Shadow of the Dolocher

by European P. Douglas

  "My husband is fine; not that it's any of your business!" She heard the coachman chuckle a little at this and she shot a glance in his direction, but her view of him was blocked by the shell of the carriage.

  "Why don't you both come over for dinner tomorrow night?" Edwards asked, pretending not to notice her tone.

  "You know full well that's never going to happen!"

  "I suppose so," Edwards mused, "It's only really you I want to come over anyway," he added.

  In her previous life, Mr. Edwards had been one of her most generous and frequent customers. He often asked for her specifically at the brothel and made a fuss when she was not there. Since she stopped being a prostitute, he had accosted her a few times in the street like this and asked her to come to his house. She had always assumed he just wanted to sleep with her, but there was something different in his voice this time. Something she didn't recognise that made her curious as to what he was after. There must have been something in her face that gave away what she was thinking, for he leaned forward then and handed her a letter.

  "Read it when you are alone," he said, and then he tapped the roof with his cane, and the carriage set off down the street and around the corner out of sight.

  Kate looked at the letter. It was sealed with wax, red and shiny smooth and the paper was cream coloured and felt thick and looked expensive. She was tempted to open it there and then, but she had the sense of eyes on her, so she put in her bag and continued on her way home.

  Chapter 3

  Timothy Mullins's huge form took up most of the framed doorway to his blacksmith shop as he looked out at the street in the late morning sun. It had been a quiet morning so far, just some odd bits and pieces to mend and strengthen but he wasn't too concerned. Business had been going well the last few months, and now that he was with Kate he didn't go to the whiskey cabins anywhere near as much as he used to. As a result of this, he was able to put some money aside every few weeks, very little, it must be said, but it was something for the future. From where he stood, he could see the tower of Newgate Prison, 'The Black Dog' as it was known locally, and he knew that there had been another suicide there last night. There were rumours all about as to who the prisoner was, but no one seemed sure of the information they passed on.

  Timothy felt an odd mood with the news of the death; it brought back to him the time of the Dolocher and the fact that the killer had been none other than his best friend, a man who Mullins had been so sure hadn't a wicked bone in his body. He had even tried to kill Mullins; resulting in the fact that he was the one who had unmasked the Dolocher in the end. Even now, over two years later, he still found it hard to believe.

  His business had taken a bit of battering at that time as he was a suspect in the murders for no reason other than his immense height and strength, and then through his association with the real killer. During this time, he'd had to take on work from the gangs, something he had always been loath to do in the past, to pay the bills. He would mend their weapons but that was all, he still refused to make anything for them. As soon as he was able to, he stopped doing this work. This was just as well as soon after the gang warfare had all but ceased.

  Lord Muc, the leader of the Liberty Boy's, a group that started out as weavers but soon took on all types of men who loved violence, took the battle to such extremes that more and more men died during them that no one wanted to face him anymore. There was the odd scuffle now and then with members of the Ormonde Boys, but nothing organised or as violent as things had become before. Mullins saw Lord Muc from time to time, looking for trouble outside taverns or causing a nuisance in the streets but he'd had nothing to do with him lately.

  Checking the time, he saw that it was near lunch and he thought about going home for a while. Scally, his errand boy and helper- not yet an apprentice- sat on a tiny stool outside the shop whittling on a stick. Mullins looked to him just as the boy made some mistake in his whittling,

  "Stupid fuckin' thing!" Scally exclaimed, and he threw down the piece of wood in temper. Mullins laughed, he had seen this in him before; it didn't take much to set him over the edge.

  "Do you have anything to eat with you?" Mullins asked him.

  "No," Scally said; this was often the case. Mullins went inside to his satchel and pulled out some sandwiches wrapped in cloth and handed them to him.

  "Go home and split these with your mother," Mullins said to him.

  "Thanks, Mr. Mullins!" Scally said, and he set off towards home. Mullins closed the door to the shop and walked along Cook Street towards his own home, happy to have been able to do something nice.

  When he came in the door, he called Kate, but there was no answer. He looked into the bedroom and saw that it was all made up and she was nowhere to be seen. He wondered was she down at the market with the women she used to live with. He decided he would wait long enough to eat and have tea before he went back to the shop.

  There was a low fire going, and he stoked it to boil water. As this was going on, he cut two thick slices of bread and buttered them thinly putting some tomatoes and lettuce on them and a sliver of a slice of meat. He sat down in front of the fire and chewed as the bubbles dotted the water and soon it began to boil. He was almost finished his sandwich by the time he poured the tea, and he went to the cupboard and took out some biscuit and ate that with it. The biscuit was almost stale, and he didn't enjoy it as much as he'd hoped to.

  He'd been home half an hour by now, and he decided that it was time to go back. He couldn't afford to sit around doing nothing. It was disappointing not seeing his wife, but he would see her later in the day. She might even drop by the shop on her way home if she was indeed at the market at Templebar as he guessed. He stepped out onto Dog and Duck Yard and headed back towards Cook Street. As he walked along here, he was tempted to stop into his favourite cabin and see if there was any more news on the man who'd killed himself in the gaol, but he avoided this, staying on the side of the road he was on and going straight to the shop. Scally was there waiting for him, back on his tiny stool, the same whittling piece as earlier in his hands.

  "Anyone come with business?" he asked the boy.

  "No, but I'm only here about ten minutes. Do you want me to go looking for customers?" Mullins thought about this and shook his head,

  "No, we'll see how the next couple of hours treat us."

  An hour later, as Mullins worked on some pieces he had lying around for his own projects, the door darkened, and Mullins turned to see Lord Muc standing there; that same cocksure grin on his scarred and battle hardened face as ever. He was the last person Mullins wanted to see. Wherever the gang leader went, trouble followed close behind.

  "Muc," Mullins said in greeting.

  "Hello Blacksmith, long time no talk."

  "It has."

  "Haven't seen you brawling much of late."

  "Haven't been brawling much of late."

  "All down to the love of a good woman eh?" Muc laughed as he said this. Mullins stiffened at the mention of Kate.

  "What can I do for you?" he asked.

  "I need something made."

  "You know I don't do weapons," Mullins reminded him, sure that this was what he was going to ask for.

  "It's not a weapon I need; it's a replica of a weapon I want you to make."

  "A replica?"

  "Yes, of the boar's tusks that I used to do battle with." Mullins looked at him and saw that he was serious.

  "You want me to make iron boar tusks?"

  "Yes, the battle days are over, and I want something to commemorate them."

  "I can't do it, Muc," Mullins said turning back to what he had been doing.

  "Why not?" Muc asked; there was an edge to his voice and Mullins turned to him again lest he attack from behind.

  "I can't be associated with anything to do with the Dolocher; if word got out about that, no one would use my shop anymore."

  "It has nothing to do with the Dolocher; that was a human, your friend as I recall. I j
ust want tusks done in steel."

  "You know that everyone around here still links all of those things, the pigs and the boar with the Dolocher, as well as Cleaves."

  "You're getting very soft Blacksmith. There was a time when you didn't care what anyone thought, but now you're almost like a little housewife."

  "Do you want to step outside and discuss this?" Mullins rankled, leaned into him but Lord Muc didn't flinch.

  "I've no desire to hit women,” he smiled and added, “most of the time."

  The talk of the Dolocher and this scene reminded Mullins of the time he'd been suspected; Muc had rubbed that in then too as now. Mullins stepped back and put down the tool he held and silently took in a deep breath through his nose. He was determined not to get into a fight now. Muc looked a little disappointed, and he too backed off away towards the door.

  "I'll find someone who will do it. Just thought I'd offer you the business," Muc said, and he nodded goodbye and left.

  Mullins came out and watched him walk away, and he saw Scally looking up at him.

  "Why didn't you make it for him?" the boy asked.

  "Because if I did it would be the death of someone," Mullins said. Scally nodded in understanding and looked after Lord Muc as he mingled in with the street crowd and slowly disappeared.

  Chapter 4

  Alderman James sat with Sheriff Dunbar at breakfast in his home looking out on Henrietta Street. It had been a large breakfast, and now they drank coffee as they went through the finer points of a case involving a gentleman and a severely beaten servant. It was clear that the man would get away with the crime, but it was how best to approach it, to keep it from court if possible that they were engrossed in. A knock came on the door, and the butler brought in a letter from Marcus Cabinteely, the Gaoler of Newgate Prison. James put the letter to one side without opening it and continued with his coffee until Dunbar was gone.

  James had been expecting a letter from Cabinteely the day before and he was slightly annoyed with this delay. He picked it up again when he was alone expecting it to read that there was no weapon found in either the ashes or the courtyard and perhaps a name or two of the watchmen who brought in the prisoner who had killed himself in the tower.

  When James opened it, however, he was stunned to see that it concerned a murder that had been committed outside the prison during the previous night. There was no more information than that and James hurriedly called for his coach and left for the scene.

  As he bounced across the cobbled streets, he looked at the letter trying to garner further information from it, but there was simply nothing there. Cabinteely wasn't much of a letter writer; it didn't even say who the victim was or if there had been anyone apprehended for the crime or not. Scant was the best word to describe it; and James meant to tell him to be more specific if he ever had call to write to him again. The Alderman was going in cold to this, and he didn't like it. Normally he was told by a watchman or soldier what to expect and if there were any witnesses or any other pertinent information that he should be aware of. As it stood now, he didn't even know if the army had been notified or if he was going to be the first person of authority to arrive.

  The carriage crossed the Liffey at Essex Bridge, and James looked out at the boats down by the docks at Templebar. They were busy loading, and unloading, and he could see the teeming market there too, part of it anyway, and then they were climbing the road towards the prison. There was a crowd of people there but nothing like he'd feared there would be; only about twenty in all. When James got out and saw that an area by the gate was cordoned off, he felt another chill of recognition go through him as he had felt in the tower a couple of nights ago.

  He made his way through the people who paid him no heed, and he saw the blood on the ground. There was a lot of it, and some was slathered onto the wall of the prison by the ground level window to 'The Nunnery' as well. There was a guard standing by so no one came too close to the mess.

  "Where is the body?" James asked.

  "Inside, Sir," the guard replied, his face was white, and James thought he was in a state of shock at having seen the body. He mused that it must have been in a bad way for this kind of reaction. Still, it couldn't be worse than what he had seen in the past. James made his way to the gate. He wanted to look at the faces of the onlookers, to see what they were thinking, but he was afraid that his own face would give something away. He went inside, and the gate closed behind him. The pressure of their eyes came off his back as though something physical had been on there.

  "Alderman! Hello," Cabinteely was coming across the courtyard to him with a hand outstretched.

  "Good morning," James said shaking his hand limply.

  "You saw outside?"

  "Yes, who was it?"

  "Don't know that yet."

  "Not one of the guards then?"

  "No, our guards don't go outside the gates at night."

  "Is that as big as the crowd of onlookers has been out there?"

  "No, it was a little bigger earlier, but a lot of people left after we brought the body in."

  "People saw the body then?"

  "Yes."

  "It would have been better if that had not been the case." Cabinteely didn't say anything to this.

  "I'll take you to the body, but I have to warn you it's pretty gruesome."

  "Murder always is."

  Cabinteely led James through the archway into the building proper and down a short corridor with a large wooden door at the end of it.

  "Open up, Jack, it's me," Cabinteely said as he banged on the door. They could hear footsteps and a lock behind lifted, and then the door opened to another tired looking guard. This one had the same white face as the other and James wondered why he had been in a locked room with the body like this.

  From the hall, James could see the body on the large table. It was covered with a white sheet, but there were bloodstains all over it as though it had soaked through. Every part of the body seemed to be cut. They walked in, and the air was pungent in the room. They all held their noses, and the guard who had waited for the others to do this seemed most relieved to get to do it once more as he must have been before they came in.

  Cabinteely went over and took hold of the sheet looking at James as if for permission to pull it back. James nodded, and the sheet was pulled back to reveal the body of a man, not very tall and with black hair matted with blood. His eye sockets had been stabbed, and eyeballs were missing, and his face was shredded so much to make knowing what he used to look like impossible. The rest of the body was covered in cuts and slice marks, but thankfully there was no sign of a serrated weapon being used.

  "Was he naked when you found him?"

  "Yes."

  "So he must have been dumped there and killed someplace else," James thought aloud.

  "I'd say so, surely one of the men would have heard something of this if it happened just outside the gate," Cabinteely added.

  "Do you have any idea of when it was dropped off?"

  "It can't have been long before six." James thought about this for a moment. There was very little to go on; nothing really. He looked at the guard, skin white and slick with nausea and he wondered if there were any guards here at all from a few years ago. Would anyone else have noticed the similarities to that case? Probably not if none of them worked here at the time. Cabinteely himself didn't arrive until months later, he hadn't even been in Ireland while all that was going on.

  "Has the doctor been called?" James asked.

  "He's been and gone; he said he'd send for the body when you were finished with him." James had never cared for the doctors at the barracks, there was nothing of pleasantness in them, and the way they treated the dead was abominable.

  "What did he say?"

  "Killed by stabbing through the heart and multiple knife wounds."

  "Did he indicate if he thought the wounds were inflicted after the man died?"

  "No, he wasn't here for very long, to be honest."


  James walked closer and looked at the wound by the heart; it was deep and wide, and the edges jagged as though the knife had been twisted while in the body. There were scratch marks on the exposed ribs too and something else that didn't look quite right. James asked for a lantern to be brought to him, and he held it up to the body. The skin was white yellow now in this glow and looked almost like wax.

  "There's something in there!" James said, and he handed the lantern back to the guard. Cabinteely looked where James was looking but didn't seem to understand.

  "What do you see?"

  "In the chest wound, there is something in there that doesn't belong."

  "Oh, I see; you're right!" Cabinteely exclaimed, "What do you suppose that is?"

  "I have no idea, but we're going to find out."

  James rolled up his sleeve and looked about for something to reach inside the man's body with. There was nothing that would do the job, so he had to bite his lip and stick two fingers into the hole. He felt something steel and cold, and it moved a little. He pushed against the dead muscles to get his fingers in behind the thing and finally got there. It was cylindrical and small and had a ridged surface. He pulled at it, but it was wedged in so he had to push it in a little more and then tip it so that he could take it out by one end.

  James took it to the light but couldn't make out what it was with all the blood. There was a basin of bloody water that the doctor might have used earlier on a shelf beside the table. He dipped a rag into it and wiped away at the object. He held it to the light and looked at it; the guard and Cabinteely leaned in as well to get a better view.

  It was a piece of lead coloured metal and had a loop at the top where a chain or string might have gone through to make this thing an amulet or necklace of some kind. There were some letters engraved, but they didn't make any sense. The raised parts were of another engraving, and it was clear as James turned it what this figure was supposed to be.