Fatal Enquiry (22 page)

“Are you going to the funeral today?” Poole asked.

“Clayton’s? That’s awfully quick.”

“Not Clayton, you yob. Brother McClain. You’re a free man now and can attend.”

“I didn’t know it was today. I’ve been concentrating on the case. Are you going?”

“Thought I would, yes. Since your governor can’t appear there himself, I’d like to take his place. Besides, I’m old enough to have seen Andy in his heyday. They don’t make his kind anymore. He knew more about the ‘sweet science of bruising’ than anyone alive today.” He raised an eyebrow in my direction. “Are you going to buy that stick or not?”

“No. I don’t feel like buying sticks today. I’ll have to change for the funeral. What time is the service and where will it be held?”

“Christ Church, two
P.M.
”

“I shall meet you there.”

After I hailed a hansom, I sat back in the cab and told myself I would never be like Terence Poole. I didn’t want to reach the point where I accepted the death of another human being with such blasé detachment. I had spoken to Gerald Clayton only a few days earlier, and now he was a corpse in a mortuary somewhere. He was younger than I, and now all the good things in life—marriage, raising children, struggling to make a name for himself—that was all over for him now.

What had gone wrong? Had he proposed to his cousin and been turned down? He had suggested to us that she was ready enough. Perhaps he had balked at proposing to her. Certainly, in that case, there must have been several eligible women in London willing to marry him for his fortune. He was young and good-looking enough when his prospects were added to his name. Perhaps he grew despondent over his problems, his mood depressed by tumblers of whiskey until, finally, at the point of despair, he had loaded one of his father’s pistols and pulled the trigger.

I arrived at Brother Andrew’s funeral just in time for the service. My assumption was that few people would take much interest in an ex-boxer and street preacher, but there I would have been utterly mistaken. The service was held in Christ Church, Spitalfields, and was attended by the Lord Mayor as well as several local MPs. Members of the boxing fraternity going back generations were there alongside the poor whom Andrew had helped by the score. Cyrus Barker was sure to be somewhere in the crowd, but knowing that I was being scrutinized, I did not look for him. Besides, wherever he was, he deserved his private grief for a man who had been like a brother to him.

Andrew McClain had yet another mourner: me. I didn’t know him as well as I would have liked, but I had come to rely on him. He taught Barker, and Barker taught me, and there was continuity there. Now that continuity was broken and the world was just a little colder. No more would we come to the Mile End Mission for a meal and a sermon. No more would I hear Handy Andy’s rough, cheery voice calling me Tommy Boy. I was going to miss him.

To my surprise, Charles Haddon Spurgeon gave the eulogy. I would have thought that since Brother Andrew had not officially broken with the Church of England, an Anglican clergyman would have officiated. Nothing so grand as the Archbishop of Canterbury, mind, but someone with whom he had worked, who knew what he did for the downtrodden of the East End. Andrew scraped the bottom of society’s barrel with a heavy ladle. He looked after the lowest tier of London citizens, drunks and former drunks, drug addicts, the maimed and crippled, and the so-called unfortunates. He always had a meal and a blanket and a kind word. He’d listen to your problems and you knew he’d beseech the Lord that night on your behalf.

Where would these people go now?
I wondered.
To whom would they turn? Would the soiled doves slip away into the night, convinced the one man on earth who cared for them was gone? With Andrew in heaven, who was left down here to tell of a loving God who cares for even the lowest one?

Spurgeon was an ugly man. I’ve heard a wag say he proves Darwin’s theories all by himself, with his low brows and long arms, but those of us who know him would not want him any other way. He is Adonis on the inside, and anyway, an attractive, well-dressed minister would have been entirely inappropriate here. He and Brother Andrew were cut from the same bolt, rough, rude men with loud voices and the power of John the Baptist to evangelize.

Coming out of the church afterward, I found the sun too bright, the sky clear and blue as a robin’s egg, the city’s sparrows chirping by the thousands. The traffic in the street was heavy, dray carts and dog carts and carriages, carrying materials for new buildings, new businesses, new houses. Life was already getting on and so must I. I could not help but think, however, that it was all a bit shabbier and sadder without Andrew in it.

“Come on,” Poole said suddenly at my elbow. “I’ll let you buy me an ale at the Prospect of Whitby. It’s the one good thing about being suspended, drinking in the middle of the day.”

We walked the half mile to the old riverside public house where we soon had two ales set in front of us.

“Did you know him well?” I asked Poole as I took a drink of the ale.

“As a boy, I recall my father placing many a wager on the outcome of his fights. That was back when the Fancy was something to be admired. This earth will never see a boxer like him again. He was strong, tenacious, and quick on his feet.”

“Do you recall when he suddenly gave it up to be a missionary?”

“Recall it?” he asked. “We thought the world had come to an end. He was in his thirties still, young enough to have some years left in him. You’ve got your facts confused, however. He quit in protest against the rules of the Marquess of Queensberry. It was later that he found religion.”

“How did it come about?”

“I heard at ‘H’ Division where I was stationed as a constable that he’d been arrested a few times for drinking and disorderly conduct. My father was upset to hear it, but it didn’t surprise us. What do you do after you’ve conquered a sport all by yourself? Normally, the only way to go is down.”

“Was your father an officer, too?”

“Still is. He’s been behind the desk at ‘C’ Division these past twenty years. Anyway, the next we hear, he’s been arrested in a gin palace again, only get this, he wasn’t drinking. The man had gone temperance. He was protesting the way gin turned good fathers and wage earners into useless sots, forcing wives and mothers to take over all the responsibilities in the home. He vowed to open a mission where it was most needed: not in Africa, or Asia, but right here in London. My father said the man had taken one too many punches to the head. He isn’t often wrong, but he was about McClain. Even a Catholic has to admit he’s done fine work in Poplar, restored families, redeemed fallen women, and weaned men from the bottle. As an officer, I’ll tell you one thing: his stretch of Mile End Road is as crime-free an area as you’ll find in the entire East End.”

“What will happen to his ministry now that he’s gone?”

“Plowed under, I should imagine. His type of ministry, it’s all because of the fire of the leader himself. When that’s extinguished, Mile End goes back to being just another street. It’s up to the executor to say what will become of the mission itself.”

“Who’s that?” I asked.

“Your guv’nor. The responsibility for McClain’s ministry will ultimately fall on his shoulders. Didn’t you know?”

“I had no idea, but I suppose it makes sense.”

We each took a pull from our glasses.

“What have you been doing?” I asked.

“You mean since very nearly getting sacked? I’ve been investigating a little on my own.”

“Have you learned anything?”

“I know one thing for sure. Mr. Nightwine cannot be held responsible for Lord Clayton’s death. My men were with him the entire night, and he never left the Army Navy Club. I’ve interviewed everyone in Clayton’s neighborhood and nobody saw anything unusual that night.”

I thought about that for a moment. “Barker’s house was broken into by some members of the Elephant and Castle gang.”

“Oh, the Elephant Boys, was it? They’re a well-organized bunch. Let’s not forget the Elephant Girls, as well. Some of the best thieves in London. Are you saying the Elephant Boys might have killed Clayton and made it look like Barker did it?”

“It’s possible, isn’t it?”

“Anything’s possible, I suppose.”

“Did you hear anything about this mysterious patron who was supposed to meet McClain the day he died?”

“Nothing confirmed. The people who worked at the mission said Brother Andrew seemed very secretive about whom he was meeting.”

“Barker said Andrew was leaving the Church of England.”

“That would have been a reason for being secretive, I suppose.”

“Hmm,” I said. “About how many murders occur in London annually, would you say?”

“There are about eight a year by Scotland Yard’s reckoning. Why?”

“There are an awful lot of deaths occurring here. There’s the eight at O’Muircheartaigh’s, Clayton, McClain, and Clayton’s son, Gerald. That’s eleven since Nightwine arrived.”

“Hold on there,” Poole said. “McClain died of natural causes and Gerald Clayton was a suicide.”

“You don’t think it unusual to have so many deaths in so short a time?”

“I think you should concentrate on what you know to be murder, which is the attack on the Irishman and Clayton’s death.”

“Neither of which you can lay at Nightwine’s door, since he wasn’t here, or was being watched by your men.”

“Which leaves the Elephant and Castle gang.”

“Perhaps Scotland Yard could bring them in for questioning.”

“That’s what I suggested last week, before I was given the boot, only there’s a catch. They’ve disappeared. Not a one has been seen at the E and C public house since Nightwine arrived.”

“I wonder where they’ve got to.”

“No other gang has any information concerning their whereabouts. However, they also haven’t tried to annex their territory, which means they know they’ll be back.”

“I think your efforts would be best placed in trying to track down the Elephant Boys. And the best place to look would be with the Elephant Girls.”

Poole finished his drink and wiped his mouth with a serviette. “If my wife, Minnie, finds out about this, I’ll be in all sorts of trouble.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

I came out of the Prospect of Whitby feeling that at least now I understood the extent of Nightwine’s plan. Walking down Ropemaker’s Street, I tried to decide what to do next. Limehouse is a drab district and did nothing to improve my mood. Every building is covered in peeling paint and decay and the streets littered with horse droppings. There are chandleries, shops that cater to the Asian population, with goods from China, Japan, Malay, India, and other exotic places. None of those shops bother to put up a sign, whether in their native language or English, so in Limehouse, one simply walks into a likely looking place and discovers whether it is a shop, a restaurant, or a private dwelling.

One finds places like this in Limehouse from time to time and then can never find them again. I can’t tell whether they are for Asian patrons to make them feel at home, or for foreigners like myself, interested in the exoticism they represent. I suppose it doesn’t matter as long as someone buys the goods and the owner can go back to his native land a wealthy man, which is the aim of every Chinaman in this country, and mine as well, come to think of it.

These old shops sold lacquered parasols with kanji painted upon them, small scenes of pagodas carved in cork, paper wallets, carved ivory and jade, chopsticks, landscapes painted on silk, and porcelain figurines. Delicate-necked teapots, silk jackets one would be afraid to wear for ripping them, and paintings that make one long for places one will never visit. Asian shops are always stacked to the ceiling and crowding the aisles in the hope that one will break or trod on something and have to purchase it.

One of those I came upon had a few items in a dirty window, or rather, many windows, since no one north of the river could afford plate glass. Something there caught my eye and I walked in, nodding at a dour-looking Chinaman behind the counter. I went straight to the window display and found a box containing over a dozen pair of black spectacles similar to the ones my employer always wore. An idea began to form, and I lifted the box and took it to the counter.

“How much for all?” I asked.

The owner held up two fingers.

“Two pounds?” I demanded. “As much as that? A pound, surely.”

“Two poun’.”

“One pound fifty, then. The highest I can go.”

“Two poun’.”

“Two poun’, two poun’! Blast you! Let me see how much I’ve got.”

I reached into my pocket, extracted my last pound note and several coins, knowing I had more money tucked away in my back pocket. I counted them on the counter with excruciating slowness.

“Let’s see. That’s one pound, two shillings, and ten pence. Roughly one sixty-five.”

“Two poun’.”

“This is getting us nowhere. I’m just going to take all this lovely money from your counter, and carry it down the street to one of your competitors, and see if he feels like turning a profit today. Good day, Mr. Two Poun’.”

I was almost out the door when he made a sound like a rusty hinge.

“Excuse me?” I asked, putting my head back in the shop.

“Hokay,” he said, as if it pained him to say it.

I quickly returned before he changed his mind. I learned that trick not from Barker but from my sainted mother. Pennies squeaked before they left her fingers.

I had taken possession of the box when the proprietor looked over my shoulder and apparently didn’t care for the customer who had just come in behind me. He shook his head and waved at him with a cloth that lay on the counter. I turned to find out whom a Limehouse shopkeeper would find so disagreeable. As it turned out, he and I were of the same opinion. It was Soho Vic, Barker’s messenger boy.

Vic wore a battered and rusty bowler hat, an oversized shirt and waistcoat, an evening coat with tails that had seen better decades, excessively tight trousers, and hobnailed boots. He had a fat cigar clenched between his teeth and he frowned over it, ignoring the shop owner and concentrating on me.