City of Light

Chapter NINE



London



11:50 AM

“Hammond has a wife?” Trevor could not say exactly why he was so surprised. The most depraved of criminals were often quite successful at maintaining their ordinary lives. They held jobs, married woman, fathered children, took their tea in parlors and their beer in pubs. Walked the streets looking precisely like any other man.

“According to reports, she lives in Manchester, Sir,” Davy said. “And the Superintendent’s report suggests that makes it the most likely place for Hammond to flee.”

“So likely that he’s probably gone anywhere else,” Trevor said, waving aside the folder Davy was attempting to hand him. “Nonetheless, we have to follow it up, so I’ll need a train schedule and -“

“Here, Sir,” Davy said, handing him an envelope. “Next one leaves at noon. And I’ve booked two seats, Sir.”

“Your mother won’t expect you home for dinner?”

Davy ignored the tease. “For you and Miss Emma, Sir. Didn’t you always say that women talked to women?”

“Yes, yes, I certainly have said those very words. So send a message to Mayfair, Davy and tell them that - ”

“Already have, Sir. Miss Emma’s on her way.”

1:20 PM

“That must be his mother,” Trevor said skeptically. They had arrived in Manchester on the one o’clock train and followed the stationmaster’s directions to the address of a home registered in the name of Charles Hammond. There they had found a grim-faced woman – Trevor’s guess would be at least fifty years of age - out in the side yard, struggling to pin a bed sheet to a clothesline. Hammond had been described as around thirty and a bit of a dandy.

“Possibly,” Emma said. “But she may not be as old as you think. The women of Manchester lead rather hard lives, I would imagine. Or perhaps Hammond married a woman older than himself. It’s been known to happen.” She lifted an arm into the air in a gesture of greeting and called out “Excuse me, ma’am, but might we enter your gate? We’ve come from London to talk to you.”

The woman walked toward them, a frown on her face, but when Trevor moved to pull his badge from his pocket, she motioned them in without taking a closer look. She’s not surprised that we’re here, thought Trevor. The coppers have come to this door before.

She walked into the side entrance of her house, leaving the door ajar behind her and, after a minute of awkwardness, Emma and Trevor followed her inside. She did not introduce herself or offer tea, merely sank into a rocking chair and stared at them.

“I suppose you know we’re here about Charles Hammond,” Emma began, sitting down opposite her while Trevor leaned against a wall. “What is the nature of your relationship to him?”

The question seemed to amuse her. “I can only assume that the answer you’re seeking is that Charles and I are married.”

Trevor was surprised, not just by this confirmation that the supposedly dapper Hammond was matrimonially yoked to the woman before him, but also by her careful diction and phrasing. No matter what type of marriage existed between them – and Trevor strongly suspected it was based more on a business arrangement than burning passion – Hammond must have contacted his wife and warned her of the trouble. When the local authorities had come, they had undoubtedly underscored the fact that Scotland Yard had taken an interest in the case, hoping to intimidate the woman into telling them everything she knew, but more likely just preparing her for the eventuality of this present interview. The woman’s eyes strayed toward the mantle, and Trevor’s followed. The man in the picture propped there must be Hammond himself.

“When was the last time you saw your husband?” Emma asked calmly. She had never led a witness interview before, but Trevor was gratified to hear that her voice hit precisely the proper tone, somewhere between a conversation and an interrogation.

“February 10,” the woman said.

“You remember the precise date?”

The woman looked down into her lap. “It was my birthday.”

Perhaps I judged too quickly, Trevor thought. As bizarrely ill-suited as this man and woman seemed to be, there could still be genuine affection between them. At least he had visited her on her birthday. He considered the woman in the rocking chair more closely. He supposed it was possible she could have been pretty once, long before the deep lines at the corners of her lips began to make their way toward her chin. The crevices not only aged her, but gave her the odd look of a ventriloquist dummy, as if her mouth was a creaky hinge just waiting for someone to slip his hand inside it and make his words her own.

Emma opened her notebook and continued to question the woman on the particulars. Her name was Janet. She and Charles Hammond had been married for eleven years. He resided primarily in London while she remained here. This arrangement had been in place for the majority of their marriage and she promptly added, without Emma asking, that she preferred it that way.

Trevor’s gaze moved back to the photograph on the mantle. The man pictured there was actually more than a bit of a dandy, his curly blond hair much longer than the current fashion, his mustache elaborately waxed and curled. He reminded Trevor of that fellow the Indians had finished off in America…what was his name? Custer? They said Custer had been arrogant, that this very arrogance had led to his doom, and it seemed quite possible that Charles Hammond shared the same trait. For the face in the picture was haughty, turned to the side in half-profile, giving the illusion that the man was looking out the window, past the small yard and the dirty street beyond. Already planning his escape from Manchester.

Janet Hammond saw him studying the photograph and shot him a defiant look. She must have known how unlikely it would have seemed that a woman like her could be married to the man on the mantle. She must have known that it would be hard to imagine circumstances that would put the two of them in the same room, much less the same bed.

“Where is your husband now?” Emma asked.

The woman turned back toward her. “I’m not entirely sure.”

Emma took a different tack. “If you had to guess, what would you say?”

“Paris.”

Trevor was so startled by this blunt and quite possibly honest answer that he twisted his whole body toward the woman and Emma likewise shifted on the divan. Without prompting, Janet Hammond went on to explain that her husband’s business required the importing and exporting of cloth. Fabrics from the mills of Manchester making their way to London and then on across the continent via the merchants Paris. “He goes there on a regular basis,” she said. “Three or four times in a normal year, more frequently of late.”

“Why more frequently of late?” Emma asked.

“The Exhibition,” the woman said.

“He’s providing cloth for the Exhibition?”

The woman nodded and Emma sank back in her seat, momentarily unsure of herself for the first time since the questioning had begun. She and Trevor exchanged a quick glance. It was highly unlikely this woman had ever known the exact nature of her husband’s business – highly unlikely that she knew what he truly sold was the flesh of young boys. Besides, now that he considered it, Trevor supposed it was possible Charles Hammond was a fabric exporter as well, that having a respectable-sounding second business could serve to conceal the more sinister activities of the first.

“He doesn’t just sell cloth of course,” the woman calmly added, again surprising both Emma and Trevor.

“What else does he sell?” Trevor asked.

She shook her head. “He procures British investors,” she said, a glimmer of pride in her voice, “for the French Exhibition.”

This volunteered tidbit of information, accurate or not, flummoxed Trevor so completely that the room fell into a moment of silence. It was Emma who finally broke it.

“And where does he find these British investors?”

“A few in London, most of them expatriated to Paris,” Janet Hammond said

“Expatriated?” Emma repeated blankly.

“It means people who have moved from one country to another,” Janet said smugly. “In this case, from England to France.”

“Yes, yes, I know what it means,” Emma murmured, looking uncertainly to Trevor again. This woman was not at all what she had first seemed and she was clearly relishing the effect that her revelations were having on Emma and Trevor. Her desire to impress people with her intelligence will ultimately be her undoing, Emma thought. Someday someone will trap her into telling more than she should.

“And how did Charles become acquainted with the expatriates in Paris?” Emma asked.

“Oh, but Charles moves in high social circles,” Janet answered. “The very highest.”

“Ah,” said Emma, the plump face of the Duke of Clarence flitting across her mind.

“They frequent,” Janet continued, “the finest clubs and restaurants in Paris. Perhaps on the continent.”

“Ah,” Emma said again, her eyes involuntarily moving around the room. If her husband was cavorting in the finest restaurants in Paris while she lived in a moldy cottage in the shadow of cotton mill, she doubted she would manage to report the fact with such pride.

“How does he convince these men to provide funds for the Paris exhibition?” Trevor asked. “They’re English, after all, even if they are living in France. What incentive would they have to underwrite the cost of French glory?”

The question hung in the air but for a second.

“It’s an investment, of course,” the woman said.

“A rather risky one. The papers say the costs of the Exhibition have run far over budget. Eiffel’s Tower might not be finished in time, and then where will they be? The laughingstock of Europe.” Trevor looked at the woman closely. “It doesn’t sound like a proposition which would tempt a prudent investor.”

“Charles is very persuasive.”

“It seems he would have to be.”

“You don’t know him,” Janet Hammond said, sitting back into her rocker. “He could convince a man to bet his last shilling, a woman to sell her own child. He could wade out into the harbor and convince the very tide to turn.”

Trevor looked once again towards the photograph on the mantle. He didn’t doubt for a minute that she was right.

2:35 PM



An hour later, Trevor and Emma were seated in a tea house across from the train station, looking out the window at the gathering mist.

“What I don’t understand,” Emma was saying, as she dreamily stirred cream into her cup, “is how a man from such humble origins might come to socially interact with the upper clas. I mean, assuming that the woman is telling the truth about Charles and the investors –“

“I believed her,” Trevor said, squeezing a bit of lemon into her own tea. “Yes, she was bragging, trying to convince us that her husband was a legitimately successful businessman, but even so. There was something quite direct and unfeigned in her answers.”

“I agree that she was natural in manner,” Emma nodded, “but that only indicates that she believed she was telling us the truth, not that she actually was. A husband would hardly announce to his wife he was running a brothel, would he? Instead he would concoct some story about important business abroad.”

“That bit about the business abroad…”

“But I still don’t understand,” Emma repeated. “Even with his pretty ways, could a man like Hammond truly mix as an equal with that class of people? The sort who would have enough money to underwrite the French Exhibition? It doesn’t seem likely.”

“Well, there’s that, but also something else,” Trevor said. “The words that the Hammond woman used were eerily similar to what Rayley wrote me in one of his recent letters. That the Exhibition was rumored to be in financial trouble, that they were seeking underwriters, and that a sizable percentage of these investors were British. How would Janet Hammond know that, unless her husband had told her?”

Emma frowned. “The fact that the Exhibition is running short of funds is hardly a secret. The Times is full of it.”

“But nothing about a private pool of British investors. I nearly startled when she said that.”

“You did startle. I saw you. But I don’t recall Rayley saying that in any of his letters.”

“Not in one of the letters he sent to the Tuesday Night Murder Games Club,” Trevor conceded. “This was in a private letter he wrote me expressing his concerns about Isabel Delacroix. Well, perhaps I should say the woman he calls Isabel Delacroix and Geraldine calls Isabel Blout.”

“Why are you being so vague, Trevor? I didn’t know you and Rayley exchanged private letters at all. What has he told you that the rest of us aren’t privy to know?” When Trevor hesitated, Emma leaned forward. “Is he having a love affair with this Delacroix woman?”

Trevor shook his head. “Perhaps in his dreams, but that’s all. He’s enchanted with her and is curious about her background. The man she is living with in Paris is named Armand Delacroix and Rayley writes that he makes his money by procuring private investments for the Exhibition.”

Emma’s pale eyebrows shot up. “Well that’s quite the coincidence.”

“Quite. And here’s another one for you to stir into your tea. Isabel was born and raised in Manchester.”

Emma’s turned toward the window and the muddy street outside it. “She lived here?”

Trevor nodded and they both took a sip of tea.

“What are the statistical odds,” Emma finally asked, “that the Cleveland Street case would somehow be connected to Isabel Blout, and the Parisian Exhibition, and the death of Patrick Graham?”

“Damn small, which is why I’m not at all sure the two cases are connected.”

Emma’s eyes jerked to his face. “You truly doubt it? I’ll concede that on the surface it seems unlikely that a murder in Paris and a brothel in London are somehow linked, but given the facts before us, it appears they must be. Consider the pieces of the puzzle and then tell me you don’t believe they all belong in the same box. We have a British man, Charles Hammond, who goes back and forth from England to France on business which his wife claims is connected to under-the-table fundraising for the Exhibition. We have a Frenchman across the channel, who Rayley claims is doing the same thing. The Englishman is from Manchester and the Frenchman is living with a woman from Manchester. It seems there would have to be some link and the link would have to be the woman.”

Trevor gave a slow nod, although he was clearly not as convinced as Emma hoped he would be. “I shall wire Rayley.”

“Well obviously you must wire Rayley, but in the meantime, we’re already here. We should try to find someone who knew Isabel when she was growing up. What was her maiden name?”

“I have no idea.”

“Would Gerry know?”

“Perhaps.”

Emma pushed her cup away. “How old is Isabel?”

Trevor thought for a moment. “Married very young, but been married more than ten years, closer to fifteen….so I’d say about thirty.”

“And how old is Hammond?”

“Gad, I don’t know. All the boys at Cleveland Street said was that he was an adult, which could mean anything. Assuming that the photograph in his wife’s house was recent…”

“He’d be about thirty as well.”

“I suppose. But Emma, we’re making any number of assumptions.”

“I realize that, Trevor, but it seems to me odd to think that two people from the same small dreary industrial town, about the same age, should have somehow clawed their way out of that town and into the expatriate social circles of Paris and yet would not know each other. Think of it. Charles and Isabel could be childhood sweethearts. Brother and sister. Yes, looking at it from the outside, it’s improbable that your case and Rayley’s should be connected, but given the facts before us it seems more improbable that they’re not. The eyes of the world are looking toward Paris. So is it really so surprising that the focus of the all the criminals of Europe might fix there as well?”

Emma sat back in her chair, proud of her speech, especially the last line, but Trevor was still not entirely persuaded. “Manchester isn’t such a small town. Yes, far smaller than London, but it’s not at all like the village where I grew up or the one you came from either. In the rural burgs you’re quite right, everyone knows everyone. The children all go to the same school, the citizens all gather at the same church….”

“And in Manchester they all gather at the same factories and mills,” Emma said. “The cotton mill is their church, it is their school. Look around you. Close your eyes and sniff the air, if you can manage do so without bringing on a fit of coughing. Any young person with any wit or ambition at all would try to get out of this hellish place the first chance they got. Reinvent themselves in London. But then perhaps London proves too close for a true reinvention, with the blasted trains running back and forth every hour on the hour. Someone remembers them. Someone gossips. Their past manages to follow them into their new life. So they seek to go even farther from the city of their birth, to a new country. They cross the channel, hoping that the water will wash away all sins and all memories and they shall emerge on the soil of France reborn.”

“I say, you’re quite poetic this afternoon.”

“Don’t mock me.”

“I wasn’t.”

She turned her small, pointed chin toward him, her pale skin flushed. “You’re contented with your life, Trevor, and by the look of you I’d venture that you always have been. You could never understand how strong the desire might be to reinvent oneself. What it might drive someone to. A man like you wouldn’t know how to imagine it.”

Trevor certainly could imagine it. Even the small rural towns, nestled in the velvet green hills of the lake districts, could give rise to their share of humiliations and disappointments. But he held his tongue, mindful that Emma’s own journey had been far more painful than his, and that her sister Mary’s attempts to outrun their past had led to her death. They never spoke of Mary, he thought, but in another way it seemed that all he and Emma ever did was speak of Mary, as if every conversation between them was really about her, no matter how the words might change. Trevor’s failure to catch the Ripper. His failure to save Emma’s sister – and thus in a way, his failure to save Emma’s heart. It sat between them every time they met, as sure as a cream pitcher and cups on a table.

“Everyone says that Isabel is striking, with Rayley venturing farther to suggest her beauty is nearly ethereal,” Emma continued, remounting her attack. “You saw the picture of Charles on the mantle. He hardly seemed to fit Manchester either, did he? I think it’s entirely possible that these two beautiful misfits managed to find each other here in this dreadful little place. The mere presence of the other gives each of them courage. They vow to do anything to escape, and who can blame them? Even if it meant marriage to a man Isabel didn’t love and that Charles would embark upon the most despicable sorts of business. No, I believe that Isabel and Charles knew each other and still do.” Emma looked around the shabby little tea room with more conviction. “We should stay.”

“Stay?”

“You must contact Rayley, yes. But wire Gerry first. Tell her to find out Isabel’s maiden name, if she doesn’t already know it. And first thing tomorrow you and I shall go to the mill where Charles Hammond got his start. Something tells me we’ll find that Isabel once worked there too, or at least some member of her family.”

“You’re suggesting that we stay in Manchester tonight? You and I?” Trevor’s eyes darted around the tea room with anxiety. “We shall miss our train.”

“There will be another tomorrow. Several more.”

“But we haven’t any –“

Emma looked at him with a mixture of irritation and amusement in her face. “We’ll stay in an inn, Trevor. In separate rooms. Travelers do such things, do they not? Good heavens, you’re actually blushing.”

“We haven’t brought anything with us.”

“I’m sure we can manage the night.”

“No, I just mean that the files and reports are all –“

“The essentials are in your little notebook in your pocket. They always are.”

“It’s Tuesday, you know. Geraldine is expecting us for dinner.”

“Oh, of course,” Emma said dryly. “And there’s no way that can be postponed.”

“I don’t think we should –“

“Oh, why don’t you just say what you’re really thinking?” Emma said, no longer bothering to hide her frustration. “If you were traveling with Davy or Tom and a promising lead opened up, you’d follow through without a moment’s thought. You’re not returning to London to get your notes. You’re returning to London to get your true assistants, the two men on the team. Even though you’ve said yourself, a dozen times, that women are more apt to confide in other women and there’s a good chance many of our interviewees will be female.”

“It isn’t that,” Trevor said. “Truly it isn’t.” It struck him that he was sitting here taking tea with Emma in much the same manner as he had shared tea with Geraldine the day before. But while he had felt completely relaxed with Gerry, being alone with Emma was a different manner. As much as he liked her, as much as he had fantasized and planned for such moments, the reality was not keeping pace with the fantasy. He sat unnaturally in his chair, his stomach pulled in and his smile forced. They were in uncharted territory here. They had sailed off the edge of his personal map.

For Emma was quite right. It could be done. There were probably any number of boarding houses on this street alone, due to its proximity to the railway station. They could secure two rooms, wire Gerry, wire Rayley, and then tonight they could dine together in the finest restaurant Manchester could boast. Heaven only knows what the finest restaurant in Manchester might actually look like, but, no matter, it would be intoxicating to be alone with her for such an extended span of time, far away from the prying eyes of London and the knowing nudges of their well-meaning friends. This was his chance, so why the deuce wasn’t he taking it?

“All right,” Emma said with a sigh. “I wave the white flag. We shall board our train and return to London. I suppose it’s an easy enough thing to journey back and you can bring Davy as your second next time, or Tom, or someone else you deem to be a true colleague.”

“It isn’t that,” he said again, trying to keep his voice authoritative even as his heart was sinking in his chest. “You did very well with Janet Hammond and I have no doubt you will do equally well in interviews with future witnesses, be they male or female. But I don’t go into investigations on an impulse, and as long as you are a member of this particular team, neither shall you.” Her expression shifted slightly and he seized the brief advantage. “Shall we affect a compromise? Tonight we return to London and attend our normal Tuesday night meeting. Tom and Davy will want to hear the details of your Hammond interview and I’ve worked up a rather delightful demonstration on strangulation which I’m sure you’ll all enjoy. Tomorrow I shall devote my morning to learning more about Isabel Blout’s years in London. Her portrait by Whistler seems a logical place to start. And yes, if we can unearth even a glimmer of evidence connecting Isabel Blout to Charles Hammond we shall be back in Manchester by afternoon. Is that fair?”

“I suppose.” Emma tossed her napkin to the table. “And shall I now say ‘Thank you, Sir’ and curtsy in gratitude?

He had offended her again. Undoubtedly, her overarching complaint was that he did not treat her as an equal. She believed that if it had been Davy or Tom who had put forth such a theory, he would have more readily accepted it. At least been willing to spend the night, to make a circuit of the factories in the morning. And she was right. These modern women, Trevor thought uneasily, gazing at the thin closed line of Emma’s mouth. Who can understand them or hope to know what they truly want? Emma claimed she desired nothing more than to be considered like any other member of the team, yet Trevor somehow suspected that if he managed to overcome his emotions sufficiently to treat her like Davy and Tom, then that would be quite wrong too. That his attempts at egalitarianism and democracy would only offend her on some other level, would but start a new and equally unwinnable battle on a fresh field.

It is impossible, he thought. She is my employee and my friend and my intellectual equal and the object of my desire and I know I must simultaneously protect her and respect her and it is all quite impossible. I shall be blamed for some sin or another whichever way I go.

He looked at his pocketwatch.

“Thirty minutes until the last train,” he said. “Would you like a bit more tea?”

“Why not?” Emma said, staring down at her cup. “It would seem that we have nothing else to do.”