by Alex Grecian
He cracked the door open and peered out into the bedroom. It was empty. He stumbled through to the hallway and paused at the top of the stairs, but heard nothing anywhere in the house. The boards creaked under his feet as he descended to the ground floor. The parlor was dark and cool, and he almost didn’t see Penelope Shaw sitting in the shadows of the high wingback.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Hammersmith couldn’t see her face.
“Thank you for the shirt,” he said.
“It looks good. At least it fits you better than the one you were wearing.”
“What was it? The poison, I mean.”
“Benzene, just a drop of it, from the laundry.”
Hammersmith nodded. He had seen benzene used to remove stains from upholstery and curtains, things too cumbersome to be washed properly. He had no idea what the long-term side effects of benzene poisoning might be, but he knew that if he stayed awake and on his feet, any poison should eventually work its way through his body.
“What if I’d died? Killing a police officer wouldn’t have gone well for you.”
“It’s not lethal,” Penelope said. “At least not in small doses. My husband uses it on his patients to calm them.”
“Did he tell you to use it on me?”
She raised a finger to her mouth and bit her knuckle. “I was supposed to … I just needed to put you in my bed. Elizabeth had to help me with that part of it. Charles was going to come in and catch you there.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It would give him something, some way of controlling you. The scandal would have ruined you. You would know that and you would leave us alone. Leave him alone.”
“The boy in the chimney.”
“Charles tried to remove him, but he couldn’t. The body was stuck. Charles said we had to go. But we hadn’t the money to go far, and he didn’t know what to do then. Someone was supposed to come and remove the body while we were gone. An associate of Charles’s. But when we came back, you were waiting for us here and Charles knew that you’d been inside.”
“He might have talked to me.”
“You might have talked to him.”
Hammersmith nodded. “Where is he?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t give you as much benzene as he told me to. You woke early.”
“Why would you want me to wake early?”
“I don’t … I hoped you might deal with him when he arrived.”
Hammersmith walked slowly—he was still dizzy and didn’t want to stumble in front of Mrs Shaw—through the arch to the foyer and opened the front door. He paused there, unable to see Penelope.
“I will be back. Don’t leave the house. You may want to send your son away. Send him to visit relatives. It wouldn’t be good for him to see his parents taken into police custody.”
He didn’t wait to hear her response. He stepped out into the late afternoon air and took a deep breath. He closed the door behind him, vomited in Penelope Shaw’s rose garden, and made his unsteady way down the crowded street.
He didn’t notice when Charles Shaw emerged from behind a vendor’s wagon half a block behind and followed him away from the brownstone.
49
We’re missing something, aren’t we?” Kingsley said.
“We are?” Day said.
“Yes, I’m sure I’ve touched that razor. We’ll need my mark to compare.”
He unstoppered the bottle of ink and stuck his finger inside. He wiggled it around and pulled it back out, then pressed it firmly against the piece of paper. When he pulled his finger away, a wet black smudge sat next to the other three marks on the page. There were no ridges visible in the doctor’s mark.
“Too much ink, I suppose,” Day said.
“Yes. Perhaps the bottle is too large a reservoir. In the future, it may be prudent to use some sort of ink pad instead.”
He moved his finger to the other side of the row of marks and pushed it against the paper once more without re-inking first. This time he left a clear print. He smiled at it.
“Now why didn’t I take the amount of ink into account in the first place? Let’s see the razor and the…” He trailed off.
“What is it?” Day said.
“It’s just occurred to me that there’s absolutely no reason to continue working in a storage closet. Could we possibly reconvene at your desk, Inspector?”
“That would certainly smell better. Henry appears to have left a stain in the air here. But I’m afraid my desk is completely covered with reports at the moment.”
“Then what say we find another place to work?”
Kingsley gathered up his bag, the ink bottle, and the paper with its four finger marks. Day carried the razor and the shears, and the two of them left the storage closet. As soon as they hit the relatively fresh air of the squad room, they both breathed deep.
“Oh, my, I had no idea I was becoming so accustomed to that rank atmosphere. This smells wonderful.”
“We can use Detective Gilchrist’s desk. He’s out at the moment.”
“Actually, if you don’t mind, I’d like to check in with Sir Edward. I’d like him to be aware of this process, and his office might afford us some privacy.”
Blacker rejoined them. He made no mention of the dancing man.
“I’m sure I wouldn’t bother Sir Edward,” Blacker said. “Until we have concrete results.”
“Nonsense. He’s a thinking man. He’ll appreciate this.”
“Then I will respectfully wait here,” Blacker said.
“Suit yourself. Day, are you with me?”
“I am.”
“Good man.”
“I’ll look through these files and await your good news, then,” Blacker said.
Kingsley led the way across the room and knocked on Sir Edward’s office door. After a moment, they heard the commissioner’s voice.
“Come.”
Kingsley smiled and turned the knob and Day followed him into the office. He closed the door after them. Sir Edward stood and came around his desk. He held out his hand to Kingsley. His other sleeve was folded and pinned up at shoulder height, and Day imagined Sir Edward’s wife ironing that sleeve so that it would lie flat against his side.
“Doctor. It’s good to see you again so soon.” He turned and nodded at Day. “Detective,” he said. “Making progress?”
“Dr Kingsley has made an interesting discovery.”
“I’d like to show you something,” Kingsley said, “which I think might make the process of criminal identification much easier in the future.”
“By all means.”
Sir Edward gestured toward his desk, which was far neater and more organized than Day’s own. Kingsley set his bag on the desk and opened it. He laid the piece of foolscap in the center of Sir Edward’s blotter and held out his hand to Day, who gave over the razor. Kingsley set that down nearer to the three men than the paper and then took the shears from Day as well. He picked up the ink bottle and handed it to Day.
“I believe that’s yours. Thank you for the use of it. May I trouble you now for a pen?”
Sir Edward took a pen from his top desk drawer and handed it to Kingsley. Kingsley nodded at the ink bottle and Day opened it. Kingsley jabbed the pen into the ink and leaned over the desk.
“I should have labeled these immediately, but I believe I remember the order of them.”
He scratched a name under each of the four useful marks on the paper: Day, Blacker, Mayhew, and finally his own name.
“Who’s Mayhew?” Day said.
“Isn’t that the name of the unfortunate man from the storage closet?”
“He said his name was Henry.”
“Yes, Henry Mayhew.”
“He never gave a family name, only Henry.”
“Well, for some reason, the name Mayhew sticks in my mind. Regardless of whether it’s correct, we shall know that it stands here for that same man.”
Day nodded and indicated that Kingsl
ey should continue.
“Now, Sir Edward,” Kingsley said, “as I showed your detectives yesterday, each and every citizen has a pattern on the skin that is different from that of anyone else in the city.”
“Do you mean skin coloring? Brown and white and freckled and so on?”
“No, sir, a pattern of ridges. Look carefully at your fingertips.”
Sir Edward held his hand up to the light and stared at his fingers. “You mean the wrinkles here at the knuckle?”
“Even smaller. If you’ll look at this piece of paper, you’ll see that the application of ink brings the patterns out and records them for future comparison. Here we have finger marks made by two of your detectives, a street person, and myself. None of them are exactly the same. There are minute differences in them all. And if you were to record this same sort of mark from the tip of the thumb or finger of everyone for miles around, none of them would match exactly.”
“That’s impossible. A fingertip is too small. Eventually you would come across an exact likeness.”
“It would seem so, but I believe this is one of nature’s many little miracles. Now, as fascinating as this is in theory, I’m about to put it into practice.”
He reached into his open bag and removed a brightly decorated tin that had once held snuff, but when Kingsley opened it Day could see a quantity of black powder inside.
“You’ve already shaved the charcoal,” Day said.
Kingsley smiled. “By keeping a certain amount of charcoal dust prepared and ready, I believe I might save time in the future. Now let’s see what evidence we can find on these two instruments of murder.”
He tapped a small amount of dust out onto his hand and blew it across the surface of the shears, then did the same with the straight razor. He picked them up, one at a time, and shook off the excess dust, then set them next to the paper and got his magnifying lens from the bag. He peered through it at the razor, moved over to the shears, back to the razor.
“Here,” he said. “And here. You see?”
He turned around and pushed the lens into Day’s hands. Day bent over the weapons and looked at the magnified marks. He played the lens over the paper and then back to the shears.
“Remarkable,” he said. “Unless I’m mistaken, I see Mr Blacker’s prints on these scissors. These, right here, may be yours. But there are more that don’t match any on the paper.”
“Those are undoubtedly the marks of Inspector Little’s killer,” Kingsley said.
“You don’t say,” Sir Edward said. “May I?”
Sir Edward bent over the items on his blotter and spent several minutes looking through the lens before straightening back up. He was frowning.
“I see it. I do see it. Mr Day, you’ve handled this razor, as has the good doctor and, it would seem, Mr Blacker. This other mark, this Mayhew fellow, his marks aren’t visible on the razor. At least not to my eyes, but perhaps Dr Kingsley has a more well-trained ability of perception. These shears, on the other hand, have all four sets of markings, and at least three other patterns.”
“Yes,” Kingsley said. “Very observant, sir. I’m going to assume that at least one of the sets of prints on the razor belong to the victim, since we’re going on the theory that his own razor was used to shave and kill him, but I won’t know until I have a chance to retrieve finger marks from the body in my laboratory and compare them.”
“Grisly work, that.”
“Simply a part of the job, sir. A new part of the job. I believe I’ll institute this step in all future examinations. It might even be possible to build some sort of repository of finger marks to compare against.”
“That sounds dreadfully tedious.”
“But if a suspect were to be winnowed out by other methods, then this sort of evidence might prove the clincher, mightn’t it?” Day said.
“And I can imagine other uses for this,” Kingsley said. “I’ve been considering it for quite a while now. Think of how useful it might be in helping to find missing persons. Or identifying bodies. You have no idea how many bodies come through my laboratory in a week that are not claimed, that end up being buried anonymously.”
“I understand how frustrating that must be,” Sir Edward said. “I’m not entirely convinced, but there does seem to be enough merit here to explore this.”
“Thank you. Let me dust the opposite side as well, the side lying against the table now. There may be surprises awaiting us there. But at the moment, these finger marks do provide us some clues.”
“Such as?”
“You already knew that Mayhew, the dancing man, has handled the shears. But he did not handle the razor. That points to his innocence in the murders committed by … What did Mr Blacker call him?”
“The Beard Killer.”
“Right. The Beard Killer is not your dancing man. At least, I don’t believe he is. This doesn’t excuse him from possible suspicion in Inspector Little’s murder.”
“I have some trouble believing Mr Little would have been surprised and overpowered by the dancing man.”
“Nevertheless, it is at least a possibility. But the extraneous set of marks on the shears do not match any of the marks on the razor.”
“We already suspected that the Beard Killer and Little’s killer were not the same man.”
“But this confirms it.”
“If we can somehow find more prints to compare with both weapons…”
“The trunk. I will dust the entire trunk and we may discover something helpful there.”
“Indeed.”
“I wish we’d known of this even yesterday,” Sir Edward said. “I can see how it may be quite useful in the future. But for now, please continue along traditional lines of investigation and use this as a last resort until we know more. I would like to have some confirmation that these finger patterns are always different. I won’t see a man convicted and imprisoned solely on the strength of his fingertip marks.”
“Of course, sir.”
“But let’s keep this in mind as a means of narrowing down the pool of suspects in a case.”
“Thank you, Sir Edward,” Kingsley said.
“Now—”
Kingsley and Day jumped at the sound of a knock at Sir Edward’s door.
“Yes?” Sir Edward said.
“Sir, there’s been a development,” Blacker said.
“Well, open the door and talk to me face-to-face, man.”
Blacker came in and bowed his head. “Sorry, sir.”
“Like the Crystal Palace in here today, all this traffic in and out of my office. What is it, man?”
“There’s been another murder.”
“There’s always another murder.”
“Another body was found in a trunk, sir. I’m afraid it’s another policeman.”
50
His name’s Sam Pizer,” Blackleg said.
Hammersmith was sitting with the criminal at a small round table in a pub five blocks from the Shaw residence. He had been late arriving and Blackleg seemed impatient. Judging by the number of empty mugs on the table, Blackleg hadn’t waited for Hammersmith before he began drinking.
“The chimney sweep, you mean?”
“Yeah. You been tippin’ the bottle already, copper? Y’act like yer on the deck of a sinkin’ ship. Yer weavin’ about on yer chair.”
“I was poisoned earlier today.”
Blackleg sat up and leaned forward. “What’d they use?”
“Benzene.”
“Aye, I’ve had it myself. You’ll be shipshape by the day after tomorrow. Plenty a sleep, plenty a water. That’ll do the trick fer ya.”
“I feared I might not wake up if I slept. I had a great deal of trouble the last time I awoke.”
“I never said it’d be fun to wake up. But unless you was already dead afore you come in here, you’ll wake up again.”
Blackleg gestured to the serving girl to bring another mug. He shook his head at Hammersmith.
“You’ll wanna be avo
idin’ the drink, though, or your head’ll shoot clean off and to the moon.”
“Tea sounds lovely.”
“You’ll drink water.”
When the girl brought Blackleg’s ale, he asked her to bring his friend the biggest glass of water she could find. As he watched her go, Hammersmith noticed two tarts at a table across the room. They seemed familiar to him, and it appeared they’d been looking his way, but he couldn’t be sure. He turned his attention back to his tablemate.
“You said you’d discovered the chimney sweep’s name,” Hammersmith said.
“Right. Not easy to track down, neither.”
“Well, how did you do it?”
“You did the right thing, you did, settin’ a gonoph to find a gonoph.”
“A gonoph?”
“Somebody don’t mind gettin’ a little dirty in the pursuit of coin, right?”
“Oh. Understood.”
“I asked around a bit, here and there, nothin’ too indiscreet, you understand. Pressed a little of the coin you gave me into the right palms.”
Hammersmith winced. He’d given Blackleg half the grocery money for the month in order to help the criminal track the chimney sweep. He hoped Pringle would be able to come through with groceries for them both, or Hammersmith would have to tighten his belt again.
“Anyway, I found him in a flash house down the road a piece. He’s been talkin’ up his business, askin’ about for a kid might do as a climber. Seems he lost the climber he had.”
The girl interrupted them with Hammersmith’s water. She plonked it down on the table, rattling Blackleg’s empties, and turned on her heel before Hammersmith could thank her. Clearly she wasn’t impressed by men who drank water. Hammersmith saw the tarts across the room looking at him again and finally recognized them as the same two from the previous evening. The tall one had a distinctive scar across her face. He was still certain they had set the younger woman to bait him. He was surprised because this pub seemed a good bit nicer than that other one had. He smiled at them and raised his glass. The two women abruptly stood and hurried down a hall at the back of the pub. They were quickly out of sight.
