‘There is also the fact of my own pride and reputation,’ added Mr Newsome. ‘I am sure you can imagine how Commissioner Mayne has reacted to recent events. It is I who bears the onslaught of his doubts and remonstrations, his daily trawl through the newspapers for derogatory stories about the police, his insinuations of my own personal responsibility for recruiting a thief to catch a murderer. If the whole business is not brought to a satisfactory conclusion very shortly . . . well . . . the consequences will be more to my detriment than to yours. Thank G— I will be able to keep Mr Askern’s death away from the newspapers for the time being.’
Muffled shouts were heard at the front door and a voice asked for Mr Newsome. Heavy footsteps clattered towards the room where the two detectives sat, and there was a knock at the door.
‘Enter,’ said Mr Williamson.
The door opened to reveal Noah standing between two constables, his wrists bound in handcuffs. The faces of the three showed that a struggle of some magnitude had taken place. All were perspiring and the two policemen were bleeding freely from the lips and nose.
‘Well, good afternoon to you, Mr Dyson,’ said Mr Newsome.
‘It took four of us to apprehend him,’ said the constable to Noah’s right. ‘Jones is still unconscious.’
‘Well done, Constable. You have apprehended an escaped convict.’
Noah stared at Mr Newsome with animal ferocity. Sergeant Williamson looked with incredulity between Noah and his superior.
‘You are making a mistake, Inspector Newsome,’ said Noah. ‘I am your only means of apprehending Lucius Boyle.’
‘Indeed you are, Mr Dyson. But I am fatigued trying to run around after you. I think it would be easier if you were kept in one place where both I and Mr Boyle can be sure that you reside. If he wants you, he will know where to come – and a gaol is exactly where I want him. I am placing you under arrest and returning you to the very same cell at Giltspur-street where we first met.’
‘On what charges?’
‘As I say, I have evidence that you are an escaped convict from New South Wales. Then there is the matter of Razor Bill and the fire in Oxford-street. Should these crimes prove insufficient, I believe I will think of something else.’
‘—!’
‘Ah, the convict vocabulary emerges! Constables – take him away. ’
And as Noah was once again thrown into gaol, it is apt that we cast our eyes back once again to the story of his previous life, of his early transportation and the events that were to set the direction of his future.
After finally leaving Woolwich, the months at sea were an education, albeit not the kind he would have experienced in books. In calm seas, the convicts would be allowed on deck to fully extend their legs and expose sickly skin to a sun of unprecedented ferocity. It was here, amid the scent of tar and hemp, that Noah first beheld the violent blue immensity of the sea. It was here that he saw sharks longer than a man, and distant behemoths breaching. For a city boy, it was what he had imagined Heaven to be: a limitless vault of sea and sky and light.
Sydney would be more wretched, though he was one of the lucky ones. While older men went directly into government service to break their backs building roads, he was assigned to a settler out at Parramatta. The benevolent gentleman in question was one Henry Matthews, himself an ex-convict from the first transportations, and a modest landowner who was kinder to his convicts than most.
Young Noah was put to work on the land, where the sun blistered his skin and the labour raised calluses on his hands. And not only his hands; he had accepted – there at the rim of the world – that he was truly abandoned as London continued without him, so far away as to be in a dream. It was only in his dreams that he walked its streets, pursuing Lucius Boyle into blind alleys where the enemy would disappear.
It was a book that saved him – at least for a period. Mr Matthews was quite illiterate and used the books in his possession for lighting fires. When Noah unfolded a page and began to read to himself, his master was astounded and bade Noah read aloud from the scrap. Thereafter, when his daily work was done, he would read to delight Mr Matthews. And, foreseeing a time when the reading matter would end, Noah began to elaborate upon the lines before him, lengthening and embellishing the stories so that one of ‘his’ pages lasted two normal pages. It pleased his master and it earned him a few extra pennies.
It continued like this for a year or so, the young boy turning into a young man. Mr Matthews, who was perhaps sixty, became less able to work and requested another convict. The man who arrived – John Carter – was a brutal sort: a thief and bully from London who immediately resented Noah. Nor was it coincidence that this man had arrived at this settlement.
Through machinations unknown, Lucius Boyle had managed to send out a message to Noah. Perhaps he had contacted a number of criminals bound for the Antipodes, or perhaps it was just John Carter. Perhaps money had exchanged hands as convicts were allocated. But within a few days, as the two convicts worked to saw down trees, the message was passed on:
‘The General says you are never to return. London belongs to him now. Return and you will die.’
As one might imagine, Noah boiled with anger. Even here, beyond the seas, his enemy and betrayer mocked him. Thereafter his fortunes would decline rapidly, but there is no room here for the murder of Henry Matthews, the flight of Noah and his escape upon a Dutch East India vessel bound for China. That story, and the multitude that followed across the world’s trade routes, is for another book.
TWENTY-THREE
Sergeant Williamson sat on the bed of the attic room at Mr Allan’s house that next morning and looked again at the paper Noah had handed to him. It was nothing but a common advertising flyer of the type handed out in the street or pasted to the sides of buildings:
GRAND MASQUERADE AND CARNIVAL AT VAUXHALL GARDENS
The promoters of this most popular choice of galas have, in response to an urgent and repeated demand, determined on a splendid masquerade and carnival to take place on Friday night next, October 18, the last night that the gardens will be opened, when the immense resources of the illustrious venue will be brought into requisition to render the carnival one of the most magnificent to have occurred in this city, combining all the splendour of a Neapolitan carnival with humour of an English masquerade. The Rotunda Theatre and Hogarth Picture Gallery will be converted into a grand pavilion for dancing. Ticket 5s.
In itself it meant nothing, but with the information Inspector Newsome had given him about the pursuit of Benjamin, it suggested obvious conclusions. Now, however, he felt his loyalties torn.
His initial desire – before Noah’s surprise visit and the business with Mr Newsome – to solve the curious case of Mr Askern’s death had been replaced with a sense of futility at the whole endeavour. Lucius Boyle had no doubt gained access to the house through some intervention of Inspector Newsome, no matter what the latter said about the letter being forged. Still, there may a clue that could entrap at least one of the possible perpetrators.
No personal belongings had been left behind by the murderer. The bed had not been slept in and there were no obvious physical clues. Much as he hated to admit it, the only hope of finding the man was Noah, now locked away at Giltspur-street gaol. Would Mr Newsome allow Henry Hawkins or Boyle himself into the cell late one night and end the case with a final corpse? And was there any truth in what Mr Newsome had said about Noah being an escaped convict? Despite his better judgement, Mr Williamson had begun to believe that Noah might be an innocent man after all.
‘You look at a loss, sir,’ offered PC Cullen, who was still under orders to guard Mr Williamson’s life as if it were his own.
‘I have much on my mind, Constable Cullen.’
‘Aye, this Red Jaw or “General” is the scourge of London.’
‘What do you know of him?’
‘What I have read, and what people say. They say he has the power of not being seen, taught to him by a Chinese magician.
He can influence men’s thoughts with only the power of his mind. Nobody is safe from him; even if they were locked away in the depths of Newgate, he would find out his victim and vanish. I’m not saying I believe such things myself – it’s just what is being said.’
‘Hmm. I do not have magic on my side.’
‘Is this latest murder the work of Red Jaw?’
‘Very possibly, though I would thank you not to advertise the fact.’
‘Of course, sir.’
‘Hmm. Tell me, Constable – if you wanted to kill a man in the basement, how would you do so from this room without actually going downstairs and entering the room by the door or window? What do you think our myth-makers would make of that?’
‘Why, if we are to accept what is said – which, as I say, I don’t fully believe – Red Jaw might do it with his mind alone. Or he would assume a different shape and float like a vapour without making a peep of noise.’
‘Well, that is quite ridic—’
Mr Williamson paused and made his way awkwardly to the dormer window, where he looked around the interior of the frame and then out over the city’s fields of chimney pots. He opened the sash window and leaned out to peer upwards and backwards at the house’s own vertiginous chimneys.
‘Constable Cullen, I think you may have hit upon something there.’
‘Really, sir?’
‘The route between the basement and the attic may be the longest on foot – but the shortest by another, more direct, route.’
‘I don’t quite follow you, sir . . .’
‘Come here. Do you see what I see, Constable? The soot about the chimney base there has been disturbed and there is a little freshly broken mortar here in the gutter. There are lines in the grime of the tiles where knees or feet have passed.’
‘He went down the chimney, sir?’
‘No – a boy could not slip down there. Even a cat would have trouble.’
‘What are you saying, sir?’
‘I believe a rope was thrown up to the apex of the roof, most likely with a corked hook on it, and a man clambered up the tiles to reach the pots. That would explain the contents of the canvas bag he carried. Constable, I would like you to follow in his footsteps.’
‘Me, sir?’
‘Yes. Mr Allan will procure us some rope and a grappling iron. I want you to climb up there and report to me anything you can find – anything at all out of the ordinary.’
And so the rope was obtained and Constable Cullen was able, with some difficulty, to eventually cast a line and ascend with trembling knees over the gritty tiles to the pre-eminent position.
Few have seen London from such a privileged viewpoint. Up there in the smoky aether, one is alone with the birds. Sounds swirl around one, echoing up from the deep gorges of the streets: a hawker shouting his wares, the rumble of a goods wagon (quite a different noise to the phaeton or hackney carriage), and the ceaseless murmur of a million souls at work. One might be atop the main spar of a brig, looking out across the empty ocean, for not a single human presence could be seen in that murky and smut-smeared sea of baked clay and slate.
It proved quite simple for Constable Cullen to locate among the six the one chimney pot belonging to the basement room that Mr Askern had slept in. The clay pot itself had been wrenched free and tied to an adjoining one with a length of weak hempen twine, no doubt so it would not roll away and alert residents. In time, the rope would rot and the broken chimney would roll down to shatter on the street below. He peered into the jagged hole, which vanished into sooty darkness after less than a yard. It was clear, however, that something had scratched away the accretions of carbonaceous matter either going down the chimney or coming up it.
PC Cullen, who regarded the detectives with awe and imagined his own career navigating in that direction, did not, however, possess their acuity. He theorized upon what could have caused the scratches. Some manner of animal, perhaps, that had been trained to deliver a lethal attack? A phial of noxious material dropped down to befuddle the unfortunate writer? There seemed nothing to report to Sergeant Williamson but the scratches.
Making to return to the window, he put his hand into a wad of matter on the tiles by the chimney base and cursed. The quantity, if not the texture, suggested a duck was responsible. He wiped it on his trouser leg with a grimace and began to lower himself back to safety. Once back in the room, retrieving the hook proved to be as simple as whipping the rope to dislodge its purchase on the apex. A little mortar ratted down after it and landed in the gutter.
‘Scratches, you say?’ said Mr Williamson. ‘What kind of scratches? Long and unbroken? Multiple like a man’s fingernails? Like an animal’s claw?’
‘No, sir. They were not regular at all. It looked like something had fallen and simply touched the sides on its way down – or up, I suppose. It was not possible to tell.’
‘Something big? Were the scratches distributed all around the inside of the shaft?’
‘No, sir. I would say that the object fitted quite easily within the diameter but brushed against it slightly on descending.’
‘I think we can rule out any animal. I cannot think of any that would be able to find its way down and then back up in addition to killing Mr Askern without a sign.’
‘I thought the same thing myself, sir.’
‘Hmm. It cannot have been something dropped, for it would be in the fireplace to be found. Inspector Newsome looked there and found only ashes. In which case, the only logical conclusion is that something was lowered and then pulled back up. Did you say that the broken chimney was tied to its neighbour with a thin piece of rope?’
‘Yes, sir. Too thin for the man to have gained access to the chimneys in the first place. Perhaps it was an off-cut from the other rope?’
‘You have read my mind, PC Cullen.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘Let us go down to that room and look again at the fireplace.’
The body had of course been taken away and Mr Allan had evidently made some attempt to tidy the room. The door, splintered and now quite useless, stood beside the doorway. The constable shivered at the thought of a dead body having lain there just hours ago – killed most probably by Red Jaw himself.
‘Yes. Do you see here, Constable Cullen? If you look around the edge of the grate you can see the darker soot of the inner chimney quite black against the grey of the other combusted materials. I would say that whatever caused those scratches occurred after this fire had burned itself out.’
‘I see it. But—’
‘Quite – what was the cause? There is nothing here now to indicate that any object living or dead was lowered down. Whatever it might have been, it no longer exists.’
‘Perhaps some kind of noxious gas, sir?’
‘What is that, Constable?’
‘Well, sir. I was thinking that—’
‘No – what is that stain on your trouser leg. It was not there when we arrived at the house. Was there something on the roof?’
‘A bird, sir . . . I wiped my hand—’
‘Show me your hand . . . the palm. Let me smell . . . Hmm. Do you know that smell, Constable?’
PC Cullen sniffed gingerly at his soiled palm.
‘No? I am surprised you have not come across it before. That is opium, Constable. Opium mixed with something else that sailors are prone to smoke along with it: hashish – a highly soporific combination.’
‘Sir?’
‘Where did you find it?’
‘Beside the chimney base, sir. On the tiles.’
‘It seems unlikely that a passing bird dropped it there. I think we have our solution to this little mystery. ’
‘I don’t follow . . .’
‘Of course, we cannot be sure, but I would say that the events unfolded thus: the resident of the attic room – most likely your Red Jaw – waited until sometime just before dawn, when the fires had burned out, and clambered up to the roof. There, he wrenched off the chimney pot for eas
ier access and lowered some kind of device down to this room. Perhaps it was a censer of the kind used in Catholic or Orthodox churches. Whatever it was, it was loaded with opium and possibly other narcotics, which, when lowered into this small room gave off a quantity of intoxicating smoke. Most likely he covered the chimney to seal the room completely.’ ‘But wouldn’t the gentleman have woken up?’ ‘Perhaps under normal circumstances, but we have evidence enough to suggest otherwise (not least his death). The candle on the desk had burned out, which tells us Mr Askern was possibly too tired to extinguish it. Let us also remember that the effect of these narcotics is extreme relaxation. Some men have simply never woken after overindulging in such a combination. There is no sudden shock of waking to smell smoke. Indeed, if he had woken at all, it would have been to a warm stupor of sleepiness. Two or three hours breathing such smoke would have been quite enough. And, finally, let us recall that Mr Askern had a weak chest – a factor that the murderer most likely knew when he chose this ingenious plan.’
‘Sir? You sound as if you admire the murderer.’ ‘The plan is quite perfect: to kill a man by smoke alone, leaving a corpse that not only shows no injury but in fact gives every impression of peace. Evidently the smoke had dissipated by the time Mr Allan broke down the door – and what if it had not? The deed had still been done and the criminal fled. A man who concocts such a plan is to be feared, even by the Detective Force.’ ‘Will you catch him, sir?’ ‘I do not know. Naturally we can make investigations among the opium dens, and among the churches or ecclesiastical suppliers to see if a censer has been recently stolen or bought. The sources of such a thing are rare enough. But I fear it will do us little good.’
‘Sir . . . have you lost heart? The men say that if anyone can catch this man, it is you.’
‘No, that is no longer the case. I am beginning to think Mr Newsome – wherever his loyalties lie – was correct in at least one of his initial assumptions: a criminal like your Red Jaw will seldom be caught by a policeman such as me. He does not observe the rules – or rather, he knows the rules and how to break them in a way they would never be broken.’
The Incendiary's Trail Page 24
