by M. J. Trow
The hairs crawled on the back of his neck, and Matthew Grand snatched the Colt from under his frock coat. There was no room for a horse in this theatre alleyway. Only for a dying harlot. He half-stumbled over her boot, where she had kicked it off in her death agony, and had not yet reached her body when a bullseye lantern flashed directly in his face. ‘You. Keep back. This is police business.’
Grand could see nothing beyond the lantern’s beam. A copper had come out of nowhere. ‘Get back,’ the constable barked. ‘There’s a woman butchered.’
The man’s voice was still ricocheting around Matthew Grand’s head as he slid the revolver away and made for the light.
The crowd on the Navy Yard shore had grown thick as the sun began to set on the capital. Most of them were Southerners, women with red eyes and blurred make-up, gentlemen taking off their hats as their dead hero floated by. He was not Booth the murderer who had shot his President, defenceless, in the back of the head; he was John Wilkes Booth, the Avenger who had gone to a martyr’s grave in a whirlwind of fire.
Now he was being carried to his last resting place along the Anacostia River. They watched the little rowboat turn with the current to the jut of land, dark against the evening, called Giesboro Point where the slaughtered horses of the Confederacy were already being boiled down for glue and bones – the end of Jeb Stuart’s cavalry. The watcher with the telescope was keeping a running commentary on what he saw. The two bearded officers in Yankee blue were lowering John Wilkes Booth over the side. They heard the rattle of the chain and the splash of the water and saw both men and the sailors who had rowed them into midstream take off their hats. The Southerners nodded. It was the least those Goddamn Yankees could do.
The Goddamn Yankees let the lead weights go and replaced their hats.
‘Do you think they’ll fall for that?’ Luther Baker asked his cousin.
Lafayette Baker looked across to the crowd on the shore. It was difficult to see in the gathering dusk, but it seemed they were breaking up, going home. ‘I sure hope so,’ he said. ‘Boys. Row for Greenleaf. Mr Booth here—’ he kicked the corpse in its tarpaulin – ‘has a meeting with a cellar in the Old Penitentiary. You boys seen nothing, heard nothing; got it?’
‘Loud and clear, Colonel,’ one of the sailors said and grinned as Lafayette Baker threw coins at them.
‘Luther, we’ve got work to do. This bastard’s going to Hell, and we’re sending him part way there ourselves.’
Luther Baker had never considered himself much of a master-builder. And he wasn’t much of a gravedigger, either. Even so, he took pride in the job he and his cousin Lafayette had done, especially in a hurry, especially by candlelight. This part of the Old Penitentiary was off the beaten track, a storeroom for the war years, and now the man who had killed Lincoln would rot under the flagstones, themselves covered with ammunition chests and gun limbers. The Bakers had done the job themselves, away from prying eyes and the gossiping tongues of prison guards.
Lafayette rested his back, glad the work was finished. It was unseasonably warm for a May evening, and his shirt was clinging to his back. ‘News from our friend, Lu,’ he said, swigging from his hip flask and pulling a crumpled telegram from his trouser pocket. ‘Captain Grand is taking in the sights of London, apparently. Hasn’t tipped his hand yet.’
‘Why’d you let him go, Laff?’ Luther asked. ‘If you think he’s involved?’
‘Why did we just bury John Wilkes Booth in the middle of the Anacostia?’ Lafayette chuckled. ‘Smoke and mirrors. Grand is a soldier and by all accounts a damned good one. If he ran wild in these United States of ours, we’d never find him. Over there, in a strange country, he’ll be off his guard. He won’t think we’re still watching.’
‘So it’s all down to our friend.’ Luther nodded, reaching for his coat.
‘And in this business,’ Lafayette said, ‘a man never knows who his friends are, does he?’
Grand knew he had to think fast, and so he let his military training take over. He put his head down and charged for the man behind the light. He knew deep down that he should really walk forward rationally, slowly, with his hands in the air, speaking clearly and explaining just what had happened. He knew that he should remain calm and not antagonize the Limey policeman; he became aware of another gap in his knowledge of England, and right at this moment it was a very important one. Are English policemen armed? Somehow, it had just never cropped up in any conversation he could remember having. He hoped that his hunch – that they carried nightsticks, no more – was right. To his surprise, the policeman at the top of the alleyway stepped aside and, taking advantage of the speed he had built up, Grand leaned hard to the left, swinging around the end of the alleyway and heading back the way he had come. He was aware that rattles were ahead of him, and he prepared to slip past them, using the element of surprise if he could. Not many people liked to stand in the way of over 200 pounds of Matthew Grand at a dead run.
In the end, it didn’t take a head-on collision to stop him, just an elegant boot extended by one of Auntie Bettie’s girls who had seen the way the wind was blowing. Although she hoped the handsome American was innocent of murdering anyone, she couldn’t be too careful. She and her sisters had become the prey on the prairie of the Haymarket and, with the instincts of her kind, she had acted to try and improve the odds. Grand went down like a poleaxed steer and lay at the feet of Constable Morris groaning faintly.
The girl stepped forward. ‘Any reward?’ she asked, knowing the answer before she heard it.
‘No,’ Morris said shortly. ‘If this gentleman turns out to have been running for a cab, you may be subject to proceedings. So if you’d like to come along of Constable Brown, here, we’ll take your details at the station.’
‘’Ere,’ the girl said, shaking herself free of Brown’s hand on her sleeve. ‘I didn’t do nothing. He was running away from where that copper was flashing his bullseye. I just done what any law-abiding citizen would do.’
‘Law-abiding?’ Morris said. ‘Don’t make me laugh. What copper, anyway?’ He was feeling a little puzzled himself. He had definitely heard a commotion – that was why he had come running. But there were only two men on duty in the Haymarket that night, both of them looking at each other.
The girl pointed towards the head of the alleyway and looked surprised. ‘There was definitely a copper there,’ she said. ‘I saw his bullseye. He called out. Something about a woman murdered. Butchered. Something like that.’
Morris looked at her. She seemed to be telling the truth, and he was still smarting from the reprimand he had had from Tanner when the last girl had died. ‘Stay here,’ he said to her. To Brown, he said, ‘Stay with this bloke. Don’t let him get away.’
Brown looked down at Grand, who had decided, in the small piece of his mind still functioning, that he was actually really tired and could do with a sleep. Accordingly, he had curled his arm around his head and was snoring gently. But still, Brown thought, better this menial task than the gore which awaited Morris in the alley. The crowd had started to thin. With any luck, all this would be a false alarm and he could carry on his beat as though none of it had ever happened. But one look at Morris’s face as he appeared from the darkness put paid to that. It was another one, there was no doubt. The Haymarket murderer had claimed another soul.
‘I’ll mind her,’ a voice croaked at Brown’s elbow. ‘You’ve got places to be.’
‘Who are you?’ the constable asked.
‘My name’s Lavenham,’ the man said. ‘Hall keeper at this theatre. Know it like the back of my hand.’
‘What do you mean, you’ll mind her?’ Brown wanted to know.
‘It’s another one, ain’t it?’ The old man squinted up at him. ‘Same as the other two. My granddaughters are their age. What if it was one of them, eh? Not that they’d be selling their bodies in the Haymarket nights, but you never know.’
Constable Brown knew that leaving a civilian in charge of a corpse and a mu
rder scene was contrary to every regulation in the book, but he didn’t like corpses or murder scenes. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘We’re taking this bloke in. You don’t touch anything. And above all, you don’t let anybody down that alley. Understood?’
Lavenham nodded, and the constables and their dead weight were gone.
The Haymarket murderer slipped away as the crowd began to go its separate ways. Lavenham’s invective against the morbidly curious was surprisingly effective. The killer had not come out looking for a victim this particular evening, but after his first time, when he had gone home with blood on his hands, his face and his shirt and had been lucky to get away with it, he had come prepared. His clothes were dark, his cuffs tucked into the sleeves, unfashionably short, but he had never aspired to sartorial splendour. He carried, in an oiled silk bag in his pocket, a damp cloth, which he used to wipe his hands and face, just in case any spray from the last pump of the woman’s heart should land on him with the mark of Cain. This time, as he examined the cloth covertly in the light of a window, he had not needed these preparations. He was as clean as his conscience. Humming quietly to himself one of the Music Hall’s most catchy tunes, he swung into step with a group of swells, out on the town and getting more excitement than they had bargained for, and surged through the door of the nearest pub and raised his voice with theirs, calling for ale, for gin, for whisky, and so he disappeared, one among millions, until he stepped out again, hunting.
Grand was presenting rather a problem for Morris and Brown. He was stirring, but far from conscious, and he was too heavy to be carried, even if any of the small crowd remaining looked keen to help. Auntie Bettie’s girl had taken the opportunity to leave the scene, so at least they only had one miscreant to deal with – if he proved to be a miscreant and not simply a well-meaning bystander. Morris took off his helmet to scratch his head.
‘How are we going to get this big bugger down to the station?’ he asked Brown.
‘Drag him?’ Brown was beginning to wish he had followed his old dad into the mud-larking trade. It wasn’t clean and the hours could be shocking but at least no one ever asked you your opinion.
‘In that suit?’ Morris was shocked. ‘It would ruin it.’
‘But …’ Brown was confused. ‘If he’s the Haymarket Murderer …?’
‘I see your point,’ Morris conceded. ‘But if he isn’t the Haymarket Murderer, it could take you and me years to pay off that suit.’
Brown saw his chance and took it. ‘Not me,’ he said, hurriedly. ‘You’re the senior man, as you always remind me. It would be your fault if his suit gets ruined.’
‘Not if you’re doing the dragging,’ Morris chipped in quickly.
A voice from the pavement stopped them before the argument became too heated.
‘What say one or both of you help me up?’ Grand said, each word seeming to be dredged up from a huge depth. ‘Then I can walk to the station, though I don’t think I was planning to catch a train, was I? Everything seems a little …’ He searched for a while for the right word. ‘Murky.’
The policemen were galvanized into action and helped Grand struggle to his feet. They managed to steer a middle ground between helping a stricken gentleman get up and restraining a potentially violent criminal, and eventually the American was upright, but leaning heavily on Brown.
‘What time is my train?’ he asked, trying to focus his eyes.
‘Come and have a sit down first, sir,’ Morris suggested, impressing himself with his ingenuity. ‘We’ll make you a cup of tea. Just till you feel better.’
Grand looked at him solemnly. ‘You’re a policeman,’ he told him. Morris saw remembrance dawn behind his eyes and held on to his arm a little harder. ‘A policeman was shouting.’ He stood up straighter and shook off Morris’s hand. ‘He shone a light in my eyes. Say! There’s a dead girl in that alley!’ He tried to stumble back to where he had found the body. Morris caught hold of his coat, and as Grand swung round, still unsteady on his feet, his Colt gleamed from under his armpit.
Morris jumped back. ‘Watch him, Brown,’ he yelled. ‘He’s got a gun!’
Brown let go of Grand, who fell again, this time on to his hands and knees, where he stayed, shaking his head to clear it.
Brown and Morris, for once moving in a concerted effort, pulled him up, one on either arm, and securely handcuffed him, with his hands behind his back.
‘I think I will have to ask you to come with us to the police station,’ Morris said, firmly.
‘What for?’
It was a reasonable question, the policemen both thought. He may have murdered the dead woman in the alleyway, although that seemed unlikely owing to the complete lack of blood about his person. Other than that, apart from knocking himself out on the pavement, he had done nothing. Carrying a gun wasn’t against the law, it was just … not very British. And as far as any of the men knew, that was not as yet a crime.
‘Er … we need to check your papers,’ Morris offered eventually. ‘As a foreigner, we need to check that you are who you say you are.’
‘Why?’
Again, not unreasonable. It wasn’t as though anyone out on the streets that night could prove who they were with total certainty.
‘New legislation,’ Brown said, off the cuff, and Morris gave him an admiring nod.
‘Is it in your Constitution?’ Grand demanded.
Brown had enjoyed history at school and dredged up a piece of information. ‘England doesn’t have a written constitution,’ he announced proudly. ‘We leave that to the new countries.’
Somehow, there didn’t seem to be much of an answer to that, and Grand, against the grain, decided to go quietly.
The pavements that evening weren’t really empty enough for a young journalist out for a walk to clear his head. Every other step there seemed to be someone after Batchelor’s money, whether for food, drink or other less salubrious products. When he had been accosted twice by rather dubious gentlemen offering to pay him for his services, he decided to turn back. He still had his ticket and would no doubt be able to inveigle his way back in to the Music Hall and rejoin what some people might describe as his friends. He made his way back to the Haymarket and was about to go up the steps into the foyer when something caught his eye.
The something was Grand’s rather distinctive hat, pale and wide-brimmed, kicked into the gutter and with a footprint squarely in the middle of its dented crown. Batchelor stood there looking down at it and then bent to pick it up, trying to push it back into shape, without notable success. He looked this way and that, knowing as he did so that it was pointless. Grand was nowhere in sight or earshot; the journalist hadn’t known him long, but he was sure that Grand would not go quietly, no matter what had happened to him; he also knew that it was now his job to look for him and rescue him if he could. He felt a responsibility for the big American as well as the feeling that his disappearance might give him a story others of his erstwhile colleagues would kill for. Not to mention the story the man had already hinted at.
Like a bloodhound, he quartered the scene, looking for clues. There was no blood on the pavement, so that was a good thing. There were some scuffs in the grime, but that meant little. He discounted checking inside the theatre; wherever Grand was, he had not calmly gone back inside, leaving his battered headgear behind. Batchelor looked up the street. What lay in that direction? There was only one answer – Vine Street Police Station. If that was where he was, it could mean one of two things. Either Grand had been arrested for causing some sort of affray, which was not that unlikely, or he had been set upon and then taken there for safety. Whichever the case, Batchelor knew that he would be confused by the strange ways of the London police force; it wasn’t too long since that he had been in its clutches, and he had been rather confused himself – and he had lived in the city all his life. Trying not to run and therefore arrive hot and dishevelled, the journalist headed off for the police station as quickly as he could.
THIRTEEN
It took Batchelor a while to establish with the desk man who he was, but as soon as he mentioned an American, the tone changed and the sergeant was sweetness and light. This kind constable would take the gentleman down to see him because, indeed, there was an American in Interview Room Number One.
By the time the euphemism dawned on Batchelor he found himself in the same cell he had spent the night in before, devoid of anything but a solitary candle to lighten his gloom. Before he had a chance to protest, the door had slammed shut and the grille scraped to. After that, the only noises were footfalls and the rattle of keys. His brain whirled. What was going on? He had only popped out, it seemed to him, for a moment’s air, and now here he was again, in one of the most stinking cells in London. Last time he had been accused of murder. What would it be now?
After nearly an hour he heard the footfalls coming back and the rattle of keys again, this time in his lock. The door swung wide and Inspector Tanner stood there. ‘Well, well, well …’
The man looked as though he had not slept for a week, and his tie dangled around his neck, his waistcoat undone.
‘This is becoming something of a habit,’ Batchelor chided him.
‘It certainly is. Are you looking for Mr Grand?’
‘I am.’ Batchelor was on his feet.
