by Alex Grecian
“Sir, with all due respect, and thank you for your generosity, but it could be that not knowing him might make it easier for me to investigate his death. I have no previous attachment to Mr Little.”
“You have the attachment of a fellow officer.”
“Of course, sir. I didn’t mean. . What I mean to say, sir, is that it might be more difficult for one of the other men to deal with the hard facts of a friend’s murder. I would not be troubled in quite the same way.”
Sir Edward pursed his lips and stared at a corner of the office. Day watched him, growing more nervous by the second. Finally Sir Edward blinked and turned his gaze to Day.
“Perhaps you’re right,” he said.
“Thank you, sir.”
“Is there any indication yet, any evidence, pointing to a culprit?”
“Dr Kingsley found needles and thread at the scene, sir. Obviously, they were used to. . well, to sew Little’s mouth shut. It might be worthwhile to track the manufacturer. And there’s the trunk itself. Kingsley has the body now, and the trunk as well. I’ll be paying him a visit later in the day. Meanwhile, Sergeant Kett and three of the other men are still questioning everyone who was on the platform when the trunk was found.”
“What about the porter who found it?”
“He’s being brought over.”
“Good. Let me know what resources you need. Anything at all. This takes precedence over everything else you may have going. Every man here is to be considered at your disposal.”
“Sir, that may not sit well with everyone. I haven’t proven myself to be one of them yet.”
“I don’t care whether you’re one of them or you’re a Turkish pasha, they’ll jump when you say jump or they’ll answer to me.”
“Yes, sir.”
“One more thing…”
Sir Edward hesitated, and Day braced himself for the question he knew was coming, the question that had plagued his own thoughts since he’d stood looking down at Little’s mutilated body.
“Is it him?” Sir Edward said.
“Sir?”
Day knew who him was, but he didn’t want to be the one to say it out loud.
“Is it Jack? Is it the Ripper again?”
“No, sir. I don’t believe so. Whoever killed Little … Well, it doesn’t match anything we know about Jack or his methods.”
“Good.”
Sir Edward rummaged in a drawer behind his chunk of a desk.
“I nearly forgot. He left something behind for you. For me to pass on to you.”
“Inspector March did?”
Sir Edward nodded and pushed a small, flat black leather pouch across the desk. Day hesitated before picking up the pouch and unsnapping it. Tucked in against the threadbare velvet lining, a dozen long iron keys were held in place with fabric loops. A single smaller key sat loose on top of the others, clearly added as an afterthought.
“His skeleton keys,” Day said.
“He asked me to tell you that these are the most useful tools he could give to you. They served him well in the line of duty. I’m told he had quite a collection of keys.”
“What’s this smaller key? Is it different?”
“It is. One moment, please.”
Sir Edward turned his head and sneezed. He held up a finger for a moment, then turned back to look at Day.
“Excuse me. I thought I might sneeze twice.”
“God bless you.”
“Thank you. The smaller key is for a unique structure at the southeast corner of Trafalgar Square.”
“I can’t think of what you mean, sir.”
“You’re familiar with the Square?”
“I’ve been through it a time or two now.”
“It goes unnoticed by most who pass it, but there is a stone column there with a miniature door and window. It looks very much like a large lamppost, but there is enough room inside it to fit a man.”
“And to lock him in?”
Day held the small key up so that Sir Edward could see it.
“Yes,” Sir Edward said. “It is the smallest jail cell in the whole of England.”
“But of what possible use is it?”
“I don’t know that it’s ever been used, and Inspector March was apparently the only detective to hold a key to it. My guess is that the key served as a totem for him. He wanted you to have it. Perhaps as nothing more than a keepsake. Or perhaps he thought you might see the same symbolic importance in it that he did.”
“I’m honored.”
Sir Edward turned his head and sneezed again.
“There it was,” he said. “I knew there was another sneeze coming.”
He blew his nose into his handkerchief and wiped his eyes with the heel of his hand.
“It will be my sad duty to visit Inspector Little’s widow this morning,” he said. “She will have questions, and I have no answers for her.”
Day was quiet.
“Go on, then,” Sir Edward said. “Get out there and bring me a murderer.”
“I will, sir.”
“Remember, detective work is as much about logical deduction as it is dogged footwork. Follow your train of thought and see where it takes you. And Day?”
“Sir?”
“If you don’t yet believe in yourself and your abilities, at least believe in Mr March’s opinion of you.”
“Yes, sir.”
Day fumbled with the knob before he managed to get the door open and slid out into the common room. It felt bright and airy compared to the close atmosphere in the commissioner’s heavy mahogany office.
As Day closed Sir Edward’s door behind him, he saw Sergeant Kett entering from the other side of the room, pushing a large man ahead of him. This would be the porter who’d found the trunk on the station platform.
“Got ’im here for you, Inspector,” Kett said.
“Good man, thank you.”
“What’s the fuss about?” Blacker said. He stood up from his desk.
“You’ll find out soon enough,” Day said. “I’d appreciate it if you could gather Little’s things for me. I’ll want to sort them after I speak to this man here.”
Blacker squinted. He was shorter than Day, a wiry man with limp ginger hair and a mustache that curled over his upper lip into his mouth.
“What’s happened to Little?”
Day gestured for Kett to take the porter to his desk, and he moved his body so that he could talk in semi-privacy with Blacker.
“He’s been killed.”
“No.”
“I’m afraid so. There’s a strong possibility it had to do with one of his cases.”
“Which one?”
“I don’t know. It could be any case, current or old.”
“Who’s working it? You?”
“I am.”
Day braced himself, waiting for an argument, but Blacker nodded.
“Whatever I can do to help, you let me know and I’m on it straightaway. I can’t say Little was my favorite, but he laughed at my jokes often enough.”
“Thank you, Detective.”
“Can’t have them killing us out there. Job’s hard enough as it is.”
Day watched Blacker walk to Little’s desk and open the top drawer; then he turned his attention to the porter and took a deep breath. It was going to be a long afternoon.
3
I t was a beautiful afternoon.
The rain had swept out as suddenly as it had swept in, leaving fresh blue skies behind. The bald man had closed up shop for a bit, and now he sat on a bench and watched the children play. St James’s Park was crowded, children and their nannies strolling the paths that circled the canal. The bald man watched the little boy at the water’s edge. His pocket was full of biscuits, and a flock of honking ducks waddled after him. The boy ran this way and that, stopping when he ran out of breath, letting the ducks catch up while he giggled and hiccupped. He tossed a biscuit and the fat ducks ran after it, competing for the crunchy morsel, their bills clackin
g. Then it was gone and they were after him again.
The bald man smiled. It was good to see the boy enjoying himself. He looked as he had the first time the man had seen him. So much more pleasant than the boy’s more recent tears and bargaining.
A breeze blew through the lime trees and the bald man tucked his hat down lower on his forehead. An unpleasant odor wafted over from the sheep enclosure, but even that was tolerable on such a fine day.
A carriage rolled down the path between the bald man and the boy he was watching. One enormous wheel turned up a stone and chucked it into the bark of a tree behind the bench. The bald man looked with alarm at the fresh scar in the tree trunk. So close that the stone might have injured him. When the carriage had passed, the bald man glanced back at the canal and the boy was gone.
He stood, nearly frantic, and scanned the small clutches of Londoners enjoying the fine dry weather. There. The boy was at the far curve of the water’s edge, talking to a little girl. She was dressed in what looked like her Sunday finery, but the lace at the hem of her dress was worn, and the collar was too tight around her pretty throat.
The bald man strolled in their direction, trying to appear calm, forcing himself not to run. His beating heart drowned out the sound of the gravel crunching under his feet. He was still too far away to hear what the boy and the girl were talking about. What was the boy saying?
“Here now,” he said.
He was close enough that his voice carried to the children and the boy looked up at him, his eyes wide. The girl looked up too and followed the boy’s gaze to the imposing man as he finally drew near them.
“What are we on about, then?”
“Nothing, sir,” the boy said.
“He doesn’t know where he lives,” the girl said. “Are you his papa? You should teach him his street.”
“I should, shouldn’t I?”
“I know mine. Wanna hear it?”
The bald man imagined pushing the little girl into the canal and holding her under the water. He could clearly picture her struggling against him, her eyes magnified by the water as they dimmed.
His fingers tingled and his hands shook with the imagined thrill.
Killing the detective had been a necessary evil, not anything he would have considered doing before the accident. But now he thought of it often, relishing the details.
He closed his eyes for a moment, remembering the thick needle as it pierced Inspector Little’s lips, the tip of it pressing the skin above the detective’s beard, then thrusting through, a dot of blood following the black thread back through the dead man’s flesh. He pushed the thought away, took a deep shuddering breath, and glanced around at the clusters of women and children around him.
He looked down at the girl and smiled.
“Aren’t you a pretty thing?”
“I am, aren’t I? Do you like my dress?”
“I do very much.”
“It’s my best one. I have a puppy.”
“That’s wonderful.”
He turned his attention to the boy, who was standing stock-still, staring at the bald man’s shoes.
“Are you ready to go, boy? I should get back to the shop soon.”
“Yes, sir.”
The bald man smiled once more at the little girl. The skin around his eyes crinkled agreeably when he smiled. He gave the appearance of a nice man, and for a moment, he wondered what had become of him. It wasn’t his fault, he thought, that he had been driven to such acts. He had once been exactly what he seemed to be: a nice man. His life had been perfect. All he wanted, all he had ever wanted, was to regain that perfection. The boy would help. Oh, how he needed the boy.
He reached for the boy’s hand and had to stoop to grab it. The boy didn’t squeeze back, didn’t actually hold his hand, left it loose in the bald man’s grip, but he didn’t pull it away, either. They were making progress.
“Good day, young lady.”
“Good day, sir. Good-bye, Fenn.”
The boy raised his free hand, but didn’t look at the girl.
“Perhaps I’ll see you again soon,” the bald man said to the little girl.
“I’m often here in the early afternoon,” the girl said. “My governess brings me here before tea almost every day, unless her gentleman friend comes to call.”
“Then I will make every effort to visit you as soon as I’m able. And perhaps you can tell me your street then.”
He nodded and led the boy away. When they had passed out of the girl’s sight, he frowned and gazed down at the top of the boy’s head.
“You told her your name?”
“Yes, sir. I thought there wouldn’t be no harm in it.”
“Hmm. From now on, you’ll keep your name to yourself unless I tell you it’s all right to share it.”
“Yes, sir, I will.”
“Good lad. We’re getting along just fine, aren’t we?”
“Yes, sir,” the boy said.
The bald man saw a tear fall from the boy’s downturned face and splash in the dust on his shoe. The man sighed and said nothing, looked away into the branches of the trees as they passed down the path.
He would work harder to make the boy happy. A little more work, a little more time, and eventually the boy would accept his new life as if he had always been with the bald man. The boy was young, and he would forget his old life.
But what if it never happened? The bald man tried to push the unwelcome doubt from his mind. It would happen. The boy would be happy again and smile at the man. He was sure of it.
The thought of having to find another boy was almost unbearable.
4
The detectives stopped chattering and all heads turned toward Sir Edward, who stood in his office door holding a cigar box.
“Thank you all for taking the time to meet today,” he said. “Most of you have no doubt heard that Detective Inspector Little has been found dead. He was murdered.”
Sir Edward waited for the wave of excited murmurs to subside and then set the box on an empty desk in front of him and held up his hand.
“The first question I know you all have-in fact, the question I had-is whether this is the work of the Ripper. Our own Inspector Day assures me that it is not.”
Sir Edward gestured at Day, who nodded.
“But,” Sir Edward said, “although it may not be Jack himself, it may very well be the work of that dissatisfied citizenry who routinely jeer at us in the streets. It’s true that the frightened people of London have begun to calm. After all, there has been no renewed activity from the Ripper that we’re aware of. But there is still anger directed toward you, toward us I mean, for our inability to solve that most important mystery. And I’m afraid a very great deal of anger was directed toward Mr Little’s corpse.”
“Why are we here?” Inspector Tiffany said. “All due respect, sir, why aren’t we out there hunting the blighter down?”
Sir Edward nodded. “We are, all of us, inclined toward a certain degree of disorganization. This job requires us to be out and about in the city, and it’s a rare occasion when we gather. This needed to be such an occasion. One of us lies dead.”
Inspector Tiffany looked down at the top of his desk as if in mourning, but Day suspected he was simply embarrassed by the mild rebuke.
“It would behoove us all,” Sir Edward said, “to pay respect to Mr Little. If you’ve the means to contribute a bit to Little’s family-and there’s no shame in it if you haven’t-I’m sure they would appreciate your generosity. This box on Inspector Gilchrist’s desk will be here for the rest of the day, and if you’ve something you can spare to put in it I’ll take it round to his widow.”
He drew a five-pound note from his vest pocket and placed it in the box as if it were made of porcelain.
“Meantime, Inspector Day will be heading up this investigation.”
At that, there was an angry swell of voices, and Sir Edward held his hand up again.
“I know,” he said, “that you are anx
ious to cooperate with him, but please save your comments until I’ve finished.”
Day felt a warm blush spread up from under his collar. He hoped it wasn’t noticeable. Of course nobody in the room was anxious to cooperate with him. Every one of them, he was sure, wanted to work the case, and every one of them was justifiably unhappy that the youngest and least experienced of them had been put in charge.
“Because you are all so busy and because we are so seldom gathered together like this,” Sir Edward said, “many of you may not have made Mr Day’s acquaintance. I’m afraid I have not taken the proper time to make formal introductions, but I would like to remedy that oversight here and now. Detective Inspector Day was a constable, and then briefly a sergeant, in Devon and was brought up by Inspector March upon his retirement. He has been with us for a week and, so far as I have observed, he is an exemplary addition to our Murder Squad.”
Day felt the blush move to his cheeks.
“He has every qualification necessary to solve Mr Little’s murder, and I have chosen him to do so. If you disagree with my decision, you may take it up with me, not with him. I will take your comments now.”
A low rumble passed through the room, but nobody spoke up.
“Good. Now, all of you knew Mr Little. Some of you may have something of value to contribute to Mr Day’s investigation and, if so, I would like you to speak with him when we’re done here. Mr Day…” Sir Edward turned to Day and held out his hand, then swept it across the room. “This is your squad. These men are at your disposal. I trust you will not take them away from their existing cases if you don’t need to, but if you do decide it’s necessary … well then, I’m sure they will cooperate without complaint. Do you hear me, Mr Tiffany?”
“Aye,” Tiffany said. “I hear you.”
“Had you met Mr Tiffany yet?” Sir Edward said.
Day nodded.
“Then you have no doubt already decided how best to put him to use.”
Sir Edward looked out over the room and drew a deep breath. He let it out slowly and his beard fluttered.
“There are eleven of you now. The loss of Inspector Little hurts us. It hurts us a great deal. You all depend on each other. You cannot function as single police anymore. Whether you’ve realized it yet or not, you are soldiers, and soldiers work as a unit. Mr Boring.”
