Onyx City (The Lazarus Longman Chronicles Book 3)

by P J Thorndyke

  “Only because they struck veins of that blasted mechanite stuff,” said Levitski. “Its discovery didn’t spell the end for just cab horses. Do you think they would have passed that emancipation act if they still relied on slavery for their industry? The mechanite furnace rendered the Negro obsolete.”

  “I disagree,” said Kovalev. “The United States was pushing for emancipation long before mechanite was struck. That was how the war started in the first place, although few remember it now. Who knows how things might have turned out had the mineral never been discovered? Besides, are you telling us that the replacement of human slavery with a mechanized workforce is a bad thing?”

  “Not at all, but imagine what such an industrial revolution might mean for a country that has no slaves.”

  “Oh, England has slaves, all right,” said another man. “Weren’t you listening to the speech in there? You’re looking at us!”

  “Exactly,” Levitski continued. “And what happens to us when England starts building her own mechanicals to work in her factories, to till her fields and to mine her resources? We’ll all go the way of the Negroes; jobless, landless and penniless. Emancipation means nothing if there is nothing to do but starve.”

  “But you’re forgetting one important thing,” said Lazarus. Levitski blinked at him expectantly. “To build mechanicals, one needs mechanite. And both the United and Confederate States have an embargo on mechanite against all nations.”

  “And how long will this embargo last should the European powers start picking sides? Neutrality has gone on for nigh on thirty years but that’s no insurance that Britain won’t throw its support behind the Confederacy tomorrow. Then it will only be a matter of time before mechanicals will be replacing us in the factories, taking over the docks and walking shoulder to shoulder with us in the streets. I say, more tea, Comrade Clumps?”

  They left the club with Kovalev. It was still early and the shadows had only just begun to lengthen. “Why did you not introduce us to Mr. Levitski earlier?” Lazarus asked their host.

  “Because not all of my comrades are worth your time. Levitski is an untrustworthy fellow. He talks big but contributes little. The others put up with him, but I don’t like the man.”

  Lazarus felt that there was more to this dislike than Kovalev was letting on, but did not press it. They bade each other good night and the old Russian headed off to his home in Mile End.

  “Well, Comrade Clumps,” said Lazarus. “I don’t know about you, but I’m dying for a drink. All that talk of class war and economic enslavement has my ears ringing and the air in that place parches the throat.”

  “Do you think that any of those fellows are the dangerous men Morton is interested in?” Mr. Clumps said.

  “Hard to say. I wouldn’t trust any of them overly, I’ll say that much, but there seems to be an awful lot of pipesmoke being blown about in that house and very little in the way of real plans. They are all eager to debate the ‘inevitable class war’, but then they adjourn for tea and merry renditions of French revolutionary songs. I don’t think any of them are serious enough to warrant my filing a report on them with the bureau. Still, I’d like to probe a little deeper.”

  “Maybe you could drop some hints insinuating that you are made from sterner stuff,” said Mr. Clumps. “That way you might draw out the real hardliners, if there are any.”

  Lazarus was genuinely surprised. “Mr. Clumps, old boy, you are learning fast. Now, let’s see about that drink.”

  Whitechapel Road often surprised the newcomer by its apparent respectability. The pit of filth and degradation as depicted in the newspapers was largely exaggerated. It was certainly not an upmarket high street but the friendly hawkers and market stall owners, public houses, shops and gin palaces were a far cry from the Sodom or Gomorrah painted by the press.

  Steam from the nearby railway hung in great white plumes above the gabled rooftops, while the tune cranked out by an organ-grinder drifted across the street. Men smoking pipes leaned in doorways and in the entrances to dim and gloomy alleyways. Children spent away their pennies in shooting galleries, and some stood in awestruck fascination as a foreigner did tricks with a white rat. A variety of colorful characters shouted out the benefits of whatever they were selling; new and improved boot-polish, curiously strong mints and pamphlets of poetry for only 3d. In the window of a Jewish shop, Lazarus saw books in Hebrew amidst various objects pertaining to synagogue worship. Even at the tail end of the day the whole street was alive with the multi-layered colors of life.

  But underneath this façade of noise and bustle, the reminders of what had occurred in those black passages beyond the shop fronts in the darkest hours of the night were ever present. A fat man with a waxed moustache drew in customers to a ghoulish waxworks show depicting the recent killings in as much gory detail as possible. A notice in a shop window offered a reward of a hundred pounds for the apprehension of the perpetrator. A newspaper boy wandered past waving a folded paper that promised more on the brutal monster that stalked the shadows of the night.

  As they stepped off the high street into one of the alleys, Lazarus immediately felt as if they had trespassed into another world. It was instantly darker and colder. The tall, shabby buildings loomed over the narrow cobbles, blocking the sunlight. The sounds were different here; an old woman’s pneumonic coughing, a baby screaming and the raised voices of a man and a woman engaged in an argument. The stiff corpse of a cat festered a few feet away. Here was the real beating heart of Whitechapel; the rotten core of London’s East End, hidden from the bustle of the shops and stalls, a world where human suffering rippled down its streets and washed over one like a tide of black misery and despair.

  As they passed the warehouses that overshadowed Buck’s Row—the small alleyway where Polly Nichols had met her fate—Lazarus could see in through grimy street level windows and down into dim basements, where the sweaters were hard at work sorting old clothes, cobbling boots and making shirts. It was oddly quiet here but for a dog barking.

  The light had begun to fade and already several prostitutes were about their business, walking in twos or threes, shabby-looking and worn down. As they passed the entrance to another winding alleyway, they heard a muffled groan of protest. Something about the noise struck Lazarus as altogether different from the many sounds of woe and misery that echoed down those grim streets. This was a desperate sound escaping from a mouth that had been abruptly stifled.

  They peered down the alley, and in the dim light they could make out the form of a woman being pressed against the wall by a heavy-set man in a bowler hat.

  “Stay close to me,” Lazarus told Mr. Clumps, “but let me handle this.”

  At their approach, the man turned to glare at Lazarus with mean eyes set in an unshaven face. One meaty fist held a prostitute in a bright red dress against the wall, his fingers digging in deep to choke off her breathing. His other hand held a short folding knife.

  “You ain’t no copper,” he remarked. “So piss off, or I’ll give you worse’n what I’m about to give her!” Then his eyes widened as he noticed Mr. Clumps shuffling out of the gloom. “Christ!” He stood back and changed his grip on the knife as if he might thrust it out in a gutting motion.

  Lazarus drew his Bulldog pocket revolver and aimed it as his ugly forehead. “Try it and see what you get,” he said.

  The thug grinned, folded up his knife and put it into his breast pocket, removing a similar revolver with the same hand. He was either mad or extremely careless with his life, for Lazarus could see in his eyes that the man intended to shoot. Apparently so did Mr. Clumps for, in a burst of speed that Lazarus would not have thought the mechanical capable of, he was between the thug and Lazarus, his massive chest blocking the gun’s muzzle.

  The shot went off and the girl screamed. Mr. Clumps did not even flinch. Lazarus knew that the shot had not damaged him; as with all mechanicals there was a screen of iron plating that protected the organic pilot’s innards. But the thug w
as none the wiser.

  “Wha... what the bloody hell are you?” the man stammered through the gunsmoke, his eyes wide. He did not have time to chamber another round for Mr. Clumps’s massive fist crashed into his jaw, sending him sliding across the cobbles and into the filth.

  “That wasn’t too savage, I hope?” Lazarus said.

  “Not too savage,” the mechanical replied, flexing his gloved hand.

  The thug groaned and rolled onto all fours, his hand reaching up to his bloodied mouth. A tooth fell loose. Lazarus aimed a kick at his backside.

  “Be off with you before we decide to rid the streets of you permanently!”

  The thug staggered to his feet and vanished into the dark warren. Lazarus looked at the woman, and for the first time realized how young she was. Perhaps in her early twenties, dressed in a Lindsey frock with a clean white apron. She had a mass of strawberry-blonde curls that spilled down on either side of her slender neck. Compared to the ruddy-faced, rotten-toothed women who shared her profession, this one shone with a youthful exuberance yet unspoiled by the ravages of her trade. And she was beautiful.

  “Much obliged sirs,” she said, rearranging her curls, but not taking her wary eyes off Mr. Clumps.

  “What was he about?” Lazarus asked, putting away his pistol.

  “One of the High-Rips,” she replied. “Thinks he owns me and my services.”

  “The High-Rips?”

  “A gang. They take money from girls like me every week and if we can’t pay ’em then they take something else instead.”

  “I see,” said Lazarus.

  “You fellas ain’t from around here, are you?” she said, studying them.

  “No, we, ah, live in Limehouse and are just here for a meeting with friends.”

  “Well if you’re looking for a good time, my name’s Mary and I’d be happy to oblige. If I don’t take your fancy, then I have a friend who…”

  “That won’t be necessary,” said Lazarus hastily.

  She eyed him warily. “Are you a copper?”

  “No.”

  “You talk fine but your clothes say you’re a laborer. I thought you might be down here looking for that murderer.”

  “No, as I said, we were at a meeting with some friends.”

  “Well, I’m very glad you were passing, I’ll say that. Would you mind accompanying me a little further? A girl can’t get enough protection these days. I’ll buy you both a drink.”

  “That would be very nice.”

  “The night hasn’t started yet, and I always need a glass of gin to get me going. The Ten Bells isn’t far. I usually go there of a night. Is your friend all right?” She eyed the smoking hole in Mr. Clumps’s shirt.

  “Him? Oh, yes. Very strong constitution. Built like an ox.”

  “I know someone as can stitch him up if he needs it.”

  “Do you require medical attention?” Lazarus asked his companion.

  “No,” said Mr. Clumps. “Barely scratched me. I’ve stopped bleeding already.”

  “All these coppers and vigilance committees after this bloody murderer,” the girl muttered as they walked on. “They need look no further than the Hoxton High-Rips. If anyone’s murderin’ us street girls then it’s them.”

  “You really think a gang is responsible for the killings?” Lazarus asked.

  “S’gotta be. Those lot are animals. Old Martha Tabram, they said, owed them just half a crown and they stabbed her thirty-nine times, the papers said. And you just pointed a gun at one of them. Should’ve shot him.”

  “Perhaps I should have.”

  “They only get worse. Stabbing a girl thirty-nine times is one thing but now they’ve started taking organs. Some say it’s to sell to medical students but we know a message when we sees one. They want us to be afraid. They want us to think that we’re to be next to lose our guts.”

  “Were no organs taken from Martha Tabram at all?” Lazarus asked her.

  “Nope. The coppers reckon that means it wasn’t the same man who done the other two, but I dunno. What’s to stop them raising their game with each knifing? Getting a taste for it, as it were.”

  Lazarus didn’t answer. The police’s opinions about the first victim were troubling. If Martha Tabram had been killed by a different man, then perhaps it wasn’t so heartening that Mansfield had not woken up in the lime oast following her murder.

  The Ten Bells on the corner of Commercial Road and Fornier Street seemed to be a regular haunt of Mary’s, as she was recognized by several street girls and men alike who called out greetings to her which she heartily returned. It was already busy when they got there, and an elderly woman was selling roasted chestnuts by the door. They went in and found a dark booth. Lazarus refused Mary’s money and bought them all large glasses of gin.

  “Am I right in saying there’s a little Irish in you?” he asked her as she knocked back half of the stinging liquid.

  She smiled at him with big blue eyes. “Right you are. I was born in Limerick, but we left when I was still a little girl.”

  “And that’s when you came to London?”

  She knocked back the rest of her gin, wincing a little as she swallowed, shaking her head. “No. My da took us to Wales. He was an ironworker. Me, my mam and my six brothers and sister lived in a shabby little cottage in Caernarvonshire. Buy me another drink and I might teach you some Welsh.”

  Lazarus laughed and drained his own glass. He went back to the bar and returned with another round. Mr. Clumps dutifully emptied his second one more or less instantly and Lazarus began to wonder if he would indeed see a drunk mechanical before the evening was out.

  It was not long before Lazarus and Mary were both rosy-cheeked and laughing loudly. It had grown late, and the street outside was dark. The public house was heaving with people. Lazarus was amused by Mary’s stories about her time in Wales. Her eyes shone with a brilliant energy, and he found it hard to believe that she was the same breed as those sad, broken women he had seen in Whitechapel earlier that day, destroyed by drink and consumed by the hideous and violent world in which they lived.

  “What made you come to London?” he asked.

  At this question her face lost its glow and her brilliant eyes dulled to a melancholy grey. “I fell in love with a collier. I was only sixteen and my mam and da didn’t approve of him so we ran off together and got married on the sly. He died in a mine explosion two years later. I couldn’t go back home, so I moved to Cardiff where I lived with my cousin for a while and then on to London.”

  “Do you miss your people?”

  At this her face grew angry. “No. They hate me and what I am and I don’t need ‘em. I don’t want no one’s pity neither!” she said, catching his expression. “I haven’t always been an East End bag-tail you know. I used to work in a fancy place in the West End where all the French girls work. Only toffs bought my services there. None of the tuppenny fuck-hunters you get round here. And I can read and write too, I’ve got a good education.”

  She was drunk and fiery and Lazarus was thrilled by her. She was so full of energy, so full of spirit to fight back against the world that threatened to destroy her.

  “I’m an artist too, you know that? A good one. This game is just to tide me over ‘til I can make enough money from my drawings so’s I don’t have to live on my back no more. And that won’t be too long. One of them gypsies in Spitalfields Market read my palm. She said that my life will change in a matter of weeks. I’m just waiting for the right bit of luck to come along. Have you ever been to Spitalfields Market?”

  “Not recently.”

  “They’ve got everything there. There’s this hypnotist woman who can make a person believe anything. I saw her convince a man that he was a monkey. You should have seen him hopping about the place and scratching his arse! The power of the mind is a hundred times stronger than the body, the hypnotist said. And the funny thing was, when the man snapped out of it he had no memory of his a-capering about!”

  Th
ey laughed at this and then talked some more, but after a while, Mary gave him the soberest look she could muster and informed him that she had to leave.

  “It’s been nice talking to you mister, and thank you for everything, your friend too, but I need to start earning my money. With nothing to pay off them High-Rips, I’ll be for it and no mistake.”

  Lazarus felt reluctant to let her go, especially as he knew the dangerous game which she would be playing that night. He wanted to give her money so she wouldn’t have to, but knew she would refuse. She wanted no one’s pity and no one’s charity. She had to fight the world on her own terms. She stood up to go, and leaned over to kiss him lightly upon his cheek.

  “If you ever want me, you know where to find me now,” she said.

  “Mary who?” he asked her. “So I know who to ask for.”

  “Kelly. Mary Jane Kelly.” And then she was gone, clutching her shawl about her shoulders as she sauntered of into the crowded Whitechapel night.

  Chapter Eight

  In which the killer strikes again

  November 17th, 1863

  If this is the ‘cool’ season, then I have no wish to experience Siam’s ‘hot’ season here on the plains of Khorat. The sun is not so much blistering, but it pulses its heat from behind a screen of clouds and causes all around to fester in a humid hum of sweltering stickiness. The monsoon season ended in October and the rivers are still swollen with runoff from the mountains. We must surely be back in Bangkok by February as the hot season will be unbearable.

  The rivers here are choppy and fast and it is rare to see any boats at all much less the swarms of narrow, covered canoes that carry their cargoes of indigo, teak, fish, rice and vegetables further south. But the landscape is so abundant in fruits and produce that one has to wonder what happens to it all, for there are few people about to harvest the profits. Mangrove, betel and tamarind are in abundance, as are the thick clusters of bamboo and sugar cane and with no scythe to cut them down they must surely rot away wastefully.