Absence of Mercy

by S. M. Goodwin

  His cold, pale-gray eyes flickered over Hy and left him feeling six inches high. “I’m Paisley, His Lordship’s valet. He suggested you would like tea.”

  Hy tried to read Paisley’s expression. Did he want Hy to accept this offer or stand there and wait? He honestly couldn’t tell from the man’s face, which was as expressive as a stone carving.

  “His Lordship has instructed me to make tea,” Paisley repeated, his gaze, impossibly, frostier. He motioned toward another room; it was a gesture that, from anyone else, would have looked welcoming. Mr. Paisley made it look like an invitation to a firing squad.

  Hy preceded him into a room that looked like a parlor—but five or six times bigger than any parlor he’d ever seen.

  “Have a seat.”

  Hy chose a big wingback chair that looked like it might bear his weight, and Paisley disappeared through a door, closing it with a snap and leaving Hy free to gawk.

  A massive fireplace—dormant—took up most of one wall. Beneath his scuffed old boots was highly polished wood covered with carpets that looked to be worth more than he’d earn in a lifetime. Rich, supple leather chairs sat cheek by jowl with end tables boasting marble tops. He lifted the lid of a carved box and saw slim, almost black cigars inside; they smelled delicious.

  Life with the nuns had been spotlessly clean, but it was spartan. As for before then—the months he’d lived on the streets after Groβmutti Law died and before he went to the nuns—Hy remembered only fear, freezing cold, and constant, gnawing hunger. What must it be like to come from this world of plenty? Why on earth would a man like Lightner work if he didn’t have to?

  Everything in the room made Hy feel battered, crude, and unworthy, a reaction that bothered him. The room was like a too-rich dessert that left him queasy, and his eyes ached from the glare of so much opulence. And this was just a hotel room. What must a duke’s house be like? Lightner must have grown up in a world so completely—

  Another door opened and the man in question came out, shaved, shod, and looking fresh as a daisy. It wasn’t until he got closer that Hy saw the strain around his dark eyes. Just as on the prior two days, he wore clothing that managed to look finer than that worn by any other uptown gents Hy had ever seen; not that there was anything flash about his black coat, charcoal pants, and gleaming black leather shoes. The only color in his outfit was his vest, which was a dull black silk with indigo embroidery. Hy was glad he’d thought to have his landlady brush and press his only suit after work the night before.

  “Good morning, Detective,” Lightner said.

  The door the valet had gone through opened, and the servant entered carrying a tea tray piled high with a stunning assortment of biscuits and cakes.

  “Er, good morning, sir.” Hy stared at the beautiful food, his stomach making a demanding grumble that caused his face to heat. “Sorry to wake you so early.”

  “Well, m-murderers don’t sleep, it appears.”

  Paisley gestured to a cup and gave Hy an inquiring look.

  “Er, milk and three sugars.”

  “You’d best eat while you have the t-time,” Lightner said, taking a cup of black, unsweetened tea from his servant.

  Hy restrained himself, placing only two items on his plate—a white frosted cake and something that looked like a custard-and-fruit tart. He had to keep swallowing, since his mouth was watering so badly that he was afraid of opening it. If he drooled in front of a man like Paisley, he just might have to crawl under the table.

  “I’m sorry this was all I could procure at such short notice, my lord.” The valet handed Lightner a plate he’d heaped with delicacies, but his master shook his head, a faint frown of distaste on his thin lips. Undaunted, the valet didn’t move until Lightner sighed, snatched a biscuit—the smallest—and gave his servant a perfunctory smile.

  “Who, where, how?” Lightner asked, setting the biscuit down in his saucer, untouched.

  “Stephen Finch, a wealthy society gentleman. The body was found behind Lizzy Horgan’s brothel. That’s not in the Eighth, but between the Sixth and Fourteenth.” He saw Lightner’s grimace. “When I left, it was only O’Malley and two boys from the Fourteenth. Captain Norris at the Fourteenth is McElhenny’s brother-in-law, but he hates his guts, so his sergeant called us instead of the Sixth.”

  Lightner snorted. “I suppose we should be g-grateful for that.”

  Hy grinned at his wry tone. “It’s lucky for us Billings pulled the night shift, ’cause he sent word to me an’ O’Malley.” Hy had been amazed—and heartened—at the duty sergeant’s actions. His last sergeant, at the Sixth, would have galloped from his post directly to the scene to be the first to rifle the pockets of such a wealthy victim.

  “S-So,” Lightner said, “Another b-brothel and another alley. Who f-found him?” He paused and then added, “Please t-tell me it wasn’t Jemmy Hart.”

  “No, sir. It was a group of young lads who’d just been bounced from Lizzy’s for bein’ rowdy. They’d gone round the building hopin’ to sneak in the back entrance.”

  “Method?”

  “Garrotin’, stabbed in the side—left side—and a piece o’ flesh missin’.”

  Lightner took a drink of tea, set down the cup and saucer, and stared at his servant, who was fussing with items on the tray, clearly hoping to force more food on him.

  “Fetch my things, Paisley,” he said in a clipped tone that sent the man off to do his bidding, but not without a narrow-eyed look at his employer’s untouched biscuit.

  Lightner gestured to the many delicacies left on the tray. “Please t-take some with you, Detective. Paisley has as m-much of a sweet t-tooth as I do, so whatever you d-don’t eat will likely get th-th-thrown away.”

  Hy was horrified by the thought of such waste. He took out his handkerchief—a clean one, thankfully—and put a flaky pastry in it. He hesitated, then added another before wrapping them up. Once he’d tucked that in his pocket, he took a white-frosted cake that had a rose made from chocolate on top. It would never survive a journey in his coat, so he commenced eating. He was barely able to stop from groaning in ecstasy.

  The Englishman chuckled. “Paisley will enjoy having somebody to f-feed.”

  Hy was pretty sure the haughty servant didn’t care whether Hy ate or starved.

  Lightner was coated, hatted, gloved, and in possession of a cane—this one bearing a handle that was a black panther—just as Hy finished his delicacy.

  The valet must have magically arranged for a cab—or the hotel kept them hanging about at all hours—because one was waiting for them. Although summer didn’t officially start for another week or so, spring had fled early this year. Hy didn’t know how the other man could bear wearing an overcoat in such weather, but he appeared cool and impervious as he settled onto the seat across from him.

  “Oh, by the by,” Hy said, “I went down to the docks to poke around and met Baker’s shoresman. His employees don’t like Baker much, say he’s tightfisted and an arrogant ass.”

  “Unhappy employees c-can be excellent sources of information,” Lightner agreed with a slight smile.

  “It turns out that people aren’t the only thing Baker has been shippin’.” Hy allowed himself a dramatic pause. “He also had a whole pile o’ guns in his last shipment.”

  “Ah, enter Mr. H-Hoyle. Did your source know the destination?”

  “The ship made stops all the way down to Cuba. There she filled up with rum, sugar, and cigars. The man wouldn’t tell me who bought the guns, but he was quick enough to say Baker keeps a house over by the railroad depot, at Fourth Avenue and East Twenty-Ninth. I went over there to see if he was in town, but Baker’s servant—who also sounded like he hated him—said he was probably in a whorehouse. I popped by Mr. Hoyle’s mansion, just ’cause I was in the area. His servants clammed up, like before, but I did get out of them that Hoyle’s been out of the city for the past week and doesn’t return until Friday.”

  Lightner nodded. “We’ll track B-Baker dow
n today, after this. D-Did you have an opportunity to examine the scene?”

  “The boy who took the rubbish out said there was no body when he was out at twelve thirty. The young drunkards stumbled on Finch around two forty-five or so, and Lizzy Horgan sent for the coppers not long after. I looked at the body, but I couldn’t tell if he’d been killed there or not.”

  “S-So, our killer was there between half midnight and threeish. Either he—or they—killed the v-victim then, or they d-dropped off his corpse. Is it a busy area?”

  “It’s quiet—but never completely empty.”

  The carriage slowed, and Hy breathed a sigh of relief when he saw there was still only O’Malley, one other patrolman, and a few onlookers, mostly working women, blocking the entrance to the alley. He said a quick prayer that they could examine the scene and deal with the body before they drew the attention of newspapermen. Or worse, coppers from the Sixth.

  CHAPTER 18

  Unlike Alard Janssen, Stephen Finch was a well-preserved man in his late thirties or early forties.

  Jasper stripped off his gloves, threw them into his hat, and handed both to O’Malley. He turned back to the corpse and was just about to crouch down when Paisley’s horrified face rose up before him. He sighed and unbuttoned his coat. After he’d shrugged out of it, he handed that to O’Malley too, who received it as if Jasper had just handed him the crown jewels; Paisley would approve.

  He moved the lantern closer to the body. “You say he was in this p-position when you arrived?” Jasper asked the patrolman who’d arrived first.

  “Er, no, sir; I turned him over.”

  “Never touch a dead body unless it is to ascertain that the p-person is indeed d-dead.”

  The boy’s jaw dropped, his witless expression causing Jasper to realize what a prize he had in O’Malley.

  The marks around Finch’s neck were visible, as his shirt had been badly torn.

  “Are his c-collar and stock lying about?” Jasper asked, the question sending the patrolmen scurrying.

  While they searched the alley, Jasper lifted Finch’s shirttails, which were already untucked.

  He and Law examined the wound in his side in silence.

  The big detective looked at him. “Are you thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’, sir?”

  “A d-different knife?”

  Law nodded.

  Not only did it look like a different knife, but the chunk of flesh was much smaller, more like a large nick, not deep enough to expose Finch’s organs.

  Law pointed to the cuts. “I count six of them.”

  “The hand’s p-pressure on the knife—upon removal—will leave these marks.” Jasper pointed to the bottom of the vertical slashes. His eyes met Law’s. “These cuts were made from the f-f-front, not the back.”

  Law nodded his agreement.

  “Will you ch-check his shoes, detective?”

  Law ran his hand over the soles of both shoes. “Nothin’—at least no stickier than usual.”

  Jasper searched Finch’s pockets: no watch, no wallet, and no ring on his hands. The man wasn’t wearing an overcoat, and there was no hat or gloves.

  Jasper looked up at O’Malley, who straightened and said, “Er, we didn’t find no collar or tie, sir.”

  “He’d already been stripped of his valuables when I got here, sir,” Law said in a quiet voice. “It could have been the killer, the drunk boys who found him, or—”

  They both looked up at the patrolman standing beside O’Malley. His face reddened when he found himself under scrutiny, but he didn’t look guilty so much as alarmed.

  “Did somebody check his pockets?” Law asked.

  Now the lad looked terrified. “No, sir! I didn’t! I—”

  “We are n-not accusing you, Patrolman.”

  The boy swallowed, then nodded.

  “Mr. F-Finch looks to be somewhere b-between twelve to thirteen st-stone,” Jasper said.

  “Er, stone, sir?” Law asked.

  “Ah, yes—it’s pounds here,” Jasper said. “That’s fourteen pounds per stone, so … one sixty-eight to one eighty-two.”

  Law nodded. “Sounds about right.”

  “Approximately s-seven percent of the human body is blood; g-given the severity of the wounds, there should be a great deal more b-blood.”

  “So, he was moved like Dunbarton?”

  “We’ll have a l-look around.” The corpse was warm, but then so was the morning—stiflingly so. Finch’s skin didn’t blanch when Jasper squeezed his flesh, so it seemed likely he’d been dead at least a few hours. But rigor had barely set in, so probably no more than six hours.

  Jasper turned to Law. “Help me turn him.”

  On his back were several large, dark bruises, as if a heavy killer had knelt on him. “These are more p-pronounced than Janssen’s bruises.” He glanced at Law.

  “Er, sorry, sir; I don’t remember if there was bruising on Sealy and Dunbarton.”

  The skin on both of Finch’s palms was scraped, and one fingernail was almost ripped away. There were multiple fingertip-shaped bruises at the back of the neck but none on the front, where Finch would have grabbed.

  “Think it was the same rope?” Law asked.

  “Same fiber, but maybe th-thinner. The ligature marks are shallow, and neither the larynx or hyoid is damaged, so the cause of death was not strangulation.”

  “Was Janssen’s?”

  Jasper considered the question. “My first thought was n-no. But it could have b-been a combination of his crushed larynx inducing hypoxia and the stab wou-wounds that killed him.” He noticed there was a smear of blood on Finch’s guinea-gold head and parted the hair; there was a large lump, which looked to have swollen and split.

  “That’s quite a goose egg,” Law said.

  Bodies could often appear to become bruised after death, but he’d felt the difference in the past—antemortem contusions were firmer, in his experience. Jasper pressed the lump.

  “I th-think he was struck while he w-was still alive. To leave a swelling this size, the blow would have b-been hard enough to stun him, if not p-put him out.”

  “So”—Law held up a big hand—“this one seems different than the others, at least Janssen. Smaller rope and not as severe garrotin’.” He folded down one finger. “Stabbin’ from the front and six instead of four cuts.” Another finger. “Less flesh cut out.” A third. “A knock on the head.” A fourth. “Pine sap/no pine sap.” He folded down his thumb and started on his other hand. “Am I missin’ anything? Oh—Finch was moved, Janssen wasn’t.”

  Jasper nodded.

  “So, two killers workin’ together, and a different one did the stabbin’ this time?”

  “Or this is a d-different killer from Janssen’s.”

  “But why would somebody try to copy the same method?”

  “P-Perhaps they were hoping to g-get away with murder and b-blame it on somebody else.”

  Law groaned. “This is giving me a sore head, sir.”

  Jasper agreed.

  Law stared at the body. “So, either one person killed all four but changed it up—but not too much—to make it confusing? Or one person killed Dunbarton, Sealy, and Janssen and another killed Finch. Or one person killed Dunbarton and Sealy, and one killed Janssen, and another killed Finch? So we could have one, two, or even three killers.”

  “Now y-you’re hurting my head.” But that didn’t make the other man’s assessment any less accurate. Jasper sighed and took out his watch: it was just after five. “Shall we g-go speak to these ladies first”—he gestured to the working women who’d congregated at the end of the alley—“and then Mrs., er, what was it?”

  “Horgan, sir.”

  O’Malley was arguing with an extraordinarily beautiful young woman when they approached. His face was red and sweaty and his eyes were wild; he regarded Jasper as if he were the Second Coming. “Ah, Lord Jasper. Er, could I—”

  Jasper smiled at the girl. “Please excuse us a m-moment,” he said, ta
king O’Malley by the arm and leading him a few feet away.

  “You appear distressed, P-Patrolman.”

  “I think she’s crazy, sir.”

  Jasper laughed. “Oh?”

  “None of the rest of ’em saw Finch—except her. But she won’t tell me anything more.” He hesitated and then added, “She said she wanted to talk to the English lord.”

  “I suppose that would be m-me.”

  O’Malley blinked. “Er …”

  Jasper looked over at the lovely young woman; she was currently rubbing herself against Detective Law, who was staring skyward as if seeking divine assistance.

  “She said all kinds of things, sir—the other girls said she’s a liar.”

  “I see,” Jasper said. “But we question her j-just like any other w-witness. Sometimes a lie c-can tell us as much as the truth.”

  O’Malley nodded but looked unconvinced.

  They went back to where the other two waited.

  “I’m Velma, my lord.”

  Jasper looked down into a heart-shaped face with plump, bow-shaped lips and wide blue eyes glinting with excitement and a horrifying lack of intelligence. He took her hand and bowed over it, the action earning him a transcendent smile.

  O’Malley cleared his throat. “Er, she said—”

  “I can talk for myself,” she snapped, and then turned her smile on Jasper, her finger playing suggestively with what looked to be an expensive earring. “You’ll be wantin’ to know about Mr. Finch, I reckon?”

  Law frowned at the girl. “Tell us what you know. If you know anything.”

  She cut Jasper a wounded look, as if to say, Aren’t you going to rescue me from this barbarian?

  Jasper merely smiled.

  The next fifteen minutes would have been amusing had they not been standing twenty feet from a murdered corpse. Jasper and Law took turns, alternately placating and threatening.

  Yes, she’d seen Finch. No, she’d not talked to him. No, she didn’t know what time it was. Yes, he’d been with somebody—Mary. No, she didn’t know how long they’d been together, but they’d been fighting.

  She was complaining about how unfair the madam was to her when another patrolman trotted into the alley. “Lord Lightner?”