Avery & Blake 02 - The Infidel Stain (25 page)

‘You are lucky to find me home,’ he said. He was perhaps a little too advanced in years to play the dandy quite so enthusiastically, but he was still handsome, and he spoke with an Irish lilt. ‘I should be at the House, but I have not been well. I’ve been abed for several days. Do I know either of you gentlemen? You are, perhaps, electors? Might I ask you to return another day?’ He smiled easily but held his shoulders very tight.

‘No, Mr Heffernan.’

‘Then what—’

‘I am sorry to disturb you here. We had hoped to find you at the House,’ said Blake smoothly. ‘We come on a matter of some urgency from the office of Lord Allington. I have a letter of introduction.’ He pulled the Viscount’s letter halfway out of his pocket.

‘Lord Allington?’ said Heffernan, his shoulders still hunched. ‘We have not always seen eye-to-eye politically, but of course I admire his efforts on behalf of the poor. I would be happy to help if I can. I am convalescing, however. Perhaps another time? Does it concern the factory hours bill? Or a philanthropic matter?’

‘It is complicated. Perhaps we might sit down, Mr Heffernan.’

‘Well, I—’

‘Is there a good reason why you cannot? We shall not take much of your time,’ said Blake, somehow both innocently and rudely at the same time.

‘Well, er, indeed.’ Heffernan wanted to refuse us, but felt he could not. ‘We will go into the green study, Martha. Will you attend to the lights? And some tea if you please.’

The room was well proportioned and filled with furniture: two sofas, an elegant desk, a collection of small tables, carved walnut chairs and shiny
objets
. A large window looked out on to the river, and the walls were covered in dark-green silk which glowed under the gaslights. It was the room of a man who saw himself well measured in his fine possessions. Heffernan sat down at the desk.

‘Mr Heffernan, would you permit me to ask you where you would place yourself politically?’ said Blake.

‘I am on the radical end, sir, but would probably now call myself a liberal.’

‘You have worked, I think, on prison reform and a number of radical bills for poor relief?’

‘I voted against the Poor Law in ’34,’ said Heffernan. He sat back into his chair and smiled as affably as he could manage. ‘As any right-thinking man should have, in my opinion. My fellow MPs disagreed with me, however. We may be from different parties, but as I said, I could be persuaded to back Lord Allington’s factory bill, with a few amendments, though it will certainly not make me popular within my own party.’ He smiled, as if the thought amused him.

‘As it happens we are here on another matter, sir, but one I hope you will help us with, as it touches on your interest in justice.’

Heffernan nodded uneasily. Blake held out Lord Allington’s letter of introduction.

‘His Lordship has charged us with the investigation of three murders that recently took place between Seven Dials and the Strand. We believe you may be able to cast some light on at least one of them.’

Heffernan started like a hare. He took the letter and as he did so he noted, with surprise and revulsion, the stumps of Blake’s fingers.

‘Who are you?’ he said, his voice unsteady.

‘I am a private inquiry agent. Captain Avery is working with me. You may perhaps recall our names, Blake and Avery? We were the companions of Xavier Mountstuart when he died in India. It is how I lost my fingers. You may recall that Mr Haydon’s painting of the event is currently on show in Piccadilly.’

I was amazed that Blake volunteered this, but it had the necessary effect. Heffernan’s anxiety immediately gave way to curiosity.

‘Truly, that was you? How remarkable! Xavier Mountstuart, indeed! But my dear sirs, I cannot imagine what I could have to do with these murders. We are a very, very long way from Seven Dials.’

‘We are indeed. And from Islington too.’

Heffernan pressed his handkerchief to his forehead. ‘I do not take your meaning.’

‘Mr Heffernan,’ Blake said, affecting great weariness, ‘Nathaniel Wedderburn was murdered at his shop in Holywell Street by the
Strand approximately three weeks ago. Please do not do me the discourtesy of pretending you have never heard of him or his wife, Connie. I have it on very good evidence that you knew them well twenty years ago.’

Heffernan went a peculiar colour and seemed to choke.

‘I-I … what are you suggesting?’

‘As I said, Nat Wedderburn was murdered. We are looking for reasons why he should have met such a violent end. And we have been led to his past.’ Blake sat quite still, a stark counter to Heffernan, who seemed unable to stop fidgeting.

‘I do not believe I can help you. It is a long time since I encountered the … the Wedderburns.’

‘Is it? They were discussing you only a few weeks before Nat died. I wonder what can have prompted their recollections?’

‘No encounter between us, I assure you,’ Heffernan said, pressing his palms together tightly.

‘You can think of nothing else?’

He shook his head.

‘It seems that Nat Wedderburn was engaged, along with his fellow victims, in blackmail. They threatened respectable men with the exposure of shaming secrets unless they paid up. I wondered whether perhaps Nat Wedderburn was blackmailing you.’

There was a short silence. The man’s cheeks flushed red; he laughed shakily.

‘I assure you, Mr Blake, that he never blackmailed me, not now or ever. I will not deny that I know – or rather knew – the Wedderburns. I have not seen them for years, and I am sorry to hear that Nathaniel has come to such a dreadful end. I had heard he had taken up an unfortunate profession, but I thought it was the printing of immoral books. I assume he must have fallen on bad times. He seemed a decent man when I knew him, and his wife, Connie, an admirable woman. Are she and the children provided for? What is the oldest son’s name? Daniel? I should be sorry to think they were in distress.’

‘Perhaps you might explain how you came to know them?’ Blake said.

‘Twenty years ago, as a young man, I was a firebrand radical, a naive boy, dreaming of utopias. My father had estates in Ireland, but I came to London to fight for “freedom and equality”.’ He laughed at his younger self. ‘I was supposed to be training as a lawyer, but I was determined to live “among the people”, and so I took a house in Guildford Street near Spa Fields, south of Islington. The Wedderburns were the most appealing of my neighbours. Connie was a beautiful girl. Nat was a man of modest means and background but intelligent and surprisingly well read for his class. Not much came of my fine intentions save a few bruising exchanges with the new police – no, it was before their time, it was the Bow Street Runners we crossed swords with. Well, I saw the error of my ways in the end. I did not lose my devotion to reform, but I realized that the way to change was through the workings of Parliament. I attained my majority, matured, finished my legal training and moved to more respectable lodgings. After I left Guildford Street the Wedderburns passed out of my life. I do not recall seeing them again, though I have thought of them over the years. I am not the man I was twenty years ago. I have not been him nor thought of him in a long time.’

The words spilled from Heffernan, as I was sure they would not have had not Blake first distracted him with the mention of blackmail.

‘It has been very hard to find anyone who knew him in his youth. Would you oblige me by telling me what you remember of Nat then, and how, for instance, he made his living?’

‘Well, it is a long time ago. He was not from London. His father, as I recall, had been a provincial … a shopkeeper perhaps or cabinetmaker? I am not certain. The family was not doing well. Nathaniel had hopes of becoming a lawyer – I think that may be how we first met. I lent him law books and such. He failed: he had not the funds to finish his studies and get himself articled and could find no one to take him on. The legal profession does require funds. But my memory is that his true aspiration was to be a “member of the republic of letters”. He read widely.’ He smiled in recollection. ‘He met the poet Shelley.’

‘Indeed?’

‘Oh yes,’ Heffernan said distractedly. ‘We read a good deal of poetry,’ and he began to recite in a rich voice:

‘Who fought for freedom more than life?

Who gave up all, to die in strife?

The young, the brave, no more a slave,

Immortal Shell! That died so well,

He fell, and sleeps in honour’s grave.’

‘That is Shelley?’ said Blake doubtfully.

‘The life of the man of letters provided, as it often does, thin pickings,’ said Heffernan, ‘and so Nathaniel took on other work: writing for the unstamped press, working as a printer’s assistant, even as a mason. Connie too had some education. At one time she ran a little school, teaching children their letters.’

‘Was Nathaniel an infidel?’

‘That is not a word I have heard for some years.’ Heffernan laughed, but it was not a comfortable laugh. ‘He did not set much store by religion – but then the times were less devout, and many of the London labouring classes felt the same.’

‘Can you put a precise date to your acquaintance?’

‘Oh.’ He paused to think. ‘I suppose it must have been between 1821 and ’23, some time around then.’

Blake nodded. ‘I am not certain of the children’s ages. Would Connie have by then been a mother?’

‘Do you know, I cannot quite recall.’

‘As I said, Mr Heffernan, we are looking into several murders – three to be precise. I wondered if you were acquainted with the other two men: a printer called Matthew Blundell and the newspaper proprietor Eldred Woundy, who was found dead in his premises this morning.’

Heffernan was very still and looked Blake in the eye.

‘They mean nothing to me. Though of course I have heard of Mr Woundy. Found dead this morning? Good heavens. From the way you speak, I assume you think the deaths are connected.’

Blake’s eyes bored into Heffernan’s. The man tried to meet them but eventually he looked away, as most did under that unnervingly direct gaze. He coughed a dry little cough and pressed his chest.

‘Is there anything else, gentlemen? I am on a strict regime, I need my rest.’

‘Mr Heffernan, with your permission I should like to ask a great thing of you. I should like to describe these murders to you.’

Heffernan looked horrified – as I should have done.

‘I know this is a great deal to ask, but as a man devoted to the betterment of the poor, I believe you would not baulk at doing something that may bring justice to a dark corner where it might otherwise never reach. The truth is, the murders have confounded the police and leave us with many questions. We feel there may be clues, hidden meanings, in the way the men were killed. With your memory of the past you might be able to throw light on some tiny yet significant detail.’

I should certainly have said no; but Heffernan nodded his assent.

‘They were all killed in a very similar manner, Mr Heffernan. They were strangled, stripped of their shirts, cut about the face and body, and knifed in the stomach. There was a great deal of blood. Blundell’s hair had been painted red, money was left at Wedderburn’s body, and Woundy was sprinkled with elder twigs. The pads of their fingers had been dipped in ink and all three were found lying draped across their presses. It seems certain they were murdered by the same man.’

Heffernan swallowed and raised his hand as if he had heard enough.

‘How appalling. I cannot believe that Nat Wedderburn could have done anything to deserve such a terrible fate. But I cannot say that any of those details seem to me of any special significance. They simply sound like the actions of a violent madman.’

‘I am sorry to have pressed the details upon you,’ said Blake. ‘We are grateful for your time. We shall not take up more of it. Here’s my card in case something comes to you. Or you may write to the office of Lord Allington.’

Heffernan did not get up. ‘If something comes to me …’ he trailed off.

‘What did you make of that?’ Blake said as we stood beneath the gaslight’s aureole. He brought forth a small flask and took a swig before offering it to me. The police constable we had seen earlier strode past and nodded to us, then continued on his way, his hands clasped behind his back.

‘I should say he was extremely nervous and was hiding something.’

‘I’d say everything he said was a lie, including “and” and “but”.’

‘That’s a little excessive.’

‘Well, maybe. But he’s seen the Wedderburns more recently than he claims. He asked after Connie and the children, and knew Daniel’s name, then said he hadn’t seen them in twenty years. Then he said he could not remember if Connie had already had a child when he lived near them.’

‘A simple mistake, perhaps? He might have heard news of them.’

Blake shook his head emphatically. ‘I’d say he already knew about Nat’s death and feared we knew more about his association with Nat than we did. O’Toole says Wedderburn, Woundy and Blundell knew each other. Now I am certain that Heffernan knew them all too. I fancy Wedderburn was more engaged in politics than he had admitted to his son. Heffernan all but called himself a revolutionary. Wedderburn was a forthright non-believer. The Chartists claim that God is on their side, but twenty years ago radicals prided themselves on being infidels. And Shelley, whom Heffernan said Wedderburn admired, was a true revolutionary, for all they try now to make him out to be some day-dreaming romantic. Did you ever read Shelley?