The House Of Smoke

by Sam Christer

  When Levine and Moriarty arrived, we were afforded the privacy of a secure area near the Association Room. My lawyer was more modestly dressed than usual, in a suit of green velvet, pale ruffled shirt and green silk tie. Moriarty was still in the guise of clerk.

  They had both been told of the attempt on my life and despite the fact that I was soon to hang were ironically concerned for my welfare.

  ‘I do hope you have not suffered further injury,’ remarked the lawyer. ‘You have had a most terrible time since your admission.’

  ‘Shut up, Levine,’ growled Moriarty. ‘Your lack of reality embarrasses me.’ He looked my way. ‘Simeon, I will find this Huntley fellow and I assure you he will be dealt with.’

  ‘He is of no consequence. Chan was behind the attack, and it is he I wish to be brought to book.’

  ‘You are certain it was Chan?’

  ‘The cell was run by a Chinaman called Sun Shi, who said he is a cousin of Lee Chan.’

  ‘This side of hell, they will never be reunited,’ promised Moriarty.

  Levine was nervous of the conversation and keen to change the subject. ‘Gentlemen, let us move to legal business, as time is of the essence. Simeon, in light of our failed appeal to the home secretary we have been petitioning the monarch for clemency.’ He passed me a stamped note, signed by the royal secretary. ‘Unfortunately, Her Majesty is not disposed to intervene on this occasion.’

  I held the letter but did not look at it. ‘Yesterday, you informed me you had lost PC Cross as a witness and had an appeal denied by the home secretary. Am I correct in now assuming we are at the end of the line and I should prepare for the worst?’

  ‘I am truly sorry,’ added Moriarty. ‘We have run out of options. Except for the one Holmes presented you.’

  I passed the royal note back. ‘Holmes’s proposition is not an option.’

  ‘Then you have decided?’ Levine sounded a tad too enthusiastic for my liking.

  ‘I have.’ An involuntary sigh gave away how drained I felt. My spirit was already dead. My determination to live had been depleted. ‘I am guilty of the murder of PC Jackson and, Lord knows, many more as well. So I shall not be saving my own neck only to break those of others.’

  Moriarty spoke gently and slowly. ‘My son, you are resolved to do a brave and honourable thing, but I beg you not to. You are young enough to start again, to find a new love and to raise a new family.’

  I shook my head. ‘You of all people know that I have had but one love. One beautiful love and one beautiful child. I wish for no more. They are irreplaceable.’

  ‘I understand your loss, and your sentiments.’ His eyes misted and I am sure for a moment he thought of Alexander. ‘But I would willingly give my life in return for yours.’

  ‘But it would not be only yours,’ I reminded him. ‘Holmes seeks the neck of your brother more than yours, and it would not stop there. Everyone in your empire would be at risk.’

  The ensuing silence seemed to seal the discussion. I had but one loose end, one unanswered question. ‘Surrey? Do you have any further news of her?’

  The professor took a deep breath. ‘I do not. I asked the very same question of James and he says neither he nor Moran saw her after she went with Elizabeth.’

  ‘So Chan killed her as well?’

  ‘It would appear so.’

  ‘For that error of judgement alone, I deserve to hang. Had I gone with Elizabeth then both she and Surrey would be alive today and I would not be in this wretched place.’ I banged my fists on the table and struggled not to bellow out the rage that rose inside me.

  Moriarty put his hands gently over my whitened knuckles. ‘Do not torture yourself with regrets. The blame is solely Chan’s. Not yours, nor mine, nor James’s.’ He could see my spirit was still fiery and added, ‘You and I are not so different. I have the same rage and propensity for violence I have just learned to hide it better. And I too lost my mother; she passed in my early teens and I missed her terribly. The business I built in America was more to honour her memory than anything. And I confess that returning to those shores always made me feel connected to her.’

  He flinched and I wondered if it was the pain of remembering or the agony of his injuries, then he concluded, ‘Sons who lose their mothers early are either driven to succeed or destined to die in poverty.’

  From that moment forth, our moods became increasingly saturnine and I found myself longing for my own company in order to come to terms with all my feelings and the enormity of what lay ahead. ‘Please do not think me rude, but I need to return to my cell and rest now.’

  Moriarty looked disappointed.

  ‘I wish to gather my thoughts,’ I explained, ‘come to terms with my lot and find some peace with my maker.’

  ‘I understand. Then Levine and I will leave you for now.’ He squeezed out a smile as he began to rise. ‘But we will come again tomorrow and—’

  ‘No!’ I snapped. ‘I am sorry, I mean, no thank you. I fear that from this moment onwards your presence may only weaken my courage rather than fortify it. I wish to give no satisfaction to those who tie the noose around my neck.’

  He looked pained by my bluntness. ‘You do not wish to see me again?’

  ‘Not this side of Newgate’s unholy walls.’ I rose from my seat and looked to the lawyer. ‘Good day, Mr Levine. It is a great pity that your wardrobe outshone your abilities, but I thank you nonetheless.’

  He afforded me a graceful bow of his head. ‘I shall pray for you, sir.’

  Moriarty appeared close to tears as he extended his hand. I shook it firmly and we both held tight, understanding that this would be our last contact. His flesh was my flesh. Our handshake was our bond. I looked him in the eyes. ‘Will you promise to do something for me?’

  ‘Anything within my power.’

  ‘The life of Lee Chan. That is my dying request, father. Take his life. Kill him for me. For your son. For Elizabeth and for Molly.’

  One Day to Execution

  Newgate, 17 January 1900

  I saw them again last night.

  Not my family, or the few I called friends. But the faces of each and every person I had murdered. They surfaced from the black pools of my mind. Rose first as shadows, then shaped themselves into silhouettes before finally becoming the fathers and sons, brothers and lovers that I had slain. This was their moment of reckoning.

  I clearly saw their faces. Mouths that had cried for help, gasped for breath or gargled blood. Eyes that had registered shock, pleaded for mercy or grown cold as glass. Now I wished I had not killed them, whatever their crimes I wished they still trod the earth.

  My eyes remained shut until the physiognomy of my victims faded and they became no more than what death and I had reduced them to – mere shadows, pools of blackness.

  The experience left me depressed and the mood was still on me when Johncock entered the cell and found me sitting on my bunk. ‘Mr Sherlock Holmes has arrived at the gatehouse and is seeking to visit you.’

  ‘No.’ I shook my head. ‘I do not have the energy for him. Turn the man around and tell him he has made a wasted journey.’

  ‘I am not your errand boy, Lynch, and Mr Holmes anticipated that you would respond in such a fashion.’ He reached into his right-hand pocket and produced a folded note. ‘He required me to give you this, and said it would alter your decision.’

  ‘I doubt it.’

  I took the note, unfolded it and read it. My heart quickened. The contents were brief but so shocking that I had to reread it before I could respond. ‘Mr Holmes is correct. I have changed my mind and will see him.’

  The meeting took place some ten minutes later in my cell, after one of Johncock’s men had grudgingly brought two rough wooden stools and afforded us some privacy.

  Holmes was wearing a brown tweed greatcoat and a generous woollen scarf in contrasting cream. He winced at the smell of the room and held the scarf to his nose to mask the stench. ‘The air in here is most odorous,
’ he complained. ‘There really should be a law against it.’

  ‘What is the meaning of this note?’ I asked, holding it up.

  ‘I should have thought that axiomatic.’ He sat on a stool and loosened his coat. ‘You were foolish enough to confess to a crime that you had not committed, and I can prove your stupidity.’

  ‘With respect, Mr Holmes, you cannot prove I was wrong. It may have escaped your brilliant powers of observation but I was actually there when PC Jackson died and you were not. I put a knife through his throat. I watched his legs twitch and his mouth froth. In short, I witnessed his death in its entirety.’

  ‘With that last declaration I have no argument. The officer in question is undoubtedly dead and I fully accept that you witnessed his passing. But you did not kill him.’

  ‘How can you say such a thing?’

  ‘Do you remember when we first met inside this institution? I asked you to name the men who had been with you on that fateful night and you would not.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Well, you would have saved me a great deal of time and effort if you had been more forthcoming. No matter, I have done what I do best. I have been back to the scene of the crime. I have examined that flash house in Southwark where the murder occurred. Furthermore, I have mentally reassembled the events of your encounter, reconstructed them in my deductive mind and seen them from the true angle, one of a dispassionate and incisive observer devoid of emotion, guilt or mistaken memories.’

  I was close to my wits’ end. ‘Then please tell me what on earth you think you have deduced, so I may at least look forward to dying in peace.’

  ‘There is no think about it, sir.’ He sounded offended. ‘The names of the men you would not disclose are the brothers Charles and James Connor. I suppose it is to your misguided credit that despite your past differences with these fellows you chose to protect their memories – and I say memories, because both of them are dead.’

  ‘How did you come about their names?’

  ‘A search of public records placed you all at the same London workhouse. An unpleasant conversation with Mr Beamish, the master and a far more efficacious one with Mr Bangura, your former boxing trainer, gave me all the background information I required about you, the Connor boys and your collective exit from the institution.’

  ‘But how did you place all of us at Hoolihan’s house in Southwark?’

  ‘That was even less taxing. The corpse of Charles Connor was found alongside that of PC Jackson. It was almost inconceivable to me that two brothers who had run away together in your company, would not have stayed together once free of the spike. Ergo, James Connor was also in that room when his brother and PC Jackson died.’

  My mind turned to his earlier comment. ‘You said both of the brothers are dead.’

  ‘I did. Charles, as I believe you are aware, died from a fatal abdominal stab wound sustained in the confrontation with the police. He had other vicious but non-fatal injuries, consistent with being beaten by a truncheon.’

  ‘And Jimmy?’

  ‘Ah, therein lies the key to your innocence of this crime. James Connor fled the scene, presumably because he saw that his brother was dead and so too was a policeman.’

  ‘As did I.’

  ‘Quite. But you didn’t flee together, did you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And you never saw him again?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Had you done so, you might have learned that human beings are creatures of habit, especially those who kill.’

  ‘You are baffling me, Mr Holmes.’

  ‘To be more explicit, people who kill with knives tend to kill again with knives. Murder is habit forming and in my experience, once a habitual murderer has perfected a way to take a life, he usually sticks to it.’

  This was uncomfortable ground for me. He was right. I also had my preferred techniques, though my preference was not for a knife but my hands. ‘I still do not see your point, sir.’

  ‘That is because I haven’t yet fully made it. I pursued my theory of habitual modus operandi and I found two more murders in which the victim had been pinned to the floor with a knife through the larynx. One of those was a pawnbroker in Sheffield. The other, a jeweller in Leeds.’

  ‘So the practice was more commonplace than you thought?’

  ‘No.’ He looked exasperated. ‘To the contrary. It was the same man. Ten years ago, James Arthur Connor was hanged in Yorkshire. He swung from the gallows inside Armley Gaol, after being convicted of both the killings I have just described to you.’

  ‘May the Lord have mercy on his soul. I did not know Jimmy was dead, let alone that he had been hanged. I am saddened to learn of this.’

  ‘You shouldn’t be,’ said Holmes, brightly. ‘When asked if he had any final words, according to several witnesses of good repute, James Connor responded, “God forgive me. I killed another. A copper in London.”’

  I still refused to accept the implication of what was being said. ‘He didn’t, though. Not unless it was a policeman other than the one I killed.’

  ‘Dash it man, have you no common sense? Your friend fled London after PC Jackson’s death. In fact, he spent little time anywhere, except for inside the gaols of Stafford, Stoke and Kirkdale. Furthermore, he also told three other felons in Armley, all of whom are still incarcerated there, that he had nearly been caught for killing the policeman who had murdered his brother.’

  A cold shiver gripped me. I knew Jimmy would unhesitatingly have killed anyone who hurt Charlie. Holmes was right about brotherly love. My mind crackled with partial memories of that day. Flashes of facts, glowing like embers in a fire that I thought had been long extinguished.

  Still I tried to deconstruct the detective’s theory. ‘In truth, Mr Holmes, it was I who fought with Jackson, not Jimmy. The knife belonged to the policeman, not one of us. He had pulled it out and stabbed Charlie. I punched him and grabbed his wrist. We fought for possession of it and struggled all around that room. Jimmy was fighting some other copper, then we all crashed into each other. We fell like idiots and when I got up and looked around, I saw the knife sunk in Jackson’s throat.’

  ‘Exactly!’ Holmes wagged a finger directly in my face. ‘You saw the knife! But do you recall holding it? Turning it? Positioning yourself directly above the man, then stabbing downwards with such deliberate force that it went through several layers of his flesh, tissue, muscle and organs, and pinioned him to the floor?’

  ‘No, sir, I do not.’

  ‘I thought not. Then how could that very thing have happened?’

  ‘I presumed we fell. That the weight of others landing on top of us drove the knife through his neck.’

  ‘Presumed?’ He said the word with rich sarcasm. ‘Your presumption is utter nonsense. At best, such a thing would be highly improbable. But given James Connor’s confession that he killed his brother’s murderer, it is absolutely impossible.’

  Holmes stood up and backed away from the stool. ‘Here is what happened. Connor saw his brother stabbed by PC Jackson while, as you said, he was engaged in fighting another officer, a man I have learned was one Benjamin Crowther. James Connor and Crowther subsequently careered into you and Jackson. All four of you fell. Crowther ended up face down over Jackson’s legs. You were on your side, facing away from everyone and you were disorientated. You rolled out of the melee, got to your feet, saw Charles Connor was dead and then saw the knife in the policeman’s throat. In that second, you made your presumption and assumed your guilt. Am I correct?’

  ‘Yes, that is precisely my recollection.’

  Holmes continued with more energy. ‘What actually happened was that while you were still down and confused, James Connor got up. He saw the spilled knife and pounced upon it.’

  Holmes put his hands together and interlocked his fingers as though holding a blade downwards. ‘He was enraged. He saw his brother’s murderer trapped beneath Crowther, and he struck.’ Holmes fell dramatically to his knees,
raised the imaginary knife and slammed his hands down. ‘Connor plunged the knife into PC Jackson’s throat. Double-handed, with enough force to pierce the larynx and the boards beneath it.’

  The detective rose, brushed dirt from his knees, then sat back on the stool. ‘In addition to the scene of that murder, I have been to the Coroner’s Office and examined sketches made by the attending doctor and investigating police officers. I have consulted the best brains in Harley Street and the consensus of expert opinion is that Jackson’s fatal injury is entirely consistent with the actions I just described to you, actions only attributable to James Connor. My experts also concur that you could not possibly have delivered that fatal wound, not from merely falling over with the deceased. Nor could it have been inflicted by another person falling onto the knife in the ridiculous way you described.’ He looked at me in earnest. ‘In short, Lynch, you are innocent. Of this murder at least.’

  His observations left me stunned. My life might have been different – so very different. Had I known, as I left that house in Southwark, that I had not been responsible for the policeman’s death, I certainly would not have given in to Moriarty’s demand to leave with him that day in Manchester. Most of all, I would never have killed on his behalf.

  ‘I am grateful for you revealing this, Mr Holmes, but I am somewhat nonplussed as to why you have done so on my behalf.’

  ‘The answer to that is simple. Your account of how you killed Jackson made no sense, and for me there must always be sense in a confession, otherwise it is a lie or a mistake. You see, Lynch, I am quite content to see a man hang for a murder he committed, very content indeed. But I am most disturbed if one hangs for a crime he did not commit. It undermines our entire judicial system.’

  ‘So you will present your evidence to the home secretary?’