Murder As A Fine Art Part 18

Brookline reduced his speed and studied the bushes.

Abruptly he dove to the ground as a fireball sped at him. Sparks flying, it shrieked over his head and struck a tree, the skyrocket exploding. Despite the cold weather, Brookline felt heat pa.s.s over him.

A second skyrocket sped horizontally through the park, exploding against a bench.

A third struck another tree.

Now every other manner of fireworks erupted. The slope burst into flames: red, green, yellow, blue. Sparks gushed as if from a fountain or spun on the ground as if on a wheel. Others shrieked or crackled like gunfire. Debris flew everywhere, smoke making it impossible to see down the slope.

Brookline pressed hard against the gra.s.s, compacting his body as much as possible. He squeezed his hands over his ears, as if he were under bombardment. His heart pounded against the frozen earth. He could almost hear the screams of battle.

Gradually, the explosions stopped. Glancing up, he saw the smoke dwindle. He rose carefully to a crouch, scanning the devastated bushes and slope. Branches smoldered. Dry gra.s.s was blackened.

THE REVOLVER HAD TOO MUCH gunpowder in it?" Palmerston asked, still in shock.

"Yes, Your Lords.h.i.+p. Overcharging it can cause that model to explode."

They were in Palmerston's mansion, in the ballroom on the second level, where tables glittered with champagne stemware ready to be filled at the soon-to-occur reception. The destroyed weapon sat on a polished tray.

"And you couldn't find him?"

"Not after the fireworks diversion he prepared. By the time the explosions ended, he was nowhere in sight."

"But why would the madman have wanted to kill me?"

"To quote him, Your Lords.h.i.+p... forgive my language."

"Just tell me."

"As he prepared to try to shoot you, his exact words were, 'I know what the b.a.s.t.a.r.d's doing in Germany! But he won't do it anymore!' "

"Germany?"

"Yes, Your Lords.h.i.+p. Do you have any idea what he was babbling about? It didn't make sense to me. Our current quarrel is with Russia in the Crimea. We don't have any hostile involvement with the German states. Besides, you're the home secretary now, not the foreign secretary or the war secretary. Anything that happens in Europe doesn't concern you any longer, only what happens here at home."

"Exactly. How could I have anything to do with Germany? The man was delusional."

Lady Palmerston, his former mistress, appeared in the doorway, her look indicating that the guests would soon arrive.

"Do you think you should cancel the event?" Brookline asked.

"And disappoint the prime minister?" Lord Palmerston asked in dismay. "Admit that the current instability is having an effect? Emphatically not. But Colonel Brookline..."

"Yes, Your Lords.h.i.+p?"

"Increase my protection."

9.

The Separate System.

A TRAIN CHUGGED PAST VAUXHALL GARDENS. Beyond the tracks, numerous boats navigated the Thames. Ryan watched the train's black smoke merge with the fog forming above the river. His summoned-to-meet-Lord Palmerston clothes felt stiff and uncomfortable, especially his high collar and the straps that looped under his boots, keeping his trousers taut.

Those weren't all that made him uncomfortable. He turned toward the many constables who led the twenty-four prost.i.tutes from the gardens and put them into police wagons. The women were complaining again. But dealing with them was simple compared to the problem with De Quincey.

"I wish I could believe that laudanum hasn't unhinged his mind," Ryan told Becker as the Opium-Eater and his daughter emerged from the gardens. "Did any of what he said make sense to you about his two dead sisters and the Wordsworth child? My older sister died when I was ten. She fell into a river and drowned. I grieved for her, but I adjusted. I hardly think about her now."

"Yesterday, when we crossed Waterloo Bridge to go to the telegraph office, I noticed that you looked uncomfortable," Becker said.

"What does that have to do with De Quincey? Right now, I'm uncomfortable about a lot of things."

"Perhaps crossing a river is one of them."

"Surely you don't mean because of what happened to my sister. Have you been drinking laudanum also? Last night you seemed to agree with De Quincey that we do things without understanding why. Heaven help me, while he talks, it all makes crazy sense, but a half hour later, it's like the fog that's coming in. Oh, my, here comes his daughter. I confess I find her attractive, but she's as difficult as..."

"Inspector, what will happen to these women?" Emily asked.

"We'll transport them back to Oxford Street."

"And nothing else?"

"The gold coins they were paid might last as long as a month if they don't spend the money on gin instead of food and lodging."

"But isn't there some way you can help them?"

"It's a life they chose. The Metropolitan Police Department isn't responsible for them."

"A life that was forced upon them by poverty. You can't possibly believe any woman would willingly be in their state. Are there surgeons to whom you can send them for their sores and bad teeth? Can you transport them to farms, where they can work in respectable conditions and regain their health?"

"Miss De Quincey, the police department isn't a charitable a.s.sociation. We're not equipped to do what you're suggesting."

"But if these women were given an alternative to the streets, there would be less crime and men would be less tempted to fall from virtue. Constable Becker, isn't there any way you can help? Surely we can all come to a solution."

We? Ryan thought, fascinated by how she always managed to involve others.

Becker answered, "Tonight, perhaps they'll receive another gold coin from the man who paid them the first two. We'll have plainclothes constables watch the alley where they'll wait for the killer to return."

De Quincey overheard and came over. "The one place in London the killer won't be is that alley. He wants you to put men there so that other areas of the city won't be protected. Did you question every customer who was in the gardens? Almost certainly he was here today, enjoying his game."

"All the people here could account for themselves."

"A skilled actor would be able to account for himself," De Quincey pointed out.

"We're continuing to investigate the possibility that the killer has a theatrical background," Ryan said. "We might also have a name."

"A name?" De Quincey raised his head.

"Before I arrived, I received new information that I didn't have a chance to mention until now. The house where you're staying is owned by a businessman who travels frequently on the Continent. He uses a rental agent who tries to keep the house occupied while he's away."

"My own inquiries determined that," De Quincey said. "The owner's name is Westfall. He sells fabric to clothing manufacturers across the Channel. But the rental agent wouldn't tell me who paid for us to stay in his house."

"Because the rental agent was given an additional fee not to disclose the name," Ryan explained. "But as soon as he understood the gravity of the situation, he cooperated and revealed that the man who signed the rental papers is Edward Symons."

De Quincey's expression darkened. "No."

"Do you recognize the name?"

"Is it spelled S-y-m-o-n-s?"

"Yes. Not the common spelling," Ryan answered. "How did you know?"

"That's not the name of the man who rented the house for us."

"But-"

"Edward Symons is dead."

Ryan and Becker looked at each other in surprise.

"Thirty years ago, Symons committed several murders in Hoddesdon in Middles.e.x," De Quincey told them. "He was hanged."

"Thirty years ago? But how do you-"

"Symons was a farm servant who developed a fondness for his employer's wife. When he revealed his affections, she responded that the differences in their stations-his lack of education, means, and physical attractiveness-made his suggestion laughably unsuitable. The woman had two sisters living with her, and they joined in his humiliation. His employment was terminated, but although he departed from Middles.e.x, he did not forget their insults. He brooded night and day until he could no longer resist the impulse to return to the farm. The women had long since forgotten about him when he surprised them in the farmhouse. In a perfect epilepsy of fury, he swung his knife right and left until all three women lay dead and the kitchen floated in blood."

Ryan noticed that Emily looked away.

"Are you all right, Miss De Quincey?"

"Yes. It seems that I too can be affected by Father's manner of speaking. Please continue, Father."

"Just before Symons was hanged, he told the prison chaplain about an odd sensation he experienced in the midst of his frenzy. He claimed there was someone else in the room, a dark figure on his right who kept pace with him during the murders."

"Someone else?" Ryan asked.

"The chaplain believed that the dark figure was Satan, who urged Symons on. But Symons was so steeped in rage that he didn't need any devil to encourage him."

"Then who was the dark figure?"

"His shadow."

"His shadow?" Ryan frowned. "I don't understand. From sunlight coming through a window? From a lamp in the kitchen?"

"From Symons himself. In his frenzy, Symons imagined that the dark part of his personality emerged from him and mirrored all his actions."

Ryan looked at Becker. "This is what I meant. He speaks like the fog coming in."

"I wrote about Symons in one of my essays. The killer is taunting me again, comparing himself to Symons, threatening to do to me what Symons did to those women."

"Mr. De Quincey, you provided new ways to look at these murders, and I thank you. But I'm afraid that I now have an unpleasant duty to perform."

"Unpleasant?"

"Father, I didn't have a chance to warn you," Emily said quickly.

De Quincey looked more baffled. "Warn me about what?"

"When Inspector Ryan arrived here, his preposterous intention was to arrest you."

WHILE RYAN DEBATED whether Lord Palmerston's orders obligated him to put handcuffs on De Quincey (he decided not to), across the river a seemingly insignificant, elderly woman was on the verge of a dismaying discovery. Her name was Margaret. She slept in a corner of a bakehouse where she worked a few blocks from the notorious rookery of Seven Dials, so called because seven streets intersected in that slum. The bakehouse was filled with ovens to which the poor, who didn't have access to a stove, took their main meal to be cooked after the day's bread was removed. They gave Margaret pots filled with bits of raw meat and potatoes. They came back later to retrieve the baked food and carry it to whatever meager shelter they called home.

Margaret cooked her own modest meals in the ovens, and although the bakehouse could be stifling in summer, its heat was welcome in winter and even soothed her aching bones. Her main requirements were so sufficiently met that, except to use the privy in back, she seldom left the building. Thus she wouldn't have known about Sat.u.r.day night's murders if they hadn't been the main topic of conversation for everyone who visited the bakehouse on Monday. They brought their pots of food earlier than usual, indicating their need to make certain they returned to their hovels before the yellow fog again engulfed the city and the murderer perhaps repeated his terrible crimes.

"There was two sets of murders back then, you know," a ragged woman said.

"What murders?" Margaret asked. Her left cheek showed a scar from a long-ago fire. To hide it, she had a habit of turning away from people to whom she spoke.

"Why, the Ratcliffe Highway murders, of course. Ain't you heard? It's all over the street."

The mention of the Ratcliffe Highway murders so startled Margaret that she almost lost her grip on the pot the woman handed across the counter.

"No, I haven't been out," Margaret said quickly. "The Ratcliffe Highway murders happened ages ago. Why are people talking about them?"

"Because of the murders Sat.u.r.day night," another ragged woman said, handing Margaret a pot.

"What murders?"

"You really haven't heard? Happened again near Ratcliffe Highway. A shop that sells to sailors. Socks and underdrawers, linen and such. The same as the last time, except there was more of 'em. Just after the shop closed, five people had their heads bashed and their throats slit."

"No," Margaret said.

"My grandpa remembers back then," a third woman said. "He told me there was two sets of murders all those years ago. Twelve days later, more people had their heads bashed and their throats slit, this time in a tavern. My grandpa says everybody was so terrified n.o.body went onto the streets."

The first woman complained, "The constable on the corner promises he'll keep things safe, but what do peelers care for the likes of us? I'm not taking any chances. I'll be back in an hour to get my pot and hurry home. Constable or not, anything can happen in the dark."

"Margaret, your hands are shaking," another woman said with concern.

"All this talk of murders. Whose hands wouldn't be shaking?"

Margaret had an unusual number of customers for most of the day. But by late afternoon, the bakeshop was nearly empty, a few nervous people hurrying in with blankets to carry their steaming pots away. Except for her trembling hands, she managed to conceal how startled she was by news of the murders.

Her worst fear was coming true. It was happening again. Back then, there had been four murders in a linen shop, whereas this time there had been five. That there would be another set of murders, Margaret had no doubt, just as she was certain that the next set of murders would take place in a tavern, the same as the last time.