Murder as a Fine Art

15

An Effigy in Wax



MADAME TUSSAUD PREFERRED CORPSES. Living models, especially famous ones like Voltaire, Rousseau, and Benjamin Franklin, enjoyed the idea that their likenesses would achieve immortality, but when it came to practicalities, they complained about staying immobile for a considerable time while Tussaud made the casts from which she created her eerie wax impressions.

Corpses, on the other hand, displayed no impatience. During the French Revolution, Tussaud frequented morgues and looked for the separated heads of well-known victims of the Terror, making death masks of them. So skilled was she that revolutionaries compelled her to keep making wax models of prominent guillotine victims. Seeking a less dangerous environment, she toured Europe with her macabre collection and eventually settled in London, where she established her wax museum.

Although customers claimed that they went to Madame Tussaud’s to see the dignified portrayals of notable personages such as Sir Walter Scott, the probability was that what they really wanted to see was the museum’s Chamber of Horrors. For an extra sixpence, they could gaze at what appeared to be the bloodied heads of Robespierre, King Louis XVI, and Marie Antoinette. Visitors could decide if she was as beautiful as rumor suggested. They could also view wax effigies of notorious criminals depicted in the midst of their gruesome crimes.

The location of the wax museum was only a half mile north of Oxford Street, on the west side of Baker Street. There, a hansom cab stopped, and a clean-shaven man with curly hair, a stern look, and an extreme military bearing walked into the museum. Earlier, he had sent an operative to pay for the museum to be closed. When he showed a special ticket that his operative had purchased for him, an employee allowed him to enter.

Brookline did not linger to appreciate the eerily lifelike wax models of various admirable personages, such as Lord Nelson. Instead he verified that no one else was in the building and then made his way toward the rear of the museum, where the Chamber of Horrors was located. Rumors had reached him about a new exhibit that had opened after the murders on Saturday night—or rather had reopened, for this exhibit had been one of Madame Tussaud’s most popular attractions when she toured through England many years earlier.

Brookline had seen it when he was young, before he joined the military. In fact, he had gone back to see it many times, although he had never been able to adjust to it any more than he had been able to restrain himself from returning to it again and again.

A plaque said:


JOHN WILLIAMS IN THE MIDST OF HIS FIRST

RATCLIFFE HIGHWAY MURDERS

(SATURDAY, 7 DECEMBER 1811)

“THE SUBLIMEST IN THEIR EXCELLENCE THAT

EVER WERE COMMITTED.”

OPIUM-EATER THOMAS DE QUINCEY,

“ON MURDER CONSIDERED AS ONE OF THE

FINE ARTS”


Brookline stared at the scene, which was so vividly three-dimensional that, if not for a rope barrier, he could have walked within it. Before him was an inferior shop. Lanterns cast shadows, creating an ominous atmosphere. A woman lay on the floor, her head bashed in. A young man sprawled farther away, his head bashed in as well. Blood was everywhere. A savage man was suspended in the motion of swinging a ship carpenter’s mallet at someone slumped over a counter, behind which blood-spattered linen and socks were stacked on shelves.

Brookline knew that the scene wasn’t portrayed correctly. Forty-three years earlier, the victim, Timothy Marr, had collapsed behind the counter. Similarly, a shattered cradle was visible beyond the dead shop assistant, a hint of a baby’s bloodied head protruding from beneath a blanket. But in reality, the cradle and the baby could not have been visible from the shop. That particular murder had occurred in a back room.

Those inaccuracies weren’t important, however. What mattered was the face of the murderer, who was viewed in profile as though he had turned for a satisfied look at his victims on the floor before he resumed his raging assault on Timothy Marr.

Madame Tussaud had not been able to see John Williams’s corpse after he used a handkerchief to hang himself in Coldbath Fields Prison. Instead she had relied on a sketch that an artist had made of Williams’s left profile shortly after he was taken down.

The sketch was not part of Tussaud’s exhibit, but Brookline didn’t need to have it there in order to know that the profile of the wax model before him was faithful to the artist’s rendering.

Brookline knew this because he had found a copy of the sketch when he was young. He had kept it in a pocket, eventually wearing it out and needing to acquire another. He had studied it relentlessly, determined to learn its secrets. What kind of man had John Williams been?

What kind of man had his father been?

His mother, a coal scavenger along the river, had carried him on her back while she worked. They had lived in a shack near the docks, along with three other desperate women. As he grew older, he couldn’t help noticing that she often wept in the middle of the night, concealing an anguish that she refused to explain, no matter how often he asked her what was the matter.

He never learned how her path crossed that of a retired army sergeant, Samuel Brookline, or how the three of them came to live in a somewhat better shack near the docks. The former soldier, a veteran of the Battle of Waterloo, worked for a dustman, collecting coal ashes in a donkey cart, taking them to a warehouse near the docks. After the ashes were sifted in case they contained saleable objects that had mistakenly been discarded, they were sold to factories that made fertilizer or bricks.

Eventually the former soldier found a job for him with the dustman, and soon everyone thought of him as Brookline’s son, just as his mother referred to herself as Mrs. Brookline even though they weren’t married. But she always seemed sorrowful, and she continued weeping in the middle of the night.

One day he learned why. He and his mother were walking near the docks when a woman asked, “Margaret, good heavens, is that you?”

His mother kept walking, urging him along.

“Margaret? It is you. Margaret Jewell.”

While his mother’s first name was Margaret, she had always told him that her last name was Brody before she met the former soldier and took his name.

The woman caught up to his mother and asked, “What’s wrong? Margaret, don’t you recognize me? I’m Nancy. I used to work in the shop three doors down from Marr.”

“Maybe I look like someone else,” his mother said brusquely. “I don’t know who Marr was. I’m sure I never saw you before.”

“The Ratcliffe Highway murders. I would’ve sworn. You’re really not Margaret? Sorry. I must’ve made a mistake. Really, I would’ve sworn.”

The woman left them. The boy and his mother continued along the street.

“The Ratcliffe Highway murders?” the boy asked.

“Nothing to concern you,” his mother told him.

But there was something in her eyes, a haunted look that made him resolve to learn what the Ratcliffe Highway murders were and who Margaret Jewell was.

One evening, he took a detour when he returned from the dustman’s warehouse. He went to Ratcliffe Highway, asked about the murders, and was shocked to learn the details. Although they were eleven years in the past, their terror remained vivid to those who had lived in the neighborhood.

“Mother,” he asked one evening when he found her alone in the shack, weeping, “did that woman the other day truly recognize you? Are you Margaret Jewell?”

His mother looked frightened then, as if he had accused her instead of asked her.

“Did you work for the Marr family that was murdered?”

Her look of fright changed to one of horror.

“Did you know John Williams? People say that they knew him in the neighborhood and that he sometimes came into the shop.”

His mother screamed.

The former soldier rushed into the shack but couldn’t calm her.

“What happened?”

“I just asked her about the Ratcliffe Highway murders,” the boy said.

“Why would you ask about them?”

“Someone mentioned them. I was curious.”

“I worked on the docks back then,” the former soldier told him. “You can’t imagine how terrified everybody felt. Twelve days later, they happened again.”

His mother put her hands to her face.

“What’s troubling you, Margaret?” the former soldier asked. “Did you know someone who was killed in those murders?”

A few days later, the boy made another detour after working at the dustman’s warehouse. He returned to Ratcliffe Highway, asked more questions, and was directed to the King’s Arms tavern, where the second murders had occurred.

A printed copy of a sketch was displayed inside one of the tavern’s windows for people going past to read. The sketch showed a man in left profile, with curly hair, a high forehead, a sharp nose, and a strong chin. A name was under the sketch, but the boy had not learned to read.

An announcement was next to the sketch, but the boy couldn’t read that, either.

“Sir,” he asked a man walking past, “would you please tell me what this says?”

The man had ordinary clothes and was not of sufficient standing to be called “sir,” but the boy had learned that pretending to be polite could produce rewards, such as a piece of bread, when he visited households to gather coal ashes. The boy also paid the man a compliment by assuming he could read.

“Of course, boy. The words under this sketch give the name John Williams. A vicious sort he was, as the words on this other piece of paper tell us.”

The man drew a finger along the window and the poster beyond it. “ ‘On this site, 19 December 1811, the infamous murderer John Williams slaughtered tavernkeeper John Williamson, his wife, and a servant girl.’ Poor form, using the murders to attract customers to the tavern.”

The boy stared at the sketch of John Williams. A lamppost was behind him. People moving along the street caused the shadows to change and made him aware of reflections on the window. In particular, he became aware of his reflection, of his face next to that of John Williams: high forehead, sharp nose, and strong chin.

“Better not stare at him too long,” the man advised. “With that curly hair of yours, you look a little like him. You don’t want to give yourself nightmares.”

“No, sir.”

“Can’t read, huh? Would you like to learn?”

The boy thought a moment and realized that, if he didn’t know how to read, he wouldn’t be able to learn more about John Williams and the Ratcliffe Highway murders.

“No, sir, I can’t read. Yes, sir, I’d like to learn.”

“Good lad. Do you know where St. Nicholas church is? It’s down by the docks. St. Nicholas is the patron saint of sailors and merchants.”

“The church is near the warehouse where I work for dustman Kendrick.”

“A dustman, are you? Want to make something better of yourself?”

“Yes, sir.”

“On Sunday morning, come to the nine o’clock service. I help the minister. After the service, I teach people how to read the Bible. I know that’s your day of rest from being a dustman, but I always give a cookie to any children who come to learn to read the holy word.”

The boy’s stomach rumbled at the thought of the cookie. “Thank you, sir.”

“With those good manners, you’ll go far, boy. Now do what I say and stop looking at that sketch before it gives you nightmares.”

To the puzzlement of his mother and the former soldier, the boy went to church every Sunday, sat through the service, attended his reading lesson, and received a cookie. He became the best student the church had ever seen. Within a year, he could read any Bible passage his teacher presented to him.

He went to every newspaper and learned that they had archives in which reports about John Williams and the Ratcliffe Highway murders were stored. He read all of them until he knew them by memory.

He found a copy of a sketch of Williams and carried it in a pocket, studying it when no one saw him.

“Mother, who was my father?” the boy asked.

“He died a long time ago.”

“But who was he? Tell me about him.”

“It hurts me to think about him.”

“How did he die? Is that why you sob at night?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“What was his name?”

His mother turned away.

After work, the boy kept returning to Ratcliffe Highway. He frequently entered the building where Marr had been killed. It was still a linen shop, its layout exactly as described in the newspaper accounts. The boy imagined where the bodies had lain, where the blood had sprayed.

He returned to the King’s Arms tavern, this time going inside, again imagining where the bodies and the gore had been.

He pretended that he walked next to the cart that had transported his father’s body past twenty thousand people to the crossroads of Cannon and Cable streets, where his father had been buried with a stake through his heart. The boy positioned himself in the middle of the crossroads. As traffic rattled past and drivers shouted for him to get out of the way, he wondered if he stood on top of his father’s bones.

He was under a dock when the former soldier discovered him.

“Stop!”

The boy spun. He had muzzled a cat so that it couldn’t wail. Its legs were tied.

“Why would you do that?” the former soldier demanded.

The man grabbed the knife from the boy’s hand, freed the cat’s muzzle, and released the cords around the cat’s legs. Despite its injuries, the cat managed to run away.

One night, the boy showed the sketch of John Williams to his mother.

“Is this my father?”

She recoiled from the image.

“John Williams. He’s my father, right?”

She stared at him in horror.

“Why did my father kill all those people?”

She wailed.

The former soldier hurried in, shouting at the boy, “What in blazes did you do now?”

“I asked her if John Williams was my father.”

Weeping, his mother sank to her knees.

The former soldier shoved the boy toward the door. “Leave her alone! Get out! I don’t want to see you here anymore!”

“You’re not my father! You can’t give me orders!”

With a gasp, the man staggered back. His breath driven from him, he peered down at the knife the boy had plunged into his stomach.

“Tell me, Mother. Am I John Williams’s son?”

“You’re a monster the same as your father was.”

The boy plunged the knife into her also, hurled the shack’s lantern onto the floor, and stepped outside.

Behind him, amid screams, flames crackled.


AS BROOKLINE STUDIED THE WAX display of his father swinging the mallet, footsteps brought his attention back to the present.

He turned toward three men who appeared at the doorway. Two of them came into the room while the other remained at the entrance, making sure that no one eavesdropped from the corridor.

Brookline stepped toward them, positioning himself in front of another exhibit, one that showed the body snatchers, Burke and Hare, frozen in the midst of removing a corpse from a coffin they had excavated. A plaque explained that Burke and Hare sold corpses to surgeons who had few legal ways to obtain bodies for medical research. To provide even better specimens, Burke and Hare took to murdering people.

By conducting the conversation before this exhibit, Brookline distracted his associates from noticing the resemblance between him and John Williams in the later tableau.

“Anthony was killed at the prison last night,” Brookline told them.

The three men adjusted to this information.

“The newspapers reported that someone was killed there in addition to the governor,” the man at the door finally said. “Not the Opium-Eater. Someone else. I hoped it wasn’t Anthony.”

“He was very convincing as a would-be assassin outside Lord Palmerston’s mansion,” Brookline told them. “The fireworks he set off during his escape through Green Park were memorable.”

“Godspeed to him,” the two men said.

“Godspeed,” Brookline echoed solemnly. “He was a man worthy to share combat with. Tonight we pay tribute to him.”


HERE,” MARGARET SAID.

“Stop,” Ryan told their driver.

The coach halted outside a bakeshop on a gloomy street near the Seven Dials rookery. While most of the area near the slum was unusually empty, the shop bustled with activity.

“What’s going on?” Becker asked with a frown.

He and Emily helped Margaret down and escorted her inside. Frantic people jostled past them, hurrying out, carrying bread.

“Figured you quit,” the owner grumbled behind the counter.

“I had personal business,” Margaret told him.

“Well, put on your apron and get back here with me. I can’t keep up with all the customers. They want to make sure they have food at home so they don’t need to go out tonight.”

“Margaret,” Emily whispered, “no one realizes this is where you work. You’ll be safe here. We’re going to need you. Don’t leave.”


WHERE YOUR FATHER listened to the music,” Ryan said as the coach took them along Oxford Street.

“It’s the only place I can think of,” Emily told him. “I kept imagining the violins and horns of a concert. But Father never mentioned any place where he listened to a concert. Then I heard the organ at Westminster Abbey, and I realized there were many kinds of music. Organ music. Father told me, when he was young, starving on this street, he and Ann used to come to a particular corner and listen to a man play a barrel organ.”

“Do you remember the corner your father showed you?” Becker asked.

“Up ahead on the right.”

“The street isn’t busy. If he’s here, we shouldn’t have trouble seeing him.”

“Nor would Brookline’s men.” Ryan pointed. “See there and over there? Those men appear to be reading a newspaper or looking into a shopwindow, but what they’re really doing is watching the street. Brilliant. They work for Lord Palmerston, but Brookline can order them to do whatever he wants.”

“This is the corner,” Emily said. “I don’t see Father anywhere.”

“Maybe he’s nearby.” Ryan called up to the driver, “Stop.”

He stepped from the coach and walked up the neighboring street, entering a shop as if on an errand.

“May I help you, sir?” a clerk asked, eager for business.

“Sorry. I made a mistake.”

Ryan left the shop, didn’t see De Quincey anywhere, and walked back toward the coach.

On the corner, a legless beggar banged a cup on a paving stone, pleading beneath his hat, “Kind sir, can you spare a pence?”

Ryan continued toward the coach.

“Inspector Ryan,” the beggar continued pleading, “don’t act surprised.”

At the mention of his name, Ryan felt his skin prickle.

De Quincey?

Ryan had met informants under unusual conditions often enough that he controlled his reaction and dropped a sixpence into the beggar’s cup.

“Meet me on the street behind this one,” De Quincey told him, pulling the silver coin from the cup. “At Cavendish Square.”

Ryan stepped into the coach and told the driver, “Go two blocks, then turn toward the next parallel street.”

“But what about Father?” Emily protested.

“Promise to look straight ahead.”

“Why?”

“Whatever you do, don’t look back.”

“Inspector, please explain yourself.”

“That was your father on the corner.”

“The beggar without legs?”


DE QUINCEY BANGED HIS CUP on the paving stones a few more times. Occasional pedestrians went past and ignored him. When he saw the coach turn a corner, he pushed his wheeled platform in the other direction, passing one of the men who watched the street. A short distance beyond the man, he veered into an alley, dismounted from the platform, and descended into the tunnels.

A few minutes later, he reached the shadowy area where he had made his bargain with the beggars.

A man limped in one direction and then another, working his legs.

“I been on that… what’d you call it?… platform for twenty years. Walkin’ feels strange. Hurts my legs more than scrunchin’ ’em under me.”

“I have no further use for it,” De Quincey said. “Here’s sixpence someone gave me. Many thanks, my good man. Did you receive any reports?”

“Someone thinks he noticed Brookline going in and out of Tussaud’s wax museum on Baker Street. Someone else thinks he knows where this bloke might live.”

“What’s the address?”

When De Quincey heard the street name, he gasped.


I DON’T SEE HIM,” Emily fretted. “We’ve been around Cavendish Square twice, but even when I pay attention to the beggars, I don’t see him. Oh,” she exclaimed.

From bushes in the square, a tiny ragged figure darted through an open metal gate, rushing toward the coach. Becker quickly opened the door, letting the beggar in.

“Hey!” the driver yelled.

“It’s all right,” Ryan assured him.

As Becker closed the door, De Quincey remained sprawled on the coach’s floor, keeping his head below the windows.

“Did anyone notice?”

“Not that I can see,” Becker answered.

“Father, you’re shaking,” Emily said.

“I need my medicine.”

“We can’t afford to buy laudanum for you,” Ryan objected.

“I didn’t ask you to do so.” De Quincey’s face glistened with sweat. “The man we’re hunting—I know who he is.”

“Yes. It’s Colonel Brookline,” Emily told him.

“What? You reached the same conclusion?” De Quincey asked, his amazement distracting him from his pain.

“Father, we met Margaret Jewell.”

For once in his life, De Quincey was speechless.

Emily quickly explained what they had learned. “Margaret was too ashamed to tell the truth back then. She met a former soldier and took his last name: Brookline.”

“Brookline is the son of John Williams?” De Quincey asked in greater astonishment.

“The boy became obsessed with his father. He haunted the Ratcliffe Highway murder scenes. During an argument about Williams, he stabbed the former soldier and Margaret, then set fire to the shack. The former soldier died, but Margaret managed to crawl away. She never saw the boy again.”

“All we have are suspicions, though,” De Quincey objected. “When I told Lord Palmerston that Brookline matched my description of the killer, the home secretary was outraged. Palmerston can’t possibly imagine that a war hero, an officer, and the most trusted man on his staff, the man he depends on for his life, is capable of these murders.”

“I know one man who might believe us,” Ryan said.

“Who?”

“Commissioner Mayne. The man who told Becker and me about the original murders.”

“Persuade him.”

“God help me, I can’t bear to see you shaking any longer,” Ryan said. “Driver, stop.”

Ryan hurried from the coach, entered a chemist’s shop, and returned with a bottle of ruby-colored liquid. “That cost me one of my last shillings. Use it wisely.”

De Quincey grabbed the bottle and seemed about to swallow its entire contents but suddenly stopped his trembling hand and took only a sip.

He closed his eyes and held his breath. Then he exhaled. When he looked at Ryan, his eyes were less anguished.

“Thank you.”

“For heaven’s sake, don’t tell anyone I did that.”

“You may count on my gratitude. Go to Commissioner Mayne. Meanwhile, Constable Becker, Emily, and I shall try to find Brookline.”

“We’re not police officers any longer. If Commissioner Mayne refuses to listen, we’re on our own. We can’t just wander through London, hoping to find Brookline.”

“We’re not on our own, and we won’t be wandering. My informants gave me crucial information. I have no doubt where Brookline lives.”


THE DESTINATION WAS so close that it surprised Emily and Becker. De Quincey instructed the driver to return to Oxford Street and proceed east, then south toward Soho Square.

“When I survived on the streets of London in my youth,” De Quincey explained, “Soho Square was one of my haunts. I don’t know what the Soho Bazaar over there is. That factory for Crosse and Blackwell pickles didn’t exist. But the stoop ahead looks exactly the same as when I collapsed next to Ann fifty-two years ago. I see it like yesterday. If Ann hadn’t acted quickly to revive me…” De Quincey repressed the memory. “And here, just below the square…”

“Greek Street,” Emily said, reading a sign on the side of a building. “You wrote about this area, Father.”

“In my Confessions. I’ve come far, and yet I haven’t come far at all. Please stop, my good man,” Father instructed the driver.

“Never had any fare treat me so polite,” the driver responded, bringing the coach to a halt.

“Number thirty-eight,” De Quincey told his companions. “In part, I survived the winter because a mysterious man took pity on me and allowed me to sleep in a house that he occupied from time to time. The house had no furniture. I slept on the bare floor with a bundle of law papers for a pillow and a foul-smelling horseman’s cloak as a blanket.”

Becker pointed. “Number thirty-eight is just down the street.”

“Does anyone appear to be watching for visitors?” De Quincey asked.

“Everything looks quiet.”

They opened a coach door and descended to the sidewalk. A cold breeze made Emily pull her coat tighter.

“This is the address from which one of my informants saw a man matching Brookline’s description depart,” De Quincey said. “Constable Becker, I trust that you still have your knife and your truncheon?”

“Close at hand.”

“Emily, stay behind us. If we encounter difficulties, run.”

“I won’t leave you, Father.”

“Both of you stay behind me,” Becker ordered.

All the houses on the street had three levels and adjoined one another. Number 38 drew attention because of its gloom.

“Fifty-two years ago, it wore the same unhappy countenance,” De Quincey said. “The only difference is the windows.”

“They all have bars,” Emily noted.

“The bars weren’t here when I knew the house. And the window on the second floor wasn’t that small. It has been altered to reduce its size.”

“Someone’s worried about intruders,” Becker said.

As in every other house, thick draperies prevented a view of the interior.

“Emily, while I go up the street and appear to beg, why don’t you and Constable Becker knock on the doors to either side of this residence? Tell whoever answers that your last name is Brookline and that you’re trying to find your brother, a former colonel who lives on this street but who won’t give you his number. Pretend that you and he had a long-ago disagreement, that you desire a reconciliation. Request information about his welfare. Constable Becker, it might be best to fold your arms over your chest to hide the slashes on your coat.”

De Quincey walked up the street and sat on a stoop, watching Emily and Becker speak to women who stepped outside each residence. Each of the women wore the apron and dust bonnet of a servant.

Even though De Quincey was seated, his need for laudanum forced him to keep moving his feet as if walking in place. He took a small sip from his bottle, holding his tremors at bay. The cold breeze bit his cheeks and contributed to his shaking.

A breeze tossed debris past him. He couldn’t help noticing the unusual lack of activity as numbers of people either stayed indoors or else left the city.

In five minutes, Emily and Becker walked up the street to join him.

“They were reluctant to answer the door,” Becker said. “If not for Emily’s presence, they probably would have suspected me of being the killer.”

“Brookline does live there,” Emily confirmed.

De Quincey felt his pulse quicken.

“He never gave his last name, but he matches Brookline’s description, and he insists on being called ‘colonel,’ ” Becker added.

“Of course,” De Quincey said. “Brookline’s mother was a riverbank scavenger. He rose far beyond that. He couldn’t restrain himself from demanding to be addressed by his hard-earned title.”

“A distant man, one of the servants calls him,” Emily continued. “There are signs that he’s planning to move.”

“Oh?”

“Yesterday and today, coaches took away objects wrapped in blankets.”

“Indeed?”

“But why would he live in a house where you found shelter more than a half century ago?” Becker wondered.

“I hope to discover that.”

De Quincey stared at his laudanum bottle, wishing he could finish it and an endless number of other bottles until he could sleep and pretend that this waking nightmare didn’t exist.

“Father, this boy appears to be wearing your clothes,” Emily said in confusion.

De Quincey looked where she pointed down the street.

He smiled with genuine enthusiasm. “Joey. How good to see you, my fine lad.”

As the boy hurried toward them, Emily and Becker tried not to frown at the smallpox scars on his face.

“Those are your clothes, Father.”

“I was told you wanted to see me,” Joey told De Quincey. “I came here as fast as I could.”

“Did you catch a glimpse of Colonel Brookline entering and leaving Lord Palmerston’s mansion?”

“An hour ago when the church bells rang. A dustboy is followin’ Brookline on a donkey’s cart.”

“And someone else is watching the mansion now that you’re here?”

“Yes. But I don’t think the guards’ll let ’im stay in the park too long in his rags.” Joey tugged at the coat De Quincey gave him. “I don’t feel proper in this.”

“Then you won’t be disappointed if I need to exchange garments with you again?”

“Disappointed? I can’t breathe in these.”

“Then by all means, we shall allow you to breathe.”

Five minutes later, they returned from a nearby alley, De Quincey wearing his clothes again while Joey looked comfortable in his rags.

“Constable Becker,” De Quincey said. “I don’t suppose you’ve ever—”

“Constable?” Joey asked in alarm.

“Not at the moment,” Becker assured him.

“A friend,” De Quincey said. “This man intends you no harm.”

“That’d be a new one, a peeler meanin’ me no harm.”

“Becker, have you ever acquired instruction in manipulating locks?”

“Picking them, you mean?” Becker asked.

“In a word.”

“I’m trained to keep locks secure, not force them.”

“I feared as much. Joey, in your endeavors, have you learned to manipulate locks?”

“With a peeler in front of me, you want me to admit I—?”

“Mr. Becker, turn away and put your hands over your ears,” Emily said, pointedly avoiding the word “constable.”

“Do what?”

“To make Joey feel at ease.”

Becker hesitated, then awkwardly did what Emily requested, putting his hands over his ears.

“Joey, have you ever picked a lock?” De Quincey requested.

“Once or twice,” the boy admitted. “Usin’ a nail.”

“Then go over to that door and knock on it. Can you read numbers?”

“I learned a little.”

“The number on the door is thirty-eight. Knock loudly. If people are in residence, I want them to hear you and open the door. The absence of chimney smoke on this cold day suggests that the house is unoccupied, but we need to be certain.”

“What if someone does answer?”

“Beg for bread. For a pence. Anything whoever answers can spare. And while you’re waiting, study the lock. Meanwhile we’ll step into this alley. If someone answers, I don’t wish us to be seen.”

While De Quincey, Becker, and Emily waited in the alley, the sound of Joey striking the knocker on the door reached them. The sound persisted.

Two minutes later, Joey rejoined them in the alley.

“Nobody answered.”

“And the lock?”

“Never saw a keyhole shaped that way. No way can I pick it with a nail. It don’t even have a doorknob.” Joey looked suspiciously at Becker.

“Then it appears I need to ask you to demonstrate your specialty,” De Quincey said.

“But I already tried to beg and nobody answered.”

“You normally beg in a particular way.”

Joey began to realize what De Quincey was talking about.

“That’s correct, Joey. You’re an acrobat.”


AS DE QUINCEY, Becker, and Emily watched in the alley, Joey gripped a drainage pipe and climbed. The pipe was made of cast iron and gave his fifteen-year-old hands ample room to grip it. Sometimes he found niches where mortar between bricks had fallen away, providing a place for him to wedge the toes of his worn-out shoes. Wanting to show off to the attractive young lady, he climbed as quickly as possible, although he had another reason for climbing quickly—the December cold made his hands ache against the metal. By the time he crawled over the eaves trough and positioned himself on a pitched tile roof, he needed to blow on his fingers to return sensation to them. If anyone noticed him on the roof, he wouldn’t arouse suspicion because it was common to see ragged boys on roofs, cleaning chimneys.

Soot made the tiles slippery. The breeze didn’t help. Twice Joey was forced to pause and steady his nervous breathing. But at last he reached the peak of the roof, from which another slope descended, one to the front, the other to the rear of the stretch of adjoining buildings. Straddling the peak, anchoring himself in the breeze, he briefly surveyed the magnificent expanse of London. Then he focused his concentration and squirmed past ten chimneys until he came to the part of the roof that De Quincey had told him about.

“I resided here many years ago,” the little man had said. “Searching for a blanket to give me warmth at night, I climbed the stairs to the top floor and found empty servants’ quarters. In a closet, a small staircase led to a space beneath the pitch of the roof, and that tiny space contained only a metal hatch that provided access to the chimney. The device allowed chimney sweeps to exit the chimney after their task was accomplished. It prevented them from needing to exit on the roof, from which a number of sweeps had fallen. I remember the hatch because it was unusual for the designer of a building to care about the welfare of sweeps. You are thin enough to descend into the chimney. The hatch will no doubt be secured on the other side. But Constable, I mean, Mr. Becker will loan you a knife. With its blade, you should be able to pry between the chimney bricks and the hatch, lifting the swinging bolt that secures it.”

“You want me to go into a bloomin’ chimney?”

“Only for what I judge to be eight feet. If you cannot open the hatch, you can easily return to the top of the chimney and make your way back across the roof.”

“Easily? And didn’t you say sweeps fell from this roof?”

“No doubt they lacked your acrobatic skills.”

“What will I get for this?”

“As I promised, food. Plenty of food. Lord Palmerston will be extremely grateful to you.”

“Well, Lord Cupid weren’t too grateful to you, judgin’ from the handcuffs I first saw you in.”

“Father, the boy deserves more than food,” the beautiful young woman objected.

Joey enjoyed looking at her. “Believe me, miss, I won’t turn my back on food.”

“Would you turn your back on going to school?”

“School?”

“And receiving your food there?”

“Such things are possible?”

“I will do everything in my power to make it so.”

“If this young lady promises something,” the man who claimed not to be a constable assured Joey, “I have yet to see her not gain her way.”

The woman looked at the tall man as if she wasn’t sure that what he said was a compliment.

Now Joey felt proud that he had been able to count the ten chimneys. He looked toward the opposite side of the street, where the tall man nodded, confirming that Joey was at the correct chimney. The man returned to the alley.

Joey stared down the chimney and verified that there wasn’t any smoke drifting up. He also determined that there weren’t any obstacles and that the chimney had a standard width, allowing access. The constable’s knife sheath was strapped to his left arm, where he could reach it as he descended. He took a deep breath, knowing from experience—he had been a chimney sweep four years earlier—that a cloud of soot would be dislodged when he squirmed into the chimney.

When Joey had been a sweep, his employer had forced him into the bottom of the chimney and then lit a fire under him, compelling him to climb as quickly as possible, thus allowing for the maximum number of chimneys to be cleaned each day. Joey had held a bag above him to collect the ashes and emerged from the top of the chimney with his skin and clothes totally black, coughing, weighed down by the heavy bag.

By comparison, this particular job wasn’t difficult, but Joey had made a fuss anyhow, trying to learn what else he could get for his efforts, although so far he hadn’t received anything. To this point, his only reward was that the little man amused him and the man’s daughter had a pleasant smile and treated him kindly.

The trick was to brace his knees against one side of the chimney while he shoved his back against the other side, easing down. Unfortunately, the rough texture of the bricks would create more holes in what he wore. Trying not to breathe, he slowly descended into the cramped darkness. Soot immediately floated around him, covering his hands and face. The sharp smell stung his nostrils. He paused, let the dust settle, inhaled shallowly, and descended farther. Sunlight no longer reached him.

Unable to see, he needed to feel along the bricks in search of the metal hatch. He squirmed down farther, pressing his back harder against the bricks, but he still didn’t feel the metal plate. Perhaps it had been removed in the many years since the little man had lived in this house.

Almost choking on the soot, Joey descended even farther. A portion of a brick broke away, plummeting and crashing. Joey grimaced and increased the pressure on his shoes to keep from falling. He grimaced for another reason also—if anyone was in the house, the noise would have warned that person about what he was doing.

Lungs aching, Joey slid lower. His heart raced when he touched the metal hatch. It didn’t budge. With care, he removed the knife from the sheath strapped to his arm. Feeling the edges of the hatch, he identified the side that had hinges and inserted the knife on the opposite side, between the hatch and the bricks.

The knife was too thick to pass through the narrow gap.

Light-headed, Joey scraped the knife against the bricks, working to widen the gap. Forced to breathe, he felt soot irritate his throat. All the chimney sweep boys he had worked with had died from lungs filled with soot. Blind, he subdued a gagging sensation and kept scraping at the bricks as more soot covered him.

Slowly the knife penetrated the gap. He shifted the blade up, felt resistance, raised the knife with greater effort, and felt the bolt swing away. His lungs were so starved that he didn’t care if someone waited for him on the other side. All he wanted was to breathe. Pushing the hatch open, he squirmed through the narrow space and sank onto the floor of a dark compartment so small that it barely had room for him.

In absolute blackness, Joey took a deep breath, then another, trying to calm the pounding of his heart.

His shoes dangled over an open space, which he discovered was a narrow stairway. Not daring to rest, he eased sightlessly down the stairs and came to a door that wouldn’t open. Desperate, he felt around the doorknob but didn’t feel a keyhole. Gently, he pushed at the door and heard a rattle on the other side, as if a board were positioned across the door, held in place by hooks.

Although this top part of the house was extremely cold, sweat trickled down the soot on Joey’s face. He felt around the door and touched splinters where nails had been driven into the wood on the opposite sides of the door, securing the hooks that held the board. Choosing the area near the doorknob, he dug the knife into the splinters. He twisted and gouged, prying away wood, exposing the nails. Working the knife’s tip harder, he created a deeper hole.

When he pushed at the door, it moved a little. He dug deeper with the knife, continuing to excavate the wood around the nails, and the next time he pushed, the door shifted enough for him to see a wedge of pale light. Now he pried at the wood with fierce resolve, and suddenly the board fell loudly.

Anyone in the house couldn’t have failed to hear him. Caring only about leaving the house, he shoved the door fully open and charged into a small, empty room that was illuminated by a tiny, barred, soot-covered window. Holding the knife, ready to slash with it, he yanked open another door, saw a dim hallway, and hurried downstairs. On the next level, the stairs continued, leading toward the front door.

Frantic, Joey raced down. Frowning when one of the stairs felt soft, he heard a sudden noise behind him. At the same time, something punched his back, taking his breath away. Overwhelmed by pain, he rose into the air and hurtled down the stairs.


DE QUINCEY CALCULATED THAT Joey would need fifteen minutes to cross the roof, squirm down the chimney, free the hatch, and hurry downstairs to the front door. Rather than attract attention by loitering on the street in front of the house, he remained in the alley with Emily and Becker. Since none of them could afford a pocket watch, he marked the time by walking in place, counting each relentless step as he relieved his nervousness and his need for laudanum.

Becker tried to make the time seem to pass less slowly by noting, “Not far from here is Broad Street, the center of the cholera epidemic three months ago. Ryan helped a local physician, Dr. Snow, make a map of where the victims lived. The map showed that the public water pump was at the center of the contamination. Turns out a cesspit is buried next to it.”

Preoccupied, Emily nodded, pretending to be fascinated by Becker’s discussion of a cesspit while De Quincey kept counting his paces.

When he reached fifteen times sixty, he emerged from the alley and approached the house. It took a further minute for the three of them to arrive there, so Joey now had sixteen minutes in which to accomplish the task.

But the door wasn’t open a few inches, the way Joey had been instructed to leave it as a sign that they could enter.

“Maybe the chimney gave him more trouble than he expected. Or else the hatch,” Becker said. “Or the lock.”

A typical lock in 1854 London wasn’t recessed within a door. Instead, it was screwed onto a door’s surface. The metal slot into which the bolt slid was attached to the doorjamb, in plain view of anyone on the inside. There wasn’t a lever with which a door could be locked and unlocked on the inside. A key needed to be used. Without a key, the only way to open a locked door from the inside was to unscrew the slot attached to the doorjamb. Joey would require another few minutes to use the knife to do that.

“Yes, perhaps the lock.” De Quincey couldn’t bring himself to say what he was thinking.

But Emily did. “Or else Brookline is inside.”

De Quincey reminded himself to breathe. “All Joey needs is a little more time,” he tried to assure them.

But another minute passed—and then two.

“We’re bound to be noticed, just standing here staring at the door,” Becker said.

At once the door budged, only a little, so tiny a movement that De Quincey needed to ask his companions, “Do you see that? Is it real?”

“Yes, it’s real, Father.”

They shifted toward the steps in front of the door.

The door opened slightly more.

“Joey?” Becker asked.

A hand appeared at the edge of the door. The hand was covered with soot.

De Quincey started up the steps. “Joey?”

As the door opened wider, a figure staggered into view. Rags and face were dark with soot, except for Joey’s eyes, the whites of which bulged with pain, and except for Joey’s left shoulder, which was crimson with blood.

“Joey!” Emily raced up the stairs.

Entering, she grabbed the boy, holding him up, as De Quincey closed the door and Becker looked around warily, on guard against a threat.

“What’s this in his shoulder?” Emily exclaimed.

As she and De Quincey lowered the boy to the floor, they were forced to set him sideways because a foot-long shaft projected from where his shoulder met his neck. The tip had barbs. The rear had feathers.

“From a crossbow,” Becker said. “If he’d been taller, it would have struck him full in the back, just about where a man’s heart would be.”

Continuing to scan the area, Becker focused on the stairs, the middle section of which was obscured by thick shadows.

Joey moaned.

“We need to stop the bleeding!” Emily cried.

Becker crept up the side of the stairs, keeping close to the banister. His weight pressed a stair down. Something clicked under the stairs. Wary, Becker stooped and found a hole in the wood between one stair and another, a hole large enough for a crossbow to fire.

“Here,” Becker said. “A trap. There are probably others. Be careful what you touch.”

“He’ll bleed to death,” Emily said.

“You heard me mention Dr. Snow.” Becker jumped to the bottom of the stairs. “He lives the next street over, on Frith Street. Ryan sent me to him on Saturday night.”

Becker scooped up the boy as if he weighed nothing. “Quickly. Before Brookline comes back.”

Emily rushed to open the door.

“No,” De Quincey said. “I can’t leave.”

“What?”

“Not until I see what’s here.”

“But we need to take Joey to Dr. Snow!” Emily told him.

“We don’t have time for this!” Becker insisted. “The boy will die!”

“Emily, go with Becker! You can help Joey more than you can help me!” De Quincey saw a knife on the floor, the one that Becker had lent Joey. He picked it up.

“Even with that knife, you don’t have a chance against Brookline!” Becker insisted.

“And we don’t have a chance to stop him if all three of us run to Dr. Snow. This house needs to be searched! Go! I promise I’ll be there soon!”

Joey moaned in Becker’s arms.

“Can’t wait,” Becker warned.

Emily stared at Joey, then at De Quincey.

“Emily, if you insist on staying, I’ll be forced to leave to keep you from danger! What Joey did for us will be wasted!”

“There’s no time!” Becker hurried down the steps, carrying the small, bleeding figure.

Emily kept staring at De Quincey. She turned toward Becker running along the street.

“I love you, Father.”

She raced after Becker and the boy.


SILENCE GATHERED IN THE HOUSE. The only sound De Quincey became aware of was the fearful agitation of his heart. When he shut the door, the thick draperies in the rooms to his right and left allowed hardly any sunlight to enter. The knife in his hands didn’t give him confidence. Trying to steady his tremors, he took out his laudanum bottle and drank deeply.

As the heat of the opium sank to his stomach, it intensified his senses. Shadows appeared less dense. The rattle of a carriage passing outside sounded next to him, as if the door wasn’t closed. He turned toward a candle and a box of matches that he had earlier noticed on the floor against the wall. In his youth, the only way to light a candle had been by using flint and steel to deposit sparks into straw in a tinderbox. The newly invented matches, known as lucifers, still seemed unreal to him, able to produce a flame simply by being scraped against a rough surface. Early forms of matches had created a sulfurous odor of rotten eggs, a defect that was now eliminated. But when De Quincey struck the match, the distinctive rotten-egg smell of older-style matches made him pull back his head.

In a rush, he lit the candle and blew out the match.

Have I been poisoned?

Holding his breath, he waited for dizziness and nausea to afflict him. But with each long instant, his only dizziness seemed to be the consequence of fear. Gradually he inhaled and felt steadier.

Is the stench intended to warn Brookline that someone entered and used one of the matches to light a candle?

If so, the tactic was doubly effective because the candle had an odor also. The best candles, made from beeswax, exuded a fragrance while the worst, made of tallow, stank of animal fat. These candles were almost as foul-smelling as the match. Why? Brookline’s income was sufficient for him to afford candles and matches without a stench. Why had he refused to acquire them?

As the candle illuminated the area around him, De Quincey’s unsteady hand caused the flame to waver. He peered toward the room on the right. The last time he’d been in this house was fifty-two years earlier, but it seemed that nothing had changed. The room he entered had been as empty of furniture then as it was now. In those long-ago, despairing winter months, he had slept on the cold floor, the nervous twitching of his legs constantly waking him.

The floor was even more filthy now. Grains of soot littered it. At the far end, the soot showed round outlines where objects had sat, perhaps what the servants in the neighboring residences had noticed being removed, covered with blankets.

On guard against more traps, De Quincey returned to the hallway and entered the opposite room, which a half century earlier had been an office for the mysterious man who had maintained several such offices throughout the city, constantly shifting his premises. Here the man had worked on legal documents for a few furtive hours each morning, sometimes eating pastries, the crumbs from which he’d allowed De Quincey to savor.

A straight-backed wooden chair was next to a small table on which sat a chimney lamp. A stack of books rose from the floor next to the table, books that looked unnervingly familiar.

De Quincey set down the knife, removed the glass chimney from the lamp, and lifted the lamp so that he could more easily bring the candle to the wick.

He froze as the candle’s flame wavered toward the wick. The sensation was literally of freezing.

A trap, Becker had warned. There are probably others. Be careful what you touch.

The wick on the lamp was so new that it looked totally white.

The lamp seemed heavier than it ought to be. It didn’t make the sound of coal oil sloshing in it. Nor did it have a coal-oil odor.

Carefully, De Quincey lowered the lamp onto the table. He set the candle on the floor and unscrewed the cap on the side of the lamp, opening the channel into which coal oil could be added.

Sweat oozed from his brow when he inserted his finger into the channel and touched a granular substance. Some of it stuck to his skin when he removed his finger from the channel. He saw black specks similar to those he had noticed on the floor in the opposite room.

He dropped a speck onto the candle’s flame. The speck flashed in a miniature explosion.

Gunpowder.

The lamp was a bomb.

Moving as quickly as he could without extinguishing the candle, he returned to the first room, picked up a speck of the substance on the floor, and dropped it onto the flame. Again the speck flashed.

De Quincey suddenly realized that the round outlines on the dirty floor had been made by kegs, one of which had a small leak.

Gunpowder.

Urgency overcame fear as he returned to the second room and studied the unnervingly familiar books.

Sickened, he confirmed that he had written all of them. On shelves behind the chair, more books were stacked—all by him—along with countless magazines that contained articles he had written. The collection was more complete than De Quincey’s own. Brookline possessed a copy of every book, magazine, and newspaper that contained De Quincey’s work.

He opened the books, astonished by how tattered the pages looked from compulsive readings. Every page had underscored lines. Foul comments were written in the margins. The little shit appeared frequently.

The most frequent execrations were next to the numerous times De Quincey had written about Brookline’s father, the genius of John Williams’s murders, his brilliant butchery, the sublimity of his blood-spattered achievements.

Mocks killing and death, Brookline had written. He needs to be shown reality.

De Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium-Eater was bountifully underlined also, with exclamation marks in the margins.

How many people died from laudanum overdoses because of him? Brookline seemed to shout at the bottom of a page.

De Quincey felt nauseous.

How many thousands died in India and China because of opium? How many have I myself killed because of opium and the British East India Company?

But which of us, the Opium-Eater or I, is the greater killer? Brookline demanded in angry handwriting that obscured an entire page.

“Did all these people die in the past few days because of me?” De Quincey murmured. His words echoed in what felt like a tomb.

Now he knew why Brookline had chosen to rent this house.

In his mind, he connects me with his father and himself. To him, we’re all killers, De Quincey realized.

He vomited.

The horror of his discovery was sharpened by his urgent awareness that Brookline might return at any moment. Wiping bile from his mouth, he overcame his shock and picked up the knife. Aware of his rapid breathing, he proceeded through the two remaining rooms on this floor but found nothing that appeared significant.

Staying close to the banister, avoiding the hole where the crossbow was hidden under the murky stairs, he climbed to the next floor. His footfalls on the creaky wood were magnified, increasing his tension. Four other rooms—two in front and two in back—awaited him.

One room had its door closed.

Avoiding it, he searched the other rooms and found them empty. He climbed the stairs to the small servants’ quarters on the next floor. Aside from footprints made by soot—presumably Joey’s—nothing was evident. The house was as abandoned as it had been fifty-two years earlier.

But what about the closed door on the middle level, the only closed room in the house?

Fearful, De Quincey descended to it. Wary of other traps, he tried the doorknob, hoping that it would be locked.

But the knob turned.

He stepped to the side and thrust the door open. If another weapon such as a crossbow was aimed at the doorway, it couldn’t harm him.

Nothing happened.

He peered around the doorjamb and saw that an undraped, small, barred window added light to what was a sparsely furnished bedroom. The window was on his right, facing the street. A wardrobe stood across from him. To his left, in place of a bed, he saw a military cot.

Entering, he noticed crumpled newspapers on the floor. His right boot brushed against one, creating a papery clatter.

Inspecting the door, De Quincey saw an inside bolt.

So Brookline secures the door when he goes to bed, but even with that, he feels the need for the crumpled newspapers to warn him about intruders. Does he wake from nightmares?

Why didn’t he lock the door now? To lure someone in? Where’s the trap?

De Quincey proceeded toward the cot, which was of a sort that Brookline had probably used in India. A blanket and a small pillow were on it.

De Quincey looked under the cot.

The space was empty.

About to turn toward the wardrobe, he wondered if something might be hidden under the blanket, but when he cautiously raised it, he found only a sheet.

When he raised the sheet, he found dried bloodstains on the cot.

The stains were thick.

Lord in heaven, what happened here?

Uneasy, De Quincey approached the wardrobe. As he had done with the bedroom door, he stepped to the side before grasping the wardrobe’s handle.

He pulled and flinched as something shot from the wardrobe, embedding itself in the wall near the doorway: a shaft from another crossbow. Sweat now soaked his underarms as he stepped from the side and faced the wardrobe’s contents.

He saw a colonel’s uniform. One pair of formal evening clothes. One set of gray trousers, a black waistcoat, and a black knee-long coat, the standard business clothes that respectable Londoners wore.

A shelf revealed a colonel’s hat and a collapsible top hat.

A drawer revealed two pairs of underclothes, two ties, two shirts, and one pair of dress gloves.

De Quincey doubted that anyone else in Brookline’s lofty position lived so austerely. The room felt like a monk’s cell.

I don’t dare stay any longer.

But as De Quincey stepped from the bedroom, he couldn’t resist looking back and focusing on the space above the wardrobe.

The rush of his heartbeat made him feel sicker.

The wardrobe’s top was much taller than he was. There wasn’t a chair on which to stand. He set down the candle and the knife. He jumped, gripped the top of the wardrobe, and pulled himself up. His arms in pain, he looked over the top and almost let go, so startled was he by what he found.

He was staring at a three-stranded whip with dried blood on it.

He released one hand and managed to grab the whip before he dropped to the floor.

Each night, Brookline flagellated himself.

De Quincey now suspected that the malodorous match and candle weren’t intended as a warning that someone had been in the house. Rather, their stench was a deliberate displeasure, just as the straight-backed wooden chair would become painful during the many hours that Brookline spent obsessively reading De Quincey’s work.

A monk’s cell indeed.

A monk devoted to hell.

De Quincey pulled everything off the cot so that the bloodstains were fully exposed. He dropped the whip onto them, wanting Brookline to have no doubt that this secret had been uncovered.

Despite De Quincey’s urgency, he remembered to keep to the side of the stairs in case there were further traps.

At the bottom level, he studied Joey’s blood on the floor. He stared at the vomit that he himself had left on the floor. Yes, Brookline would definitely know that visitors had been here.

He ran to the stack of books and tore out the page that began his Confessions of an English Opium-Eater. He took a pencil from the table and wrote,


The Opium-Eater came to call and regrets that you weren’t at home.


He put the page on the stairs, where it would certainly be noticed. All that remained was to blow out the candle and free the bolt.

As he pulled the door open, someone towered over him.


LIKE MOST PHYSICIANS in 1854, Dr. Snow had his office in his home. Running with the boy in his arms, Becker came around a corner one block to the west and charged up the steps of the building on Frith Street to which he’d been taken on Saturday night.

Holding Joey, he fumbled with the doorknob and felt a hand surge past his, opening the door. The hand belonged to Emily, who had raced here with him, her free-moving dress giving her more speed than he believed possible for a woman.

They hurried across a vestibule and reached another door, which Emily quickly opened, allowing Becker to rush in.

Dr. Snow and a male patient looked up in surprise.

Snow was in his early forties with a thin face and dark sideburns that framed his narrow jawline. His eyes were intense. His hair had receded, making his forehead seem unusually high.

His patient was well dressed, middle-aged, and portly, with a full beard.

They sat on opposite sides of Snow’s desk.

“What the devil?” the patient exclaimed as both men sprang to their feet.

“This boy needs help,” Becker said.

“He’s filthy,” the patient protested.

“He’s been shot with a crossbow.”

“The beggar was probably trying to break into someone’s home. Dr. Snow, look at the blood he’s dripping on your floor.”

“There’s a surgeon ten blocks over,” Snow informed his unexpected visitors.

“The boy needs help now,” Becker told him.

“But I’m not a surgeon any longer. I’m a physician.”

Becker understood. Physicians stood at the top of the rigidly stratified medical world. They never touched their patients but instead listened to them describe symptoms and then recommended drugs supplied by chemists with whom the physicians had a financial arrangement. In this way, physicians did not receive money directly from their patients and were not considered to be “in trade,” an activity distasteful to the upper class.

Below physicians were surgeons, who lacked social status because they dealt with all the gore that humans were subject to. Even worse than touching patients, they received money directly from the people to whom they administered. A physician was called “doctor” while a surgeon was referred to as “mister.” A physician could be presented at the queen’s court. A surgeon could not.

“You’re telling me you won’t help this boy?” Becker demanded.

The well-dressed patient reacted with shock at the idea that his physician might actually lay hands on someone, a bleeding soot-covered beggar, no less.

“What I’m telling you is, it’s a job for a surgeon,” Snow replied, looking disturbed as more blood dripped on the floor.

“Dr. Snow, shall I step outside and summon a constable?” the patient suggested indignantly.

“Thank you, Sir Herbert, but—”

Becker almost shouted that he was a constable but then realized that he couldn’t say that any longer.

“You acted as a surgeon to me on Saturday night,” Becker reminded him.

“You did what?” Sir Herbert exclaimed.

“You disinfected my wounds and closed them. Why can’t you do the same for this boy?”

“You actually closed wounds?” Sir Herbert asked in dismay.

“I did it as a favor to Detective Inspector Ryan,” Snow replied. “He helped me locate the source of the recent cholera epidemic. I felt I owed him a courtesy. Yes, I was a surgeon years ago, but I progressed.”

“This is nonsense,” Emily interrupted. “You,” she told Sir Herbert, “please leave.”

“Pray tell on what authority do you—”

“Leave,” Emily repeated, escorting the portly man to the door. “You have no purpose here. You are disruptive.”

“But—”

Emily had him in the vestibule now and was opening the outside door. “If you’re not careful, some of the blood from the boy will touch your clothes.”

“Blood on my clothes? Where?”

“Good day.” Emily pushed him outside and shut the door firmly. “Dr. Snow, do you still have your surgeon’s instruments?” she asked as she marched back into the office.

“In that cabinet. But I have no intention of—”

“You might not, but I have every intention. Constable Becker, set the boy on this desk. Help me remove his clothing.”

“You can’t barge into my office and assume control,” Snow told her.

Instead of paying attention to him, Emily was already tugging off Joey’s filthy, blood-soaked coat.

“I assume that the first step is to clean the boy so that we can determine the extent of his injuries. Dr. Snow, where is your kitchen? We need hot water. Please instruct someone to bring it. Becker, in the meantime, help me pull the projectile from his shoulder.”

“No, no, no,” Snow objected. “The feathers on one end or the barbs at the other will make the wound larger.”

“Then what should I do?”

“The shaft needs to be cut to remove either the feathers or the tip. Then the shaft should be cleansed with ammonia before it is pulled through the wound.”

Emily freed Joey’s coat and found his shirt so full of holes that she could easily tear it off. “How do I cut the shaft?”

“With a saw.”

“And where is the saw? Dr. Snow, you need to be more hasty and helpful. This boy risked his life to try to stop the murderer.”

“The murderer?”

“Who lives one block from you, on Greek Street.”

“A block away?” Snow repeated with greater alarm.

“The murderer could kill you in your sleep, but this boy might have saved you. Now please stop repeating everything I say. We need the saw and the hot water, and… Yes. Good. The saw. Thank you. How do I hold it? Is this where I cut the shaft?”

“If you do it that way, you’ll tear his shoulder open.”

“Like this?”

“No, no, no, like this.”

“Then for heaven’s sake, show me before I make a mistake. Yes. Good. Please keep demonstrating. I’ll fetch the hot water. Where’s the kitchen?”

“Through that door.”

“Is your wife home?”

“Not married. Hold the boy,” Snow told Becker. “He’s thrashing so much I can’t work on him.”

When Emily returned with a clean rag and a basin of steaming water, she found Dr. Snow holding a mask over Joey’s face while he turned a valve on a metal container.

Joey stopped struggling.

“Is he dead?”

“Asleep. There’s no more risk to the boy than when I administered chloroform to the queen during her recent childbirth.” Snow put the saw on the shaft, telling Becker, “Keep him turned on his side. Hold the shaft tightly. You need to prevent the force of the saw from moving the shaft and tearing his shoulder.”

Becker used his large hands to grab the front and the rear of the shaft, steadying it.

Emily wiped blood away as Snow began sawing. The grating sound of the saw against the shaft made her cringe.

To distract herself, she asked Snow, “You truly administered chloroform to the queen?”

“To the consternation of some clergymen, who objected that the Bible maintains women should suffer during childbirth.” Snow pressed harder on the saw.

“The Bible says no such thing.”

“It’s in Genesis four sixteen. After Adam and Eve fell from grace in Eden, God banished them, telling Eve, ‘In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children.’ ”

“Those clergymen are idiots.”

“My opinion also. Almost through. There!” Snow triumphantly held up the barbed tip of the shaft. “And now to put ammonia on the shaft before I pull it out.”

The door suddenly opened.

Emily looked up, surprised to see three men enter.


FATHER!”

Hurrying with him were Inspector Ryan and an authoritative man she didn’t recognize.

“This is Police Commissioner Mayne,” Ryan explained quickly. “Before I went to Scotland Yard, your father told me where he suspected Colonel Brookline had a residence. We met your father as he was leaving.”

“Not that I believe Colonel Brookline is responsible for the recent murders,” the commissioner made clear. “The cook who drugged the food at the prison vanished. Our constables learned that he used to be a soldier in India.”

“A tattoo on the dead man at the prison established that he too used to be a soldier in India,” Ryan said. “In the very same regiment. It turns out that Brookline also served in that regiment.”

“Perhaps the colonel will remember the two men and be able to tell us something about their criminal relationship,” the commissioner suggested. “Forgive me, young lady. I know Constable Becker, but I haven’t had the pleasure of—”

“Emily De Quincey.”

“Of course. Inspector Ryan speaks highly of you.”

“He does?” Emily asked in surprise.

Ryan’s cheeks became as red as the hair that peeked from his newspaperboy’s cap.

“And this is the street beggar who broke into Colonel Brookline’s residence?” Mayne asked.

“Surely you don’t intend to arrest him,” Emily intervened. “He risked his life to find the killer.”

“It remains to be proven that Colonel Brookline is the killer. My intention in accompanying Inspector Ryan is to urge caution. We all need to work together, not fight with one another.”

“You called him ‘inspector.’ Does that mean we’re police officers again?” Becker asked.

“Even I can’t countermand Lord Palmerston’s orders. But unofficially you have my confidence. After Mr. De Quincey showed me the interior of the colonel’s residence—an intrusion which made me feel extremely uncomfortable, by the way—I admit that I now have concerns.”

“For starters, why was Brookline storing a quantity of gunpowder in his home?” Ryan wanted to know. “And why does he abuse his body in a way too indelicate to discuss in front of Miss De Quincey?”

“I’ll take your word for that,” the commissioner said. “Since I refused to violate the colonel’s privacy by invading his bedroom, I did not see the blood and whip that you described.”

“Whip?” Emily asked.

“Truly,” Ryan answered, “the subject is too delicate for—”

“Brookline flagellates himself with sufficient force to draw blood,” De Quincey told her.

“Thank you, Father. My imagination might have leapt to even greater extremes.”

“I fail to see how the subject has anything to do with the murders,” Mayne said. “What Colonel Brookline does in his home is no concern of ours.”

“That he is the son of John Williams must carry some weight against him,” De Quincey insisted.

“You have only the word of an elderly woman who works in a bakeshop near the worst rookery in London. There’s no proof that the woman is in fact Margaret Jewell.”

“And yet Brookline’s remarks in my books indicate an obsessive identification with John Williams.”

“An equal obsession with you. None of that proves he’s the killer. I instructed a constable to wait for the colonel to return to his residence and inform him that I wish to speak with him.”


BROOKLINE NEVER ALLOWED a cabdriver to know where he lived. His usual method was to tell a driver to turn from Oxford Street toward Soho Square, proceed onto Greek Street, and stop a couple of blocks farther south. All the while, he would study the neighborhood. If all appeared normal, he would return on foot, continuing to watch for surveillance.

Now as the cab went past number 38, Brookline leaned back in the compartment’s shadows, alarmed by the presence of a constable at the steps to his door. The door was ajar. The steps had blood spatters. Brookline didn’t dare show his face to peer out and see where the spatters led along the street.

Blocks away, he paid the driver, descended from the cab, and varied his usual route by going around the corner and proceeding up a parallel street. There, he entered a low passageway between buildings, reached a gate, unlocked it, reached another gate, and unlocked it also. In each case, he studied the locks for signs that they had been scraped by someone manipulating them. He also examined carefully positioned grime on the edges of the gates to determine that the gates had not been disturbed.

He entered a dismal courtyard that contained a privy. Steps led down to the basement, where the kitchen was located. Its single window was barred. Its door remained locked, with no indication of having been disturbed.

Steps led up to the first floor. Here the windows were barred also. Like the front door, the back door had no knob. Brookline’s uniquely shaped key fit into the lock. Again, strategically placed grime revealed no evidence that the door had been opened.

Inside, a narrow stream of light protruded into the front hallway, where the front door wasn’t fully closed. Indeed, that door wasn’t capable of being closed—the slot for the lock’s bolt had been removed from the doorjamb.

The rotten-egg odor of a match lingered in the air, as did the disagreeable smell of the tallow candle.

Blood was on the floor.

Brookline’s astonishment turned to rage that his home had been violated. His impulse was to rush to learn what else had been disturbed, but years of military discipline took control. He was suddenly on a reconnoitering mission, determined not to alert the sentry outside. After moving cautiously along the hallway, he shifted into the room where he kept his chair and his books.

Vomit was on the floor. The books were disarranged. One of them was open, vandalized, a page having been ripped from it.

The lamp on the table had its glass chimney removed. The cap that covered the hole into which coal oil could be poured had been removed also, indicating that someone had discovered the gunpowder inside.

Mindful of the constable outside, Brookline moved quietly to the opposite room, where the strip of light from the slightly open entrance revealed footsteps in the grains of gunpowder that one of the kegs had left on the floor. The footprints were small.

Reaching the stairs, he saw that the page torn from his book awaited him. A note had been penciled onto it: The Opium-Eater came to call and regrets that you weren’t at home.

Brookline’s rage swelled as he climbed the stairs, taking care to remain close to the banister and avoid the step that triggered the crossbow. Not that his precaution was necessary—he discovered that the crossbow had already been triggered, its shaft released, with luck into the little shit who had left the note.

My bedroom.

Mounting hurriedly to the top of the stairs, he saw that his bedroom, always closed, was now open. Entering, he found the wardrobe open also, its crossbow triggered, its shaft in the wall next to the door.

But what occupied Brookline’s attention was the military cot on which he slept. Its blanket and sheet had been thrown off, exposing the dried blood on the canvas. The whip that he had hidden above the wardrobe was now on the bloodstains.

His gaze focused so intently on the cot that he felt he could see the fibers of the canvas and the dried blood that filled the area between them. In India, he had slept on an identical cot, waking from nightmares about the things he had done. He had wakened from nightmares about the things that his father had done. No matter how much punishment he inflicted on himself, he could not purge any of it from his memory.

There is no such thing as forgetting, the Opium-Eater had written.

Fury and shame overwhelmed him. He extended his arms and raised his head toward the ceiling. He opened his mouth to scream. Although no bellow emerged from his widely parted lips, the roar expanded inside him, reverberating silently, making him feel that his chest would explode from the power of the primal rage that possessed him. The veins in his forehead pounded until he expected them to burst. The sinews in his throat stretched so tautly that it seemed his quiet roar would make them snap.

The little shit.

THE LITTLE SHIT.

The constable outside was proof that the police knew about the gunpowder. How would Brookline explain things to Lord Palmerston? Nothing linked Brookline to the murders, but after tonight, there would be serious questions about why he had stored gunpowder in his home. At last, even Lord Palmerston would be compelled to consider the unimaginable.

For that eventuality, Brookline had long ago made plans. Without a transatlantic telegraph to broadcast police reports about him, he could easily escape to America. In that ever-expanding country, he could readily vanish. After all, India had taught him about disguises.

The evidence of his shame, though, could not be allowed to remain.

Brookline descended the stairs. Hearing the constable shuffle his feet beyond the gap in the door, he gathered the box of matches and the lamp that contained the gunpowder. He crept back up the stairs, reentered his bedroom, and placed the lamp next to the cot.

He drew a knife from under his coat, sliced the cot’s sheet into strips, and tied one of the strips to the wick on the lamp. Next, he stretched the strip across the floor and overlapped it with another. He did the same with a third and a fourth strip, lengthening and curving them so that they fit the room.

Finally, he placed matches along the strips so that if the flame began to fail, the matches would give it fresh strength.

Brookline struck a match. Punishing himself by a deep inhale of the rotten-egg odor, he touched the match to the end of the fourth strip. As the flame moved slowly along the cloth, he stepped from the bedroom and closed the door.

Quickly he descended the stairs, proceeded to the back, and went outside. Even in the dismal courtyard, he could feel a breeze. Tonight there would not be a fog. The city would view its destruction.

He shut the courtyard gate behind him, moved along the passageway, closed another gate, and emerged onto the next street.

“Boy,” he said to a beggar, one of the unfortunates who could not escape the city tonight. “Here’s a shilling for extending me a favor.”

“A shillin’?” The boy looked suspicious. “What do you want me to do for a whole shillin’?”


IS ANY OF YOU THE OPIUM-EATER?” a scruffy boy asked as De Quincey and the others hurried from Dr. Snow’s building.

“Why do you want to know?” De Quincey asked.

“Yes, you’d be him. The gentleman said you was little. The gentleman paid me a shillin’ to follow the blood from Thirty-eight Greek Street. Said to be quick. Said to give you a message.”

“What’s the message?”

“That the gentleman regrets not bein’ home when you came to visit.”

The air seemed to compress. De Quincey felt as if an invisible hand nudged his chest. One street away, an explosion roared, its shock wave making his ears ring. Even from a distance, the sound of falling debris was powerful.

The group rushed toward the corner. When they reached Greek Street, they gaped at where number 38 had been.

The top floors were in flames. On the middle floor, the room to the right had exploded into the street. The glass in all the other windows had been shattered. The building’s brick front leaned forward, about to collapse.

The policeman who’d been on duty outside the entrance lay motionless on the street.

As Ryan and Becker ran to him, people gathered in a panic. Shouts accompanied the increasing crackle of flames. The breeze carried bitter smoke.

Frantic, Ryan and Becker tugged the fallen constable toward the opposite side of the street. The wall creaked, bricks scraping, and suddenly toppled in an enormous crash that sent debris flying in every direction.

People stumbled away. Hunched over the constable, Ryan and Becker turned their backs to the chunks of bricks and wood that clattered around them. A fire bell rang in the distance.


A HALF BLOCK AWAY, Brookline watched from an alcove as the Opium-Eater gaped at the devastation. Ryan and Becker were with him, unable to resist the impulse to rush to the fallen constable and be heroes.

Commissioner Mayne was there also. No doubt he would soon be talking to Lord Palmerston.

Brookline walked away.


THE GROUP DESCENDED quickly from a coach and faced the wax museum.

“Brookline was seen here this morning,” De Quincey said.

They looked to the southeast, where the strong breeze carried the smoke from the fire on Greek Street. By the time they’d left the area, two firefighting crews were working to suppress the blaze.

“People will worry about the smoke. Rumors about the explosion will spread. The panic will worsen,” De Quincey said.

The few vehicles and pedestrians on the street emphasized De Quincey’s point.

Commissioner Mayne gestured toward the wax museum. “What do you hope to find here?”

“With everything that’s on Brookline’s mind, he wouldn’t have come here unless this place is important to him.”

De Quincey needed to knock several times on the window of the ticket booth before a woman arrived.

“Finally some customers,” she said.

“Afraid not,” Mayne told her, showing his police commissioner’s badge.

With a look of disappointment, the woman opened the door.

“A gentleman came here earlier,” De Quincey said to the woman. He described Brookline.

“Yes, he rented the exhibition for an hour. Three other gentlemen joined him. They were the only business we had today.”

“Where did they go?”

The woman pointed down a hallway. “The Chamber of Horrors.”

The group entered a shadowy room, where they encountered two men in the midst of removing a corpse from a coffin in a graveyard. The display was so realistic that Emily drew a sharp breath.

“Burke and Hare, the resurrectionists,” De Quincey commented.

Another display showed a guillotine with blood on it and the heads of two of the French Revolution’s victims.

“That’s Robespierre and Marie Antoinette,” De Quincey said.

Abruptly he stopped at the next display, which showed corpses on a floor, their heads bashed in. A man swung a mallet toward a clerk at a counter.

“This is why Brookline came here,” De Quincey said. “An effigy of John Williams in the midst of his first killings. Does he look familiar, Commissioner?”

After a moment, Mayne answered, “Good God, he resembles Brookline.”

“Uncannily. Brookline can’t stop obsessing about the murders his father committed.” De Quincey pointed past the rope barrier toward the grotesque scene. “When he looks at that wax figure, does he imagine himself killing those people as much as he sees his father doing it?”

The commissioner frowned. “Is that an opium thought? It makes me dizzy.”

“He’s been making the rest of us dizzy since Saturday night,” Ryan said.

“And making us have thoughts of our own,” Becker added. “Such as this one. Brookline wouldn’t have destroyed where he lives if he didn’t think he was close to being exposed. He knows he doesn’t have much time.”

“Yes. Whatever Brookline plans to do next,” De Quincey agreed, “it will happen tonight.”


THE COACH STOPPED on Oxford Street, near a legless beggar who rested his stumps on a platform with wheels under it.

Ryan motioned for the beggar to approach.

Wheels squeaking, the beggar complied.

“Edward, my good man,” De Quincey said from the coach, out of view of anyone who might be watching for him. “Did you receive any more reports?”

“This Colonel Brookline you’re lookin’ for, a boy on a dustman’s pony cart followed him to the docks this mornin’.”

“Which docks?”

“The boy couldn’t get close enough to find out. Brookline was in a police wagon with three constables.”

“Constables? A police wagon?” the commissioner repeated with concern. “I know nothing about this.”

“Can you spare a shilling for this unfortunate man?” De Quincey asked.

The commissioner dropped a silver coin into Edward’s cup.

“Thank you, guv! My blessin’s to you!”

“Keep receiving reports, Edward!” De Quincey called as the coach moved forward.

“The docks?” Becker asked. “But there are a dozen of them.”

“Given Brookline’s background, I suspect only one set of docks would interest him,” De Quincey replied.

“What do you mean?”

“Brookline served for twenty years in India. The comments he wrote in my books refer to all the people he killed there. Because of opium. People he killed for the British East India Company. He emphasized the company in his notes.”

Ahead, two streetwalkers stood on a corner.

“Becker, please ask the driver to stop,” De Quincey said.

The women looked hopeful as the coach halted.

“Doris. Melinda. How excellent to see you again.”

“It’s my favorite little man,” Doris said, batting her eyes.

Melinda guffawed toothlessly.

“I have work for you,” De Quincey said.

“Wait, aren’t these the streetwalkers we questioned at Vauxhall Gardens?” Ryan asked in confusion.

“Better send for the police wagons again,” De Quincey told him. “Tonight we have need of these fine ladies and their companions.”

“Father, what on earth are you talking about?” Emily demanded.