City of Light (City of Mystery) (22 page)

The window opened
easily and Davy was able to heave himself inside.   Upon standing, he found
himself in a small sitting room which was outfitted in a style typical for a
working class neighborhood.  Hardly the equivalent of Geraldine’s parlor, but
certainly comfortable enough.   A large divan, a stuffed chair with a
footstool, a rocking chair and even a small bookcase.  Davy wandered over to
take a look – he found an investigation of their reading matter to be a
surprisingly effective shortcut into the minds of both victims and suspects –
but did not recognize any of the titles.  Rather odd in and of itself, for
while Davy would hardly claim to be a scholar of literature, his mother loved
books and had read to her children throughout their childhoods, largely from
the classics.  

Davy pulled one of
the volumes from its shelf at random and opened it to find, not words, but pictures
of a sort that caused him to slam it back closed immediately, his cheeks
flaming.  Then, ashamed of himself or having been so ashamed, he grabbed
another book and then another.   With a few quick glances he concluded he was
standing before an extensive collection of pornography, in fact the sort of pornography
directed toward those with a particular interest in male congress, designed to
serve not only as a means of arousal, but also a means of instruction.  Judging
by the plethora of pictures and the paucity of words, he could furthermore
conclude that this instruction book was either intended for an international
audience or for people who did not read.

Evidence for Eatwell,
I suppose, Davy thought, and he carried a couple of the books over to the
window and dropped them out into the yard.   They landed on the grass beside
his kit – he still had to think of some way to get that cumbersome thing
through the window – and just as Davy was turning back from the window he heard
a noise from the room above him.

The sound was light,
scurrying, but clearly the motion of human feet across floorboards. 

Davy called out
“Scotland Yard,” two words which could strike either comfort or terror in listeners,
depending upon the nature of their most recent activities.  The reaction in the
owner of these particular feet was evidently terror, for, after a pause, the
scurrying commenced again, now faster and louder than before.

“Scotland Yard,”
Davy repeated, bounding up the stairs. “There’s no point in running.”  But when
he reached the top of the stairwell and strode into the bedroom above the
parlor he found it empty.  The room did not offer many options for a person
wishing to hide.  A narrow bed, a small bureau….and an open window. 

Davy walked to the
window, craned his neck out and found a boy of about thirteen crouched on the
rooftop.

“Come in, lad,” he
said quietly.  “You can’t escape Scotland Yard by climbing on a rooftop.  And
besides, I won’t hurt you.”

With a sniff, the
boy scuttled back toward the window.  His progress across the shingles was
suspiciously swift and, upon closer inspection, Davy saw that a series of ropes
had been extended across not only the roof but all the windows of the upper story,
criss-crossed and knotted at intervals. The doors and lower windows might be
nailed shut, but evidently any number of people had been using this webbing as
a means of coming and going at 229 Cleveland Street since the morning of the
arrest.

The boy swung
through the window with a practiced ease and stood before Davy, wiping his nose
and trembling.

“How many of you are
living here, lad?” Davy asked.

“Five.”

“All boys who worked
for Charles Hammond, fellows you know from the post and telegraph office?”

A nod.

“And none of you
with families to go home to?”

A shake of the head.

“Do you know where
Mr. Hammond has gone?”

A more emphatic shake
of the head.

Alright, so he
wasn’t naturally inclined to conversation. Hardly surprising, for who knew what
sort of threats Hammond had employed to keep these luckless boys in line. 
Trevor had taught Davy that the easiest way to get information from children
was to offer to feed them, and it seemed that in this case the stratagem might
work especially well.

“I’ll tell you what,”
Davy said.  “I don’t care that you’re living here with your friends. But I want
to look around and I want you to come with me and fully answer my questions. 
If you do, I’ll take you over to the Tinwhistle Pub and we shall have a bowl of
stew. Does this sound fair?”

The stew was almost
certainly a tempting lure.  One glance at the boy’s scrawny frame would tell
you that.  But still he hesitated, letting his eyes roam over Davy’s face in an
attitude of appraisal, as if life had taught him many cruel lessons, not the
least of which was that men sometimes promised boys things that the men did not
subsequently deliver.

“How old are you?” 
the boy finally asked.

“Twenty-three,” Davy
said. “I look younger, I know, and it’s often been a disadvantage in the
pursuit of my profession.”

“I’m fifteen,” the
boy said.  “Some say I look younger too.”  He scarcely need add that this could
be advantageous in the pursuit of his own particular profession. “Name’s Mickey
Cooper.”

“I’m Davy Mabrey,’
Davy said, holding out a hand. “So shall you take me through the house?”

The brief tour was
depressing - thin cots without linens, an ill-supplied cupboard, a fireplace
with brambles and broken shingles rather than a proper lay of wood.  But Davy
supposed that, given what the boys had likely come from, the house served as
perfect haven to them, and as much a home as many of them had ever had.  His
mind sprang back to the childhood fort he’d made with his brothers and a few
other lads from the neighborhood, a flimsy treehouse constructed with whatever
supplies they could charm from their mothers.  They had imagined a world
somewhat like this one, a group of boys living in utter freedom, musketeers in
a way, striding through the streets and going on grand adventures with no parents
or teachers to curtail their activities.  Of course, they hadn’t planned on the
being whored out to aging members of the aristocracy as part of the plan, and
the chief advantage of their fraternity was that it could be abandoned the
instant their mothers called them home to warm meals and warm beds. 

“You seem to have
managed rather well without Charles and the income he provides,” Davy ventured
at one point, a bit appalled to find the kitchen held little more than bread
and moldy cheese.

“Aye, Sir, we have
our wages from the telegraph company,” Mickey said. “And with the master gone,
we don’t have to pay no rental, do we?”

“He charged you rent?” 
For some reason, Davy found this the most despicable fact of all.

“Didn’t exactly call
it that,” Mickey admitted, after a moment of consideration. “He said we was to make
an ‘investment in our careers,’ was the phrase, Sir.   For we had to be certain
posh, didn’t we? Have certain clothes and a certain education?”

“Education, yes,”
Davy murmured, thinking of the books in the staircase. 

“He taught us to
dance.”

“Dance?”

“Aye, the waltz.  I
have a velvet jacket all my own,” Mickey said.  “Color of blood, it is, like a
proper gent.”

“Indeed,” said Davy.
 The boy’s pride was heartbreaking. 

Next they wandered
past a small alcove beneath the stairs, which Mickey proclaimed to be “the
master’s study.”  Davy paused to consider a leather carrying case which, when
opened, reveled a flask of what looked to be brandy nestled within folds of
blue velvet.

“Does anyone use this
but Hammond?” he asked.

Mickey shook his
head.

“You’re quite
certain?  He doesn’t offer a drink to the men who come calling?”

“Not from there,
Sir.  ‘Tis his private stash, he says.”

“I see,” Davy said,
closing the case and tucking it under his arm.  The boy was likely right on
this - with its cut crystal, lush velvet, and fine burnished leather, the case
was probably the most valuable item in the whole house. “Now, could you show me
your clothes? The ones Master Hammond bought for you?”

“All right,” Mickey
said with a sigh. “And then the stew?”

“Lamb stew,” Davy
promised. “And a pint to wash it down with.  Maybe two.”

Thus inspired,
Mickey galloped up the stairs with Davy behind him.  He went from one bedroom
to another wrenching open the bureaus and pulling out any number of
garishly-colored, ill-tailored garments that only boys from the lowest classes
could take pride in possessing.   Nonetheless, Davy nodded somberly at each
offering Mickey produced as if he were being shown the finest merchandise on
Saville Row.  

There seemed to be nothing
to report here, except the sad news that the boys were being not merely
buggered but bilked, that Charles Hammond had persuaded them to turn over a
hefty portion of their hard-earned funds for rent, costuming, and instruction
in the unlikely art of ballroom dance.  Davy was beginning to regret that he
had held Mickey back from his stew for so long when they came to the final
room, the final bureau, and the final drawer.

Mickey yanked it
open.

Frilly things.  Lacy
stockings, a high necked blouse, kid gloves.  Some sort of undergarment that
Davy dimly recalled having a French name.   Clothing of a much higher quality
than the other items Mickey had shown him.  The sort of things a lady might
possess.

Davy frowned. “A
woman lives here?  Hammond employed girls as well as boys?”

Mickey shook his
head. “Was Tommy’s drawer, and he’s gone too, Sir, left the same day the master
took off.  Just as you’d expect, wouldn’t you?”  When he looked up and took
note of Davy’s bewildered stare, Mickey tried again. “Thought he was better
than us, didn’t he? Tommy wouldn’t stay behind to scratch out a living with the
rest of the chickens.  And the master would take him wherever he went, wouldn’t
he?  Seeing as how Tommy was his pet.”

“Take him where? 
You do know where Hammond is, don’t you?”

Mickey hesitated.

“Stew,” Davy
reminded him, none too gently.  

“They say he took
Tommy to France,” Mickey blurted. “Up and run they did, when the news came back
the coppers had grabbed up poor Charlie and pulled him to the bloody jail.  The
rest of us didn’t know what we was to do, but Tommy was the only one he cared
about, the only one he took with him.  Always the golden boy, Tommy was, the
one that made him the posh money, only one the master cared for.”

Davy picked up one
of the gloves.  It was small, spun from silk.  He lifted it to his cheek.  It
smelled of lemon verbena. 

We’ve been very
stupid, he thought.  We’ve been very slow to see.

“And why was Tommy
the favorite?” he asked, even thought he was quite sure he knew the answer.

“Because he was one
of the boy-girls, wasn’t he, Sir?”

“The boy-girls?”

“Yes, Sir.  They knew
they was better than the rest of us and wasn’t going to let us forget the
fact.  See what I mean?”

Paris

1:20 PM

Bodies talk. 

This was something
Tom Bainbridge believed with all his soul and it was the primary reason he was
prepared to assume the role of coroner of the forensics unit the minute his
schooling was complete.  The silence of the morgue subdued and perhaps even
frightened some of his school mates and he knew that they saw cadavers as proof
of the limitations of their calling.  The sort of limitations doctors were
loathe to admit.  For if medicine was an imperfect science, then they must be,
by implication, imperfect scientists, priests in service to a minor god.  The
nearly oceanic arrogance of doctors, professors, and even the students of
medicine would make them bristle and mutter at such accusations - and nothing
was as accusatory as a corpse. 

His friends called
them mute.  One of the more poetic chaps back at Cambridge had referred to
their precious collection of cadavers as “the mute choir.”  But Tom never saw
them as such.  To him, the dead were bursting with stories and quite willing to
share them, at least to a man who was patient and respectful, who understood
that death could be as complex as life.

With a mention that
they had wished to view Graham’s body, Rubois had vigorously nodded and sent
for a young translator named Carle who could escort them to the morgue and
answer any questions.  But when Trevor had asked if there was another body
which had also been taken from the Seine, this simple question had caused an
abrupt change of plans and Rubois had suddenly opted to come with them as well.  
Their silent party had stomped across town, stopping to buy ham and cheese
rolls from a vendor as they walked, and entered the palatial doors of the Paris
morgue.  Tom had always assumed that Rayley’s letters exaggerated the opulence
of the building, but they had not.  He and Trevor had exchanged a look of sheer
disbelief as they had crossed the marble lobby.  The bodies brought here greeted
death in far grander accommodations than they had likely ever known in life.