Murder as a Fine Art

14

The Woman of Sorrows



AT VAUXHALL GARDENS, if De Quincey had chosen to pay for an ascent in the hot-air balloon, he would have seen a perspective of London that made sense of the sprawling city in a way that a map could not provide. Rising, he could have viewed the majestic Thames and its numerous bridges. He could have admired Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament.

But more than anything, what would have captured his attention was a stretch of royal parks that extended through the city. As a sign next to the hot-air balloon had advertised, one of the parks to be seen from above was St. James’s, located directly to the west of the Whitehall government offices. That park blended into the next one—Green Park—which in turn blended into much larger Hyde Park, making it possible for someone to walk several miles through the heart of London and have the illusion of being in the countryside.

The Opium-Eater didn’t walk, however. In the twilight of dawn, with the fog dissipating and the light growing, he ran as swiftly as he could manage, hoping that the trees and bushes gave him cover. The strain on his body compelled him to take a sip of laudanum from his flask. The drug subdued his agony and allowed him to push his body to its maximum. But he couldn’t permit himself to drink much of it. He had a far more important use for the precious liquid.

His worst fright came when he needed to cross the street that separated Green Park from Hyde Park, but after that, he pressed on, stumbling now more than running as he used the dwindling fog for cover, finally arriving at Marble Arch, at the northeast corner of Hyde Park.

He had come here with Emily on Sunday morning, barely two days earlier, when the only complication in his life—apart from his opium habit and his poverty—was the necessity of explaining to Emily that when he was seventeen, starving on Oxford Street, he had fallen in love with a prostitute named Ann.

Oxford Street.

Beyond Marble Arch, it stretched before him. The gradually clearing fog made the street seem as gloomy as it had been fifty-two years earlier, when he had almost died there from hunger and the elements.

He moved past the dark shops on the street’s left side, limping now, glancing nervously behind him to see if he was being followed. The noise of horseshoes on paving stones made him flinch. A vehicle was approaching. Was it a police wagon? Would Brookline, who had investigated his life so obsessively, guess that he would come to the one place in London with which he was more familiar than any other? But even Brookline couldn’t know precisely where he would hide on Oxford Street.

The clomp of the horse’s hooves was louder, closer.

De Quincey came to an alley, moved painfully along it, descended grimy steps, crawled through a hole in a fence, and descended again, this time into a tunnel, which led to another tunnel. There, in the shadows, bodies lay on granite, to all appearances dead but actually in an exhausted sleep made deeper by alcohol.

At the limit of his resources, De Quincey concealed his flask beneath a broken crate. Then he stepped to the middle of the bodies and lay among them.

No matter how cold the stones felt, the enclosure of the tunnel trapped a portion of the heat from the sleeping bodies.

Hiding among the beggars of Oxford Street, the Opium-Eater tried to doze as an angry chamber of his mind brooded.


WITH NO OTHER DESTINATION that they could think of at that early hour, Ryan, Becker, and Emily made their way to Scotland Yard. With luck, word would not have reached there yet that Ryan and Becker had been dismissed. They needed a place to rest while they decided on a strategy.

What would normally have been a twenty-minute walk took them an hour in the fog, but Emily didn’t care about that or the numbing cold. What mattered was her father.

The sun was rising as they reached a building marked METROPOLITAN POLICE.

The warmth inside was welcome. Numerous doorways flanked a corridor. A stairway led to an upper level. Everything was quiet.

Ryan glanced at an elderly woman asleep on a bench, then stepped into an office on the right, where the constable on duty looked up from a desk.

Had the man been told that they’d been dismissed?

“Hello there, Inspector Ryan. Haven’t seen you in a couple of days.”

Ryan relaxed somewhat. “I’ve been busy.”

“And likely to get busier.”

“I’m afraid you’re right. This is Constable Becker.”

“Sure, we’ve met. What happened to your coat, Becker?”

“Tangled with somebody.”

“That’s been happening a lot lately.”

“And this is a witness we need to question,” Ryan said, indicating Emily. “Can we use a room down the hall?”

“And get some hot tea?” Becker looked at Emily’s frost-reddened cheeks.

“It’s next to the stove.”

They passed the old woman on the bench and entered a room that had three unoccupied desks near a stove. Emily took off her gloves and rubbed her hands together over the heat.

Ryan picked up a teapot and poured steaming liquid into three cups. “Enjoy it while you can. There’s no telling when we’ll be booted out of here.”

A voice interrupted them.

“Ryan.”

They turned.

The constable was in the doorway.

Has he learned that we’re no longer policemen?

“A woman’s been waiting for you,” the man said.

“The one asleep on the bench?”

“Not anymore. When she heard you come in, she woke up. I told her you’re the man she’s wanting to see. Can you talk to her? She’s been here since yesterday evening.”

The woman stood behind him. Awake, she looked older than when they’d first seen her. She turned her face, as if hiding something. The portion of her face that showed was lined with wrinkles, tight like a net. She clutched her ragged coat as if she would never be able to get warm.

“It’s something about the first Ratcliffe Highway murders,” the constable explained. “I told her nobody cares about ancient history. It’s the murders Saturday and last night that we want to solve. But she insists the first ones have something to do with the recent ones. She says she’s ashamed about something. It wouldn’t hurt to listen to her. Even if it’s nothing, at least then she’ll go home.”

“Fine,” Ryan said. “Let her in.”

The constable motioned for the woman to enter the office.

She looked so tired and pathetic that Emily helped her to a chair at a desk. “Would you like some tea?”

“I don’t have any money.”

“This won’t cost you anything,” Emily assured her.

“Thank you. I’m thirsty.”

“You have information about the murders?” Becker asked.

The woman nodded. “Forty-three years ago.”

“What about the recent ones?”

The woman stared mournfully at steam rising from the cup Emily gave her. Although she had said that she was thirsty, she didn’t drink. Emily was able to see that the woman’s left cheek had a burn scar.

“What’s your name?” Ryan asked.

“Margaret.”

“Your last name?”

“Jewell.”

Emily repeated the name so forcefully—“Margaret Jewell?”—that Becker and Ryan looked at her in surprise.

“What is it?” Ryan asked.

“From the Marr killings?” Emily asked the woman.

“Yes.” Margaret’s voice was edged with sorrow.

“What’s going on?” Becker asked.

“Father wrote about this woman. She’s the servant Timothy Marr sent to buy oysters just before the killings.”

Ryan walked closer. “Margaret?”

The woman looked up at him.

“Tell us why you came here.”

“Saturday midnight. Forty-three years ago.”

“Yes, forty-three years ago.” Ryan knelt before her, putting his face level with hers.

“Mr. Marr always kept his shop open until eleven on Saturday.” Margaret looked at the teacup in her hands but didn’t raise it to her lips. “That night… when Mr. Marr was ready to close, he told James—”

“James?” Becker asked.

“The shop boy. He told James to help him put up the shutters. He told me to go out and pay a bill at the baker’s and then buy oysters for a late supper.”

Margaret hesitated painfully.

“I always felt nervous being on the street that late, but Mr. Marr got angry over the slightest things, and I didn’t dare refuse his orders without being dismissed. So in the dark I hurried to the oyster shop, but it was closed. Then I hurried to the baker’s shop, and it was closed. I kept thinking how angry Mr. Marr was going to be. When I finally returned, I found the door locked. That proved to me how angry Mr. Marr was for me taking so long. But as much as I was afraid of him, I was more afraid of being robbed or worse on the dark street, so I knocked on the door. When that didn’t bring him, I pounded. Soon I kicked it, shouting, ‘Mr. Marr, let me in!’

“I put my ear against the door and heard footsteps. They stopped on the other side. Someone breathed.

“ ‘Mr. Marr, I’m scared out here!’ I shouted. But the door didn’t open. Instead the footsteps went away, and suddenly I had a feeling like a black cat had walked in front of me. It made me more afraid of what might be in the house than anybody on the street robbing me. I can’t tell you how relieved I felt to see the lantern of a night watchman. He asked me what the trouble was, and then he pounded on the door, shouting Mr. Marr’s name. The noise disturbed a neighbor, who crawled over the fence in back, saw the door was open, and went in to find…”

The pause lengthened.

“Drink your tea,” Emily encouraged her.

“The neighbor unlocked the front door. I never saw a man look more pale. By then a crowd was behind me. Everybody rushed in, taking me with them. I saw Mrs. Marr on the floor. Farther away, I saw James, the shop boy. Something wet dropped on me. I looked up and saw blood on the ceiling.” Margaret shuddered. “Then the crowd pushed me past the entrance to the back of the counter, and that’s where I saw Mr. Marr on the floor. Blood was on the shelves. The baby, I kept thinking. The Marrs had a three-month-old son. I prayed that he was all right, but then someone found the baby in a back room. The cradle was broken into pieces. The child’s throat was…”

Margaret’s hands shook, spilling tea.

Emily took the cup from her.

“That’s something nobody’s been able to understand,” Becker said, “why the murderer killed the baby. Three adults would have been a threat to someone who tried to rob the shop. But a baby… from what I was told, the killer didn’t steal anything.”

“That wasn’t why he did it.”

“Excuse me?”

“He wasn’t there to steal.”

“You sound as if you know.”

Margaret nodded.

“What did he want? Why did he kill everyone? You told the constable at the desk that this had something to do with the recent killings,” Ryan said.

Margaret nodded again, her face revealing her torment.

“Tell us, Margaret.”

“Not to a man.” Margaret turned toward Emily, her left cheek revealing her scar. “Maybe I can tell a woman.”

“I believe I would understand,” Emily assured her.

“So ashamed.”

“If you finally talk about it, maybe you’ll feel…”

“Better?” Margaret exhaled deeply, painfully. “I’ll never feel better.”

“We’ll leave the two of you alone,” Becker said.

He and Ryan stepped from the room, closing the door.

Emily pulled a chair next to Margaret. She put her hands on each side of Margaret’s wrinkled face. She kissed Margaret’s troubled forehead.

“My father says there is no such thing as forgetting,” Emily said.

Margaret wiped at her eyes. “Your father is right.”

“And yet my father writes compulsively about his memories, as if by putting them into words, he can dull them, no matter how sharply painful they are. Margaret, free yourself.”

Even tears couldn’t hold back Margaret’s words.


A HALF HOUR LATER, Emily kissed Margaret’s brow again. Shaken by what she had heard, she walked to the door and opened it.

Ryan and Becker waited on the bench in the corridor. The building was now full of sounds as constables arrived, the terrors of the previous night showing on their faces.

Emily recalled something her father had written. The horrors that madden the grief that gnaws at the heart.

Ryan and Becker stood.

“Emily, your father escaped,” Ryan said.

“Escaped?”

“The news reached Scotland Yard while you were talking to Margaret. Your father jumped from Brookline’s coach. Everyone’s been ordered to search for him.”

After what Emily had learned from Margaret, this further revelation made her reach for the wall to steady herself.

“We need to find him,” Becker said. “Do you have any idea where your father might have gone?”

Emily continued to feel off-balance.

“Last night, when he was being taken away, your father shouted, ‘You know where I’ll be. Where I listened to the music.’ Do you know what he meant?” Ryan asked.

“No.”

“A concert hall perhaps.”

“Father never mentioned one.” Emily drew a breath, trying to clear her thoughts. “Thank heaven he escaped.”

Where he listened to the music? Something stirred in a chamber of her memory, but although she did her best to bring it forward, it wouldn’t come.

“Did Margaret tell you anything?”

“A great deal. Is there a church in the area?”

“She needs a church?”

“Very much so.”

“Ten minutes away,” Ryan said. “But it’s a lot bigger than a church.”


AN EARLY-MORNING SERVICE WAS IN PROGRESS. Under other circumstances, Emily would have marveled at the soaring vastness of Westminster Abbey, its columns and stained-glass windows, but all she could think about was that her father had escaped and what she’d learned from Margaret.

She placed Margaret in a pew. Tears continued to trickle down the old woman’s face, wetting the scar on her left cheek as she knelt and prayed.

A surprising number of people were at the service, fear having brought them to beseech God for their safety amid the violence that gripped the city. Their slightest movement echoed in the cathedral’s immensity.

A reverend began a sermon, the theme of which Emily imagined was the same as many sermons forty-three years earlier.

“The Lord is our shepherd.” The reverend’s voice reverberated. “The devil, like a wolf attacking us, is the Lord’s enemy. If we have faith, the Lord will protect us.”

Emily whispered to Margaret, “You did the right thing by telling me. Listen to what the reverend says. The Lord will not abandon you.”

The sermon boomed in the massive structure as Emily led Ryan and Becker outside. Beyond the huge front doors, she barely noticed the abbey’s dramatic forecourt.

“Until now, I have never spoken this way in front of men who are not members of my family,” Emily said.

“That probably applies the other way around,” Ryan told her. “It may be that we’ve never heard a woman speak the way I have the feeling that you are about to.”

“Fair enough.” Nonetheless, Emily hesitated, as Margaret had hesitated. “If I rush on, perhaps I can force myself to say it. Margaret was with child and without a husband.”

The men weren’t able to speak for a moment.

“Now I understand why she didn’t want to talk about it,” Becker said.

“You don’t understand. Not yet. The father was John Williams.”

“John Williams?”

“Margaret’s parents died from typhoid fever when she was twelve. She worked in a number of factories and finally decided to look for a servant’s position. Marr already had a shop boy, but now he needed a woman to help his wife while she was in a family condition and later after the baby was born. The pay was ten pounds a year, meals and a cot included. Margaret was allowed to leave the shop one night a week, a half day on Sunday, and a full day every month. She was seventeen.

“Marr was a bitter, angry man, always finding fault and shouting. Worse, he always complained when Margaret wanted her weekly night off or when she took her half day on Sunday. As far as her full day once a month was concerned, Marr threatened to put her on the street if she was absent for the entire day.

“Margaret met John Williams at a street festival on one of the rare occasions she was off duty. A merchant sailor, Williams was ten years older than Margaret, good-looking, with yellowish curly hair and an entertaining manner. He took a liking to her.”

Emily paused, the shadow of Westminster Abbey weighing upon her.

“Then he took advantage of her,” Becker suggested, trying to ease Emily’s discomfort by saying it for her.

Emily nodded. “It appears that Williams wasn’t merely trifling with her affections, although the consequence was the same. They spent company with each other whenever she could get away. Sometimes Williams was gone on a merchant ship for months. Early in October of eighteen eleven, he returned from a voyage to India. They were desperate to see each other.”

Emily’s face was red with embarrassment. She rushed on. “That’s when the event occurred. Two and a half months later, Margaret finally had to admit that she was with child. She was sick every morning, and Marr recognized the symptom from when his wife had experienced similar sickness early in her condition. Marr challenged her with his suspicions. When Margaret admitted their truth, he was furious, saying that she’d signed a contract with him and he had relied on her to help his wife with the baby and now Margaret was unable to fulfill her obligations.

“ ‘I can work for many more months,’ Margaret tried to assure him, but Marr shouted that he wouldn’t tolerate a sinner in his home. He intended to look for another servant immediately, and as soon as he could find one, he would put her on the street with the rest of her kind.”

Emily hesitated, trying to find the words to continue.

“John Williams was known for his temper. When Margaret told him about Marr’s reaction, he became more furious than Marr was. She and Williams had planned to live together. Williams was scheduled to go on one more voyage to try to earn enough money for their lodging. The longer Marr kept her as a servant, the more time Williams and Margaret had to prepare. Now their prospects were ruined.”

“Williams went to see Marr?” Ryan asked.

“Yes. The intent was to persuade Marr to keep Margaret working until Williams returned from his voyage. But you can imagine how two angry men handled the conversation. After they nearly came to blows, Marr swore that the next day, Sunday, could definitely be Margaret’s half day off. The entire day, in fact. And every day thereafter because Marr didn’t want her to return.

“This happened on Saturday afternoon. In a back room, Margaret heard the argument, but she was too afraid to intervene. She heard Williams storm from the shop. Then Marr made her do heavy work for the rest of the day. The reason he sent Margaret out near midnight supposedly to pay the baker’s bill and buy oysters was to punish her because he knew how afraid Margaret was of the dark. She lied at the inquest.”

“What?”

“The reason she failed to pay the baker and buy the oysters was that she had a premonition and was trying to find John Williams.”

Numerous worshippers entered the church, the tension on their faces indicating that they were here to pray for their safety. The street in front of the abbey had little traffic. At eight in the morning, it should have been crammed as black-coated government clerks came to their offices, but many had apparently decided to remain home because of the crisis.

“The bloody government’s not doing enough,” a severe-looking man murmured to a companion as he entered the abbey.

Another man approached, telling a woman, “The peerage abandoned the city and fled to their country houses. They’re so rich they can hire protection. But they don’t dare rely on constables. A constable killed all those people last night.”

“And sailors,” the woman said. “Can’t trust anybody. A man broke into Coldbath Fields Prison last night, killed the governor, and released a thousand prisoners. Heaven help us, they’ll murder us in our sleep.”

“For sure, the government won’t help us.”

“Lord Palmerston has reason to be worried,” Becker observed as the man and woman took refuge in the abbey.

“Even more than he realizes,” Emily replied.

“What do you mean?”

“You’ll understand in a moment. Margaret couldn’t find Williams because he’d been watching the shop. When he saw Margaret leave, he went in to confront Marr again. He’d been drinking. He had a ship carpenter’s mallet that a sailor had left at his boardinghouse. Margaret believes that he only meant to frighten Marr.”

“But the argument got out of control,” Ryan concluded. “After Williams killed Marr, he needed to eliminate anybody who’d heard the argument and could identify him. But why the baby? The baby wasn’t a threat to him. Why did he kill the baby?”

“In his drunken rage,” Emily replied, “Williams decided that if Marr was determined to punish Margaret because of the baby she was going to have, then Williams was going to punish Marr’s baby.”

The abbey’s bells rang, making the air tremble.

“Three days ago, that thought would have been impossible for me to consider,” Ryan said.

“Margaret suspected that Williams was responsible,” Emily continued. “The next morning, after the authorities questioned her, she found Williams at his boardinghouse. She asked him, but he denied it. She asked him again, this time strongly, and again he denied it. But she could see it in his eyes. What was she going to do? She couldn’t tell everyone that she was with child and without a husband and that the man who fathered the child was the man who slaughtered the Marr family. Her future as anything except a woman of the streets would be ruined if she told the truth.”

“So she didn’t reveal her suspicions,” Ryan murmured.

“She says, if only she hadn’t met Williams, if only the event between them hadn’t occurred, if only she hadn’t been weak…”

“Yes, all those people would not have died.”

“All these years, guilt tortured her,” Emily told them.

“What about the Williamson killings twelve days later?” Becker asked. “I told Inspector Ryan how strange it was that a man named John Williams would kill a man named John Williamson.”

“According to Margaret, Williams became distracted and moody. He drank so much that she couldn’t bear to be with him. He sought her out, saying how much he loved her, but she sent him away. One of the taverns that he went to belonged to Williamson. People joked that the two might be related, that John Williams was young enough to be John Williamson’s son, and yet Williamson was old enough to be Williams’s father.”

“Makes me dizzy,” Ryan complained. “Now I’m thinking like your father. Williamson.”

“You understand?” Emily asked.

“Williamson. Son of Williams. The name kept torturing him. He’d killed Marr’s son. Margaret had left him. He might never see his own child, possibly a son. Guilt tore him apart until he lost his senses. I think your father would say that when Williams killed Williamson, it was like he was killing himself.

“A few days later, he did in fact do that, hanging himself in Coldbath Fields Prison,” Ryan concluded.

The abbey’s doors banged open, startling them. Organ music boomed outward as nervous worshippers emerged, not seeming to feel any safer.

Organ music. Emily suddenly realized where her father had gone. But there wasn’t time to explain.

“Margaret’s baby,” she said.

“What about it?”

“She delivered a son. She worked as a mudlark, scavenging coal along the river, but she managed to keep the child with her. When the boy was four, she met a former soldier. They lived together.”

“And?”

“The boy took the soldier’s name. Brookline.”

“What?”

“Margaret Jewell’s son… John Williams’s son… is Colonel Brookline.”


DE QUINCEY FELT HANDS TOUCHING HIM.

“Hey!”

Waking with a fright, he kicked with his sore legs.

Someone jumped back.

In the pale morning light, De Quincey’s eyes jerked open. A dozen specters formed a semicircle before him. Their clothes were ragged, their faces gaunt, their skin marked with sores.

“Just feelin’ for a razor,” the man who’d jumped back said.

“You think I’m the killer?” Ignoring the pain in his injured shoulder, De Quincey used both shackled hands to grip the grimy wall behind him and stood. “A slight man of my age, what chance would I have against men as tall as you? Why would I want to harm you?”

“For our valuables,” another man said with sarcasm.

“Maybe you were trying to rob me of my valuables,” De Quincey told them.

“Your chin scabbed, the blood on your coat, you don’t look like you have any more valuables than us. Why are you wearin’ handcuffs?”

“I had a disagreement with Lord Palmerston.”

“With Lord Cupid? Ha.”

“Truly, Lord Palmerston took a dislike to me and ordered me arrested.”

“If you don’t want to tell us the truth, that’s your business.” A man stepped forward threateningly. “But what are you doin’ here?”

“The same as you. I needed a place to rest.”

“I meant here. How’d you know to find here?”

“If Lord Cupid’s really after ’im, he’ll bring the police,” another man complained. “They’ll search until they find this place. Let’s throw the bugger out on the street.”

“Down this tunnel, can you still smell the bread from the bakeshop?” De Quincey asked.

“Bakeshop?”

“The aroma used to make my stomach rumble. But after a while, when my stomach was so small that I knew I couldn’t eat even if the bread were in my hands, I used to go down there and inhale the fragrance of the bread, imagining that it gave me nourishment.”

“How’d you know about that?”

“And there used to be a turn in the tunnel, with steps that led up to a courtyard. A water pump was there. I never trusted it, but it was the only water I could find, so I drank from it anyway.”

“How’d you know about that?”

“More than fifty years ago, this was my home for several weeks until I found shelter in an empty house close to here on Greek Street.”

De Quincey looked around, feeling the weight of a half century. “Sometimes I think the pain I experienced here was nothing compared to what I later encountered. I need some favors from you good gentlemen.”

“Gentlemen? Ha.”

“We don’t do favors for outsiders for nothin’,” someone else grumbled. “We need to eat, you know.”

“Believe me, I do know. Unfortunately, I find myself embarrassed by a lack of funds. I do have a means to pay you, though.”

“How?”

“With these handcuffs. In my right coat pocket, you’ll find a key to them.”

A ragged man reached into De Quincey’s pocket and pulled out the key, jumping away. “Now we have you. Without us, you can’t get the cuffs off.”

“I couldn’t get them off anyway. The keyhole is on the outside of the cuffs, where I am unable to reach. Please unencumber me.”

“The little guy talks funny,” one man said.

“Let’s keep him a prisoner,” somebody suggested. “He can make us laugh by talkin’.”

“Yeah. Like a toy we pull out of a box.”

“Remove the handcuffs and keep them,” De Quincey advised. “They are yours to sell. Police shackles and a key that opens them ought to be worth a couple of pounds to parties at odds with the police.”

“I never thought about that.”

“But do it quickly. I need to be on my way.”

The men hesitated.

“A couple of pounds,” one of them murmured. “Do it.”

Soon De Quincey’s wrists were free of the weight of the shackles. He rubbed the irritated, swollen skin, encouraging blood to flow.

“I have another means of paying you,” he told the men.

“Now what’s he talkin’ about?”

“My clothes.”

“Huh?”

“I need someone my size with whom to change garments.”

“You want to trade your clothes with what we wear?”

“Someone my size,” De Quincey emphasized. “The clothes I receive need to appear as if they are indeed mine.”

“The only one of us your size is Joey over here. How old are you, Joey? Fifteen?”

A thin boy emerged from the group. His clothes were as ragged as the others, his face scarred by smallpox. “Think so.”

“Would you like my better clothes?” De Quincey offered.

“They’re too nice. How can I beg in ’em? I’ll look like I don’t need the pence.”

“But you’ll be warmer. And I have no doubt that the clothes I give you will become ragged soon enough.”

In truth, De Quincey’s pant cuffs were slightly frayed. The elbows on his coat looked thin. But in his constant condition of debt, they were the best he could afford.

“And your hat, please, Joey. You have a full head of hair to keep you warm.”

Five minutes later, Joey was pulling his new coat over his new pants and looking proud. “I could go to a royal ball.”

“The beggar’s ball is more like it,” someone chortled.

Meanwhile, De Quincey pulled on the rags that the boy had given him. He tugged the shapeless hat down over his forehead.

“Where do you expect to go like that?” a man wondered in amazement. “We’re tryin’ to get out of rags, and you want to get in ’em.”

“Going somewhere is exactly why I need my next favor, good gentlemen.”

“What? Another favor?”

“Which one of you pretends not to have legs?”

They glanced at each other, self-conscious.

“How’d you know about…”

“I am aware of all the dodges. One of you juggles. One of you does acrobatic tricks, presumably Joey, because he’s the youngest and most nimble.”

Joey couldn’t resist showing off. He performed several somersaults and a flip before walking on his hands.

The other beggars clapped.

“Bravo,” De Quincey said. “As for the rest of you, one of you sings. One of you pretends to be blind. One of you sweeps dirt from the street when a gentleman crosses with a lady. One of you pleads that you need the price of a train ticket to go home to see your dying mother. And one of you pretends not to have legs. I have an excellent offer for the man who engages in that trade.”

“What are you offerin’?”

A man limped forward. Years of pinning his legs under him had damaged his knees.

“May I see your platform?” De Quincey asked.

The man looked puzzled for a moment. “Is that what you call it?”

“Please bring it forward.”

The man limped beyond his companions and returned with a square wooden board that had old carpet attached to the top and rollers on the bottom. The carpet was thick, hollowed in the middle, so that the man could hide his legs under him, creating the appearance that his legs had been cut off at the knees.

“Never seen better,” De Quincey said. “Dear man, please step down the tunnel with me a short distance. I need to speak confidentially to you.”

While the others watched with suspicion, De Quincey led the man away. The beggar winced with each step he took.

“Good fellow, I need to borrow your platform.”

“How am I goin’ to beg without it?”

“Would I be wrong,” De Quincey asked, “in assuming that on occasion you enjoy a touch of alcohol?”

“It is one of my few pleasures.”

“And would I be wrong in assuming that you also enjoy opium in your alcohol?”

“You’re talkin’ about laudanum?”

“Exactly, my good man. To soothe one’s bones from the chill air. Are you familiar with it?”

“My knees ache all the time without it. The pain keeps me from sleepin’ without it.”

“Would you be willing to exchange your excellent platform for a supply of it?”

“How’s that goin’ to happen?”

“I need to be assured that you are familiar with laudanum’s potency. I want you to be warm in the cold and able to sleep without not waking up.”

“You’re talkin’ about dyin’ from it?”

“That has been known to happen to inexperienced partakers.”

“I’ve been swallowin’ laudanum since I was first on the streets. So have they.” The man indicated the group farther along the tunnel.

“Perhaps you’d like to share with them. That way, no one consumes too much.”

“Share? How’s this supposed to happen?”

“Do we have an agreement?”

“Yes, yes, yes. Now where’s the laudanum?”

De Quincey led the limping man back to the broken crate. He reached under it and produced the flask.

“What’s that?” one of the beggars yelled.

“Another payment for your favors.” As much as De Quincey craved a swallow, he handed the flask to the man with the limp. It was one of the most difficult things he had ever been forced to do: giving away laudanum. “When the flask is empty, you can sell it.”

The man with the limp took the first sip. Each of them shared.

“I wonder if it would be too bold to request yet one more favor,” De Quincey ventured.

“For a little bloke, you sure have nerve.”

“Fifty years ago, during my time on these streets, it was the custom that our group had territory within which we worked. I could beg from the Hyde Park end of Oxford Street to the corner of Bond Street. South to Grosvenor and north to Wigmore. But if I crossed from that area, I transgressed on another group’s territory, and the consequences could be severe.”

“It’s the same now,” a beggar agreed. “We have our spots. We don’t compete. Live and let live.”

“You would do me an important service. In fact, you would do London and England itself a service if you communicated with the neighboring groups and requested that they in turn communicate with their neighboring groups.”

“What for?”

“I’m looking for a man. He’s a retired military officer. He served twenty years in India and was celebrated for his combat achievements. He is in his early forties, unusually tall, with attractive features that are nonetheless unsettling because they do not reveal his thoughts or emotions. He is clean-shaven. He has light brown, curly hair. He walks with an extreme military bearing. He dresses with the elegance suitable to the man who controls security for the home secretary.”

“Lord Palmerston? You do know Lord Cupid?”

“I met Lord Palmerston only once. That was last night, and the experience was disagreeable. The man I wish to know about is named Colonel Brookline.”

“What do you want to know?”

“The location of Brookline’s lodging, his whereabouts, his habits, anything that anyone can learn.”

“To help England, you said? England ain’t helped us much lately. What do we get for doing this?”

“The relief of knowing that he won’t murder you in your sleep.”

“Well and good, but I’m just as afraid of dyin’ from starvation.”

“I guarantee that everyone who helps me find Colonel Brookline will receive a plentiful supply of food.”

“Without a pence in your pocket, I don’t see how you can guarantee a blasted thing,” a man complained.

“Lord Palmerston will arrange for the food.”

“The man who wants you in jail? You expect us to believe that?”

“I promise that Lord Palmerston will overflow with generosity when shown the evil that hides next to him. Joey, since you now wear presentable clothes, you’re the best person to sit on a bench in Green Park and watch Lord Palmerston’s mansion on Piccadilly. Colonel Brookline will arrive there today. Probably several times. The description I gave you and the stern look in Brookline’s eyes are unmistakable. Remember he is tall, with an extreme military bearing. He does not have facial hair, unlike the mutton-chopped politicians and bureaucrats who visit Lord Palmerston. His hair is curly.”

“And what am I supposed to do if I see him?”

“Follow him. Then instruct a fellow knight of the street to come here and report to this gentleman who offered me the use of his platform.”

“My word, you’re makin’ us into detectives,” a beggar said with a toothless grin.

“Heroes,” De Quincey corrected him.


ON A USUAL TUESDAY MORNING, Oxford Street would have been crammed with vehicles and pedestrians as well as various mongers with their coffee, pastry, and oyster carts. But on this particular Tuesday, traffic was half of what it normally would have been as the terror of years earlier was repeated.

The city’s five dozen newspapers had printed extra copies of special editions but couldn’t keep up with the demand. Rumors spread rapidly that more murders had been committed than were reported in the newspapers, some of them in neighborhoods of distinction. It was widely assumed that, after the governor of Coldbath Fields Prison had been killed, all the criminals had escaped with the purpose of violating London. The roads from the city were packed with coaches as the wealthy departed to their country estates. The railroad stations were crammed with anyone who could afford a ticket.

Thus any observers studying Oxford Street in the hope of seeing a short, thin man of sixty-nine years had reason to believe that the absence of the street’s normal chaos would make him more noticeable.

That there would be observers, De Quincey had no doubt. The previous night, he had told Emily, in Brookline’s presence, that she would find him where he listened to the music. Brookline couldn’t know what that meant. But perhaps Emily wouldn’t know, either. De Quincey could only pray that she would remember when he had taken her to Oxford Street on Sunday and shown her the corner where he and Ann had listened to the barrel organ. But meanwhile Colonel Brookline would send men to every place in London where he and Emily were likely to reunite. Oxford Street—so important in De Quincey’s past—would be at the top of the list.

What Brookline couldn’t be aware of—what no one who hadn’t nearly starved to death there could be aware of—was its underside, the secret world that only beggars inhabited.

Anyone watching now saw those beggars emerge from their crannies. They looked at the day’s dismal prospects and proceeded with more than usual discouragement toward their corners. One of them was legless. The poor ragged devil transported himself on a small platform that had rollers under it. His head bowed, he used sticks to push at the paving stones of the sidewalk and move the platform along rather than abrade his hands on the stones.


EACH SEAM IN THE STONES sent a jolt through De Quincey’s knees. The pressure of his legs pinned under him made him wish that he had sipped from the laudanum flask before giving it to his new companions in the tunnel. Soon his craving for opium would intensify his pain. Already his head throbbed while sweat slicked his forehead, sweat caused by withdrawal, not by the exertion of moving the platform.

Logic suggested that anyone watching the street would need to remain stationary, pretending to wait for someone or read a newspaper or look in a shopwindow. De Quincey noticed several possibilities, but as he wheeled past one of them, he attracted only the slightest, dismissive attention. The lowest members of society were beneath anyone’s interest.

At another alley, De Quincey rolled the platform into shadows. Only when he was confident of not being observed did he dismount and carry the platform down steps. Making his way through deeper shadows, he reached another sequence of tunnels. Past a gap in a rusted barrier, he navigated what became a maze until he climbed steps and faced a cluster of shacks in a dismal courtyard.

A haggard woman peered out. “A customer this early, and he don’t look like he has two pence to rub together.”

Another haggard woman peered out. “Tell ’im we don’t do charities for beggars.”

“Good morning, dear ladies,” De Quincey announced. He tipped his shapeless cap. His smile brought pain to the scab on his chin. “How is the linen-lifting tribe this morning?”

“Save your foolishness. A shilling, or no Bob-in-the-Betty-box for you.”

“You misjudge my intentions, dear ladies.” De Quincey put his cap back on. “I’m here to pay a social visit. Would Doris and Melinda reside here?”

“Doris and Melinda? How do you know…?”

“Some gracious paladins of the streets suggested that I’d find them here.”

“The way you talk. I heard your voice before.”

“Indeed you did, my dear lady. At Vauxhall Gardens, yesterday morning.” De Quincey concealed his distress at the memory. “You all identified yourselves as Ann. My clothes were more presentable then.”

“Gorblimey, it’s the little man! What happened to you?”

“My fortunes have fallen since I encountered the same man who hired you to go to Vauxhall Gardens. Doris, I believe that is you.”

“The bugger promised each of us another sovereign. Swore he’d give ’em to us last night. Didn’t show up. We passed up customers while we waited.”

“I can arrange for you to receive the sovereigns he didn’t pay you.”

“And how would that happen?”

“Melinda, is that you? I recognize your charming voice.”

Melinda batted her eyelashes.

The other women laughed.

“Lord Palmerston himself will pay you the sovereigns,” De Quincey said.

“And you’d be pals with Lord Cupid, would you?”

“We are definitely acquainted. If you kind ladies can spare me a few moments, I hope I can persuade you to become my spies.”