Inspector of the Dead (22 page)
Read Inspector of the Dead Online
Authors: David Morrell
Coal oil gushed from the shattered lantern, the wick igniting it. In the sudden blaze, Trask gaped upward from the ditch as the carriage kept tilting and plunged toward him.
The horse on the left dropped to its knees also, the upending carriage dragging both animals. Their shrieks combined with those of the driver.
Trask felt that he was back in the war, that a cannon shell hurtled the carriage toward him. The vehicle crashed into the ditch, straddling it, stopping inches from his face.
As the struggling horses threatened to pull the carriage apart, Trask squirmed along the trough, his sling restricting his desperate movements. Emerging from beneath the wreckage, he followed the sound of the driver’s groans.
The man lay under a wheel. His lantern had shattered also, and its flames were streaming toward him.
“Can you hear me?” Trask shouted.
“My leg’s broken!”
The flames streamed closer.
“If I raise the wheel, can you crawl out?” Trask yelled. “I can’t pull you and hold up the wheel at the same time!”
“Do it!” the driver groaned. “Hurry!”
Trask squirmed into the trough again. On his back, he braced his boots against the wheel above him and strained to thrust his legs up.
“It’s rising!” the driver shouted. “Higher!”
Trask put all his strength into his legs, raising the wheel another inch.
“Try to crawl out!” he yelled.
As the flames flowed nearer, the driver clawed at the frozen earth. Screaming from pain, he moved.
“I can’t hold it up much longer!” Trask shouted, his legs weakening.
“I’m out!”
The muscles in Trask’s legs collapsed, the wheel crashing above him. He squirmed from the trough before the burning oil reached him. Using his unhindered arm, he grabbed the driver and tugged him along the ditch, away from the flames. Tears of pain streaked down the driver’s face.
Trask hurried up to the road, staring at the fallen horses flailing in their traces. As he struggled to unbuckle one of the straps that confined them, a light streaked toward him. He feared he was hallucinating.
Then he realized that the light was from a carriage lantern.
“My God!” a man yelled.
The carriage stopped. The man jumped down.
“I’m Dr. Gilmore!” he shouted, helping to free the horse on the right. “One of my patients is a farmer down the road!”
“Thank heaven you came along!” Trask yelled.
“There’s blood on your face!”
“It doesn’t matter!” With his free hand, Trask unbuckled another strap. “The driver broke his leg! He was taking me to London!”
“At
this
hour?”
“Someone important to me needs my help.”
Untangling the horse on the right, they jumped back as the terrified animal struggled to stand. Its iron shoes thundering, it galloped away into the darkness.
They hurried to the second horse.
“The colonel saved my life!” the driver groaned as the flames reached the wheel that had trapped him.
“I’ll pay you more than the hundred pounds I promised!” Trask told him. “You’ll never worry about money for the rest of your life! Doctor, hold the horse! Keep him steady.”
They freed the final buckle.
As the frenzied animal surged upright, Trask straddled him.
“What the devil!” the doctor exclaimed.
Holding makeshift reins with his left hand, Trask kicked the horse’s flanks.
Catherine!
he inwardly screamed. Urging the animal forward, he charged along the dark road to London.
L
ord Palmerston stepped
past the doorman at his house and frowned toward where De Quincey and Emily sat on the staircase, waiting for him. They quickly stood.
“Whenever I leave or return, I find you lurking.”
“My Lord, may we speak to you?” De Quincey asked. “In confidence?”
“I expect visitors soon—members of the cabinet I’m forming.”
“We wouldn’t presume on your time if this wasn’t urgent.”
“As long as I don’t see the laudanum bottle that you’re reaching for in your coat.”
They climbed the staircase and entered the library, where lamplight reflected off mahogany shelves. Chairs were arranged for a meeting.
“My Lord, in eighteen forty, when Edward Oxford fired his two pistols at the queen, a young Irish boy distracted Her Majesty by running next to her carriage and begging her to help his mother, father, and sisters,” De Quincey said. “Do you know anything about that?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“The boy’s last name was O’Brien. Perhaps that helps your memory.”
“It does nothing of the sort. If that’s all you need to speak to me about, kindly leave before my visitors arrive.”
Emily stepped forward. “My Lord”—she fixed her blue eyes on him—“we believe that the young boy begged for help from many people who had influence with prisons and the law—Lord Cosgrove, the judge Sir Richard Hawkins, and Commissioner Mayne among them—but that he was unsuccessful. We further believe that the recent murders were committed by that boy—now grown—in retribution for the failure of those people to help his family. Do you possibly remember a young Irish boy begging for help from
you?
”
Lord Palmerston’s tone became less impatient. He never failed to respond to an attractive woman. “The streets are filled with beggars. Surely you don’t expect me to remember one of them from fifteen years ago.”
“
Help my mother and father and sisters.
That is what he begged,” Emily persisted.
“I served as foreign secretary in eighteen forty. Since I had nothing to do with police matters at that time, the boy would have had no reason to come to me.”
“Perhaps he came to you after he exhausted other channels,” Emily suggested.
“If so, I have no recollection. The person to speak to is Lord Normanby. He acted as home secretary that year.”
“It’s more than essential that we contact him,” De Quincey said. “Lord Normanby might be one of the next victims.”
“It’ll take great effort for you to speak to him. He lives in Italy. He’s our representative in Florence.”
“That distance might save his life,” De Quincey said. “Please send a telegram to him. Request any information he might have about a family called O’Brien. Warn him that his life might be in danger.”
“You’re serious about this?”
“Right now, Inspector Ryan is asking Commissioner Mayne if he has any recollection of the boy. We need to search the commissioner’s records for references to anyone with the name of O’Brien between June the first and June the eleventh of that year. We also need to search the records that Lord Cosgrove and Sir Richard Hawkins kept. Meanwhile Sergeant Becker is investigating the records at Newgate Prison.”
“June the eleventh?” Lord Palmerston asked. “Why would the search end on that date?”
“Because that’s when the boy’s mother and two sisters died in Newgate.”
“All of them on the same day?” Lord Palmerston frowned.
“One sister hanged herself after smothering her younger sister and her sick mother.”
His Lordship became still. “Newgate can indeed produce despair.” He drew a breath. “What terrible crime did the woman commit?”
“She was accused of stealing a shirt from a linen shop,” Emily answered.
“They all died because of a shirt?” Lord Palmerston lowered his head, looking suddenly weary. “Sometimes the law can be unduly harsh. The father? What happened to
him?
”
“We’re trying to determine that. But given the killer’s fury, we believe that the father met his own pathetic end,” De Quincey said. “My Lord, there’s another matter about which I need to speak to you. Would you kindly leave us alone for a moment, Emily?”
“Alone?” Lord Palmerston asked, looking as surprised as Emily did.
“Yes, My Lord. The topic is delicate.”
From below, voices sounded in the mansion’s vestibule.
“My potential cabinet ministers have arrived. If this doesn’t pertain to the threat against Her Majesty—”
“It relates to the
first
threat against her, My Lord,” De Quincey said.
“But you already explained that the Irish boy is the suspect in the
current
crimes. The opium has addled your mind and made you confuse fifteen years ago with now.”
“My Lord, I wish to discuss Edward Oxford and Young England.”
“What could Edward Oxford possibly have to do with the current threat against Her Majesty?”
“I’m more concerned about Young England, My Lord. The true reality behind it.”
“The true reality? As opposed to the false reality or opium reality?” Lord Palmerston’s gaze intensified.
“There are
many
realities.”
“You sound delusional.”
“On the contrary, My Lord.”
The tension between the two men made Emily look from one to the other in bewilderment.
“Father, what’s going on?”
The voices on the lower floor became louder as more visitors arrived.
“The only reality I care about is that we’re losing the war,” Lord Palmerston emphasized. “Leave by that servants’ door over there. I don’t wish my cabinet members to know that I kept them waiting because I was sequestered with the notorious Opium-Eater.”
“We can discuss this matter at another time, My Lord.”
“When you visited Edward Oxford in the madhouse, I could have arranged for you to remain there. Remember that. Take care how you test me.”
“I appreciate your indulgence, My Lord.”
“Occupy your time to greater purpose. Speak to Lord Grantwood.”
“Lord Grantwood?” Emily asked in confusion. “The gentleman we met at the queen’s dinner last night?”
“His house is just around the corner on Half Moon Street. You were right about this conversation jogging my memory. It suddenly occurs to me that Lord Grantwood served as deputy home secretary in eighteen forty, under Lord Normanby. As the second-highest official in charge of law enforcement, maybe
he
heard something about the Irish boy.”
“Deputy home secretary?” De Quincey’s short legs hurried toward the servants’ door. “Lord Grantwood’s in danger also.”
“Father, what’s going on?” I again demanded while we descended a rear staircase.
A back corridor brought us to the mansion’s front hall as the last of Lord Palmerston’s important visitors reached the top of the staircase. None of them saw us leave the building.
A servant shut the door behind us. Another servant opened one of the driveway’s gates.
I tightened my coat in the chill of a gathering fog. “Father, don’t pretend you don’t hear me. Tell me what you and Lord Palmerston were really arguing about.”
“We need to warn Lord Grantwood that he’s a target.”
I couldn’t tell whether Father was avoiding my question, but I didn’t have time to find out. As we hurried to the left toward Half Moon Street, a horse’s frantic approach startled me. Father and I froze as the animal and its rider thundered past.
The horse lacked a saddle. Its reins were those used for a carriage. Froth at the animal’s mouth revealed how fatigued it was. But its desperate rider urged it onward. The rider’s face was streaked with dried blood. His ragged overcoat was only partially secured, flapping, revealing an arm in a sling.
Abruptly, animal and rider disappeared into the fog, the clatter of horseshoes diminishing.
“Good heavens, that was Colonel Trask,” I managed to say.
We ran after him. A short distance along Piccadilly, the sound of the horse moved to the left.
“Half Moon Street!” Father said as we hurried along it, following the clatter of the horse.
Midway up the street, we heard the horse stop. Boots hit the pavement and charged up steps.
Running, Father and I came to the horse, whose head hung low in exhaustion. We heard pounding on a door and rushed to the left, finding Colonel Trask, who shouted, “Catherine!”
A nearby gas lamp revealed that all the windows in the house were curtained. Not even the faintest illumination was visible, making this the darkest house on the street.
“Catherine!” Colonel Trask yelled, continuing to pound on the door.
He tried the latch and discovered that it wasn’t locked. Thrusting the door open, he encountered an obstacle. “No!”
“Colonel Trask!” I called. “It’s Emily De Quincey!” I remembered the gallantry that he’d shown to me at the queen’s dinner. “Whatever is wrong, Father and I wish to help!”
But the colonel didn’t seem to hear me as he charged farther into the house.
Father and I entered, finding the obstacle that had so dismayed the colonel.
“Emily, I don’t have time to shield your gaze,” Father said.
“Yes, there are more important things to do,” I agreed.
Father located a candle and matches on a table beside the door. He lit the candle, revealing the body of a servant with his head crusted with blood.
I raised a hand to my mouth but refused to allow myself to weaken.
Colonel Trask rushed deeper into the house, shouting Catherine’s name.
Father and I followed. Our candle illuminated the body of another servant. With growing dread, I couldn’t help being reminded of what we had found at Lord Cosgrove’s house.
The colonel rushed into a room on the right.
“Emily,” Father said, “while I hold the candle, light as many lamps as you can find.”
We went along the walls in the vestibule. Gradually the area became vivid with light.
Breathing hoarsely, Colonel Trask backed from a room and burst into an opposite room.
We reached the doorway he had just left, where I remained as Father stepped forward with his candle.
Lady Grantwood dangled from a wall. Her arms were wrapped in a net so that she would have been powerless to struggle while her neck weighed down against a loop in the net, choking her.
My vision wavered.
“Emily?” Father asked.
“I’m all right, Father.”
I turned away.
“When the judge’s wife was drowned in milk,” Father said, “you correctly understood that it was a reference to the milk of human kindness that Shakespeare mentions in
Macbeth.
What does Shakespeare have to say about what was done to this woman, about the law and a net, Emily?”
“Not now, Father!” I told him impatiently.
“Let the reality inside your mind protect you from the reality outside it. If you can’t recall the quotation, let me help by giving you the title of the play.”
“Don’t condescend, Father. The play is
Pericles, Prince of Tyre,
” I said angrily. Perhaps that was the reaction he intended to create in me. If so, he was more than successful.
“And the quotation, Emily?” Father challenged, making me angrier.
“‘Here’s a fish hangs in the net, like a poor man’s right in the law,’” I almost shouted at him. “Are you satisfied?”
“Yes.”
“God help this woman.”
“The killer’s intention was the reverse—to send her to God’s eternal judgment for what the law did to his family.”
A sudden noise made me turn.
Colonel Trask now held a lamp as he backed from another room. Desperate, he peered around, shouted Catherine’s name, and raced up the staircase.
Dreading what I might find but compelled to see the worst in the hope that nothing afterward could ever exceed it, I moved slowly toward the opposite chamber.
On the floor above me I heard Colonel Trask thrusting doors open, shouting for Catherine.
Father’s candle wavered as he shifted past me and entered what I saw was a library, the arrangement comparable to the one in Lord Cosgrove’s house.
Here again I saw a corpse. At first I thought there were two corpses, one atop the other in what was perhaps intended to be an imitation of a man and a woman in congress.
But Father’s wavering candle revealed that the figure on top was not a human being. Rather it was a mannequin dressed to resemble Lady Justice, holding a pair of scales in one hand while the sword that she customarily held in the other hand had been thrust through Lord Grantwood’s chest.
“Father,” I said.
He turned a chair toward a wall and eased me into it.
“Do not tell me that this is fine art,” I told him in a fury. “If I were a man, if I could find the person responsible for these horrors, I wouldn’t care what grievances had been done to him. I would—”
Above us, Colonel Trask roared in anguish.
Father hurried toward the vestibule. Refusing to remain alone, I followed. Initially my legs were unsteady, but as my rage overcame my revulsion, my bloomer skirt allowed me to mount the steps two at a time.
Father was forced to move slower, shielding the candle’s flame. Nonetheless he provided enough illumination for me to see blood on the staircase’s carpet. Because there wasn’t any blood below me, I concluded that someone had been attacked on the stairs and had fled upward.
Again we found the colonel backing from a room. The trail of blood led into it. The colonel moaned. His left hand—the one holding the lamp—trembled so alarmingly that I feared he would drop it and set the house afire.
I grabbed the lamp from him, shocked by the dried blood on his handsome face.
The hero who had survived apocalyptic battles, who had surely seen violent death in almost infinite variety, sank to his knees in anguish.
“Catherine,” he murmured. “Catherine.”
I knelt beside him, putting an arm around him, trying to comfort him. But in his grief he seemed oblivious to anything except what he saw beyond the open door.
Father approached the room. I tried not to look, but my furious determination to endure this as if I were a man compelled me to turn in that direction, only to wish that I hadn’t.
What had been done in that room was unspeakable.
“Catherine,” the colonel murmured as I held him.
“Catherine,” he repeated through his tears.
Then another name passed his lips.
“Sir Walter Cumberland. Sir Walter Cumberland.”
