Crooked in His Ways

by S. M. Goodwin

  “According to his b-butler it’s been about three and a half y-years.”

  “He set up another newspaper?”

  “Er,” Jasper hesitated, not wishing to share the little black book just yet. “It’s not clear what he’s b-b-been doing, but he appears to have a great deal of m-money.”

  “Gone respectable?” He answered his own question. “I doubt it—that kind never change their spots.”

  For once, he and the Welshman agreed on something.

  “You think he’s back to his old tricks—extortion?”

  Jasper could hardly lie outright, but … “I suspect that m-m-might be the c-case.”

  “Hmmph. Any suspects?”

  Jasper considered reminding him it had barely been six hours and the corpse had been dead more than half a year, but he knew Davies wouldn’t care about such picayune details. “Not as yet, sir.”

  The older man eyed him with suspicion and dislike. “You’re not going to handle this like you did the Janssen and Finch cases, my lord?”

  “I’m sorry, sir, but how is that?”

  “By keeping secrets that make me look like an incompetent fool when one of the city’s wealthiest philanthropists kills herself and then Tallmadge asks me what the hell is going on.”

  Jasper didn’t think the captain needed any assistance when it came to looking like a fool, but he did find it interesting that Tallmadge had approached the other man about the Janssen/Finch murders. It was hard to imagine the irascible Welshman and the coolly reserved superintendent of police talking about the case. Or talking about anything, for that matter.

  Davies smacked a hand on his desk. “This time I want a written report from you—every day. I don’t care how late you work, the last thing you do is leave me a report of your day’s activities.”

  It wasn’t exactly an unusual demand—Jasper had made reports on cases to his superiors in London. But then his relationship with his superiors in London hadn’t been adversarial. This felt more like a punitive measure than an actual interest in keeping informed. But he really had no choice, did he?

  “Yes, sir.” Jasper suppressed his irritation, but the other man must have seen something, because he smirked.

  “Good.” And then he smiled up at Jasper in a way that made the hairs on the back of his neck tingle. “I’ve got something else just begging for your august detecting powers.”

  Jasper refused to rise to the bait and ask.

  He didn’t have a long wait. “I’ve got a letter here from James W. Brinkley. Heard of him?”

  “The gold miner?” That wasn’t exactly accurate: gold baron would be more appropriate.

  “The very same. It seems somebody has kidnapped his dog. Or I suppose that would be dognapped.”

  Jasper blinked.

  Davies smirked and held up a piece of paper. “He’s offering a reward—five hundred dollars to locate the hound.” Davies’s smirk matured into a full-fledged grin.

  Jasper could only stare. Five hundred dollars was an unheard-of amount of money—at least he’d never heard of such an enormous reward. Still, this was the city with the most millionaires in the world. They’d even coined the word here.

  “I’m sorry, sir, but what has this to d-do with me?”

  “You’re going to find the dog.”

  Jasper frowned. “Perhaps D-Detective Law and I m-might look into it after—”

  “No. I want you to put finding this dog at the top of your list. Frumkin’s been dead at least six months, another few days or weeks won’t make a difference.” When Jasper hesitated, Davies leaned across his desk. “That reward might not mean anything to you, my lord. But I’m betting Law could use the money. So could I. If you find him, we’ll split the money three ways.”

  Jasper struggled to find the logic in that.

  Davies tossed the letter across the desk. “There’s his address. The letter is from Brinkley, and he asked for you especially.”

  Ah, that explained things.

  “Perhaps the dog is n-no longer alive,” Jasper pointed out.

  “Don’t you worry about that—the reward is good dead or alive. I want you to go see him before you do anything else on Frumkin’s case.” His eyes narrowed. “I can’t emphasize how much I’d like you to find his dog, my lord. Do you understand?”

  “I understand.” Jasper stood.

  “Don’t forget the letter.”.

  Jasper picked up the letter. “Thank you, sir.”

  “You’re dismissed,” Davies said, turning back to whatever it was he’d been working on before Jasper had disturbed him.

  Jasper’s new office was diagonally across the hall from Davies’s. The room held four desks, but he and Law were the only occupants; it seemed the detective training program would take a bit more time to get going than anyone had expected.

  Jasper suspected the entire plan had slipped through the cracks; training detectives was unimportant when you weren’t sure you were going to have a police department left for them to work in.

  He folded Brinkley’s letter without reading it and tucked it into his breast pocket, taking advantage of the quiet, empty office to settle down with Frumkin’s little black book.

  First, he made a list of names that had no items beside them—he surmised that meant Frumkin hadn’t yet been paid.

  He next made a separate list of those names that appeared in the three months leading up to Frumkin’s disappearance.

  Together the two lists added up to seventeen names. He could hardly speak to all one hundred-plus people in the book. At least not yet. Three months seemed like a manageable notion, but … seventeen names.

  He sighed at the thought of finding and interviewing seventeen possible suspects, closed his eyes, and slumped back in his chair. Seventeen names was about sixteen too many possibilities for a crime that was over a half a year old already. It was—

  “Inspector Lightner?”

  He opened his eyes to find Patrolman O’Malley’s apprehensive face looming over him.

  Jasper smiled wearily at the young man, who had worked with him on his very first case in New York and seemed an honest, hard-working lad. “Yes, Patrolman?”

  “Are you sick, sir?”

  “No.” Jasper pushed himself up in his chair. “D-Did you need something?”

  “This just came for you.” O’Malley handed Jasper one of his own business cards. It was so grubby that he didn’t particularly want to touch it, but he took it.

  “The message is on the back,” the patrolman said.

  “If you want to see John Sparrow, come to the Tombs and bring $5. He’ll be sent to Blackwell Island at five o’clock this evening.”

  Jasper looked up. “John Sparrow?”

  O’Malley shrugged.

  Jasper turned the card over. It was his personal calling card from back home and had only his name.

  He ran through the names of the people he’d given his card to in the brief time he’d been in America. Who among them had been named John?

  John, John, John.

  He relaxed his body and mind. With a memory as damaged and faulty as his, he only became more hidebound the harder he tried to cudgel any names or faces free. He’d found the most successful approach to retrieving a memory was to approach the search like a young man on a European holiday: there was no hurry, no rush, it was just another meandering day hiking the Alps or wandering through an ancient village and—

  A filthy young face coalesced in his mind’s eye. A crippling stammer.

  A-ha! It was from the boy.

  Jasper opened his eyes and realized O’Malley was still waiting for him, his youthful face creased in anxious confusion.

  “Are you w-working on anything?” Jasper asked.

  “Er, no, sir.”

  Jasper pulled out Brinkley’s letter and smiled. “You are n-now.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Two hours and five dollars later, Jasper was sitting in a familiar interrogation room in the Tombs across from an exc
eedingly cross and filthy young man.

  “W-Well?” Jasper said. They’d been staring at each other for at least three minutes; Jasper had been the first one to cave.

  John Sparrow inhaled deeply and forced out a sigh, as if he were preparing for the challenge of a lifetime.

  Jasper knew how he felt, exactly how he felt.

  He’d met the young thief when he’d caught John picking his pocket on a street in Five Points, the pickpocket’s territory. John Sparrow had a stammer of the magnitude Jasper had possessed when he’d been younger—back before he’d stopped caring what people thought. Or at least what most people thought. Oddly, the day he’d made that decision—born of frustration—was the day his stammer had become exponentially less debilitating.

  “They say I st-st-st-st-st-stole a man’s w-w-w—” He made a feral growling sound. “Fuck.”

  Jasper could have told him that giving in to feelings of frustration only made things worse. Now, however, wasn’t the time to engage in any lessons.

  “Since I m-met you whilst you were pinching my wallet, I’m t-tempted to believe the charge isn’t f-false.”

  John shrugged.

  “You sent for me, John. What d-d-do you want?”

  The boy glared at him, his expression plainly saying Jasper had to be an idiot if he didn’t know why he’d been summoned.

  “L-Let me guess. You think some sort of st-st-stammerer’s brotherhood exists between us?” John’s eyes widened at Jasper’s intentional, mocking stutter. “Or—and I daresay this is more l-likely—you see me as an easy m-mark. I get you out of here—using my word and m-more money—in exchange for your p-promise to become a law-abiding citizen. Before that happens, you d-do a runner and I end up looking like a f-f-fool.”

  John’s mouth twisted, and then he shoved his chair back, making an ear-splitting screech against the flagstone. “Piss. Off.” He turned to the door.

  “Sit.” Jasper didn’t raise his voice, but John’s hand froze six inches away from the splintered wooden frame. He was breathing hard, his narrow shoulders shaking—likely with anger, which was why he’d been able to enunciate so clearly.

  John took a deep breath, pivoted on his heel, and dropped into his chair, his eyes burning holes through Jasper’s head.

  “Here is the deal: I’ll get you out, g-give you a job, clothing, f-food, and a place to stay. The f-first time you break the law, I’ll drag you to the w-w-workhouse myself.”

  For all that John couldn’t have been more than thirteen, the boy had mastered the art of masking his thoughts. “What job?” His lips twitched, and Jasper knew that would be because he’d forced out a sentence without stammering or yelling.

  “Whatever j-job I say,” Jasper said testily—already furious with himself for making this inconceivably foolish offer. He grimaced at a new thought: Paisley.

  Hiring servants had always been his valet’s purview. This would put his nose out of joint.

  He examined the boy. Good. God. Paisley would skin him alive when he saw this urchin.

  John snorted contemptuously at Jasper’s words. And then he sat there, as if contemplating the offer. His only offer, unless you counted going to a workhouse to freeze in the winter, broil in the summer, and gradually starve to death.

  Jasper forced himself not to become irritated. Instead, he decided to let John take his time; it cost Jasper nothing and allowed the boy a modicum of pride—a commodity that had likely been rare enough in his pitiful, short life.

  Finally, just when Jasper was beginning to second-guess his generosity, the boy gave an abrupt nod. “Awright.”

  Oh, Jasper, what the hell have you done?

  That, he thought, was an excellent bloody question.

  CHAPTER 7

  Hy had just put the badly shaken butler into a cab when Lightner stepped out of another carriage.

  “You just missed Keen,” Hy said by way of greeting.

  “And?”

  “He said it was Beauchamp. After he threw up.”

  Lightner grimaced as the two of them headed back toward the entrance to Bellevue. “What does K-Kirby make of it?”

  “He’s never seen anything like it.”

  Hy could see by the Englishman’s face, a few minutes later, that he hadn’t, either.

  “I understand you have medical training, my lord,” Kirby said after the two men introduced themselves. “What do you think?”

  “I’ve n-never seen anything like it. Outside of a b-butcher’s,” Lightner added.

  Kirby, a tall, barrel-shaped older man with a constitution of iron, chuckled, but Hy shuddered at the too-apt description. With the exception of his head, Beauchamp’s corpse resembled a pile of smoked meat.

  Lightner frowned at the collection of body parts. “Where is his r-r-right hand?”

  “Ah,” Kirby said, his grin that of a showman about to reveal what was behind the curtain. “It is missing.”

  Hy met Lightner’s questioning look and shrugged. “I wasn’t there when the crate broke, sir, but I find it hard to believe either of the dock workers who loaded the, er, parts into a new crate would have stolen a hand. But I’ll go back around and make sure neither of them took it as a, well—”

  “Gruesome souvenir?” Lightner suggested.

  “Aye.”

  Lightner turned to the doctor. “What can you t-tell us about his d-death, Doctor Kirby?”

  “Judging by the knife wounds here,” he pointed to the torso, “he probably died of stabbing—I count six wounds and this one here”—he pointed to a blackened cut between two ribs—“would likely have been enough to kill him on its own.” He hesitated and then added, “Or he may have died when the decapitation was commenced.”

  All three of them stared at the headless stump.

  Albert Beauchamp was currently comprised of six pieces—well, seven counting the missing hand. The killer had severed the legs and arms from the trunk, removed the head from the torso, and then cut off the right hand.

  Rather than stinking like a corpse, it smelled like something Hy had salivated over more than once in his life: salted pork. He doubted that he would ever again eat pork. Or maybe any meat.

  “Does the manner of the c-cutting tell you anything?” Lightner asked.

  Kirby stared at the pieces as he considered the other man’s question. He glanced up. “You mean does it look like the killer knew how to dress a carcass?”

  Lightner nodded.

  Kirby inhaled and let out a gusty sigh. “The killer certainly chose the easiest spots on the body to make their cuts. As to whether that takes knowledge or is just plain common sense, I couldn’t say. As for the cuts themselves, they are remarkably clean looking. Still, the salt has done its trick, and it’s damned near impossible to get any information from the wounds. From what I can tell of the cuts, a saw was used—rather than an axe or knife—something with a fairly fine-tooth blade.”

  Hy grimaced; it just got better and better.

  Lightner took a small velvet case from his pocket. “It’s a m-m-magnifying glass,” he said at Hy’s questioning look. “It has a c-collapsible stand.” He showed Hy how the instrument could be made to sit on the palm of his hand by turning a small bronze screw in the side. Then he collapsed it, and leaned close to Beauchamp’s various pieces, examining each of the cuts.

  “I c-can’t see much definition in the wounds,” he said when he stood up. He offered the glass to Hy. “Have a l-look.”

  Hy took it reluctantly. He wasn’t sure why this murder was so unnerving to him, but he was in no great hurry to examine the corpse any closer. Still, it was his job …

  The degree of magnification was impressive, but he couldn’t see anything that would tell him about the saw blade or whether the person who’d wielded it would have done so with skill or was a novice.

  “Saws aren’t the sort of thing most people have just lying around,” Kirby pointed out. “They’re expensive, and the finer the blade, the more they cost.”

  �
��What s-s-sort of occupations utilize saws?” Lightner mused.

  Kirby held up a thick fingered hand. “Let’s see, there’s carpenters, loggers,” he paused for effect. “Doctors.” He dramatically yanked the cloth cover off his tray of instruments.

  Hy gawked: there had to be at least ten different saws.

  The big doctor picked up a strange-looking saw with a blade no wider than a lead pencil. “This is a general amputation saw,” he said, handing the item to Hy, who took it without thinking.

  Jaysus. Why was everyone giving him these things?

  The saw had surprising heft, for all that the frame was delicate. “Who else has access to these? Besides doctors?” Hy asked.

  “Butchers, c-cooks,” Lightner suggested.

  “Slaughterhouse workers, hunters, joiners,” Kirby added, not to be outdone.

  “What about taxidermists?” Hy asked. He was amused—if a bit insulted—when both men gave him looks of surprise. “I just heard about it today,” he confessed. “One of Beauchamp’s tenants does it—out in the shed behind the house. I glanced inside and there were all sorts of tools—also a headless cat.” Hy had been glad this was before he’d gone to get something to eat. “He must have used a saw for that, right?”

  “Aye, stuffers,” Kirby said, nodding. “They’d use ’em. They’re a queer lot. My aunt got her dog done.” He shivered. “Gives me the woolies looking at the thing. Got it stuffed holding a bone in its mouth and keeps it on her mantle.”

  Lightner stared at Kirby for a long moment, his mind clearly elsewhere, before turning back to the corpse, his forehead furrowing as he once again inspected the neck. “D-Do you think you could get more information if you r-re-hydrated a piece?”