The Thieves' Labyrinth (Albert Newsome 3) (26 page)

‘Number twenty-four, sir. I must have the key back in one hour sharp or the manager’ll have my guts. The room’s to be cleaned at twelve sharp.’

‘One hour will be quite enough,’ said Noah. ‘Are you quite sure he will not return?’

‘He’s only just left, sir. Won’t be back before supper. Never is – feller of habit is Mr B. For an extra shilling, I’ll send a girl up to warn you if he does,
though.’

Noah could not help but smile at the acquisitive skill of the lad, remembering his own days as a wit-driven scamp on the city’s street corners. He handed over the coin and made his way
upstairs along silent corridors to the
sanctum sanctorum
of door twenty-four.

At first glance, the interior appeared already to have been cleaned – or, at least, to have been unoccupied for some time. The bed was made, the curtains were tied back, all drawers and
cabinet doors were closed. There was no sign of the man’s clothing. Only a faint smell of cigars suggested any trace of an inhabitant.

Noah went first to the large mahogany wardrobe and opened its twin doors to reveal contents that surprised even him. Six identical tweed suits hung on the hooks within, accompanied by six
identical soft russet caps arranged with seeming eighth-of-an-inch precision on the central shelves. None of the pockets held anything more than lint or the tiniest flakes of tobacco. In the
drawers, six sets of black gentlemen’s undergarments and six folded shirts were similarly laid out with geometric exactitude. As Noah bent closer in wonderment, he saw where faint pencil
lines had been etched in the baseboard to direct the specific lie of each stocking.

Caught now between amusement and growing unease, he next addressed the bedside cabinets. Here also, there was no obvious sign of use – no used water glass, no cigar ash, no hair strands or
marks. But positioned quite centrally inside one drawer, Noah discovered a slim, leather-bound ledger that retained its aromatic new-hide scent.

He sat on the bed and opened the book on his thigh, seeing immediately that it was a
collage
work of newspaper clippings (each pasted meticulously in date order) pertaining to Eldritch
Batchem’s life as an investigator. Assorted headlines told their own story:

Noah checked the dates: six months from start to finish. Before that grisly case on Blackfriars-bridge, Eldritch Batchem might not have existed at all. Here, between the boards of this ledger
and within the few pieces of furniture of this anonymous hotel room were the materials for a character in a story rather than for a living, breathing man. Had there been other stories: other
hotels, other suits, other ledgers, other names and other lives for this curious fellow?

Already certain he would find more mere stage properties, he nevertheless made a cursory examination of the bathroom and found scissors to trim the beard, a razor to define its edges, a
hairbrush to
finesse
the russet cap’s perch, a pair of tweezers for . . . for what? To control each individual hair? No other scents or treatments or personalizing items presented
themselves.

Returning to the bedroom, Noah sat on the edge of the bed and looked around for some further hint of the inner man, for the soul of Eldritch Batchem – but there was only absence. The roar
of the metropolis sounded at the window-panes. The sky beyond was a swirling grey
palette
of smoke.

What had Noah hoped to find? Had not his experience taught him that there were few easy solutions, and still fewer happy ones? Certainly, there were those who might, with some legitimacy,
observe
his
life in similar terms. The false names, the disguises, the long absences, the past that did not bear too great a scrutiny – such are the characteristics of those suckled at
the cold and sooty breast of mother London.

Mr Cullen walked with weary legs towards the eastern wharfs of London Dock. It was now four o’clock and the exodus of working men was flowing towards the gates, their
faces drawn, their limbs heavy, their stomachs empty, and their clothes besmirched with sugar, flour, tobacco, pitch and sweat.

As anticipated, the foreman he sought was not difficult to locate. His sleeves were rolled to the elbow and his formidable forearms were a veritable canvas for the tattooist’s art. As he
lifted and pulled, those tendon-rigged muscles animated sinuous serpents, uncoiling ropes, storm-lashed seas and ladies in states of unembarrassed
déshabillé.

‘Mr Rigby, sir?’ ventured Mr Cullen.

‘’Pends who wants him, don’t it?’ Mr Rigby did not look up from the roped bale occupying him.

‘I’m a day casual, sir. I was told I might ask you about earnin’ an extra shillin’.’

‘Told by ’oo?’

‘Some feller in the treadwheel . . . don’t know ’is name . . . don’t mind about no names. It’s only extra shillin’s I’m after. Was I directed to the
wrong man, sir?’

‘What do you expect to be doin’ for your shillin’?’

‘Anythin’ you like, sir. I’m strong. I’m good with the tackle an’ the trucks.’

‘Know your way ’bout the river, do you? Know your brig from your bark?’

‘I’m no seaman. I lift and I carry; I ask no more than for that.’

‘You certainly look like a sturdy one . . .’

‘I have lifted whole barrels alone, sir.’

‘’Ave yer? Well, there might be an unloadin’ job at Wappin’. Wait about the gates a while as the men go ’ome. I’ll send a man for you before dark if we needs
an extra lumper.’

‘Aye, sir.’

Mr Cullen exited the docks as bidden and availed himself of some steaming pea soup from the vendors there. He might have enjoyed the repast better, however, if the air about the gates had not
been polluted so by a remarkably malodorous little man who insisted on loitering thereabouts . . .

Benjamin followed the dishevelled little fellow only a few yards to the east before he turned south towards Water-lane. Even at a distance, the odour of the man was highly
offensive – a compost of drains, river water and something more unspeakable still that seemed to emanate in all directions and cause people in the street to react with disgust. The fellow
himself appeared neither to notice nor care, walking doggedly onwards to Earl-street.

Observing from a careful distance, Benjamin found himself becoming increasingly alert. Though there was no obvious pursuer, he had the oddest sense of being observed. And surely the direction
also could be no coincidence: inevitably towards his and Noah’s own abode. Was it imagination, or did the reeking man actually cast a glance sideways as he passed the door of the very
house?

He continued on, however, down to the stairs below Blackfriars-bridge where he was fortunate enough (or was it planned thus?) to board a ferry about to depart for Greenwich. Benjamin followed,
glad of the crowds, and took a seat towards the rear where he could watch all comings and goings. If the little man knew of his dusky shadow, he showed no concern, electing instead to stand at the
rail radiating his odious stench.

Still, there persisted in Benjamin the curious sense of being watched. With his startling appearance, he was quite accustomed to the stares of children and the occasional gasp from ladies, but
this was different: a sustained invisible gaze that seemed to have begun almost as soon as he had exited the coffee house on Ludgate-hill.

He scrutinized the passengers in vain for an observer, but nothing seemed odd or misplaced – nothing, that is, but the absence of oddness where its presence was felt. Dusk was approaching,
and with it a sense of foreboding that told him to end the pursuit. The route past his home had been strange enough, but allied with this feeling of ambiguous malice there seemed sufficient reason
to disembark at the very next stop.

Only Noah’s sense of urgency prevented Benjamin from doing so. Cautious by nature, he nevertheless recognized that his intuition of danger added credibility to what had been only
assumption. Whatever the little man’s connection to the silk emporium, it seemed certain to lead somewhere secret, somewhere illicit – somewhere, indeed, where the trusty Negro was
being inexorably lured despite his better judgement.

On leaving Mivart’s Hotel, Noah’s continuing search was little more than guesswork. If Eldritch Batchem was still seeking the
Aurora
, the most natural place
to look remained the river and its environs. That was where any surviving seamen or smugglers might reside, where the bodies of those related to the case had been found and where all the mysteries
seemed to vanish into the churning black waters.

Fortunately, Eldritch Batchem’s unnervingly unchanging wardrobe suggested a particular disinclination to assimilate himself into new environments. If he
was
there among the yards
and alleys of Ratcliff-highway, he should be easy enough to locate.

Noah had taken pains not to make the same error. On passing into the eastern regions of the city, he had stopped at the first marine store he came across and purchased an old oilskin coat to
replace his customary reversible surtout. Combined with one of those wide-brimmed hats favoured by the criminal classes for its ability to hide the face, the resulting
ensemble
had
transformed him into one who would not attract a second glance among the denizens of the docks.

Indeed, it was no doubt the very aborigineity of his outfit that permitted him the remarkable good fortune he experienced within minutes of beginning his search. He was asking among the cabmen,
vendors and common trollops of the street for sightings of the russet cap when he caught a glimpse of something that set his higher instincts buzzing.

There on the corner of Betts-street was a man whose entire demeanour showed him to be engaged in a surreptitious pursuit. He loitered without waiting, looked without seeing into shop windows,
and moved with a feline grace that showed him ready to pause, turn and vanish at a moment’s notice. It was a masterly performance, made all the more fascinating by the detail of the
man’s hat, which, though it mostly concealed the long dark hair beneath, did not hide a gold earring.

The Italian?

Noah instinctively felt for his dagger in its leather sheath. The Italian had not noticed him, but was rather occupied with some other target out of Noah’s line of vision.

Walking along the opposite side of the street with his gaze focused intently upon the reflections in the windows, Noah affected an aimless saunter to mask his steel-spring alertness. Within
seconds he would be able to peer around the corner and observe whoever or whatever was being watched so intently by the Italian.

If Noah had seen Inspector Newsome going about his investigations under that Mediterranean gaze, it would have been no great surprise. Had the target been Mr Williamson, at least a precedent had
been set for that mode of
surveillance
. Whatever the identity of the pursued, it would surely provide some advantageous perspective on the Gordian knot of the
Aurora
’s
disappearance.

In fact, the object of the Italian’s gaze was a gentleman standing on the street corner and engaging a cabstand waterman in conversation. He was clearly not a difficult man to follow on
account of his russet cap and garish tweed suit.

And suddenly there were even more questions.

Mr Williamson looked up from his notes for the countless time and stared, unseeing, out of the window. It was not the chattering clatter of the coffee house that distracted him
so. Nor was it the incessant hooves and wheels and busman’s cries of broad Pall Mall stretching before him.

People outside walked by in unending procession, oblivious to their observer’s gaze. It was a veritable catalogue of evening-time London: earnest men with appointments, laughing ladies
with none, shuffling tomb-bound beggars, the sprightly costermonger with his barrow . . . and, of course, the street girls – the street girls with their silk and lace, their flashing ankles,
their dark eyes seeking the merest flicker of appreciation from a male gaze.

He clenched his jaw and returned his eyes by force of will to the notebook. There, in his neat, small writing was all he knew (and did not know):