The Yard tms-1

by Alex Grecian

  “How could you possibly know that?”

  “Some of the clues he’s left. I can’t tell you anything exact, you understand. That’s secret departmental business. But there are indications that the killing is done. But if your husband were to stir this beast up again … well, I’m afraid that it might go poorly for our dear Inspector Day.”

  Claire sat back and regarded Cinderhouse over the top of the tea set. Her eyes had narrowed. He couldn’t see her hands. They were below the edge of the table. All he could see was the reflection of his own gleaming pink forehead, huge and distorted in the surface of the teapot.

  “You seem to know a good deal about this killer, Mr Bentley.”

  “Please, call me Inspector Bentley. I’ve worked quite hard for my title.”

  “Very well. Inspector Bentley, how could you possibly know whether the killer will do it again? And why wouldn’t you want him brought to justice?”

  She was smarter than he’d assumed she would be and he had overplayed his hand. Women these days were overreaching themselves. He smiled, took a sip of tea. It tasted like brown water.

  “You misunderstand, Claire. I do want him brought to justice, but I don’t want Inspector Day to be the one to do it. He has much more to lose than I do and might be harmed if he pursues the case. I, on the other hand, am unmarried. My family is long gone. It would be better if I were the one placed in danger, rather than him.” He set his cup down and spread his hands. “I’m only trying to do some good here,” he said.

  She leaned forward in her chair and pursed her lips. He saw the trace of a smile on her face.

  “This is an important case, isn’t it?” she said.

  “I suppose it is. In fact, I believe it’s the most important case the Yard has ever undertaken.”

  “Surely not more important than the Jack the Ripper investigation.”

  “Well, no, not more important than that. But important, nonetheless. And, I think, equally unsolvable.”

  “And yet you want the glory of solving it yourself, don’t you?”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “You want my husband to step out of the way so that you can solve this unsolvable case and win the admiration of your peers. Perhaps of all London? Paperboys shouting your name at every street corner? Is that it?”

  Cinderhouse was startled into silence. He took another sip of tea and thought. He concluded that the lady herself had given him the best way out of the sticky situation he’d blundered into. He set the cup back down on the table and laughed.

  “You’ve found me out, Claire. I’m afraid I am a self-aggrandizing heel. Yes, I very much want the respect of my peers. Like your husband, I’m new to the Yard. But he’s caught on so quickly and is doing so well there. I feel I’m competing with him.” He leaned forward and raised his eyebrows. “Please forgive me? I thought this might take nothing away from him and yet perhaps do me some good. I only want my son to be as proud of me as you are of your husband.”

  “You said you had no family.”

  “Did I? I’m sorry. My wife died so recently that I’m unsure of how to describe myself now. I have no wife, but my son … well, my son is my family, if you understand me.”

  He saw her relax and his own smile became genuine.

  “I do understand,” she said.

  “Oh, thank goodness.”

  “I’m sure you needn’t have resorted to all this in order to gain respect. Hard work is its own reward, don’t you think?”

  “You’re right, of course.”

  He stood and adjusted his coat.

  “Well, I’ve rather badly embarrassed myself. I should take my leave.”

  “Please don’t feel embarrassed. I’m sure you meant Walter no harm.”

  “Still.”

  “As you please. Let me fetch your hat.”

  When she turned away, he noticed a monogrammed handkerchief on the floor, partially hidden under the edge of the chair. She must have dropped it from her lap when she stood to answer the door. She brought his hat and gloves and he feigned clumsiness, dropping his gloves on the floor near the handkerchief. When he picked them up, he grabbed the cloth, too, and quickly pocketed it.

  He pointed at the arm of the chair.

  “I couldn’t help but notice that shirt.”

  “Oh, I do wish you hadn’t. It’s become something of a puzzle for me. I can’t get the buttonholes to line up.”

  “How have you been marking them out?”

  “Oh, I couldn’t mark the shirt. I’ve been using my eye.”

  “You mean you’ve been guessing at the measurement of the holes?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “Oh, dear me. What you need is a washable tailor’s marker. I have several and would be happy to give you one.”

  “You have several tailor’s markers? Why would that be, Inspector?”

  “Yes, well, you see, we use them occasionally to mark bodies. Washable, remember? We wouldn’t want to leave traces of our work for mourners to see.”

  “How fascinating. I never would have guessed.”

  “But the markers are readily available at any general store and would be quite useful to you.”

  “Thank you for your kind advice. Perhaps the next time I visit my husband at work, you’ll be gracious enough to lend me the use of one.”

  He moved to the front door and opened it. He donned his hat and stepped out onto the stoop, then turned back toward her.

  “Please stop in at the Yard any time and I’ll make you a gift of one. Only…”

  “Yes?”

  “I do wish you wouldn’t mention today’s visit to your husband. It might go hard on me at headquarters.”

  Claire smiled and nodded. “I don’t see that there’s any reason for me to bring it up.”

  “Thank you so much.”

  “No, thank you. You’ve livened my afternoon considerably.”

  “Then my visit has not been a waste of time.”

  He grinned at her, tipped his hat, and walked down the steps to the street. His cab waited at the curb and he stepped up into it. As the cab rolled away from the Day house, he took the handkerchief from his pocket. It was a lady’s cloth with the initials CC in one corner. Claire’s maiden name must have begun with the letter C and she hadn’t yet ordered new handkerchiefs with the initials of her married name.

  He touched it to his face. It smelled of apples and smoke.

  His visit to the Day house had not gone as he’d hoped, but a new possibility presented itself. He folded the handkerchief neatly, put it in his pocket, and settled back against the seat. The cab bounced over ruts in the road and jostled this way and that, but Cinderhouse didn’t notice. He was deep in thought.

  56

  Who is he?” Sir Edward said.

  “I don’t know, sir,” Day said. “But he looks familiar.”

  “Then he’s definitely one of ours?”

  “I think so. When Sergeant Kett gets here he may be able to tell us.”

  “Where is Kett?”

  “Organizing the men, sir. We’re doing a better job this time of keeping the onlookers out of the way so the doctor can do his work on the spot. The discovery of Mr Little’s body yesterday caused a bit of a circus, but the park’s been secured. Nobody here but police this time.”

  Day and Sir Edward stood back and watched Dr Kingsley work. The trunk was concealed in a stand of lime trees on the outer edge of St James’s Park. The scent of limes partially hid the odors of the canal and the animals and the people. The body in the trunk had not yet begun to stink.

  “This is quite recent,” Kingsley said. “Not more than a few hours old, I’d say. Who found this?”

  “A little girl who chased a duck into the trees.”

  “She might have seen the murderer.”

  “Agreed. Inspector Blacker is making inquiries now. He’ll try to find the girl.”

  “Why wasn’t she detained and questioned?” Sir Edward said.

  “The man on
the beat apparently felt she’d been sufficiently shocked by what she saw. He instructed her mother to take her home and put her to bed.”

  “Understandable, but in the future let’s hold on to our witnesses until an inspector can talk to them. It’s a waste of effort and time to have to track down the girl when we should be tracking the killer. That’s already one less man we have for the hunt.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Doctor, do you … Good Lord, man!”

  Kingsley was unpacking the trunk. He lifted out a severed arm and set it in the grass. He reached back in and brought out another arm. He sat back on his haunches and stared in at the dead man’s face for a long moment, then stood and carried the arm he was holding over to the detectives.

  “Feel the severed end here,” Kingsley said.

  Sir Edward said nothing but stared at Kingsley until the doctor looked away.

  “Very well,” Kingsley said. “But the blood’s fresh. Tacky, but still wet. The killer’s barely ahead of us.”

  Day closed his eyes and nodded.

  “Did you bring the shears, Mr Day?”

  “I did.”

  “Good. Give me a few minutes and we may learn something useful.”

  Kingsley returned to the trunk and set the severed arm carefully back inside. He opened his black bag and took out the little pot of charcoal dust. He tapped a mound of it into his palm and blew it over the lid of the trunk. He repeated the process on the front and sides of the light brown box. The setting sun cast an orange glow on the trunk’s hinges and seams.

  “We’re perhaps more fortunate here than with Inspector Little’s trunk. I’m afraid it may be difficult for me to make out any marks on the black surface of that one.”

  “Do you see anything on this one?”

  “Yes, several good ones. Bring those shears over here, please. And a lantern.”

  A constable approached and set his lantern on top of the trunk. Day averted his gaze and handed the shears over. Kingsley took them without looking and Day stepped back to stand with Sir Edward. Kingsley found a grease pencil in his bag and circled several spots on the trunk. He held the shears up next to each of these spots and examined first one, then another with his magnifying lens. It took him several minutes, and as he was working his way around the back of the trunk, Sergeant Kett joined Day and Sir Edward under the trees. Sir Edward gestured for him to stay put. Kett nodded and stood silently.

  “It’s him, all right,” Kingsley said.

  “Him who?”

  “I don’t know the name, but I know his mark now. The same man handled these shears and this trunk. His prints are all over the lid and on both sides. Aside from one other man or woman and what appears to have been a small child, nobody else has touched this trunk.”

  “A child?”

  “Yes, I think so. Or possibly a dwarf. But that’s not likely. I should think a dwarf would have been noticed here in the park.”

  “Well, how do we know that one of them is the killer?”

  “The child, or dwarf, left a single print. Here, you see? The unknown second man left marks on the lid and the handle, but only on one side of the trunk, which indicates to me that he probably helped to carry it. The overwhelming majority of prints are from the same person who held the shears both before and after the murder. Those prints are under and on top of the layers of blood on the weapon, and some of his marks on the trunk display trace amounts of blood in them. This constable was put in the trunk and it was latched shut before the killer cleaned himself up.”

  “Which of my boys was it?” Kett said.

  “You may be able to put that matter to rest for us, Mr Kett.”

  Kett nodded and took a deep breath. He went to the trunk and stood over it for a long time before coming back to the trees and lighting a pipe. Both Day and Sir Edward were silent. They waited for Kett to get the pipe lit and take a deep drag. Smoke curled from his mouth when he finally spoke.

  “I was gonna yell at ’im when he shewed hisself today. I was mad as a wet hen ’cause he missed his shift, and the whole of the time he was settin’ here under the trees in little pieces.”

  Day opened his mouth, but Sir Edward laid a hand on his arm to quiet him. He moved his head almost imperceptibly from side to side. Let the sergeant talk.

  “He was always a bit of a dandy, he was. Always worryin’ that his jacket dint fit right across the shoulders or the cuffs of his trousers was showin’ wear. Used to drive me batty. But he did the work. I couldn’t never fault him for that. He weren’t in the league of his mate Hammersmith, but he were a fine young man, that one.”

  Kett turned his back to the other men and stood smoking. Day noticed that Sir Edward looked away toward the canal while Kingsley busied himself with the trunk, doing things Day thought he’d already seen him do, circling the same spots again with the grease pencil. Finally, Kett wiped his eyes on his sleeve and turned back, but he kept his face down.

  “Someone needs to find Hammersmith and tell ’im what’s happened here. He’ll wanna know Mr Pringle’s gone and got hisself killed.”

  57

  Claire Day waited for her husband to arrive for dinner, anxious to tell him about her strange visitor, Inspector Bentley. She sat by the fire and nodded off and when she woke it was late and the house was quiet. Walter had not come home. She paced back and forth, glancing at the door, biting her fingernails. Finally she put on her gloves and hat and left, locking the front door behind her. She hopped onto an omnibus three blocks from the house and a kind gentleman yielded his seat to her.

  Whoever the man was who had visited her, she was deeply suspicious of him. He had thought himself cunning, but his eyes were furtive and there was something in his bearing that suggested a weak man. He reminded her of that long-ago acquaintance Percy Erwood, who had received daily beatings from his father. Percy had told her in confidence, because he thought they were to be married, that he feared his father and secretly wished he could … well, what Percy said was between the two of them and she would never tell anyone, not even dear Walter.

  It was clear that this Bentley character had set himself against Walter. She had no intention of getting underfoot or embarrassing him, but her husband needed to be armed with all the information he could get if he was going to succeed at his new career.

  She settled back on the bus, listened to the horses clop along the street, and did her best to ignore her rising gorge.

  She would reach the Yard soon enough, and regardless of what happened after, it would at least be a relief to see her husband.

  58

  H e sat back and looked at his handiwork. The note was poorly written, of course. He had carefully considered his misspellings to be sure they were still decipherable, but would lead the detectives to believe that the writer was illiterate. He chuckled at his last sentence: “… the wurst will hapinn.”, Ridiculous.

  Still, the message was clear: If Day continued to investigate the murders, he would be endangering everything dear to him.

  Cinderhouse leaned forward again and stopped with his pen poised above the paper. Should he sign the thing? Not with his real name, of course, but it rankled to send it off without claiming any credit. It would be a simple matter to sign some pseudonym, something that would sail over the heads of the police, but would serve as a private amusement for the tailor. The Ripper had claimed credit for his deeds in just such a fashion and look how famous, and how feared, he had become.

  Saucy Jack.

  No. He set the pen aside and stood up. Cinderhouse wasn’t after infamy. As nice as it would be to feel that glow of ownership for his clever plans, he really did want to be left alone. His cat-and-mouse game with Inspector Day was satisfying in its way, but there was a boy to be raised properly and a shop to look after. The tailor had his hands full. Drawing extra attention wasn’t necessary.

  He fetched the handkerchief he’d brought from Day’s house and put it in an envelope along with the note. He took the entire package
out to the waiting coachman to have it posted. Then he went to check on his son.

  59

  Hammersmith stepped off the omnibus and waited for the horses to huff past him before he crossed the road and leaned against the wall outside his flat. The sun was setting and the light had turned purple. He thought that he might vomit there in the street, but the feeling passed and he was able to pull himself upright again.

  He gazed through the large picture window at cakes and chocolate truffles, caramel apples and fudge and dainty flowers made of sugar, all arrayed under a gaslight on a tiered counter for passersby to see. He smiled to think that he smelled like chocolate and wondered why nobody had pointed it out to him before.

  He found his key and entered through the unmarked green door next to the beckoning chocolates. Up the narrow staircase, past the landlady’s flat, and finally to his own front door. All was dark and still in the flat. Hammersmith lit a lamp by the door and went to the mantel. The tea box was nearly empty, only enough left for one or two cups. Which meant that Pringle had neglected to do the shopping. Hammersmith had no money for tea-he had given all the money he had on him to Blackleg-and anyway, he didn’t want to leave the flat again. Better, he decided, to save the remaining tea for later.

  Pringle’s bedroom door stood open. Hammersmith assumed that his friend was finishing his shift or entertaining a lady friend somewhere, but the flat felt hollow and it seemed to Hammersmith that his footsteps echoed louder than usual.

  Hammersmith’s own room was spartan. There was a narrow bed, a single straight-backed wooden chair, and a nubbly round rug that had been there when he moved in. Nothing on the walls, and two changes of uniform hanging in the closet alongside a single pair of civilian trousers and three white shirts. A lamp rested on the windowsill above the head of the bed, but Hammersmith didn’t need it. He knew the room in the dark.

  He kicked off his boots and stripped off Charles Shaw’s white shirt, draped it over the back of the chair. He would find a way to return it tomorrow without revisiting the Shaws’ home. He remembered that Penelope Shaw still had Dr Kingsley’s shirt. He had no idea how to get that back from her, but he knew he’d need to find a way. He couldn’t afford to buy the doctor a new shirt. At least not this month. He wasn’t sure he’d even be able to eat for the rest of the month unless Pringle came through with groceries for them both.