by Alex Grecian
I loved her sincerely,
I loved her too dearly,
I loved her in sorrow,
In joy, and in pain;
But my heart is forbidden,
Yes it never will waken.
Hammersmith stepped forward into the dark vestibule, its high chandelier tossing lamplight sparks against the walls. He recognized the song. It was called “The Maniac” and he had heard it many times in various pubs. He didn’t much care for it.
The mem’ry of bliss will ne’er come again;
Oh, this poor heart is broken!
Oh, this poor heart is broken!
He could hear something else now, a low whimpering, softer and almost drowned out by the singer. Hammersmith followed the voices to the front room and flattened himself against the wall outside. He crouched in the hallway and peered around the doorjamb. Inside the room, a small man was standing with his back to the door, bent over a person sitting in a chair. He was wearing something over his face—Hammersmith could see the strap at the back of his head—and seemed intent on whatever he was doing. Hammersmith took a closer look at the chair and recognized Inspector James Tiffany. At the same moment, Tiffany’s eyes rolled to the side and he saw Hammersmith. Their eyes locked and Tiffany grunted. A rag had been stuffed into his mouth and the Harvest Man, for that was clearly who the small man must be, was carving Tiffany’s cheek with a blade. Hammersmith gasped. The Harvest Man stopped singing and turned around. He was wearing the missing comedy mask and the grinning mouth didn’t remind Hammersmith of anything happy or joyous. The killer’s razor dragged across Tiffany’s upper lip as he turned and the inspector let out a stifled scream around the wad of fabric in his mouth, his cheeks puffing out with the effort.
Hammersmith tumbled into the room, still in a crouching position, the revolver raised aimlessly. “Jimmy!”
Tiffany tried to respond, but Hammersmith couldn’t understand anything he was shouting. The Harvest Man changed his grip on the razor and rushed at Hammersmith, swinging it like a scythe. Hammersmith pulled the trigger and the recoil knocked him off his toes onto his back. Plaster dust sifted from the ceiling, but the flash and bang were enough to startle the Harvest Man, who hesitated. Hammersmith tumbled back toward the door, but the Harvest Man was moving again, coming at him fast. Hammersmith got his feet under him and stood, but a loud noise distracted him. He looked around to see that Tiffany had managed to knock himself over sideways and was now trapped half under the chair. When Hammersmith looked back at the killer, the Harvest Man was directly in front of him. The immobile smiling face thrust itself at Hammersmith, and the blade came down in an arc at Hammersmith’s chest. Hammersmith raised the gun, but too late. He heard his jacket rip and felt the impact of the heavy razor directly over the scar in his chest. He fell backward against the wall and the Harvest Man ran past him into the hallway. A moment later, Hammersmith heard footsteps on the stairs.
He felt the front of his shirt for blood, but he was dry. He put the gun back in his belt and opened his shirt. Day’s flask now had a deep furrow in it, metal shavings curled around a groove where the flask had deflected the Harvest Man’s razor blade away from his heart. Hammersmith took a shaky breath, uncorked the flask, and swallowed a mouthful of brandy. It burned all the way down his throat. He put the flask down and hurried to where the inspector lay, still trapped beneath the overturned chair. He removed the rag and Tiffany gulped air through his mouth. Hammersmith worked at the knot in the rope behind the chair.
“Never mind me,” Tiffany said.
“You’re bleeding,” Hammersmith said. “He cut you.”
“The women are upstairs. Get going, Sergeant.”
Hammersmith left the knot half untangled. He ran out of the room, down the hallway, and leaped up the stairs, taking the revolver back out of his belt as he went. At the landing he was confronted with a series of doorways on both sides of a long passage, but only one door was closed and he made a beeline for it. He checked his grip on Day’s gun and turned the knob, threw the door open, and stepped into the room. Two women were tied to a bed against the far wall. As Hammersmith entered, the Harvest Man turned toward him, his stiff grinning mask slightly askew. Hammersmith took in the scene as he raised the gun. Both women appeared to be alive and reasonably well, though frightened. The Harvest Man stood perfectly still by the side of the bed, the razor held down at his side.
“Put it down,” Hammersmith said. “Let it drop and show me your hands. I don’t want to kill you if I don’t have to.”
The Harvest Man said nothing, but he slowly raised his hands and put them out at his sides.
“Drop the razor,” Hammersmith said again.
The Harvest Man took a step back and crouched as if he might sit on the edge of the bed. Then he vaulted forward, bringing the blade up over his head, and Hammersmith pulled the trigger. The Harvest Man stopped in midstride. The smiling mask split in two and half of it fell away. The killer took another step toward Hammersmith, then sank to his knees. He set the razor down on the floor between them and collapsed sideways. He put his hands up under his cheek and lay still, like a sleeping child. Under the mask, contrasting the half smile left there, his mouth was open wide, white tendrils of spit connecting his lips, comedy and tragedy reunited. Tears streamed across his face in two directions, falling off the end of his nose and pooling in the hollows of his gnarled ear.
Hammersmith stepped forward and kicked the razor blade away. He went down on one knee and checked the Harvest Man’s neck for a pulse, then lifted the remaining half of the mask over the killer’s head and tossed it away. The Harvest Man’s eyes rolled up and stared at Hammersmith. His lips moved and Hammersmith bent down closer so he could hear.
Oh, release me!
Oh, release me!
She heeds me not,
Yes, by heaven,
Yes, by heaven,
They’ve driven me mad.
A small hole in the Harvest Man’s forehead suddenly released a trickle of blood and the little murderer relaxed, dead at last.
59
Good riddance, I say.” Tiffany had freed himself and followed Hammersmith upstairs. Now he stood over the Harvest Man’s body, looking down on him. Tiffany held a sodden rag against his jaw, but his upper lip bled freely. “To think this little fellow killed so many people.”
Hammersmith didn’t respond. He had the Harvest Man’s folding razor and was sawing through the women’s ropes. In a few minutes, they were able to sit up and Hatty threw her arms around Hammersmith. He hugged her and patted her on the back.
“You’re safe now,” he said.
Hatty pulled back and surprised him by kissing him on the lips.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “But I wish you had let me kill him myself.”
“I honestly didn’t mean to kill him at all.” Hammersmith slipped out of Hatty’s arms and moved around to Eugenia Merrilow’s side of the bed. He began working on the ropes there. “I would rather have taken him in. I wonder what was wrong with him to make him murder the way he did.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Tiffany said. “All that matters is he’s dead and no more worries from that quarter.”
“Think of what people will say,” Eugenia said. She was able to swing her legs over the side of the bed now and she stood up. “Imagine a tableau of this very scene!”
Hammersmith shuddered and didn’t respond. Eugenia went on talking, but Hammersmith ignored her and left the room. Tiffany joined him a moment later on the landing.
“You did good work tonight,” Tiffany said. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, smearing his cuff with blood.
Hammersmith handed him the killer’s razor. “Evidence.”
Tiffany nodded and folded it up with his own blood still streaked across the blade. He put it away in his pocket.
“I only came here looking for Inspector D
ay,” Hammersmith said. “Haven’t you seen him?”
“Not since the two of you left together. Has his daughter been found, I hope?”
“She has. She’s safe and sound. If you do see Walter, would you tell him that?”
“Of course,” Tiffany said. “I’m going to recommend that Sir Edward reinstate you, Sergeant.”
Hammersmith shook his head. “I’m not a sergeant anymore.” He reached into his pocket and drew out the small leather case Fiona Kingsley had given him. He took out a card and stared at it before handing it over to Tiffany. Tiffany read it, then looked up at Hammersmith with a scowl.
“Private detective? Why would you wanna go and do that? Nobody likes a private detective.”
“Nobody likes an official detective, either,” Hammersmith said. He walked away from Tiffany and down the stairs.
60
Blackleg led a small group of five medical students through the alley to the broken-out window of the abandoned textile factory. One enterprising young man found a back door and together they cleared away the old looms, broken sewing machines, and other debris and managed to get it open. Then they carried their lanterns to the underground burial chamber. They covered Alice, Little Betty, and the unknown woman in clean white cloths and moved the bodies to stretchers. One at a time, they took them up and out of the building into the sunlight and set them in the back of a nondescript wagon. They did not re-barricade the back door, but left it open so that the building might be more accessible to the homeless of the neighborhood.
The bodies were carried to an undeveloped plot of land behind St John of God Church. Three graves had been dug there and all arrangements had been made with a sympathetic priest. He had been made aware that the women were murder victims without families, but knew nothing of their lives before.
The graves were quietly filled and small stones were erected above them.
For years after, until the stones had broken and the bodies had long since decayed, those three unremarkable graves were visited by men and women, in twos and threes, often very late at night. Chief among them was a burly man with a black beard and sad eyes.
EPILOGUE
I woke before the morning, I was happy all the day,
I never said an ugly word, but smiled and stuck to play.
And now at last the sun is going down behind the wood,
And I am very happy, for I know that I’ve been good.
My bed is waiting cool and fresh, with linen smooth and fair,
And I must be off to sleepsin-by, and not forget my prayer.
I know that, till to-morrow I shall see the sun arise,
No ugly dream shall fright my mind, no ugly sight my eyes.
But slumber hold me tightly till I waken in the dawn,
And hear the thrushes singing in the lilacs round the lawn.
—ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON, “A GOOD BOY,” A Child’s Garden of Verses (1885)
Hammersmith stopped and checked the address before knocking. He already missed the old blue door at the top of the porch steps. Too much was changing and he didn’t like any of it. He waited, looking around him at the wide unfamiliar street, until the door opened and a housekeeper beckoned him in and took his hat. Claire met him at the bottom of the stairs and directed him to a front room that was arranged much as it had been at 184 Regent’s Park. The furniture was all the same, but the window at the front was bigger and sunlight gave the place a lemon-yellow hue. He started to sit, but straightened back up when he saw that Claire was too anxious to join him. She paced back and forth, picking at her cuticles. He could hardly blame her. It had been weeks since she had last seen her husband.
“Have you found anything?”
“Very little,” Hammersmith said. “I’m sorry.”
“But he—” Claire was interrupted by Robert and Simon, who bounded into the room with Henry at their heels. Simon ran to Hammersmith and stood smiling up at him.
Hammersmith leaned down. “Good morning, Simon. I wasn’t sure if I’d get to see you this morning.”
“We live here now.”
“We have our own room,” Robert said. “We never had our own room before.”
“I’m glad.” Hammersmith smiled. “It’s good to see you, too, Henry.”
“You, too, Mr Nevil.”
“Henry has been helping with the boys,” Claire said. “Nanny has her hands full with the twins, and after all that’s happened I feel more comfortable with a man around the house.”
Hammersmith nodded. He and Claire exchanged a look. He knew it hadn’t been easy for her to forgive Henry and he was proud of her, happy to see his friends patching up their differences.
Something caught his eye and Hammersmith looked away out the window, where a magpie had landed on the sill. “I wish I had good news to deliver,” he said. “The police haven’t given up and neither have I, but there’s been no luck. Someone saw Walter get into a carriage at the old house, but it hasn’t been spotted again. There’s nothing to grab hold of.” The bird cocked its head to the side and looked in at him. Hammersmith thought it resembled Oliver and he wondered what had become of that loyal bird. It hopped to one side, pecked at the glass, and flew away.
“You’ll find him,” Claire said. Hammersmith wasn’t sure if it was a question or a show of faith in his abilities. Either way, he felt he ought to answer her.
“I don’t know that I will. I’m not the detective Walter was. I mean, he is the detective. I’m only his sergeant.”
“But you are a detective,” Simon said. “Miss Fiona says so.”
“Is she about? Fiona, I mean? I wanted to say good-bye.”
“She was here earlier,” Claire said. “I’m afraid you’ve only just missed her. A shame. She would have liked to see you.” Claire gave him a look he didn’t understand. “But what do you mean you wanted to say good-bye to her?”
“I’ve accepted a position,” he said. “And I’m afraid I won’t get much chance to come round in the future.”
“What? Where are you going?”
“It’s not important.”
“Nevil, what position have you taken?”
“I’m to be a dustman. Beginning Saturday.”
“No!”
“It’s honest work.”
“I can’t let you do that.”
Hammersmith went to the door and looked into the hall, wondering where the housekeeper had taken his hat. He turned back. “It’s done already. I’ve run out of funds and I need the work.”
“If you stop looking for Walter . . . If you stop, he’ll be lost forever. I know it.”
“Claire . . .” He looked down at his boots. He noticed that they were coming apart at the toes. He hoped Claire hadn’t seen them. He didn’t want her to know how bad things were for him, but he was going to lose his flat. He couldn’t seem to find anyone to share it and Mrs Flanders had reluctantly given him notice. “Mrs Day, my circumstances have changed somewhat. But you must know that I’m going to keep looking for Walter. I would never give up on him.”
“No, sir,” Henry said. “You don’t give up on anything, Mr Nevil. You never do.”
“Henry, please take the boys to the kitchen and ask Cook to get them something to eat,” Claire said. “I have something I want to say to Mr Hammersmith.”
Henry took the boys by their hands and led them from the room. Robert looked back over his shoulder with a worried expression. Hammersmith couldn’t blame him. He was worried, too, and he hadn’t been through half what the brothers had.
“Now for you,” Claire said.
Hammersmith held up a hand. “I know what you’re going to say.”
“I have money,” Claire said. “Or rather, my father has money and he has promised me whatever I need.”
“I won’t take your money. Or your father’s money.”
“You must. I know private detectives don’t work for free.”
“This again? I never said I was any kind of detective.”
“Do you not have calling cards that say otherwise?”
“I do, yes, but I think I’ve been quite clear about—”
“So Fiona Kingsley has lied about you?”
“Well, no, that’s not what I—”
“Do you really wish to be a dustman for the rest of your life?”
“Of course not.” He didn’t want to be a dustman at all, going house to house, carting loads of refuse, but he had no choice if he didn’t want to live on the street. Or worse, the poorhouse or prison. He’d had his shot at his dream job and he’d lost it. He bit his lip and took a deep breath.
“Well, then?”
“Claire, I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but I can’t let you. I don’t want charity, no matter how it’s disguised and no matter how well-intentioned it is.”
“I’m not proposing charity, you bloody idiot. Will you look past your pride for even a minute? I want my husband back. Who will look for him if not you?”
“The police will. Walter isn’t some clockmaker who disappeared on holiday. The Yard will never stop looking for him.”
