The Devil in the Dock

by Richard James

  “Prendergast, what the bejabbers is going on here?” Hicks demanded, planting his hands firmly on his wide hips.

  “This is Kitty Baldwin, sir, stage door keeper at The Theatre Royal here. It was she what found the - ” He hesitated, not wishing to cause the poor girl even greater distress. “The body, sir.” A sob issued from somewhere within the folds of Prendergast’s sleeve. Graves lifted the rope to let them pass.

  “It’s a rum place to end your days,” offered Hicks, unhelpfully. He attempted to peel Kitty from the constable’s arm. His chosen tactic was to be horribly ingratiating. “Calm yourself, madam,” he leered to the young lady, placing a fat hand on her shoulder. “At what time did you discover the body?”

  “Just before curtain up,” she sobbed. “I opened the door to let in the artistes when I caught a sight of it. At first I thought it nothing more than rubbish thrown by the butchers, but then I saw the clothes, ripped and torn to shreds. Horrible, it was.” She was dressed in a faded cotton dress and a shawl that had plainly seen better days. Graves felt a wave of sorrow for the poor girl.

  “Could you lead us to it?” he ventured, carefully. With a nod and a tug at Prendergast’s sleeve, she made it plain she would only do so with the young constable’s company. “All right, Prendergast,” said Graves, fixing the rope behind them. “Let’s take a walk, shall we?”

  They picked their way carefully through the alley, stepping aside to avoid the nameless detritus at their feet. Vinegar Yard really was the most squalid of places. Heaps of filth were piled at either side. Discarded food mixed with the ordure on the ground such that the most terrible stink rose to greet them. Rats scurried at their feet as they passed.

  Eventually they stopped in the darkest, dankest part of the alley, Kitty clinging to her constable with even greater determination. Unable to let go, she nodded her sad head in the direction of a tangled pile of skin, bones and clothing.

  As Graves sat on his haunches to examine the body, Hicks took the opportunity to strike up a conversation. “I too am a man of the theatre, you know,” he pronounced to anyone who would care to listen. “Seen ’em all, I have. Could fancy m’self treading the boards.” He gave Kitty a nudge. “What d’you think?” She nodded weakly, unsure how to respond.

  “It got him good and proper whatever it was.” Reaching for a length of wood from a discarded pile to his side, Graves held a hand over his mouth and nose as he prodded the corpse. Flies buzzed angrily at the disturbance. Already, maggots were emerging from the poor man’s wounds.

  “Could’ve been rats,” Hicks contributed, unhelpfully. Graves rolled his eyes. “I have heard tell of extraordinary creatures lurking in the filth,” continued Hicks, holding his hands dramatically before him. “Perhaps it was the Golem himself!” He threw Kitty a ghastly wink, clamping his pipe between his teeth.

  “No Golem, Hicks,” sighed Sergeant Graves. “Nor no rats, neither. He was set upon by a large dog for sure, but why? And who would do such a thing in broad daylight?”

  “One may do the strangest things in London, Graves, and the citizens would pass on by without a care.”

  Graves rose, wiping his hands on his coat. “Constable Prendergast, we shall arrange for the body to be removed for further examination.” The young constable nodded. “In the meantime, I want an inventory of all who work here at the theatre and their comings and goings. I need a list of all those who may have used this alley.” He looked up. “What lies beyond those windows, Kitty?”

  Raising her eyes upwards, Kitty found the time between her sobs to form a sentence. “They are dressing rooms mostly. The very top one belongs to the chorus and musicians.”

  Graves nodded to Prendergast. “Let’s see if they remember anything suspicious,” he said.

  “Yes, sir,” Prendergast replied, attempting to peel the young woman from his arm. “I’ll set another constable at the mouth to the alley. Got to keep the crowds at bay.”

  “Good man!” Hicks clapped a hand on the man’s shoulder with more force than was necessary. “Now then,” he continued, turning to Sergeant Graves. “Might it be time for a spot of supper?”

  As the party moved back through the alley to the rope, a small boy with a floppy felt cap and gravy on his chin stood aside to let them pass. He had watched the whole drama unfold, and thought he knew just the person who would want to know that two detectives were investigating the discovery of the body in Vinegar Yard.

  III

  Big Tam

  If you knew Gravesend, it was said, you knew Big Tam. A native of Glasgow, he had moved south in his youth and had a knack of making his presence felt. At full stretch he reached almost seven feet tall, had hands like shovels and feet like flat irons. A butcher by trade, he had found gainful employment at Milton Barracks on the outskirts of the town. It housed over five hundred soldiers and officers, temporarily held in transit on their way to overseas wars. Each week, the barracks took delivery of cattle and sheep from the market at Deptford, brought alive to be slaughtered at the abattoir. Big Tam was happy in his work, and particularly happy when spending the proceeds of it. Having no family, he had none to please but himself and would do so every night at one of the many taverns Gravesend had to offer. As he stumbled from The Three Daws after a night at its long bar, he rose to his full height and let out a belch. A shout from an upstairs window bid him be quiet at such an ungodly hour, but Big Tam felt nothing but pride as it echoed off the walls around him. Pausing only to pass water by the old wood yard on the corner, he made his way unsteadily down Crooked Lane towards his lodgings in Ordnance Road. A few lights burned in the boats that bobbed on the Thames. The moon lit the road beneath his feet. Spying a feral dog by the roadside, Tam bent to pick up a stone. Swaying as he stood, he held the projectile for a moment between a thumb and forefinger then, taking aim, he let it go. He rejoiced with a song and a dance as the stone hit its mark, drawing blood from the unfortunate creature’s leg. The dog ran on with a yelp, its flank twitching with pain. Big Tam planted his feet on the road and launched a chorus of Daisy Bell to the heavens, the wind whipping his hair about his head. His broad Glasgow accent reverberated across the river to Tilbury as he stood, spreading his arms wide to embrace the night. Perhaps it was the noise that was his undoing. Perhaps it was his size. Either way, Big Tam had made himself conspicuous to the two men in the brougham behind him.

  The man at the reins was tall and angular. He was swathed in a black cloak, his broad-brimmed hat pulled low over his heavy brow so that only his beak of a nose was visible. The man beside him melted into the dark as they sat, tensed with the anticipation of a fight. They had been careful to pick a quiet hour, when the sensible citizens of Gravesend would be in their beds. With muffles on their hooves, the horses had made their way stealthily along Crooked Lane, pulling the carriage ever closer to its quarry. Almost silently, the two men lowered themselves to the road, the taller of them stilling the horses with a hand to their muzzles. Pulling a sack from his cloak, he held it high above his head to bring down upon their prey, motioning to his companion to proceed with caution.

  Big Tam finished his song, cleared his throat and spat phlegm to the floor where he stood. It had been a good night, he mused drunkenly, and he had no doubt there would be another tomorrow. Cruelly, his assailants chose that very moment to strike. Tam gave a cry as he felt the sack thrown over his head. His arms pinned suddenly to his side, he kicked out desperately, making contact with the shin of one of his aggressors. The man gave a howl of agony and fell to the road, rubbing furiously at his leg to relieve the pain. Seizing the advantage, Big Tam bent at the waist, turned and barrelled into the man who held the sack, his head making contact with his belly. He felt the sack loosening about his neck and knew that, with a few sharp movements, it would fall from his head completely. As drunk as he was, it would take more than two men with a hessian sack to subdue him.

  He had incapacitated one already, he knew. The kick to the man’s shin had produced a resounding cra
ck. The one who had held the sack had let go now, no doubt with the force of Tam’s head meeting his belly. He stood a chance. With a roar, he straightened up to his full height and swung his arms about him, his mighty fists clenched tight in anticipation of making contact with flesh and bone. A man was on his back now, his arms squeezed tight about his neck. As Tam struggled to shake him off, he felt his eyes begin to bulge. Barely able to breathe, he summoned all his strength and bucked and reared to try and dislodge the man. Eventually the man fell from his back with a thud. Big Tam charged about the road with as much force as he could muster in his drunken state. Where the devil was he? The answer came in the form of a splintering crack to his skull. For a moment, the darkness was shattered into a thousand glittering shards. It seemed he could see the stars. He struggled to regain his balance. Blood ran from his head, stinging his eyes and tasting bitter in his mouth. He could feel he was falling. His legs buckling beneath him, Big Tam swayed dangerously, then crashed to the ground with no less force than a felled oak split at the trunk. Their quarry subdued at last, the two men stopped for breath.

  “You all right, Bracewell?” rasped the tall man with the beaked nose.

  “Just get the bastard in the carriage,” replied the man in the road, clutching his shin awkwardly as he staggered to his feet.

  “Give him his credit, he’s a strong’un,” offered the tall man as he bound Tam’s hands and feet with rope from the brougham. “Should fetch us a pretty penny.”

  “Credit be blowed,” spat Bracewell as he limped to the carriage. “I’d rather see him bound and chained so I could have a proper crack at him. He fair near broke my leg.”

  “I’m sure that can be arranged.” With a dry laugh, his companion heaved Tam’s limp body onto the seat, covered him with a greasy blanket then took his place at the reins. Bracewell heaved himself aboard. With barely a sound, the brougham turned in the road and proceeded back up Crooked Lane. The only witnesses to their night’s work were the stars in the sky and a stray dog by the roadside who barely looked up from licking its wound as they passed.

  IV

  Marks Of Interest

  The morning was struggling to assert itself. The wind had calmed but left debris on the streets. Scraps of paper, food and even clothing lay in drifts with sticks and branches as Graves and Hicks walked briskly down The Strand. Graves had met Ignatius Hicks at The Silver Cross and prised him from his breakfast. As they rounded the corner into Agar Street, Graves took the time to look around him. The morning was his favourite time of day and he felt his spirits lift as he watched the city come to life. Baskets of fruit were emptied onto carts for sale, shop shutters were thrown open with a clatter and storefronts were filled with produce to entice passers by. Carts and private cabs rattled past in the wide road, their wheels splashing up dirt and detritus as they passed. Frock-coated gentlemen tipped their hats to acquaintances across the road. A knot of urchins gathered at a corner to discuss their strategy for the day. They scattered at the sight of the two detectives, Ignatius Hicks in particular cutting an all too recognisable figure.

  Charing Cross Hospital had stood at its present site for sixty years. It presented a neat facade to the world but in truth it had become a sprawl. Much of the hospital had been extended and enlarged over the years so that it now held over a hundred and fifty beds, three children’s wards and accommodation for fifty medical students. Clean, Palladian lines and a portico at the entrance gave it an air of solid authority amongst the squat and ramshackle buildings that surrounded it. Five storeys of windows stared blankly out onto the street. Two drunks asleep on the front steps were woken from their stupor by a porter. They swore and spat as they shuffled further up the street, only to settle and squabble together in another doorway that took their fancy.

  Passing a donations box fixed to the railings at the entrance, Graves led the way through the impressive wooden doors and into the large, airy space beyond. A flurry of nurses bustled before them, their soft crinoline skirts and full aprons billowing around them as they hurried about their duties. A rather stiff-looking man stood at a desk in the centre of the hall, his starched collar buttoned up so tight that his neck brimmed over the top. Turning to their right, the two men descended a flight of steps to the bowels of the building. The daylight faded behind them as they left the terrestrial world and sunk deeper into the Earth, their footsteps echoing off the tiled walls. Gas jets lit their way to a subterranean corridor where few ever trod. Graves peered in at each open door as they passed. Shelves of jars and instruments adorned every room. In one or two, doctors were bent at their work, their starched white aprons streaked with unknown substances. A sinewy man of inestimable age shot the visitors a look of irritation and closed a door with a slam, but not before Graves got a glimpse of a cadaver upon the table, its chest cavity open so that the inner organs were displayed. Finally reaching the last door in the row, Hicks announced their presence with a sharp tap of his pipe on the frosted glass. It was opened by a thin bird of a man with a pair of spectacles balanced on the end of his nose. Strands of white hair were trained across his balding head, and his overall expression was one of disdain.

  “I expected you earlier,” snapped Doctor John Crane, MRCS. His Scottish burr lent him an air of patient civility quite at odds with his sentiment.

  “Inspector Hicks was busy at his breakfast and loath to be torn away,” offered Graves with an apologetic shrug.

  “Best meal o’the day,” thundered Hicks. “And it mustn’t be rushed.” He raised an admonishing finger to the young sergeant. Graves refused to rise to the bait, however, instead following Doctor Crane to the table in the centre of the room. There, laid out like an offering, was the body from Vinegar Yard. It lay on its back, its clothes having been removed. The matts of bloodied hair and clothes that Graves had noticed in the alley had gone, but the poor man was now adorned with grislier signs of injury. Great, fresh scars ran the length of his abdomen, across his stomach and up his chest to his throat; the signs of the doctor’s investigations.

  “I’ve cleaned him up as best I could, but it was no easy task,” Doctor Crane intoned with a professional detachment. “He certainly came out of his encounter much the worse for wear, didn’t he?”

  “I’m presuming he was got at by a dog?”

  “You’d be correct in your assumption, sergeant. The tooth marks here and the stretch of the jaw indicated by them would suggest a breed similar to a bull terrier. I’ve seen such marks before.”

  “What can you deduce of the man from his remains, doctor?” Hicks stood with his hands on his hips, gesturing with a nod of his head that Graves should make notes. The sergeant shrugged his coat off and hung it on a coat stand by the door. Pulling a notebook and pencil from his waistcoat pocket, he stood by the unfortunate man’s naked feet, primed to make a record of the doctor’s findings. Doctor Crane bent to take a pair of long-handled tweezers from a tray of medical instruments. Graves could see serrated blades, clamps and syringes amongst them, but also bottles and vials of strange fluids.

  “We have before us the body of a male, some thirty years old.” Graves scratched at his notebook as the doctor continued. “The subject was in good health.”

  Hicks threw back his head and let forth a peal of laughter. “Exceptin’ he’s dead,” he guffawed.

  “He was in good health ante mortem,” the doctor continued, lifting his spectacles to glare at Inspector Hicks as if he were a naughty child. He cleared his throat pointedly before continuing. “Although evidence of opiate dependency may be seen in the bloodshot eyes, the mottling of the skin about the mouth and the scratches to the chest.”

  “Scratches?” Graves lifted his pencil from his notebook.

  “It is common enough to those in thrall to the drug,” sighed the doctor, seemingly irritated at the interruption. “The results of the agitation and even hallucinations that are concurrent with its use.” His clipped Scottish vowels made him sound more brusque than ever. Graves nodded in understan
ding.

  “He clearly died of his wounds, particularly the laceration of his jugular vein, here,” Doctor Crane pointed to the man’s neck with the tweezers, lifting a flap of skin to reveal a tubular vein the width of a child’s little finger. Looking closely, Graves could clearly see it was torn in several places. “Although there is evidence of previous injury to the head, namely the zygomatic bone,” he pointed to the man’s cheek with his tweezers, “the mandible,” he pointed to the jaw, “and various bones in the skull.”

  “He’s certainly been in the wars, then?” offered Hicks. His interjection was roundly ignored by the other two men in the room.

  “There are several other points of interest,” continued the doctor, pushing his spectacles back up his nose the better to continue his examination. “Most noticeably here on the hands.”

  Doctor Crane lifted the man’s hand from the table and spread his fingers wide. Graves peered closer. They were big hands for sure, but Doctor Crane was clearly alluding to something more. “The knuckles are scarred.” Doctor Crane looked up to see what effect his words had had. Inspector Hicks was stroking his beard in an attempt to look thoughtful.

  Graves was scratching his head. “Are they recent scars?”

  “Now that is an interesting question,” teased the Doctor. “In point of fact, they are scars upon scars.” He lifted the other hand to display a deep cut across his knuckles.

  “They look recent enough to me,” harrumphed Hicks.

  “That is the site of my investigations, Inspector Hicks. The cut was made but half an hour ago.” Thinking he’d have more luck with Graves, the doctor turned to the young sergeant in front of him. “The scar tissue is thick and calloused and runs right to the bone,” he explained. “Indeed there are signs of trauma to the metacarpals themselves.”

  “What might have caused such a thing?”