Beneath London (12 page)

“Something much simpler, Mr. Cromie,” St. Ives said. “My name is Langdon St. Ives, and this is my particular friend Hasbro. My wife and I have recently occupied the house and grounds owned by the late Agatha Walton, my wife’s aunt.”

“Have you now? A game old woman, Miss Walton. I was sorry when she passed away. I can see that you haven’t come to Mr. Cromie’s icehouse accompanied by your friend with a singular name merely to purchase ice. Why
have
you come?”

“Can you tell us whether a man, or two men, stopped in yesterday, midday or thereabouts, to purchase ice?” St. Ives asked. “Probably strangers in these parts.”

“Indeed they did not, sir, neither one of them nor two. There were three of them, in point of fact. Why do you ask?”

“Constable Brooke is interested in them –
three
, do you say?”

“That’s right, a rum cove in a yellow coat, what they call a seaside coat these days. A bruiser, I said to myself. Face hammered in the ring. He stayed in the wagon, so I didn’t get a look at him except through the window. There were two who came in to purchase a small quantity of ice. One of them was a gent from the cut of his jib. Fringe beard, well dressed. Newmarket coat despite the weather. Pair of spectacles with a heavy black frame. Hair to his shoulders. Foreign cove, I said to myself, Mediterranean, mayhaps, and I found I was correct when he spoke. ‘I want
eese
,’ says he. I knew what he meant, of course, but I made him say it three times as a lark. Didn’t like him. Not a bit. Pretentious as an owl. The other was an average-sized man, looked to be a swell. The foreigner called him ‘doctor’ once, and the fellow didn’t like it a bit. Dark hair. Blue eyes with a scar directly beneath the left – a close call, no doubt. A great one with the women, I should think. Scotchman, says I to myself, but with most of the burr civilized out of him.”

“Can you guess the age of either of them?” Hasbro asked.

“Forty-odd for the foreign cove, thirty-odd for the other, although mayhaps older for him as well. Boyish face with those blue eyes. The foreign cove ordered the ice.”

“Anything odd about the purchase?” Hasbro asked.

“
Odd
, do you say? Well, sir. Odd enough, I suppose. He packed a box with ice, chiseled to fit just so. Size of a large hatbox, wood, but tinned inside. Smaller box inside that, tinned. Paid us to chip out the slabs, do you see? They must fit tight, he says to us, all the way around. Off they went, direction of Wrotham Heath when they got to the end of the lane, London bound, perhaps.”

“Were you curious about the purchase?” Hasbro asked. “Strange business wasn’t it – these tinned boxes?”

“Not a bit curious, truth to tell. I mind my business. Not like some gents I could name, who mind Mr. Cromie’s business as well as their own. Enlighten me, if you will. What the devil does the Constable care about men buying ice?”

“Perhaps nothing,” St. Ives said.

“And yet he sent you two to Cromie’s icehouse to carry out an inquisition? Thumbscrews in your pocket, I dare say? Stretch poor Mr. Cromie on the rack?”

“Not a bit of it,” St. Ives said. “It’s a simple business. A grave was robbed at Boxley Abbey, but the corpse would scarcely fit into a hatbox, even a large one. We’ve come on a fool’s errand, it seems. Thank you for your time, Mr. Cromie.”

Mr. Cromie looked at them blankly for a moment and then shrugged, apparently satisfied with the explanation. Hasbro did him the favor of refreshing his hot water bucket from a large kettle swathed in an over-sized tea cozy, and they left him soaking. Outside, the ice wagon was gone, the world empty of people.

They turned up the lane, back into Aylesford proper, bound for Hereafter Farm. St. Ives thought hard about what he would tell Mother Laswell –
how
he would tell it, which he had to do. There was nothing in any of it that would ease her fears.

* * *

“
P
ack a bag?
” Kraken asked Detective Shadwell. “You ain’t thinking of taking Clara to London town?”

Sergeant Bingham helped himself to a pair of walnuts, cracking them easily in his hand and eating the pieces, not saying a word, although the smirk on his face was evident to Alice. Kraken was livid with rage and surprise, and she was happy that he stood behind Bingham, out of sight, and hadn’t noticed the trespass with the walnuts. None of them needed more trouble than they already had.

“We’re not
thinking
of doing anything, my man,” Detective Shadwell said to him. “We have orders to take the girl into custody for her own safety. She’s in mortal danger. We’ve been led to believe that she’s a savant,
touched
by the hand of God, if you will, and there are those that would make use of her.”

“Who told you such a thing, sir?” asked Mother Laswell.

“Your own Constable Brooke and the girl’s father, ma’am. We’re tolerably certain that Mrs. Wright’s murder was due to her… calling, which the girl shares.”

“Her
father
? Clemson Wright? That
husk
of a man? What business does he have saying anything at all about Clara? To the best of my knowledge he hasn’t seen the girl since he was driven away many years ago, nor has Clara seen him. He’s a viper, sir. An eater of dung.” Mother Laswell had drawn herself up as if ready to explode. Alice took her arm to quiet her, or to hold her back if necessary.

“I fully believe you ma’am,” the detective said, “but be that as it may, he
is
the girl’s father. He has certain rights under the law, and the law is indifferent to his character unless he runs afoul of the law, which he has not.”

Alice saw that Kraken had picked up the heavy piece of wooden rod from the kitchen counter and was gripping it hard, his face set. Neither of the two policemen were paying any attention to him at the moment, thank God. Alice stared meaningfully at Bill, and when she caught his eye, he looked abashed. Kraken’s transportation to Australia had ended when he stowed away on a ship returning to England. He had managed to leave the ship on its way up the Thames, hiding himself in the Thames Marshes where he found employment tending sheep, until by chance he fell in with Harriet Laswell, and his life was on an even keel again after many years of rough seas. He could scarcely afford to be taken up for striking a policeman or for anything else, not unless he wanted to be hanged. He laid the rod back in its place now, but the unhappy state of his mind was clear to Alice.

“The girl is safe at Hereafter Farm, sir,” Mother Laswell said, “safer than she is with the likes of Clemson Wright.”

“I regret to say, ma’am, once again, that I am under orders. Miss Wright’s father has laid claim to her for the sole purpose of protecting her. I’ll reveal that several days ago he was approached by a man who offered to purchase the girl.”

“
Purchase
her?” Mother Laswell said. “As if she were a
slave
?”

“Just so, and for a considerable sum. Wright was incensed, of course, by the very idea of it, as are all of us. He dismissed the man with hard words, but it started him thinking about his daughter, and about his duty to her. This very morning that same man came to him again in Thwaites’s Coffee House, and told him that Sarah Wright was dead, and that he should think hard about the girl, who was
not
dead. Once again he offered money, but it amounted to three pennies, which he dropped into the cup out of which Wright was drinking his coffee. It was clearly a threat, do you see. If money would not move Clemson Wright, then there were surer means.

“Wright understood them to be deadly serious, and he asked the man for a day to consider how to accomplish the task, for he knew that the girl Clara would likely spurn him, and he needed time to puzzle out what to do. The man agreed. Clemson Wright came straight to us, in fear for his own life and the life of his daughter. Fortune, however, was with us. Constable Brooke had just ten minutes earlier reported the murder of Sarah Wright by telegraph. Sergeant Bingham and I were in the coach bound for Aylesford as soon as the story was out of Wright’s mouth.”

“And we mean to be back in London by supper time,” Sergeant Bingham put in. “You lot can take that to the bank. Stand aside now and let us do our job and there won’t be trouble.” He picked up his valise at that point, opened it, and blithely removed a straight-jacket. “We’ve heard that the girl is given to fits.”

Detective Shadwell shrugged. “It’s unfortunate,” he said, looking straight at Kraken now as if taking particular notice of his face, which was petrified with fury. “Sergeant Bingham is anxious to do his duty, once he knows what it is. He’s tenacious in that regard.”

“The girl ain’t in no condition to do nowt,” Kraken said. “What I say is that you two servants of the people fetch Constable Brooke and bring him back along to Hereafter. We’ll wait for him and for the Professor, too, who is right now looking into this business out at Dr. Pullman’s. Professor St. Ives will get to the bottom of it quick enough – see if he don’t. There ain’t no tearing hurry. Not now there ain’t. The girl won’t be murdered while Bill Kraken is with her. And god-
damn
your supper,” he said to Sergeant Bingham. “Them chin whiskers look like they was shaved off the arse end of a Berkshire hog. Put that damned filthy garment back in that there bag or by God I’ll hang you with it.”

“Watch yourself, cully,” Sergeant Bingham warned, shaking his head.

Detective Shadwell held up a restraining hand. “Take the pot off the boil, gentlemen!”

“
Yes
, Bill,” Mother Laswell. “For heaven’s sake do as he says. For
my
sake, Bill. We all want what’s best for Clara.”

A change came over Kraken, who slumped a bit, shook his head tiredly, and said, “I’ll fix up Clara’s bag,” his words evidently surprising Mother Laswell as much as they surprised Alice. “Right is right,” he said, “and legal is legal. I lost my head, gents. We can follow along into London on the train first thing in the morning and see that Clara’s treated fair.”

“That’s eminently sensible,” Detective Shadwell said to him. “I thank you for your cooperation, sir. We’ll get this sorted out, I assure you. Clemson Wright might be a viper, but he’ll lead us to this criminal gang, whom we believe to have perpetrated a string of murders and mutilations. We’ll see justice done for the girl and for her mother.”

“Aye,” said Kraken. “That we will. Fetch in the squeakers,” he said to Mother Laswell. “They won’t ken what’s happening. Get ’em out of the way.”

He pushed through to the doorway into the parlor, Alice stepping back into the parlor herself to allow him to pass. It came to her that she had been occupying doorways most of the afternoon, watching but doing little or nothing to help. She saw Kraken whisper into Clara’s ear now, the girl immediately walking across the room, sighting as ever over the crook in her bent elbow. She opened one of the French windows and stepped out. The rain was nothing but a light mist now, but the ground was muddy, and the wind blew in through the open casement.

Alice crossed the room to close the window, watching as Clara lifted her skirt with her free hand and hurried across to the door in the side of the barn, where Ned Ludd the mule again stood guard. Ned turned to follow Clara into the darkness when she let herself in. The entire business was puzzling, but when she looked for Bill Kraken he had disappeared down the hallway, deeper into the house. She returned to the kitchen, wishing to heaven that Langdon would arrive.

Mother Laswell was herding the children in through the kitchen door just then, past Alice and away up the hall, leaving Alice alone with the two men. Detective Shadwell gazed at her silently, his face blank, while Sergeant Bingham helped himself to another handful of walnuts, winking at Alice as he did so, a look of plain lust on his face. She responded by staring hard back at him until he looked away. Neither of the men was worth the price of yesterday’s newspaper as far as she could see. Sergeant Bingham was a mere thug, and Detective Shadwell nothing but a hollow-headed mouthpiece. The Metropolitan Police must be a sorry lot if these two were representative samples.

“I’ve fetched the bag,” Kraken shouted from behind her, but when he strode past into the kitchen he was carrying a rifle at port arms. “A bag of
cartridge
, I mean to say. This here’s a
Henry
rifle,” he said, swinging it downward and pointing it between the two. “You gents is just leaving, and you ain’t a-taking Clara Wright. If Constable Brooke says we’re to take Clara into London, then so be it, we’ll do as he says, but she ain’t a-going with the likes of you. And you can take
that
to the bank, you whoreson bastards!”

Sergeant Bingham reached into his coat, and Kraken aimed the rifle at his face and took a step forward as if to drive the barrel through the man’s eye.

“Stand down, Sergeant!” Detective Shadwell said. “And you take that rifle out of here, Mr. Kraken. You’re confounded in your mind by this turn of events. I would be, too, perhaps. But you’re treading on…”

“I’m a-going to tread on you two humbugs, Mr. Shat-well. See if I don’t. Let’s take this out into the yard, gents, the three of us and Mr. Henry. Mother Laswell don’t allow no gunfire in the confines of the house. So if I’ve got to shoot you two down like dogs, it had best be outside under the sky where you can bleed into the dirt.”

“Be reasonable, sir…!”

“Get out!” Kraken yelled at Shadwell in a voice fit to carry in a hailstorm, and the two men turned and went out, Kraken following, muttering to himself.

“Keep your temper, Bill!” Alice said to his back – uselessly, since he had already lost it. Then she saw that Bingham had left his valise, so she picked it up, crammed the straitjacket into it, and walked to the kitchen door, which stood open. The valise suddenly infuriated her, and she felt a great liking for Bill Kraken, who was at risk of undoing himself. The two policemen had already climbed into their brougham, both of them blustering at Kraken and uttering threats. He still had the rifle up, sighting down the barrel.

Alice pitched the valise through the kitchen door just as Sergeant Bingham hied-up the horses and made a turn in the yard between the house and the barn. Kraken, evidently caught up in a desire to shoot something, fired repeatedly into the valise, making the bag hop and skitter, and then stood and watched the brougham as it drove away down the lane in the direction of Aylesford.