by Parry, Owen
“I beg your pardon, ladies,” I said, which made them go all mum, though the youngest got the giggles at the sight of me. I am not impressive at a glance, not tall nor winningly handsome. “Pardon me, but did any of you happen to mark the direction that blind fellow took when he left here? The one who was sitting just down there all the morning?”
Every one of them looked at me, and I knew what they were thinking: What does that uniform mean to me? And what do I risk by answering?
At last, a redhead missing her upper teeth propped her hands on her hips and spoke. “That’s a good one. Ain’t it, girls?” The giggling bloomed into chuckles. “If ’e was blind, the Queen farts gold and silver. That’s a trick as old as Methusalee’s arse, them egg-whites over the eyes.” She crossed her arms beneath her startling bosom. “Down the lane, ’e went, like ’e ’eard they was pouring free beer for every comer. No sooner than you and that buster went off to Jew Street.”
My back come up. Now you might think that I had been fair beaten, and fooled enough to put me in my place. But no fight ends until a man gives up. I have fought my way, God forgive me, from Chilianwalla to Pittsburg Landing, and know that a soldier must see the crisis through. We do not know the victor until the finish. And this particular day was far from over.
And I was thinking clearly now. I saw that I had been stumbling blind—far blinder than the heel-reader ever was. I had been led along, for whatever reason, by those who knew far more of me than they should. There was many a matter I saw before me now, from here to wicked Washington, and I would have a talk with Mr. Adams. For he, too, had been duped, it seemed to me.
But first things first. I had much to assemble. And more to learn, beginning back in that close.
“They’ve made us into bleeding fools, they ’ave,” Inspector Wilkie declared, though not so loud that Constable Higgins might hear.
“That they have,” I said. “But we are not finished, nor will we be finished this day. Come with me, please, for we have a call to make.”
Now, there are things a man cannot explain. At times, his blindness seems a thing remarkable. At other times, he has an inspiration, but cannot give the reason, try as he might. And I have learned to trust my soldier’s instincts. Thus, I survived when better lives were lost. When the voice inside us shouts, we must pay attention.
I drew him back through the muck of the passage and into the little courtyard by the stair that led to Mrs. Hepburn’s enterprise. The child was still at it, wailing to beat the band. Her throat was hoarse to bleeding, by the sound, but still she would not be comforted. If anyone was offering her a comfort.
I knocked upon the flimsy door that fronted the shut-up room. Inside, the howling redoubled, sparked to a terror.
A kind-featured woman appeared to answer my summons. Her face was even scrubbed, if somewhat care-worn.
“I’m sorry, sir, if my Jenny’s been disturbing you.” The haste of embarrassment colored her speech to a blush. “She’s been done a dreadful fright and won’t be told.”
“I have not come to complain, madame. Only to put a question or two. If you will permit me.”
After judging my unfamiliar uniform, she gave a thought to Wilkie, who looked like a mortician whose trade was slack.
“As you pleases, sir.” But she was frayed. “Oh, Jenny, won’t you stop, now?” she called into the shadows of her dwelling. Then she come back to me again. “If you’d like to come inside, sir? Mind the stoop.”
We crouched inside. Twas no more than a closet of a room, where darkness triumphed over a single candle. Cheap wax sputtered, and the corners smelled of Mankind.
“She gets the terrors, she does,” the mother told us. “Though never like today, not ever before.” As if she read my thoughts, she added, “I had to shut up the window, for she thought they was coming to get her.”
Watching us as sheep will watch their slaughterer, the child declined to a whimper, then to a sob. Her breathing was labored and she wore a fevered look. She did not move her eyes from me, not even to look at her mother. Twas strange, for usually I am a figure of fun to children. They like me, though I cannot tell you why.
“Who?” I asked. “Who did she think would come after her?”
“Oh, she’s always making up her stories,” the mother said. “The other children won’t leave off her, for all the tales she tells. You can’t believe a word the poor thing says.”
“But what did she say today? What did she think she saw?”
The woman made a wry face, red with shame. “Oh, a fine tale this one was. Though she’s a good girl, mind, my Jenny. Only fanciful, and special in her ways. Up early she was, and the pot was full from my George. So she let herself outside to do what comes needful—for she’s never the one to mess, sir. And in she comes wailing and wild and all wet from herself. Screaming and jabbering tales of a great, big man out on the stairs, with a red mask over his face. And brown hobgoblins dancing along to his tune. He lifted up the mask, she said, and showed her the face of the Devil.”
That should have been enough. Enough for one day, or a lifetime. But Constable Higgins took pride in thorough work. Just then, he come bounding down from the pawn-mother’s shop.
“They wasn’t all empty,” he cried. “I found this in a drawer. In the very last cabinet.”
He stood in the light of the doorway. Holding out a plain, brass watch.
FIVE
I HAD TO GAIN CONTROL OF THAT WATCH, BUT Inspector Wilkie kept it from my grasp. Shifting it from one hand to another, as a child might do a ball of India rubber, he tantalized me. For he had come to realize that his suspicions did not match my own.
Back in the police rig we were, headed for Regent’s Park and the dead boy’s body. My thoughts were so intent upon the watch that I hardly marked the bustling world outside. That brass disk rolled from one of Wilkie’s hairy paws to the other, then back again. I wanted to reach out and seize it.
A contest of intertwined carriage wheels delayed us by a rank of cabs and horses. The air smelled of hay and fresh droppings, and the day blazed.
Of a sudden, the inspector closed his fist. Hiding the watch to tease me.
“Now . . . not that I’m suspicious,” he began, as the rig rolled free again. “For ’ow could I be suspicious in the least? But I can see ’ow it might strike a body that this ’ere watch is uncommon interesting to certain parties, Major Jones.” He gave me a sideward glance, dark eyes peering through a thatch of whiskers. “Almost more interesting than people falling down dead on every side of us, what with eel-men and Mrs. ’Epburn and the boy. To say nothing of your own countryman, the Reverend Mr. Campbell, of which person we are now bereft.” He opened his fist again, palm up, and regarded the timepiece. Plain brass it was, indeed. On the outside. “Now, ’ow is it that this ’ere watch is so interesting to certain parties, I arsk you?”
A Methodist must not lie. He dare not. No more than any proper Christian should. But the world is real and, sometimes, out of accord. It will not march in step with men of faith. I wondered how much of the truth to share with Wilkie. Oh, now I understood the pain that Mr. Adams suffered from those dissemblings labeled as diplomacy. I did not wish to lie, no more than he did. And, yet, I could not offer all the truth.
“It will have great value,” I said carefully, “to the Reverend Mr. Campbell’s intimates. Think you, Inspector: Would you not wish a remembrance of someone dear and lost most unexpected? And what else is there left to have and hold of the fellow? Clear it is that Mr. Campbell was poor in worldly goods, for he was no high churchman or such like, but a proper Christian parson.” I watched those black-haired fingers close over the watch again. “I cannot retrieve the little money from Mr. Campbell’s purse. But I hoped to have his watch, see. For the benefit of those he left behind. Although the watch is a poor-enough thing in itself.”
Wilkie snapped open the cover, which he had done enough times to excite me. “But look ’ere, Major. Look ’ere at all this enameling and the
like. You seen the bit of fancy-work yourself. Don’t it seem queer ’ow a plain brass watch—not to say outright ’ow it seems a most unworthy watch—don’t it seem queer ’ow such a watch ’as got a fancy picture of foreign parts all ’id inside it? Why, it might even be a picture of your India. Of which you ’ave spoken yourself this very day.”
Well, he was barking up the wrong tree there. For I had no connection to the watch beyond the one assigned me.
Oxford Street sketched past the window, bright and now familiar. With that crippled artilleryman begging on his corner.
“And,” the inspector continued, “I must admit it did seem odd ’ow you was able to describe it all so perfect to Mrs. ’Epburn. Or to the Mrs. ’Epburn what really wasn’t Mrs. ’Epburn. But you takes my point.” He snapped the lid shut again. “Now, I was given to believe ’ow you never ’ad laid eyes upon the good parson before. Until you met ’im yesterday, in ’is belated situation.”
“I had never seen Mr. Campbell in my life. Or heard his name.”
“Then ’ow, begging your pardon, did you come to be a scholar regarding ’is watch?”
“Mr. Adams described it to me.”
Wilkie’s canine eyes narrowed, tensing up the flesh of that well-furred face. “And ’ow would it be that an ’igh diplomatic fellow like your Mr. Adams would know so much about a lowly parson’s watch, then?”
“Mr. Campbell called upon him. He told you that himself.”
“And showed ’im the watch? But why should ’e do that, Major Jones? Does Mr. Adams take a special interest in watches? Or only in certain watches, per’aps?”
“It is a curious watch,” I pointed out. “As you yourself have remarked, Inspector Wilkie. Perhaps it held a special meaning for Mr. Campbell. And thus became a topic of conversation between them.”
Wilkie nodded, but twas clear he was unconvinced. “It’s only that a body ’as to wonder. Not that I means to imply suspicions, not in the least. It’s only ’ow as this entire business confuses me. It just don’t seem like the doings of the criminal class, with which I ’ave a lifelong association, so to speak. There’s too much complication ’ere. Too much complication by ’alf, if you takes my meaning clear. Your criminal likes things simple, Major Jones. ’E sees what ’e wants and grabs it. ’E scratches where it itches. Even the murderer don’t think more than two steps on, if that far. But ’ere we ’ave a series of commotions and complications like I never ’ave seen in one day. Or in a month, for that matter.”
We clattered past another digging site, all a-chug with a boisterous steam-engine. It sounded as if its fat, iron belly might blow the world to pieces.
“Only think of it, would you?” the inspector rattled on. “I ’as a dead parson, to begin with, and tales of other Americans dead afore ’im. And this parson arrives drudged up from a basket of eels—which is not an ’abitual resort of the criminal class. An
American major comes into town, all on that very same day. Just in time to ’ave ’im a sniff of the corpus delectable. And the very next thing, this American major—who is a fellow of a most peculiar background, by the way—’e finds a little boy’s ’and chopped off in ’is bed. In a fancy box, no less. Then off we goes together to Billingsgate Market, to partake of a conversation with the eel-man. But the eel-man what found the parson is dead ’imself, back in the piss row. And nobody claims to ’ave seen a thing, though there’s crowds enough for a racing day at Epsom and the sun is shining down so bright you could count the ’airs on a cat. And off we goes running after a watch what ’as been reported as given into pawn, but it seems a great arrangement ’as been made to fool at least the one of us. There’s lies being told like it’s Saturday night in Dublin, and there’s blind men telling fortunes in the alleys. Except they ain’t blind, and the fortunes ain’t good. And don’t the pawn-mother—the real one now—turn up deader than Raglan in the Cri-mee. And the ’andless boy’s dead, too, amongst fancy neighbors, which we will shortly see with our own eyes. In the meantime, the pawn-mother’s shop ’as been robbed of everything what was in it.” He held out the watch, almost as if he were going to give it to me. “Of everything except the watch we ’appens to be looking for. About which the American major may know more than ’e ’as seen fit to tell a certain inspector of the police.”
He shoved the watch into his waistcoat pocket, where I heard it clink against the fellow’s own timepiece.
“What’s a body to think, now, Major Jones? Even a body what ain’t the least suspicious? Should I be looking for black ’Indoo buggers, snuck in from ’Er Majesty’s rare and distant dominions? Or should I be looking for Scotchmen, as ’alf the population of London seems to want me to?” His smiled dissolved. “Or should I, per’aps, be considering Americans?”
“If by Americans,” I told him readily, “you mean those loyal to the Confederate government in Richmond, perhaps you should be considering them, indeed.”
“And just ’ow is that now, Major Jones?”
“Look you, Inspector Wilkie . . .” Oh, I was thinking fast in desperation, for I did not want to tell more than I should—and yet, I would not tell an outright lie, if I could help it. “ . . . it seems to me that the Confederates would like very much to embarrass Mr. Adams. Plain enough that seems from the letter found upon the person of Mr. Campbell.”
“A forgery, as I recalls. Didn’t someone claim it was a forgery? Although I doesn’t remember any proof.”
“It certainly seemed,” I said, carefully, “to have had a deceptive purpose. I do not think we could trust the letter’s contents entirely.” I turned full-on to Wilkie, conjuring the granite face I had wielded as a sergeant, when such as Jimmy Molloy stepped out of line. “Do you, Inspector Wilkie? Would you trust such a letter entirely? Given your experience of Mankind? And the circumstances under which the letter was found?”
He grunted, slow to find himself an answer.
I did all that I could to turn the tide. Or at least to shift the topic.
“The Confederates, see,” I said to him, “are men. As you and I are men. Some are good, and some are bad, and most are in between. Some are brave as Johnny Seekh, and others are naught but cowards, for all their boasting. But the Rebel cause is a bad one, and there is true. Say what they might, they want to keep their slaves. And that is what our war is all about, Inspector Wilkie. No matter what you hear shouted from Richmond. Or even what you hear proclaimed from Washington.” I leaned a little toward him as we passed a rank of high and fine town houses. “Do you believe men should be held as slaves?”
“I don’t see what that ’as to do with matters,” Wilkie said. “We ain’t got slaves in London. Or even in Ireland.”
“But do you believe that men should be held as slaves?” I pressed.
He twisted his face so his black whiskers bristled into a thousand quills. “Look ’ere,” he said. “It ain’t none of my affair, not that I can see. But if you ’as to know, well, then I’ll tell you: I doesn’t much care for black ’eathens meself, from what little I ’ave seen of them. But I doesn’t think any man should be a slave. Why . . . why slavery’s like putting a fellow in prison what ’asn’t done anything criminal. It’s worse than sending an innocent man to Australia.” His lips grew narrow and hard. “No, says I, put shackles on the guilty, and do it proper. Give ’im English justice, front and back. But if I ’as to choose, I ain’t for slaving. For there’s them as wouldn’t stop at chaining niggers.”
That was, I learned, the very summary of the attitude of the English working man, who gained his daily bread through honest labor. Twas only the rich and high, those born to privilege or risen to power, who favored the Southron cause. But the working man’s wishes do not have weight in Britain. It is the mighty men who will decide.
But let that bide.
Our course took us past the American legation on Portland Place, although we did not stop. I wondered if the inspector had taken us by it to hint a likely connection.
Shortly thereafter,
we pulled to the side of the street by a fine green sward, which I assumed to be Regent’s Park in name. Twas just set off from a crescent of handsome houses. A welter of policemen fussed about on the grass, between long ranks of roses. Sweating they were in their tight collars and high top hats, and when they bent over the tails of their coats spread out like the feathers of gamebirds. Measuring from here to there and back again, they strutted about importantly, sharp as clerks in a shop that serves the poor.
Beyond the iron fence rails, smart-dressed neighbors mixed with downstairs maids. All murmuring they were. For curiosity does not have a class.
Still grumpy—just as you and I might be—Inspector Wilkie led me across the lawn. A sergeant greeted us. He had that English sort of skin that looks as if it has been scalded and his whiskers were strawberry blond.
“This way, Inspector, if you please.” His voice was somber and gruff. “And I’ll show you a crime no Englishman would commit.”
TWO POLICE FELLOWS DREW BACK a canvas to reveal the poor boy’s ruin. Careful they were to keep the little body hidden from the good citizens pushing up to the fence. For this was not a sight for innocent eyes.
The boy had been mistreated in a manner I will not detail in full. Suffice to say there was blood upon him where there should not be blood on a boy. And, yes, his right hand was missing. His left had been hacked off, too, along with his feet. Small as roundshot for a six-pounder gun, his severed head had been placed near a battered shoulder, perhaps by the police. Still other parts had been torn away, but I would not dismay you more than needful.
A sin and a shame it was.
Wilkie turned away. With a look that paired sickness and rage. Fierce as a Pushtoon the fellow looked, when that tribesman’s women have been glimpsed by a stranger’s eyes. I dared not approach him for a considerable interval. Instead, I gestured to the policemen to lower the canvas again.
