by Alex Grecian
“Aye, I does chimneys.”
“Heard you was in the market for a climber.”
“Where’d you hear it?”
“Round and about.”
“Maybe I is and maybe I ain’t.”
“Well, make up your mind about it.”
“I’ll think on it while you climb down here so’s I can see you ain’t got a pistol aimed at me bean.”
The coachman grunted. “I ain’t got a pistol on you.”
“How do I know it?”
“I’m tellin’ you.”
“Your word, eh?”
“Aye, my word.”
“Don’t mean nothin’ if I don’t know your name even.”
Another grunt and then, after an extended silence, Pizer heard the other man shift his weight. The coachman’s cloak rustled as he swung out onto the side of the cab and hopped down with a clatter of boot heels to the alley floor. He stepped forward, his hands held out to show they were empty. The coachman’s face was hidden in the murk.
“Have a cigarette?” Pizer said.
The coachman hesitated, then reached into his cloak, pulled a dull silver case from the blackness, and opened it. Pizer took a cigarette and waited for a light, the stub of his old cigar heavy in his breast pocket. In the flare of the match, he caught sight of a prominent nose, ungroomed muttonchops, and a high hat before the orange flame sputtered and the two men were once again swallowed in shadow.
“Thanks,” Pizer said.
“So is you?” the coachman said.
“What, in the market for help? Might be.”
“What’re you payin’?”
“Tell me … you know a fella name of Blackleg?”
“Blackleg? Ain’t heard of him.”
“You sure?”
“Sure I’m sure. Who’s he to you?”
“Just heard he’s been nosin’ round about me.”
“That might be why you’re such a hard man to find?”
“You found me.”
“Took some work, though, I’ll tell ya.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t wanna be found by this fella Blackleg. And neither do you. I heard stories.”
“Why’s he want you?”
“Got no notion and don’t wanna find out.”
The coachman said nothing. Pizer took a drag of the cigarette. He blew the smoke up and watched it shimmer away.
“So you gots a climber for me, then?” he said.
“Might have.”
“You the child’s parent?”
“No. I work for a gentleman who done recently acquired a boy what ain’t his.”
“Ah, and he’s ready to dispose of the kid, that it?”
“Wrong again. He’ll keep this one for a good while, I’m guessin’.”
“Then what?”
“I get paid to procure them poor wee children for the gentleman.”
“So you sell the boy to me for my climber and then you get another payday when you replaces ’im.”
“Could be.”
Pizer nodded even though he knew the other man couldn’t see him. At least this made sense. He understood the coachman’s motives here, which made him trustworthy as far as this particular arrangement went. The coachman was entirely motivated by profit. He made money by locating and helping to procure a child for his employer. Eventually, the coachman would make sure the child disappeared. His employer would pay him to help look for the child. And then he would pay him again to help find a new child. And the cycle would repeat.
Whatever money he could chisel from Pizer in the process was nothing but gravy, and that gave Pizer the upper hand in this negotiation.
“How big is he? The kid?”
“Smallish, I’d say. Maybe half the size of a man and big around as my leg. Skinny thing, he is.”
“Hmm. What’ya want for him, then?”
“Ten quid’ll do it.”
Pizer snorted. “Ain’t worth ten. I’ll find me own climber.”
“You will, eh? You’ll do that while you’re hidin’ from this Blackleg fellow? You’ll rummage about the neighborhood for a child to snatch? Take a young person from the bosom of his family and none the wiser?”
“I get around all right.”
“Good night, then.”
Pizer heard the coachman’s cloak rustling again as he turned away.
“Wait. I gives ya two and eleven.”
“You’ll give me five.”
“I’ll gives ya two an’ eleven.”
“You need this boy or you don’t work.”
“But you need to get loose of the boy more ’n I need ’im.”
“An’ how’s that?”
“You got another kid lined up already, don’t ya? Don’t bother to say no. You got another kid, but ya can’t put the finger on ’im till you shake loose the one you already got. You could kill the kid you got already, but that might cause you some problems. You need a patsy, and that’s where I comes in.”
“You’re not a-”
“No, you don’t got to pretend anything ain’t what it is. I got no problem bein’ the patsy in this here case, long as you don’t bring the law round.”
“I wouldn’t.”
“’Course you wouldn’t. Too much to answer fer yerself.”
“Four pounds.”
“To do you a favor? Yer already makin’ a bundle, I’m guessin’, offa findin’ yer master a new boy to do … well, to do whatever he does to them boys you grab.”
“He is a perfect gentleman.”
“’Course he is. Listen, sir, once you and me finishes up this fascinatin’ conversation, I can toddle on down to any embankment in this here city, sidle up under a bridge, and find me at least a half a dozen starvin’ urchins be only too happy to go wiff me fer the price of a hot meal or a biscuit even.”
“Might also find this fella you’re worried about, this Blackleg fella, under there.”
“Aye, an’ I might at that. But ol’ Blackleg caint be everywhere, can he?”
“Three pounds, then.”
“Tell ya what, two an’ eleven an’ I’ll take the next boy offa you, too, when the time comes.”
“You think you’ll have need of another climber?”
“Risky business, climbin’ up the flue. Bound to get stuck sooner or later. ’Specially if you take it upon yerself to keep growin’ alla time.”
“That’s-”
“’Tis what it is. An’ yer in no position to go castin’ stones.”
The coachman was silent, but Pizer knew he had him.
“Done,” the coachman said.
“Good. Bring ’im round here tomorrow mornin’, this time.”
Without another word, the coachman sprang to the top of his hansom cab and flicked the reins. The cab lurched forward and rolled down the alley, turned left at the mouth, and was gone. Pizer fished the remains of the old cigar from his pocket and lit it from the dying embers of his cigarette. He took a drag of the stale cigar and leaned back against the alley wall.
Two pounds eleven was still a lot to pay for a new climber, but the coachman had been right. Sam couldn’t do his own scouting when there was Blackleg to think about. All things considered, he was getting off lucky. No question about it, things were looking up for Sam Pizer.
The bald man, Cinderhouse, hadn’t stayed to watch his work being discovered this time. He wasn’t stupid. And he didn’t want to be caught. He had derived some satisfaction from watching the detectives find Little’s body, but if he had been noticed then and was noticed again when Pringle’s body was discovered, there would be suspicion. He would have liked to experience that final step in the process, but it wasn’t essential. He could guess what was happening this morning as the Metropolitan Police Force was mobilized, as the panicky prey huddled together, knowing that the hunter was out there somewhere in the night beyond the fire.
He knew now that he would kill again. It was only a matter of time. He’d had no idea how right it would feel to strike back a
t the universe, at the city, at the police, for everything they’d taken from him. He’d played the good citizen for most of his adult life and it hadn’t worked out for him. That was all, it just hadn’t worked out and it was time to move on. The city had taken his family and the police had done nothing to find them and now the scales would be balanced.
For all Cinderhouse knew, his family was still alive somewhere. They had left the house one day and they had not come back. No bodies had been found. So perhaps they were in a different city, with new names. Perhaps they thought of him sometimes and wondered how he was doing. The idea was disturbing, but sometimes it comforted him to imagine his wife and son living a separate life far away.
That fantasy never lasted long. He knew they must be dead. The city swallowed nearly ten thousand people every year. Ten thousand people simply disappeared, Cinderhouse’s family among them. There was nothing the police could do. He’d gone to them and they had listened to him and taken notes and done nothing.
But here he was, finally taking matters into his own hands. Killing the police wouldn’t bring his family back, he knew that, but it quieted the angry voices in his head. It wasn’t quite closure, but it felt good just the same. Maybe he would kill Sir Edward Bradford, the commissioner of police himself, the very embodiment of the useless Metropolitan Police Force.
But one thing at a time. Cinderhouse was letting himself grow angry again and it would be all too easy to take that anger out on the wrong person. He needed to be calm. He had family matters to deal with.
He made his way across the back lawn in the pale dawn light. The old carriage house loomed up before him, and he found the latch on the side door. He hadn’t been back here in months, but he still knew the place. He stepped inside and smelled the damp and the rot and the musky animal scent that tickled the back of his throat. He tried not to think about the cause of that odor. Three empty horse stalls were directly ahead of him and he felt along the wall until he came to a set of brackets hung at eye level. Something small scurried across his foot and he kicked at it. His hand closed on the thing in the brackets and he pulled it up and away. He felt along the length of it and held it to his nose. The leather hadn’t rotted away and the animals had left it intact.
He cracked it against his leg and felt the familiar sting, the tingle that traveled down to his toes and back up to his loins. He cracked it again and groaned. His breath quickened and the old memories of discipline returned at once.
He exited the way he had come and relatched the side door. Back across the lawn and into the house. He set the riding crop on the table while he fetched an extra lantern from a cupboard in the kitchen and lit it. With the crop in his right hand and the lantern in his left, he moved through the back hall to the storage closets near the pantry.
The boy had stopped banging on the walls and kicking at the door of his closet. Cinderhouse hoped that Fenn had managed to get some rest. He still had a long day ahead of him.
A boy must be taught to respect his father.
Phillipa Dick hated Claire Day.
She hated her so much that she had taught her the wrong way to sew buttons on a blouse, the wrong way to clean an oven, the wrong way to boil a sheep’s head … She had done everything she could to foul Mrs Day’s marriage.
Her tactics had not, of course, made even the slightest dent in the Days’ marriage.
The husband, Mr Day, was an uncommonly handsome man, Mrs Dick thought. His broad shoulders, dark eyes, and kindly manner never failed to quicken Mrs Dick’s heart. Her own husband had been a small ratty tortoise vendor who had spent most of his life walking up and down Oxford Street calling after passing housewives to come and take a look at the best tortoises in London. Upon selling one of the slow-moving beasts, Mr Dick had hied himself to the nearest pub for the remainder of each day, until money was once more tight. He had spent the entirety of their married life shuttling back and forth, from street to saloon, leaving his wife to keep a roof above their heads with the meager profits she earned by cleaning houses.
She had never, strictly speaking, been a full-time servant, which would have required her to keep a room in her employer’s house, but instead had returned to her own home every evening after tea. Upon her husband’s death, Mrs Dick had received fifty pounds from his life insurance policy and had paid off the mortgage on her house. She had the relative luxury now of working only a few hours a day for food money.
Perhaps surprisingly, her opinion of other women’s husbands had not been curdled by personal experience. Mr Dick could not have fallen further in her esteem, but other husbands were judged on their own merits, and Mr Day was considered too good for the pampered likes of Claire Day.
Claire spent the majority of her time that was not taken up with household responsibilities curled by the hearth reading novels. And not just novels, but mystery novels replete with scandal and murder and intrigue, all subjects a good wife ought to avoid at any cost. She never dressed for company until her husband was expected to arrive home, and she was clearly unable to budget the weekly stipend her husband set aside for the household.
She was fortunate that Mrs Dick had so much experience with parsimonious budgeting. Phillipa Dick still bought soap by the pound, soft and gritty and sliced from the end of a long bar by the grocer. It was more fashionable these days to buy individual paper-wrapped soaps, but Mrs Dick’s old ways saved the Day family two pennies a week. There were countless other ways that Mrs Dick scrimped and saved, and the total savings to her employers amounted to nearly a crown a month, but Claire Day seldom spared Mrs Dick a kind word. The younger woman avoided contact with her housekeeper unless there was some special skill she wished to learn so as to impress the master of the house.
Still, Mrs Day did not dog her servant’s heels the way that some employers did. She allowed Mrs Dick to carry out her duties without watching over her shoulder, and Mrs Dick was grateful enough for that.
The routine of the household had been unusual of late, with Mr Day working all hours, sometimes missing tea and supper, sometimes arriving home at dawn only to change his shirt and leave again. To Phillipa Dick, this could only mean that the man was keeping another woman somewhere, but she had limited experience with hardworking men and, anyway, she considered it to be none of her business. She had been given a key to the back door of the Day home, and she let herself in every morning before dawn. If Mr Day had left his boots by the kitchen door, she scooped them up on her way in and cleaned them as the fire drew up. She put the kettle on and, while she waited for it to boil, she gathered the previous day’s damp tea leaves, carrying them to the parlor, where they were strewn over the rugs to help collect the dust there.
She opened the curtains in all the rooms at the front of the house and started a fire in the parlor, then swept up the scattered tea leaves and returned to the kitchen to prepare breakfast.
She changed into a clean uniform and put the breakfast things on a tray, which she carried up the stairs and set on a low table outside Claire Day’s bedroom. She rapped twice on the closed door and continued down the hall to Mr Day’s bedroom. The bed was untouched, which might mean that Mr Day was visiting his wife in her own room this morning, but Mrs Dick presumed that he had not yet returned home.
Nevertheless, she stripped the bed and hung the bedding to air. The Days had an indoor toilet and there were no chamber pots to empty, but Mrs Dick was of the old school and kept up the old ways of airing sheets and blankets to ensure that there was no buildup of unsavory emanations in them.
She swept and dusted the room, cast an experienced eye over the floor, and decided it would not need to be scrubbed yet. She returned to her mistress’s room and was surprised to discover that the breakfast tray was still on the hall table and had not been touched. It was true that Mrs Day’s appetite had not been strong lately, but the water had gone cold in the pot and the tea leaves were dry.
Phillipa Dick rapped on the door again and waited. Finally she turned the knob and cracke
d the door open.
“Forgive me, missus. I beg yer pardon, but is there somethin’ else you’ll be wantin’ to eat this mornin’?”
There was no response. The room was dim, the curtains still drawn over the windows. Mrs Dick swung the door open and entered.
The stench rocked her on her heels. She pulled the end of her apron over her nose and tiptoed to the window on the other side of the room. She pulled the curtains back and in the dim light saw Mrs Day on the floor next to her bed. The younger woman was lying on her stomach with her nightshirt hiked up so that a sliver of lace panties was visible. Ordinarily Mrs Dick would have been scandalized, but this was clearly not the time for shock or judgment. She bent over the body and turned her mistress faceup. A long tendril of spit and vomit snaked down Claire’s cheek. Her skin was grey and cold, but she was breathing. Mrs Dick put her ear to Claire’s chest and listened for a beating heart. When she was sure that Claire was alive, she made her as comfortable as possible, bringing pillows from the bed to put under her head. She covered her with a thick quilt, taking care to keep the edge of it out of the puddle of sick.
The carpet would have to be thrown out.
Mrs Dick hurried downstairs and threw open the front door. It was early yet and there was little traffic, but a young boy was walking a bicycle over the curb and Mrs Dick called him over.
“Go fetch a doctor. Dr Entwhistle on Cathcart. Do it quick and there’s a ha’penny in it for you.”
The boy studied her face and set his jaw. “Looks like you need ’im round here pretty bad, lady.”
“Just do as I tell you, boy.”
“Aye, I will. But not for less than a penny.”
“Why, you little demon.”
“Suitcherself.”
He began to turn away, but Mrs Dick grabbed him by the shoulder.
“Very well, then, you’ll get your penny, but if the doctor’s not here within the hour I’ll not be givin’ you a thing, you hear?”
“You bet, ma’am. I’ll get ’im round here right away, you wait and see.”
He hopped on his bicycle and rode off, pedaling furiously. Phillipa Dick watched until he was out of sight and then turned back inside, shut the door, and waited.
