Anatomy of Evil (21 page)

“Aye, that’s where we docked. We put ourselves up at a little place nearby called the Owler’s Inn and tried to get our land legs again. Philippa had just arrived and her home was still swathed in sheets. It was where my crew broke up. Some took their pay and signed on to other vessels. The rest of us went to London to seek our fortunes.”

“No,” I said. “You already had your fortunes.”

“I suppose we did. Anyway, Ho wanted to open a tea shop, and Etienne to train as a chef in Paris. Eventually I found myself alone.”

“Stop!” I cried. “That won’t do at all. The fortunes! How did you make them?”

“I assumed you had worked that out by now. You often hear of men coming back from the Orient having made their fortunes.”

“I have, but how? Everything’s vague and nothing is explained. I’ve known you for years and I still don’t know how you made money. For all I know, you were a pirate.”

He pulled a face. It was not exactly a denial. I jumped out of my chair.

“You were! You were a pirate!”

“No, lad, not as such. What we did was illegal and very dangerous, but not exactly piracy.”

He left it at that, or would have preferred to. I wouldn’t.

“Well?”

He sighed. “If you must know, we were treasure hunters. A good many ships were sunk over the years, loaded with gold bound for England. Tea and opium money. I purchased a diving bell and built a hoist on the
Osprey
and we settled in Bias Bay, which I’m sure you’ll be pleased to know is infamous for its piracy. We amassed enough money in six months to retire. It was then that Sebastian Nightwine informed the empress dowager that I could solve her problems for her. Is that enough for you? May we move on?”

“Sorry, sir,” I said. “But what about London? There you were, a rich man. Why did you not set yourself up as a gentleman?”

“I tried it, for Philippa’s sake. She wanted it very much. But I cannot do nothing. I’ve worked all my life. I’m unable to sit about and I bore easily. I love to read, but even books became tiresome on a continual diet of them. Then one day, I passed through Whitehall and there was the famous Scotland Yard, and I thought, ‘That’s for me.’ I’d solved the empress dowager’s problem readily enough.”

“Did you go in and apply?”

“I did, right then and there. In my folly, I believed they would jump at the chance to acquire someone who had worked for the empress dowager of China.”

“I take it they did not.”

“They had never even heard of her, though she rules over a tenth of the earth. It hadn’t occurred to me until then that I had little written proof of my claim and what I had was in Chinese. Even translated, there was no way to assure the authorities that my papers were genuine. Plus, I was over thirty, not a particularly young man to be starting as a constable. Then there was the matter of my spectacles.”

“They would not accept them?”

“Against regulation. In fact, everything I did seemed to arouse the suspicion of the inspector who was put in charge of verifying my claims.”

“James Munro.”

“Aye.”

“So that’s the source of the bad blood between you.”

“He would not stop provoking me to remove my spectacles. He claimed I had a secret. He claimed I was a half-breed, someone’s illegitimate whelp. He accused me of being blind in one eye. Anything to force me to take them off.”

Then he pulled the offending articles from his face and threw them on the desk.

I leaned forward and stared intently at him. There was a scar bisecting his right eye from the outside corner, extending nearly an inch above the brow to the inside, extending down the cheek. At one point, someone must have slashed him across the eye with a sharp blade. The cut had sliced through both eyelids, and they had been sewn together poorly. The top was creased with scar tissue. The bottom had barely been repaired at all. There was a V-shaped nick in the lower lid, through which one could see the white. A milky groove ran vertically down the eye itself, where the blade had cut it.

“Can you see through it?” I asked.

“Almost perfectly. I was wearing my spectacles at the time, and they were broken off my face. If I hadn’t been wearing them, the damage would have been irreparable.”

“Who did this to you?”

“An old foe from my youth. I’ve had it for almost decades.”

I eyed the scar again. “Katana?” I asked.

“You are correct. The injury happened while I was in Japan.”

“The lost years.”

He smiled grimly. I don’t like to use adverbs when I can help it, but he smiled, and his smile was grim.

“Did you come up with that term yourself?”

“No. As I recall, it was Mrs. Ashleigh who called it that.”

“Ah.”

He wouldn’t put the spectacles back on. They lay there open and inverted on the table. His face looked all wrong without them, and it wasn’t just because of the eye. He looked naked without the moon-shaped spheres, more vulnerable than I’d ever seen him.

“Munro suggested I wear a patch, but to do so would diminish the sight in this eye. The loss was too high a price to pay, you see. I refused. The commissioner made it a condition of my hiring, and there was an end of it.”

“I see. What did you do?”

“What could I do? I marched out of there madder than—”

“A wet hen?”

“If you say so. Madder than a wet hen. I marched out the gate and down Whitehall Street. When I reached Craig’s Court, there was a property for sale, and I sat down on the steps in front of it to still my anger.”

“Number seven.”

“Indeed. I looked down the court. Back then, there were hoardings hanging from both sides, advertising for enquiry work.
Why not?
I asked. I looked in the windows at the vacant building and took down the estate agent’s address. I bought the property that day. If Scotland Yard had no use for my services, then I would make them regret that decision, in a manner they were not likely to forget.”

I picked up the spectacles. They were of copper mixed with brass, and were hinged at the corners and again halfway down the earpieces. The bridge vaguely represented an undulating dragon. The lenses looked black as coal, but when I glanced through them everything took on a sepia hue.

“Here are your spectacles,” I said, handing them to him. I couldn’t look at that ruined eye for another moment.

He took them and put them on, first one ear, and then the other. I let out my breath. I never wanted to see behind those lenses again if I could help it.

“Well, then,” I said, for want of anything else to say.

“Well, then, what?” he demanded. His ginger was up, I could see. He was going to be disputative.

“The spectacles didn’t matter,” I said. “Munro just didn’t want to accept you into his private party. Obviously, you had abilities that he was jealous of, so he went for the spectacles. It could have been something else. You’re too tall or too heavy, or they don’t accept former soldiers or sailors or nonconformists, whatever was available to exclude you.”

Barker stared at me and frowned. I’d seen it enough times to recognize it, spectacles or not. He was in one of his brooding moods, I could see, and there would be little reasoning with him.

“Of course, it might be helpful if you can clear up this trifling matter of tracking the Whitechapel Killer,” I said.

“‘Trifling matter,’ indeed.”

“May I assume this is just a temporary engagement with Scotland Yard?”

“Well, of course,” he said, but the way he said it in no way alleviated my concerns.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

We were on our way out the door at six, and I admit I was rather down. Somewhere, I told myself, this Whitechapel Killer was laughing at us, and he had a reason to. A comic artist had done a drawing in the newspapers of a constable in a blindfold, playing blindman’s buff with a gang of criminals who were laughing at him. It had been passed about the squad room. It was a part of my new position I hadn’t thought of before; public evaluation on the performance of our duties, and criticism that we were not up to scratch. We were public servants, after all, and subject to their opinions.

I looked up and realized we were going over Westminster Bridge.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“Home,” the Guv said.

“Why?” I asked. One doesn’t get the rose without the thorn around here.

“I received a new file today. Swanson had been holding on to it. We’re going to interview a suspect tonight.”

“Why are we going home, then?”

“To change. It’s an evening affair.”

“Ah,” I said. “I see.”

It is a pity Barker doesn’t understand sarcasm. Or perhaps it is a mercy.

When we arrived in Newington again, it was obvious Mac had been tipped off to our arrival. I could smell food cooking, and a brace of top hats were on the chair in the hall. Mac knew, but I didn’t. At least he hadn’t informed Harm, who was dancing circles in the hall and yipping with happiness. The master was home. And his appendage.

“Is she here?” Barker asked.

“She said she wanted to air the rooms in her town house, sir. She’ll be along directly, in time for dinner.”

“Who?” I asked Mac directly, having little success with our employer.

“Mrs. Ashleigh, of course.”

“She’s coming here?”

“You don’t know much, do you?” he murmured, rather pleased with himself, as he went back to the kitchen.

As if on cue, Mrs. Philippa Ashleigh’s carriage arrived at the curb in Lion Street. Mac stepped out and escorted her to the door. She was, as always, beautiful, ageless, cultured, and charming. She wore a cream-colored gown with a stole of ermine and a choker of diamonds that if sold could have fed all of Whitechapel.

“Thomas,” she said. She had a way of making one feel she had come all the way from Sussex expressly to see you. “You look well. All in one piece?”

“For the most part. It’s wonderful to see you again.”

“Are you excited about this evening?”

“I might be if someone were to finally tell me where we are going.”

“To the Lyceum, dear boy. Cyrus has tickets to the most successful show in town!”

“What play is Irving performing? I’m afraid I haven’t kept up with the theater column.”

“Not Irving, silly,” she said. “Richard Mansfield. The play we’re seeing tonight is
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
”

Forgotten were the cares of the day and the opinions of the anonymous citizens who paid our salary. We had tickets to the theater! Now, Thomas Llewelyn might have been a classics scholar, but he could still add two and two. The suspect Barker and I were seeing that evening could only be Mansfield himself. His performance was said to be so shocking that women fainted in the aisle. It was implied, if not actually said, that no fully sane actor could give such a disturbed and disturbing performance. My friend Israel had gone several times, though never in the good seats, and said that whatever trick was done to turn one title character into the other was worth the price of the ticket. And if we were to question him, obviously, we had to join him in his dressing room afterward.

The production had come into the London theaters the year before to much fanfare. The book itself,
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,
by the author Robert Louis Stevenson, now stood on my bookshelf. I had been much impressed by it. The man never wrote an imperfect sentence. Alas, the delights of the theater were generally shut to a man in my profession, and I had expected never to see the controversial actor perform his most famous role. Now, unbidden, we were going, thanks to a file at Scotland Yard. By my calculations, Barker must have decided to go to the theater the day before in order to give Mrs. Ashleigh time to prepare.

“How are the delights of an old London inn?” she asked.

“Perfect, thanks to Keating’s Bug Powder. The food is good enough at the Frying Pan, but I’m afraid the fellow I’m sharing my room with snores.”

She laughed. Philippa loved to get my private opinions of her permanent suitor, as if Barker were some antediluvian creature and she and I the foremost authorities upon the species, comparing notes. She carried about with her a measure of ease and bonhomie. Nothing seemed to fluster her, and nothing was so important that she could not puncture its self-esteem. As far as I was concerned, she was the epitome of grace and charm.

Theirs was a most unusual arrangement, as far as I could tell. They would not wed anytime soon, but both took it for granted that it was to happen eventually. When not engaged in a case, he would drop down to her house in Seaford on a Thursday and return on late Saturday, so as to avoid the Sunday Express, known as the “Sabbath Breaker.” They were very close, but he seldom spoke of her. I got the impression that though she spoke of him to me, because of my circumstances, she did not do so to others. They were both intensely private people.

Dinner was served. The main course was coq au vin, supported by halibut in butter, roasted potatoes, lobster bisque, haricots verts, and
choufleur
. A mixed berry tart and green salad finished the meal. White wine was served, and coffee. Afterward, Mrs. Ashleigh whiled a half hour away in the library with Harm while Barker and I dressed in our evening kit, under the sober scrutiny of Jacob Maccabee. At his insistence, I tried a hair cream that he used himself, which would tame my gypsy curls for the night.

“Are you certain about this, Mac?”

“I assume you want to wear your top hat,” he said, “and not have it float about your head.”

When I went down to the ground floor again, Mac was helping the Guv on with his opera cape. He was wearing green-lensed spectacles, which according to his own fashion he only wore to the theater. They reminded me of jade disks. Finally, Mac opened the front door and we swept out to Mrs. Ashleigh’s open carriage.

We arrived in plenty of time for the curtain and were seated in our box. I was to hold Philippa’s opera glasses, a very important duty. Barker sat silently for the most part, but Philippa kept up a stream of information about the people in the theater that she knew.

“That’s Lady Margaret Thurston in the third tier. She’s divorcing her second husband. Beside her is her daughter, Hyacinth, who came out this year and has caught the eye of the youngest son of the Earl of Warrick. In the next box are Rabbi and Mrs. Mocatta and the Cowens.”