name are those two idiots?’ he asked himself through clenched teeth.
‘Here we are,’ a voice muttered in the dark. ‘We’ve been here for the last half an hour, Selwyn. But don’t mind us. It’s just on midnight. If I were you, I would step out into the light, so that your hosts know you’re here.’
‘Don’t leave me,’ Byng whimpered.
‘We won’t.’ This time it was Batchelor’s voice and it held more irritation in it. ‘Idiots don’t do that kind of thing.’
Clutching his bag tighter, Byng stepped out of the shadow into the weak moonlight that flooded the flat area in front of the looming warehouse at his back. He strained his ears for any hint that he was not alone and after a few minutes, he was rewarded by the sound of a crunch of a leather-shod boot on gravel. Out of the gloom, a man appeared and he wasn’t at all what Byng was expecting. Despite himself, and in common with almost everyone able to spare a copper or two, he was an avid reader of the Illustrated Police News and so he knew for certain that miscreants all had short chopped hair, a grizzled chin which stuck out a mile, far ahead at any rate of their severely receding forehead. In extreme cases, their knuckles almost dragged on the ground and their clothes were a ragbag of old jackets and trousers held up with string.
The man who finally stopped just an arm’s length from Byng was of medium height but there was a hint of strength about the set of the shoulders and the breadth of the chest under the immaculately tailored charcoal grey suiting. His tie was in a perfect knot, clearly done by a valet; no one alive could tie anything that perfect in a mirror. His shoes shone with hours of burnishing with neat’s-foot oil and a hot spoon; Jonathan Warren’s blacking had never sullied their perfect surface. The man doffed his brushed beaver hat, revealing its bespoke leather and silk interior.
‘Mr Byng?’ His voice was mellow and modulated, no hint of the gutter to be heard.
‘Er … yes.’ Byng’s grip on his valise loosened somewhat. This was a dream, surely. He looked vaguely around for the chicken which usually appeared at about this point but there was nothing. ‘Did you send … was it you who sent …?’ Somehow, the question sounded rather stupid. Of course this man didn’t send an ill-spelled note made up of letters cut out of a newspaper!
‘Well,’ the gent sounded rather self-deprecating. ‘Not me, exactly. It was Hamish.’
From the deeper shadows, an enormous tweed suit stepped out, encasing a giant of a man with a cigarette carelessly held between finger and thumb. Something about it suggested that not only was it something the suit’s wearer enjoyed smoking, but that it could also be a handy weapon.
‘Good evening, Mr Byng,’ the giant said. ‘Or,’ he cocked an ear to listen out for distant chimes, ‘could it be morning by now? Anyway, pleased to meet you.’
Byng gulped and grasped the money bag tightly again.
‘Chilly tonight,’ the first man remarked. ‘Or at least, you seem to find it so, Mr Byng. You’re shivering. Hamish. Warm Mr Byng up.’
Hamish took a long drag on his cigarette so the tip burned like lava from a new volcano and advanced on Byng.
‘No, no need,’ Byng whimpered. ‘I’m not cold. I’m just a bit … nervous.’
‘Nervous, Mr Byng? Whatever for?’
Byng, in the manner of a cornered rat, suddenly lost his temper. ‘You get me down here in the dead of night,’ he blustered, ‘accusing me of all kinds of things. Extorting money. Beggaring me, to be frank. And you expect me to just smile and hand it over. Well, I won’t. I just won’t. I know you haven’t got anything on me. There’s nothing to have.’
‘Oh, come now, Mr Byng.’ Richard Knowes was nothing if not meticulous and he had been doing his homework. ‘There’s that little bit of fluff you kept down in Peckham.’
‘Kept,’ Byng said, triumphantly. ‘Kept. That’s the main thing. I haven’t seen Lucille in a year. And anyway, with my wife dead, who cares about Lucille?’
‘
Your father might.’
Byng shrugged.
‘Your wife’s trustees might.’
‘It’s nothing to do with them. And anyway, how did you find out about Lucille? No one knew about her. Certainly not Emilia, so even if you did have her, you couldn’t have found out from her.’
‘That’s true,’ Knowes said. ‘But there’s more than one way to skin a cat. What about your debts?’
‘I don’t owe a penny, anywhere.’
‘Not now you don’t,’ Knowes agreed. ‘But you did. And to a colleague of mine, Cauliflower-Ear O’Connor, one of the nastiest bookies in London. If you had wanted to gamble, Mr Byng, you should have gone somewhere reputable. Like to me, for instance.’
‘A small wager, nothing more.’ Byng was on the defensive, but still clutching his suitcase of money. ‘And as you say, all paid off now. And again, Emilia knew nothing about it. She was in Eastbourne the whole time. You need to tell me something that only Emilia could know.’
Knowes was impressed. Worms could turn, he knew, but he had never actually witnessed it happening. ‘Hamish,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘I think this is more of a cigar problem, don’t you? Fire one up, there’s a good chap. Now,’ he turned back to Byng, ‘you don’t seem to fully understand the situation, Mr Byng. You see, I don’t have to prove anything at all. Your wife is dead, true, and I am very sorry for that. I have spent a lifetime avoiding doing any harm to women. Hamish will bear me out …’
‘Certainly will, boss. Always a proper gent, you are. And both the Mrs Knoweses would stand up in court to agree.’
‘There you are,’ Knowes said, ‘never a truer word spoken. I don’t like men who hurt women, but when they’re dead, I suppose they’re dead and that’s all there is to it. Never mind, for anyone so inclined to part you from some more money, Mr Byng, there’s still Lucille …’
‘Lucille is old news,’ Byng muttered.
‘Perhaps so. But there’ll be others. And we’ll be watching, Mr Byng. It is my belief that you came here because you have secrets to keep. Otherwise, why would you? And I have found out two secrets without leaving my desk. So what others did your wife have under her pretty little bonnet?’
‘None. My wife was a saint. She didn’t have a bad bone in her body.’
‘Rumour on the street, Mr Byng,’ said Knowes, ‘she discovered a few bad bones before she died. Medical examiner reckons she was at it like a weasel …’ again, he turned to Hamish, ‘it was “weasel” he said, wasn’t it, Hamish?’
‘I believe it was, boss,’ said Hamish, between puffs on a large and dangerous-looking cigar.
‘Like a weasel with whoever held her captive. Now, Mr Byng, at this point, I have to tell you, it wasn’t me. Because the Mrs Knoweses keep me more than busy. But … well, science doesn’t lie, Mr Byng, much to the chagrin of the criminal classes, or so I believe. So, who might that have been, do you reckon? Who could have got up the petticoats of your angelic Emilia? She was keen enough, goodness knows. I mean, she didn’t take much persuading; she hadn’t been kidnapped all that long. I’ve known it happen before, that I have. But it usually takes months. Years, even. But your Emilia – well! Days, if that.’
Behind the man, Hamish chuckled. ‘Must have been a bit of a flighty piece, boss. I tell you who probably had her … hurr hurr hurr.’ Hamish gave a smoky laugh, ‘it’d be Wang Wang, you know, that Chinese bloke in the Minories. Does a bit of white slaving but keeps the best uns for himself, they say. Not many as’d say no to him.’ Hamish looked at Byng. ‘On account of he’s got a—’
‘Come now, Hamish,’ Knowes shushed him. ‘Have some decency. Mr Byng doesn’t want to hear that kind of thing. He doesn’t want to hear his Emilia likened to a common trollop off the streets. He—’
Byng suddenly screamed and threw the bag at Knowes, catching him full in the face and knocking him temporarily off balance. ‘You pigs!’ he screamed. ‘You’re not fit to lace my Emilia’s boots, let alone speak of her in this way. Whoever this man is, she wouldn’t give him a second glance. She never had eyes for anyone but me, not from the moment we met. We were soulmates, do you hear me, soulmates.’ He leaned over and grabbed the bag just before Hamish did.
Knowes brushed himself down and regained his poise in seconds. ‘Don’t take your eyes off that bag, Hamish,’ he muttered. ‘It’s ten grand if it’s a penny. Little twerp has actually brought the money. He’s more of an idiot than we thought.’
Byng clutched the bag to his chest and crouched low, literally at bay. His eyes were wild and his mouth was working. ‘My Emilia,’ he said, through clenched teeth. ‘My Emilia did not give herself to another. It was me, don’t you see. It was me!’ His eyes became vague, looking into far distant sunny uplands where only he and Emilia could go. ‘We worked it all out, you see. She didn’t know why, but she knew we were short of money all the while. She tried her best, little economies here and there. She even persuaded poor Molly to work for no wages until our ship came in. But then even she could see that it couldn’t go on any further and that we would have to do something drastic.’
Deep in the shadows, Batchelor and Grand looked at each other; this plan was working better than they could have hoped. And Knowes and Hamish belonged on the stage; their double act would slay them down at the Elephant and Castle. Soon, they would have enough information to take to Bliss, though they knew it would be their word against Byng’s; Knowes was not likely to go into Bliss’s Abode willingly and there wasn’t really any other method, when it came to Dick Knowes.
‘So, she got off the train a few stations back down the line and I met her. We rented a little cottage in Hampton Wick and it was idyllic. It was like being on honeymoon, every day.’ Even Hamish, not one of nature’s sensitive souls, looked quite moved. ‘Molly was there, to cook and keep house for us. Anyway, the rest you probably know.’
Knowes shrugged. He didn’t know it all, by any means. He glanced across to where he knew Grand and Batchelor were hiding, a question in his eyes. Grand gestured for him to keep the conversation going. With a flash of inspiration, Batchelor had dashed off to find a policeman, any policeman, to hear what Byng had to say.
‘I don’t know everything, Mr Byng,’ Knowes drawled. ‘Even I don’t know everything.’
‘Well, we sent the letters. We had such fun. Emilia roared with laughter when we made up the spellings. Then, we found out that the trust fund couldn’t be broached. Those mad old buffers Teddy and Micah had never told her that, just that she would get the lot when she was thirty-five. Thirty-five, I ask you! Her father was as mad as a tree before he died, or he wouldn’t have pulled that kind of number out of the hat. We didn’t even know about the trust until I had … until he had his accident.’
Grand’s eyes widened. If he had had any sympathy for Byng and his plight before, he had none now.
‘But surely you knew that there would be conditions?’ Knowes was incredulous. There was nothing about tontines, trusts, escrow and other arcane financial shenanigans that he didn’t know.
‘Yes!’ Byng spat. ‘Yes, we knew about the age thing, but we didn’t see why Teddy and Micah shouldn’t be able to dip into it, let some free, so to speak, to help out. They loved Emilia. We thought they would … well,’ his shoulders sagged, ‘we thought they would just cough up the money.’
‘But they didn’t,’ Knowes prompted.
‘No. They didn’t. They couldn’t, as I see now. But I thought that they were being difficult. So, without telling Emilia, I …’ Byng dropped to his knees and howled the words to the indifferent London sky. ‘I took Molly with me one morning, I told Emilia we were going marketing. And … and …’
Over in his shadowy corner, Grand heard footsteps and voices behind him and he ran to silence them. Batchelor had managed to find a bobby on his beat just up the road, but he had been difficult to convince. He kept his rattle in one hand and his truncheon in the other, ready for anything. His beat was a lonely one, and boring, so being accosted by a gent
lemanly looking cove and told that a murderer was confessing not two streets away was hard to resist. On the other hand, he wasn’t born yesterday, hence his high level of preparation.
Hamish and Knowes had known some bad people. They were some bad people. But even they were aghast at what they were hearing. The three men hidden in the dark lee of the warehouse could scarcely believe it either.
‘I took her past the shops in the village, down to the river. I said we were getting some oysters from an old fisherman there. She was walking ahead of me. I … I strangled her from behind and cut off her finger.’ The old Selwyn Byng, always ready to blame someone else, came to the fore. ‘It was really difficult. You have no idea how hard it is to cut off someone’s finger.’
Hamish and Knowes glanced at each other and shrugged.
The policeman did a double-take. ‘Is that Dick Knowes?’ he whispered.
‘Best if you forget that bit when you put in your report,’ Grand told him and the man nodded. No point in mixing with Dick Knowes unless you really had to.
‘I had persuaded Emilia to remove her wedding ring – I told her I might have to send it to Teddy and Micah – and I forced it onto Molly’s finger. I’d read all about the body parts some lunatic was leaving all over the Thames, and it occurred to me, if I cut off her hands and feet as well, to make it look more … how shall I put it, deranged? If cutting a finger off was hard, you wouldn’t believe the difficulty with bigger bones. Then, I pushed her in the river.’ He looked at Knowes, whose face was far from its unreadable self. Yes, he had done some terrible things, but only to people who deserved it. And he – yes, even the great and feared Richard Knowes – had often felt some measure of remorse. But this little rat seemed to be able to justify it all. ‘It upset me,’ Byng said. ‘I wasn’t right for days.’
Grand, who had come very close to Molly in the dark waters of the river, took a step forward. He didn’t care what happened to him, but he would swing if necessary for the cold-hearted bastard.
