Eye of the Crow (17 page)

The Illustrated Police News
hadn’t mentioned the victim’s name for the first three days: something about her identity being unconfirmed and authorities trying to locate and notify possible next of kin. But now Sherlock is looking at the first
News of the World
that appeared directly following the murder, on the next Sunday,
six days
after it happened, sold on the streets when Sherlock was in jail. And it is a goldmine! The paper has leapt at the story. He runs his eyes hungrily down the first column until he finds something about the victim.

That’s strange,
he thinks. He pauses to consider it. Why wouldn’t an actress be quickly identified, especially one who, if Sherlock’s theory is right, had the sort of income that allowed her to wear expensive jewels?

There is only one answer. This wasn’t a rising star, no Ellen Terry or Nelly Farren. She had to be a bit player, someone nobody recognized at first glance, or about whom the general public doesn’t particularly care. But that is only a partial answer. How could she have money? And who was she? He reads on.

“Auburn hair … medium height … age twenty-two.”

He wants more than that and turns the page, ignoring the gurgling sound from J.S. Mill’s gut. There in front of him is a large woodcut drawing of … Lillie Irving.

“Lillie,” he says out loud. At last. She is beautiful indeed. And almost the spitting image of his mother in her younger years. The boy swallows and keeps reading.

Sherlock has never heard of her. Whatever is on at The Lyceum, The Theatre Royal Drury Lane, anywhere in the West End or elsewhere, he likes to take note. That whole world of wonder fascinates him. But Lillie Irving? She doesn’t even ring a distant bell.

How could an unknown like this, playing small roles given to her solely for her beauty, have been decked out in jewels that night, or on any night? She came from “humble parentage.” Something doesn’t make sense.

He reads farther down in the article.

The Haymarket. He knows exactly where it is: not more than a costermonger’s shout from Trafalgar; an area frequented by pleasure seekers of a questionable sort. Plays begin at 8:00 in London and finish past 10:00. He needs to know more about Lillie Irving.

He’ll spend the rest of the day writing a script in his head – what he needs to do and say at the Haymarket. Then it will be time for a night at the theater.

He won’t take Irene. He doesn’t want her near a place where suspicions might touch her and directly involve her in this dangerous game.

He’ll go alone.

LILLIE AND MR. LEAR

H
e doesn’t need to change his disguise. The filthy clothes he has on will work perfectly. Crossing busy Leicester Square, he goes over his lines. He mumbles them aloud, less afraid of detection here, as he moves through the big crowd. This is one of the rowdiest spots in London. You can hide an elephant here. All around him are dandies and ladies, beggars and blokes, gypsies dancing, sounds coming out of the open doors of music halls, a steady buzz of talk in the air, drowning out the hiss of the gas lamps that dimly light the colorful scene.

After he turns down narrow Whitcomb Street he has to be more careful. The crowds thin. The theater is still in session. He tucks his head down and watches for anyone surveying pedestrians. He’ll approach the building from the rear. He knows a spot.

He cuts through an opening between shops and in seconds sees the tall white back of the Theatre Royal Haymarket against the dark sky. Clouds are gathering in the night’s ceiling, threatening rain again. He checks the fading moon – it must be nearing 10:00. The stage door is straight
ahead. The shadows here will give him protection. He drops down between two dustbins. A big rat scurries away.

Laughter, then silence, then faint declamations of actors come through the stone walls. The reactions of the crowd make him smile. Sleep begins to descend on him. Applause. Sleep.

Suddenly the door opens. Feet are moving quickly.

Sherlock leaps up. His cap falls from his head and he nearly knocks over the bins. Straightening them, he tries to remember his lines. His mouth feels dry.

Luckily, the first person out the door isn’t the sort he is seeking. It is a man. Sherlock recognizes his face. Not a big star – the famous ones leave through the front door in hansom cabs. Shrinking back, he lets the actor pass. Silence. The door opens again. Another man appears with a woman on his arm. They are wrapped up together, her lips are painted scarlet red, the top of her dress reveals part of her bare chest, his hand slides down her back and pinches her somewhere lower. She giggles. The door slams. There is silence for seconds. Then a woman appears alone. He’s seen this lady’s picture in the theater reviews – she wouldn’t have associated with Miss Irving.

The door opens again. Out comes a beautiful young woman, nearly as pretty as Lillie, certainly as young. Sherlock has never seen her face before. He steps in front of her.

It is nearly a fatal mistake and he is only saved by the woman’s pluck. She gasps, but doesn’t scream. She pulls back her purse like a cricket bowler ready to fire, her target the boy’s face.

“No,” he protests, trying not to raise his voice. “I’m not a thief!”

“Then stand aside,” she commands. She isn’t delicate when frightened. Her face has colored.

Sherlock has stage fright. What is his first line?

“I … I am an acquaintance of Lillie Irving.”

“You?” she lowers her purse.

That will do for an answer. She is on script.

“Miss Irving was a wonderful lady,” Sherlock begins.

“She was,” says the actress, her voice softening.

“I used to beg from her.”

“I’ve never seen you before.”

That is off script and she seems suspicious.

“Uh … not here … in Leicester Square…. She always gave me something.”

“Well, she had extra, she did.”

Sherlock doesn’t speak. Best to see if the woman will say more.

“Her fancy man,” she explains.

The boy remains mute.

“A mystery, he was.” The woman seems to want to talk. “I was her best friend and knew naught. Usually we gossiped about our beaus. But that was how they wanted it, she and him. That’s what she said, anyway. His footman sent his card up to her room in Aldgate one evening when I was there. Asked to be on my way, I was…. She was raised just east of there, poor thing.” The woman smiles, “Yes, her
very
fancy man…. That’s how she got them diam –”

The door opens again. An older actress enters the night, big and fat, makeup heavy on her face, her bosom nearly spilling out of her dress. She eyes the street urchin confronting her young friend.

“What’s this?” she inquires loudly. “What’s he want?”

“Just asking after Lillie, Maude. It seems he used to –”

“Lillie!” The big woman advances toward the boy, glaring at him. “Why would you be asking …”

Sherlock doesn’t wait for more. He darts away, back down the opening between the buildings toward the streets. Behind him, he hears the fat woman chiding the younger one, telling her she is a “yapper … a young lamb with a big mouth.” He sprints away like a derby horse, until he plunges into the crowds of Leicester Square.

Lillie had a fancy man! He
gave her diamonds. What did Malefactor say when all of this began? What did he let slip about the murderer?
“He isn’t on the loose.”
That’s what he said. The word on the streets, the kind of information that Malefactor never shares with Sherlock, spoke of the
sort
who had committed this crime – it didn’t bear the trademark of a professional killing, the villain wasn’t of their ilk. This murderer is safe somewhere and has resumed a normal life. This person is wealthy!

Now
he is getting somewhere.

He’d learned something else. “She was raised just east of there, poor thing …” the young actress had said. Now he knows why the villain had been able to draw her there. She lived in Aldgate and grew up to the east … in Whitechapel. Lillie Irving had known those streets.

His eyes blink awake. Birds are singing. It feels damp and warm. John Stuart Mill is nowhere to be seen – no bad smells. A third of a loaf of bread and a small mug of milk are inches from his nose. And there is a note. He snatches up the bread, sits with his back crouched against the dog kennel wall and bites off a piece. Even without the miserable mutt in here, his head nearly touches the ceiling and his legs feel cramped. But he pays little attention. He pulls back the cloth from the entrance, spreads out Irene’s note on the ground and allows the morning light to hit it perfectly.

“This is what I discovered at the Guildhall Library,” it begins in Irene’s pretty hand.

Rushing past her next few words, he comes to what matters.

There are two columns: one a list of medical equipment suppliers in central London, another of glass blowers. He runs his finger down the first, about a dozen names. None start with either L or E, the two letters he’d found scratched on his glass eyeball. He searches the second: Boffin … Fledgeby … Headstone … Hexam … Lear …

Lear!

Lear Glass Blowing … Carnaby Street. It is in Soho and unexpected. It’s far from the East End, just a short stroll from Mayfair and the wealthy residential districts.

But this is his only lead. He has to use it somehow.

Sherlock sits cross-legged in his cramped dog’s house, plotting.

Mohammad Adalji is sitting too, over on Bow Street on his stone bed in the holding cell. He has been here for two weeks now, dreaming at night of sunny Egyptian skies. His only ray of hope is that tall, dark-haired half-Jewish boy, who told him a tantalizing tale of finding a false eye at the murder scene. But the boy vanished from this station four days ago and hasn’t been found since. If the young Jew is out there, he is likely running, making himself scarce, his passing interest in justice long gone, Mohammad’s only hope gone with him.

The Arab knows that the police keep him here instead of at the Whitechapel district station or Newgate Prison because they want him far from the East End. He imagines how the London public must loathe him. His trial is no more than a week or two away. He’s been as much as told it won’t go well.
Murderers are hanged right after trials.
He drops onto his knees on the hard stone floor. The jailers won’t tell him exactly which way is east, so he has to imagine it. He turns in that direction and prays.