Murder as a Fine Art

16

A Sigh from the Depths



BEGINNING AT THE TOWER OF LONDON, London’s docks extended east along the Thames. In the early 1800s, the city had expanded those docks until they formed the largest harbor in the world. By 1854, one third of those docks were used by the British East India Company. Ships carrying opium, tea, spices, and silk came up the Thames and entered a channel cut into the northern bank of the river, proceeding via locks to immense basins bordered by quays, one basin for imports, the other for exports. The basins were so large that two hundred and fifty vessels could anchor in them at one time.

Shortly after dark, a police wagon arrived at sturdy gates. Brookline descended from the wagon and approached a guard, who raised a lantern to Brookline’s face and nodded in recognition.

“Back again?” the guard asked. Several other men stood behind him. A cold wind buffeted their coats.

“Lord Palmerston’s orders.”

Brookline pulled out his credentials.

“No need. I saw your badge often enough.”

“His Lordship remains concerned about a rumor that someone plans to take advantage of the panic in the city and cause trouble on the docks.”

The repeated reference to Lord Palmerston had considerable effect. As home secretary, Palmerston controlled security for the docks as well as for everything else within the country. As a previous foreign secretary, Palmerston was also guaranteed a position on the British East India Company’s board.

“God knows, there’s plenty of panic out there,” the guard agreed. “Last night, a mob forced a bunch of sailors to barricade themselves in a warehouse over at Shadwell Basin. Nearly killed ’em. We can use any help His Lordship wants to send us.”

The guard unblocked the gate and motioned for the driver to bring the police wagon through.

“The rumor we received concerned the opium warehouse,” Brookline told him.

“Take a look. Do whatever you need to.”

The wagon proceeded past the lanterns of other guards.

At the warehouse, the wagon stopped, and the three men dressed as constables climbed down. In reality, they were all former members of the same regiment in which Brookline had served in India.

The cold wind slapped waves against the wharf. Lanterns swung back and forth in the distance as guards patrolled the waterfront.

The men disguised as constables lit lanterns of their own and entered the warehouse. On three other occasions, Brookline and his companions had come here, pretending to check security, using the tall sides of the wagon to give them cover as they accomplished their real purpose. For safety, gunpowder kegs were often small—five inches across and eight inches high. In December they could easily be concealed under an arm, hidden by voluminous winter clothing.

Brookline and his companions made sure that no one else was inside the warehouse. Then they went from stack to stack of burlap-covered opium bricks, verifying that the powder kegs remained concealed within the stacks throughout the warehouse. They added others. From twenty years of experience, Brookline imagined the sickening odor of the lime with which the opium had initially been treated in India.

“I leave tonight,” he told the men.

“So soon?”

“I’ve come under suspicion. It’s time I made a strategic withdrawal.”

They smiled at the military joke.

“You’ve done what you agreed to,” Brookline continued. “Tomorrow, after the fire destroys numerous buildings, there’ll be few people in the city. The banks and businesses that remain will be unprotected. Take your rewards as you find them. No one will stop you, especially when you’re dressed as constables. Make sure you burn the buildings that you steal from.”

“And you? What’s your reward?”

“For starters, the destruction of all this opium.”

“And then?”

“After half of London burns, maybe the panic will become extreme enough to cause a revolution.”

“You always like to talk about a revolution,” one man said.

“The army’s supposed to protect England, but in India, all we really did was help noblemen become richer by selling more opium. I lost count of how many people I killed because of those wretched noblemen and this damned stuff.”

“So now you kill English people instead.”

“Necessary casualties. The system needs to be obliterated. I like the idea that the noblemen who profited from our killing are now terrified.”

“You take your revolution. We’ll take the money.”

“A fair trade. You won’t have trouble leaving the city in the hearses you stole. Dress as funeral directors and put corpses in coffins on top of the money you confiscate. No one will interfere with you.”

“The sooner we start, the better. Let’s tell the guards at the gate that everything looks as it should.”

“The fuses are timed for ten minutes?”

“Yes. By then, we’ll be safely out of the area.” The man pulled away a burlap sack, exposing a fuse between opium bricks. “Light this one. It leads to many others.”

Brookline struck a match.

“Stop!” a voice ordered.


A HALF MILE AWAY, a hansom cab rattled over cobblestones, approaching Ratcliffe Highway.

Inside, Margaret Jewell became agitated as she recognized the dreary streets. “No! You didn’t tell me we were coming here!”

“I realize this is difficult.” Emily touched her arm. “We need your help.”

“You can’t possibly realize how difficult it is.”

The cab turned onto Ratcliffe Highway. Normally the street would have teemed with activity. Tonight it was eerily deserted, fear having emptied it.

“Take me back! I swore I’d never look at this place again!”

“Margaret,” Becker said, “your son needs to be stopped.”

“That’s why I went to Scotland Yard!” Even in the faint light from the streetlamps they passed, the elderly woman turned her face so that her scar didn’t show.

“You, Margaret. You’re the one who can stop him,” Emily said.

The cab reached its destination.

Margaret looked out the window and moaned.

What she saw was the linen shop that in 1811 had been owned by Timothy Marr and where John Williams had slaughtered his first four victims.

Her voice was now so low that Emily and Becker could barely hear her. “You can’t force me to go in there.”

“Not there,” Emily assured her. “Across the street. My father and Commissioner Mayne arrived earlier and found a place for us to wait.”

She and Becker eased Margaret from the cab, turning her so that she couldn’t see the shop.

The wind chilled them.

A door creaked open. Only darkness seemed beyond it.

“In here, Emily,” her father’s voice said.

As their eyes adjusted to the interior shadows, it became clear that the place was a grocer’s shop. The smell of flour hung in the air. Packages of biscuits stood on shelves next to patent medicines.

Becker quickly shut the door and took Margaret to a chair by a counter. She kept her eyes away from the window and trembled.

De Quincey went over to her. “Margaret, I’m Emily’s father.”

She didn’t reply.

“Thank you for coming. Your presence is immensely important.”

Margaret made a sobbing sound but still did not reply.

“This gentleman is Police Commissioner Mayne. He is very grateful to you, also.”

“Why did you bring me here?” Margaret demanded in anguish.

“We believe that tonight your son will do something even more terrible than his previous crimes.”

“How could that be possible?”

“We believe he plans to blow up the British East India Company docks. In this breeze, the flames will almost certainly set fire to London.”

“What?”

“After that, he will leave the city, perhaps forever, but not before he comes here. His obsession with his father’s murders, his compulsion to revisit the past—these make me believe that he won’t be able to resist seeing Marr’s shop one last time.”

The room became silent.

“John Williams.” It was strange to hear Margaret use the full name of a man she had once loved. “God damn him. God damn me. God damn the child we created.”

Even in the shadows, the scar on her cheek became visible as she turned her head and stared through the window.

“Back then, this was a boot shop. The night John Williams waited to confront Marr, he told me he stood in the shadows over here, next to this shop. He watched me leave on the punishing errand that Marr gave me. Marr claimed he wanted oysters for his family’s supper. What that terrible man really wanted was to scare me by making me walk in the dark. After I disappeared down the street, John Williams entered the shop and…”

Tears trickled down Margaret’s face.

“If you help us,” De Quincey said, “what was set in motion forty-three years ago will finally stop.”


STOP!” A VOICE ORDERED.

With the match paused near the fuse, Brookline jerked his head toward the direction of the voice. It didn’t come from anywhere around him. Instead it came from above.

One of Brookline’s companions raised his lantern. The edge of its illumination stretched faintly toward the roof, where a face appeared—Ryan’s. He had hidden on top of the stacks of opium bricks.

Doors opened, the force of the wind crashing them against the outside walls.

Constables rushed in. Holding truncheons, they aimed their bull’s-eye lanterns at Brookline and his companions.

Squinting from the painful glare, Brookline lit the fuse.

“No!” Ryan shouted.

The flame streamed sparks and smoke as it proceeded along the fuse, most of which was hidden under the opium bricks.

Ryan slid down a stack, his boots scraping against the burlap.

The moment he landed on the echoing wooden floor, he lunged to grab the fuse.

He never reached it. With eye-blinking speed, Brookline drew a knife and sliced Ryan’s arm.

Crying out, Ryan clutched his arm and darted back.

“How many constables do you have here?” Brookline asked him.

One of Brookline’s companions provided the answer. “Looks to be about a dozen.”

“And a half dozen over there,” Brookline’s second companion added, pointing toward a group of patrolmen who entered through a farther door.

Bleeding, Ryan made another grab for the fuse, only to dodge back as Brookline swung the knife again.

“You didn’t bring enough help,” Brookline said.

His three companions now had knives in their hands.

The constables converged on them. But what Brookline most cared about was making certain that the fuse, sparking and smoking, disappeared into the opium stacks.

“Now,” Brookline ordered.

Their movements were startlingly rapid. Before the constables could react, Brookline and his companions attacked with the skill and discipline that came from twenty years of combat in India and China. Acts that ordinary people would have been sickened to imagine didn’t merit a second thought for them, so accustomed were they to violence. The apex of the British military, they were the reason the Union Jack flew over a quarter of the world.

Truncheons fell. Helmets dropped. Lanterns crashed. Cloth and skin shredded from the whistle of razor-sharp blades. Knives whipped faster than eyes could follow, a back-and-forth relentless blur. In a matter of seconds, bodies lay everywhere, men groaning, some breathing their last.

Flames rose from lamps that had fallen and broken, their coal oil mixing with blood.

“The stupid bastards believed they were equal to us,” Brookline said.

“The gate will be blocked,” one of his companions warned.

“We’ll go over the wall and make our way by foot to the hearses,” another said. “Nothing’s changed. The plan will work. Compared to India, this is cake.”

“It was an honor to serve with you,” Brookline told them.

“And to you, Colonel. I hope you get your revolution.”

The roar of a shot filled the warehouse.

Brookline’s three companions, who’d been hurrying toward a rear door, spun in surprise, seeing Brookline drop to his knees.


DRIPPING BLOOD, Ryan cocked the Colt navy revolver a second time and fired, killing one of the men dressed as constables. While the remaining two tried to recover from their surprise, Ryan managed to fire a third time, the large pistol kicking in his hands. The muzzle flashed, smoke rising. His bullet missed, but the blasts were so deafening that they couldn’t fail to be heard from a distance. More guards would soon rush into the building.

Amid the smoke, the two uninjured men suddenly raced away, their boots thumping across the warehouse. A far door banged open, the men vanishing into the night.

Ryan watched Brookline topple from his knees and sprawl on his stomach.

“I’m told that this type of revolver is what your man used to pretend to try to assassinate Lord Palmerston,” Ryan said.

Wincing from the knife wound in his arm, he approached Brookline on the floor.

“A calculated overload of gunpowder made the pistol explode without harming your man. By stopping what appeared to be an assassination attempt, you gained Palmerston’s greater confidence. Meanwhile, the apparent attack on a cabinet member helped spread the panic. No misfires with this weapon, though. The armorer who lent this to me made sure that the powder, the bullets, and the wadding were perfectly loaded into the cylinders.”

Ryan stood over Brookline’s body.

“Please, don’t die from the gunshot. I want to see you hang.”

Abruptly Ryan felt breathless. Wincing, he stumbled backward. Brookline’s sudden upward slash had been astonishingly quick.

Ryan groaned, clutched his abdomen, and lurched away, striking the opium stacks. His knees bent. He sank to a sitting position on the floor.

Brookline groped painfully to his feet, mustered strength, and walked toward him. As he drew back his knife, preparing to thrust at Ryan, shouts approached.

Ryan raised the large, heavy revolver, managed to hold it with both hands, cocked it, and again pulled the trigger.

The deafening shot missed Brookline. He stared toward the door beyond which the angry voices were louder. He watched Ryan fumble to recock the revolver.

Amid the gathering smoke, he ran.

Guards rushed into the warehouse. Shock paralyzed them as the rising flames revealed the bodies.

“Brookline and two men dressed as constables ran out that door.” Ryan groaned. “They’re heading toward the wall around the docks. Brookline’s been wounded.”

The pistol dropped from Ryan’s hand, thumping on his outstretched legs.

Some of the guards raced toward the door. Others stomped on the flames.

Men rushed in with pails from the docks, throwing water on the fires.

“Gunpowder,” Ryan moaned to them. “Under the opium.”

“Gunpowder?”

Ryan tried to raise his voice. “The fuse is lit.”

Amid smoke, Ryan gripped the stack behind him and struggled to stand. It seemed to take him forever to get on his feet. His pants felt wet, as if he had urinated on them, and perhaps he had—but he knew that they were mostly wet from his blood.

“We need”—he coughed from the smoke—“to pull the opium bricks out and find the fuse.”

“Did you say ‘gunpowder’?”

Ryan yanked a burlap-wrapped package of opium from a stack, throwing it on the floor.

“And a lit fuse?” someone else asked.

Wincing, Ryan pulled another burlap package from a stack.

“Let’s get the hell out of here!” a man shouted.

“The wind will”—Ryan groaned—“carry the flames to the city.”

He tugged more burlap packages from the stacks. “Found it.”

Dizzy, he strained to focus his vision on the sparks. “Too many. Dear God, it spread to three other fuses.”

Men rushed to join him. Packages of opium bricks flew through the air.

“I got one!” a guard yelled, cutting the tip off a burning fuse.

“Two others went into these stacks!”

Coughing, the guards hurled opium packages into aisles.

“Here!”

“This one spread to more fuses!”

“Hurry!”

“Found one!”

“Another!”

The guards raced from stack to stack, frantically pulling away packages.

Ryan found another fuse and cut off its tip. His legs wavered.

“The last one went under this stack!” someone yelled. “We’ll never get to it in time!”

“Run!”

As the men charged past Ryan, someone grabbed him, shoving him toward the door. The explosion lifted him and threw him outside. He landed hard on gravel, rolling from the force of the blast. Walls disintegrated, wood and burlap and opium bricks erupting, the force flipping him, so stunning him that he barely realized he was falling off the edge of a dock.


BROOKLINE FORCED HIMSELF to ignore the pain in his chest. Working his strong legs, climbing a slope toward the base of a wall, he told himself that the wound couldn’t be serious. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to run as fast as he was. The bullet had struck the right side of his chest. He was wearing a heavy overcoat, a business coat, and a waistcoat. They had absorbed some of the force. The bullet hadn’t penetrated deeply. He was certain of it.

With the wind chasing the usual fog, the light from stars and a half moon guided him. He reached the bottom of the wall and found a ladder on the dirt. The British East India Company guards used it to peer over the wall and throw rocks if they had information about thieves massing out there.

His ribs hurt when he raised the ladder and clambered up, but his breathing was deep, and he told himself that the pain came from bruises. The tops of the poles that formed the wall had been sharpened, with broken glass wedged between the points. Hearing loud voices behind him, men chasing him, he gripped two of the sharpened posts and raised a boot to step on the broken glass. A point snagged on his trouser leg, tearing the cloth. As he shifted to the other side, he pushed the ladder away and heard it crash on the ground.

“What’s that?” someone yelled.

He dangled from the outside of the wall. Here the distance to the ground was greater, a trench having been dug.

Something popped in his chest. He literally heard a popping sound, and at once agony surged through him. He released his hands and dropped. Although he was prepared for the shock of landing, he nonetheless gasped when his knees bent and he lost his balance, toppling sideways.

The angry voices reached the opposite side of the wall. With effort, Brookline came to his feet, ran across the ditch, and squirmed up its slope. Pain gripped his right knee when he climbed over a rail fence and reached East India Dock Road.

From his high perspective, he saw the warehouse and the ship basin. Flames showed through an open warehouse door.

Straight ahead was the vague outline of the city. He broke into an awkward run, adjusting his balance and speed to compensate for the pain in his knee.

And the pain in his chest. After something had popped in it, the pain was now deep.

The explosion knocked him to the ground. Flames and debris erupted from the warehouse, fire and smoke shooting up. His ears, which had been ringing from the numerous shots in the enclosed space of the warehouse, now rang more severely.

Only one explosion.

There should have been ten. The force of the multiple blasts should have been strong enough to level not only the warehouse, which it hadn’t, but also other buildings in the area. It should have thrown so many burning chunks of wood into the air that a rain of fire would now be falling around him. The wind should have carried a fury of sparks into the city. On the northern side of East India Dock Road, buildings should be starting to burn. Ahead, roofs should be smoldering.

In pain, he saw lanterns wavering as men raced up from the docks. He reached an intersection in which five roads led to many directions. He went south, reasoning that his pursuers would not expect him to go back toward the river. A signpost told him that this was Church Street. Close by, he had killed his mother and the former soldier, then set fire to their riverfront shack.

He passed the church where he’d learned to read. A passage he’d been taught from The Book of Common Prayer flashed through his mind.


If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.


Wrong, Brookline thought. I have no sin.

Opium is the sin.

England is the sin.

The Opium-Eater is the sin.

My father is the sin.

Stumbling more than running, he reached the southern end of Church Street. Again, five streets formed an intersection, leading to various parts of the compass. Police clackers sounded alarms, but they were distant, to the north, probably on East India Dock Road. His tactic was confusing his pursuers, and this five-street intersection would confuse them even more.

He chose west, struggling along a street that he recognized from his youth: Broad Street. As the flames from the warehouse threw sparks into the wind, his heart swelled with hope that the great fire would happen.

He reached another intersection, another place to confuse his pursuers. Now Broad Street changed its name, and even without a signpost, he couldn’t possibly have failed to recognize it. It was the one place in London that he knew better than any other, better than the Opium-Eater knew Oxford Street.

With a shock of recognition, he looked to his left, and even in shadows, he realized that he limped past New Gravel Lane. There, at number 81, amid pathetic shops that sold to sailors, had stood the King’s Arms tavern, where his father had committed his second set of murders, cracking the heads and slitting the throats of John Williamson, his wife, and their servant.

John Williams.

John Williamson.

John Williams.

John Williamson.

Before Brookline had joined the army, the last thing he’d done was go to Marr’s shop and then the King’s Arms tavern. He had stepped inside each establishment. He had stood where he imagined his father had stood, where his father had killed.

When he had returned from India, to which his father had sailed many times as a merchant seaman, the first thing he had done after twenty years was to go to Marr’s shop and stand inside it.

Then he had gone to the King’s Arms on New Gravel Lane, but to his dismay, the tavern had no longer existed. A huge, gloomy wall now occupied that western side of the street, protecting the area where the docks had been extended.

“When did this happen?” he had demanded of a passerby, who looked at him with fear and hurried on.

He had rushed south to Cinnamon Street. Drenched with sweat from running, he had leaned against a lamppost with relief when he discovered that the Pear Tree rooming house, where his father had slept after he killed the Marrs and the Williamsons—

John Williams.

John Willamson.

—still existed. That first night after having returned from India, Brookline had managed to rent the same room that his father had rented. For all he knew, he had slept on the very same bed that his father had used.

Now the high wall that had replaced the King’s Tavern loomed in the darkness as Brookline stumbled past it, continuing west. Sparks drifted over him. People in the neighborhood had heard the explosion, some of them braving the night to leave their dwellings and investigate. When they saw the sparks strike walls, they desperately swatted them out.

The pain in his right knee made him wince every time he put pressure on it. What tortured him, though, was his chest. Under his overcoat, his business coat, and his waistcoat, he felt liquid against his skin, and he didn’t believe it was sweat from his effort. The bullet might have penetrated a little deeper than he tried to assure himself.

Passing isolated streetlamps, he counted the numbers on the buildings to his left: 55, 49, 43, 37. And there up ahead was 29 Ratcliffe Highway.


Continuing the Journal of Emily De Quincey

In the gloom of the grocer’s shop, as I sat next to Margaret, holding her aged hands, I heard Father poking among objects on the shelves. With a murmur of triumph, he uncorked a bottle and drank from it.

“If that’s wine, I’d enjoy a sip to ward off the chill,” Commissioner Mayne said.

“It isn’t wine,” Father told him.

“Then what is it?”

“Medicine.”

“Medicine?”

“Laudanum,” Becker explained.

“Dear heaven,” Commissioner Mayne said.

The air seemed to tighten. I both felt and heard something rumble to the east. The window vibrated.

“What was that?” Margaret exclaimed.

“An explosion,” Becker answered.

Margaret jumped to her feet, about to rush to the door.

“No.” I blocked her way. “We mustn’t be seen.”

“Ryan failed,” the commissioner said.

“Perhaps not,” Father replied. “In the house on Greek Street, the floor had several impressions from gunpowder kegs, but we heard only one explosion.”

“One explosion might be enough.”

Becker concealed himself beside the window, peering out. “Sparks in the sky,” he reported. “Blowing from the east. But perhaps not enough to ignite the citywide fire that I assume Brookline intended.”

“It would take only a few strong blazes,” Mayne noted. “This wind would spread the flames quickly.”

I felt Margaret sobbing next to me as the wind blew dust past the window.

“De Quincey, perhaps you’re wrong that he’ll come here,” the commissioner suggested. “There’ll be a lot of commotion at the docks. Brookline will be under pressure to leave the area.”

“There is no such thing as forgetting,” Father emphasized. “Brookline is a creature obsessed about his past. He might not know that he intends to return here, but I have no doubt that if he is able, he will come to what used to be Marr’s shop.”

“ ‘He might not know that he intends to return here’?” Mayne frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“Another thought to make you dizzy,” Becker answered. “Mr. De Quincey persuaded me that sometimes we do things without knowing why.”

“Such as why I allowed you to convince me to spend the night here when I could be helping to organize the hunt,” the commissioner said.

The shop became silent again, except for the occasional sound of Father uncorking the laudanum bottle and drinking from it.

“I need to leave,” Mayne finally declared. “Lord Palmerston will demand my resignation if he learns I’m associating with you rather than attending to my duties.”

“It’s imperative that you stay,” Father insisted in the darkness. “Lord Palmerston won’t believe us, but he’ll listen to you.”

“He might not listen. Remember, I’ll be asking him to turn against his chief of security, the man who supposedly saved his life yesterday.”

“Father,” I said, “someone is outside.”

The shop became eerily still.

Beyond the window, a figure had materialized, a tall man who stood with his back to us, studying what used to be Marr’s shop.

“Where John Williams stood forty-three years ago,” Margaret moaned. “He watched me shut the door and go down the dark street.”

I kept my hands on Margaret’s arms, restraining her from sudden motion, as our group shifted toward the window.

With his back to us, the tall man’s silhouette moved into the middle of the street. He limped. His hands were raised to the right side of his chest, as if he were injured.

“Have you prepared yourself, Margaret?” Father asked.

“I had a lifetime to prepare myself.”

Beyond the window, the tall man leaned to the right, pain seeming to make him favor that side.

Even though I saw the man only from behind, the intensity with which he stared at what had been Marr’s shop was palpable.

To the east, police clackers sounded.

The man cocked his head in their direction, bracing himself to depart.

Father opened the door, calling out, “John Williams?”

The man spun toward the door.

“Is it you, John Williams?” Father asked.

“Who speaks to me?” Moonlight revealed dark liquid glistening on the right side of the man’s coat.

“John Williams, yes, I’d recognize you anywhere.”

“You confuse me with someone else.”

“Impossible.”

Down the street, from darkness between lampposts, a woman called, “John Williams!”

Another voice joined hers. “John Williams!”

And another. “John Williams!”

“Who are you?” the figure demanded.

In the opposite direction, a woman yelled, “John Williamson!”

And others. “John Williamson!”

The cries of the women shifted back and forth, alternating names.

“John Williams!”

“John Williamson!”

Abruptly all the voices changed. As one, the women shrieked, “The son of John Williams! You’re the son of John Williams!”

Brookline broke into an urgent limp, heading to the west, toward the Tower of London, the demarcation between the wretchedness of the East End and the better part of the city.

But at once he lurched to a halt as a line of constables appeared, filling the street from one side to the other, walking toward him, aiming their lanterns. Father had instructed them to stay in hiding until the women began their chorus.

Brookline pivoted in the opposite direction, and there a line of constables appeared also, from one side of the street to the other. They, too, aimed their lanterns as they walked toward him, trapping him.

“John Williams! John Williamson! The son of John Williams!” the women shouted.

Unnervingly, the voices stopped.

The constables stopped also. The only movement was the wind.

Within the dark shop, Father turned toward Margaret. “Do you remember what we require of you?”

“How can I possibly forget? Step away. I have things to say to my son.”

I released Margaret’s arms.

She walked through the shadowy doorway.

I followed. Knowing that Margaret would not have been there if I hadn’t insisted, I felt a grave obligation to help her in any way I could.

“Robert?” she called.

Brookline spun toward her, on guard.

“Robert?” she repeated, appearing on the street.

“Who calls me that?”

“Your mother.”

Brookline stepped back, as though the wind had pushed him.

“No. My mother died a long time ago. In a fire.”

“Samuel died.” Margaret walked slowly toward him, each footfall communicating her emotional agony. “But I survived.”

Brookline took another step back. “This is a deceit.”

“Despite my wound, I managed to crawl away.”

“You are lying.”

“The fire burned my face. Can you see the scar, Robert? Here on my left cheek. Every day, the scar reminds me of the puke that was John Williams and the filth that he and I brought into the world. Every day I pray for God’s hand to come down and crush me.”

“Don’t call me ‘filth’!”

“I wish I had never been born so that I could never have given birth to you.”

“You’re not my mother. No mother could speak to a son that way.”

“Who else would know that you tortured animals under the docks?”

“No.”

“You tied their paws to stakes and put muzzles over their jaws.”

“A child doesn’t know what he does or why he does it. I made amends. The world will be better because of me.”

Margaret stepped closer. “By killing?”

“For twenty years in India, my orders were to kill. I was given promotions and medals for acts that would have caused me to be hanged here in England. Don’t talk to me about killing. Killing is wrong only if you look at it in a particular way.”

“You have lost your reason.”

“Then England has lost its reason!”

“What about the five people you slaughtered on Saturday night, two of them women and two of them children?”

“I admit to killing no one on Saturday night. But I killed many women and children in India and was praised. My commanders said it was necessary for the empire. They really meant that it was necessary for rich men to become richer because of the opium trade.”

“And what about the people you slaughtered on Monday night? They had nothing to do with the opium trade.”

“I admit to killing no one on Monday night either. But if five or eleven or even hundreds die to save millions from lifelong misery, those casualties are heroes. If you are truly my mother, you can tell me how much you and I and Samuel managed to earn each day, you as a mudlark searching the riverbank for chunks of coal, Samuel and I collecting ashes?”

“All of us? If we were lucky? Two shillings a day.” Margaret almost reached him.

“Perhaps fourteen shillings a week. Not even a pound. Not enough to eat properly and live in a room without rats. When I returned from India, I received sixteen hundred pounds from a landowner who wanted to be an officer in the army. Did you know, Mother, that most officers in the military don’t earn their rank? They purchase it from a retiring officer. And this twit landowner was happy to pay me sixteen hundred pounds to take my place as a colonel. Sixteen hundred pounds for being a killer. If you are indeed my mother, you can tell me what I received at the church every Sunday when I went there to learn to read.”

“A cookie.”

“Until then, I was lucky to taste the crumbs of a cookie. When I worked for the dustman, collecting ashes from the houses of the rich, I saw things I never dreamed existed. Some homes had eight and ten rooms, any of which was larger than the shack that you and I and Samuel were forced to share. I saw splendid clothing, so new and expensive that I thought I must be dreaming. I saw more food consumed in one day than the three of us managed to find in a week. How many millions in England suffer the way you and I did, Mother? When I look at Lord Palmerston and his wealthy, powerful, arrogant friends, when I see their greed and their indifference to the poor, I feel a rage that it takes all my effort to keep under control.”

“But you didn’t control it.”

Margaret reached him.

Determined to help in every possible way, I remained behind her. A cold shock swept through me as Margaret suddenly raised her fists and struck her son. Too short to reach his face, she directed her blows toward his chest. Right, left, right, left. The solid thumps of the impacts were surprising, given that they came from an elderly woman. In a frenzy, she kept striking him. As her fists hammered, the effort brought such forceful breaths from her mouth that I feared she would collapse.

Brookline showed no pain, even when she pounded at his wound. Despite the injury that slicked his coat with blood, his only reaction was to stand straighter. His arms at his sides, he merely braced himself and absorbed his mother’s blows.

I ran to her, desperate to tug her away before Brookline might harm her.

Instead he grabbed me. With his arm around my throat, I dangled against his chest, struggling to breathe. At once he dropped me to my feet, appearing to demonstrate that he could have easily injured me if he desired.

Again, I tugged to get Margaret away from him. Becker was suddenly next to me. Seeing that Brookline no longer threatened me, Becker gripped Margaret’s other arm, but despite both our efforts, she continued flailing at her son.

“I see the heroic constable is here,” Brookline noted. “Maybe you too will one day receive medals, Becker, but I assure you the medals will come faster if you kill people.”

The old woman kept struggling as we dragged her toward the grocer’s shop.

“Don’t claim you kill for the wretches who live here!” Margaret screamed. “Tonight you almost murdered them!”

“If the revolution came, their children would be better for it,” Brookline insisted. “They would thank me.”

“You’re filth!” Spit flew from Margaret’s lips.

“Men like Lord Palmerston are the filth. The quicker they and their way of life are exterminated, the sooner this country will be free of suffering.”

“Colonel,” Father yelled, “thank you for not harming my daughter.”

Turning, I saw Father emerge from the shop.

“Who’s there?” Brookline demanded. “The Opium-Eater?”

Father showed himself in the moonlight. “Despite my gratitude, I’m afraid I must object that you’re not being entirely truthful with us.”

“You little shit,” Brookline said.

“I am thin, not little.”

“Everything is a joke to you. Opium. Violence. It all has the same amusement to you. ‘If once a man indulges in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing,’ ” Brookline quoted with contempt, “ ‘and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination. Once begin upon this downward path, you never know where you are to stop. Many a man has dated his ruin to some murder or other that perhaps he thought little of at the time.’ ”

“You flatter me by quoting my work so accurately.”

“You are the true filth to which my mother referred. Your praise of opium and violence caused far more deaths than those for which I admit to being responsible.”

In the distance, the alarm bells of fire wagons filled the night. Father glanced in that direction.

I followed his gaze. To the east I saw a glow above where I had been told the British East India Company docks were located. Sparks rose from the glow. The wind sped the sparks across the sky, propelling them toward me, like a swarm of fiery insects. But the grotesque fireworks kept fading as they neared me, extinguished by the wind as much as blown by it.

When I looked again at Father, he was a step closer to Brookline.

“I assure you, Colonel, that neither opium nor violence amuses me. Every day for the past fifty years, I have regretted the terrible moment when I first swallowed laudanum for my facial pains. As for violence, I write about it compulsively and with apparent humor because it horrifies me. Long ago I stared a mad dog in the face. The terrifying intensity in his eyes above the froth in his mouth so hypnotized me that I was unable to turn away.”

“You compare me to a mad dog?” Brookline drew a knife.

“Not at all. A mad dog knows nothing of what it does. You, on the other hand, are extremely aware of what you do, even though you aren’t aware of why you do it.”

“You don’t make sense. The opium has addled your mind.”

“To the contrary, it makes my mind clear.”

In the distance, the alarm bells of the fire wagons gained in number and strength.

“The sparks are receding,” Father noted. “The crisis is under control. You failed, Colonel, and if I may point out, you are standing in a large pool of blood. Should we send for a surgeon?”

“I have endured worse injuries.”

“To your body or to your mind?”

“My mind? Do you insult me again?”

When Brookline made a threatening motion toward Father, Becker stepped protectively forward, ready with his truncheon.

“Constable,” Brookline warned, “even in my compromised condition, do you honestly think that you are a match for me? You might be stronger at the moment, but I have one quality that you lack entirely.”

“And what would that be?” Becker demanded.

“The willingness to inflict death without hesitation. Examine your soul. Are you prepared to cause as much damage to me as I am prepared, without pause or regret, to inflict upon you?”

Becker didn’t reply.

“You might wish to defend the Opium-Eater, God knows why, or the woman who calls herself my mother, or the Opium-Eater’s daughter,” Brookline said. “But nobility is not sufficient. You do not have the temperament or the training to be the kind of artist that England made me. Ryan already learned that lesson.”

“Ryan?” Becker asked quickly. “What about him?”

“His bullet is in me. But he did not have the resolve to finish what he began. I showed him what he lacked.”

“You showed him what? Where is he?”

“The last time I saw him, he was sprawled in his blood, devoting his attention to keeping his insides where they belong.”

“You…!”

“Becker!” Father shouted as the constable seemed about to attack Brookline. “That’s what he wants! He’s baiting you! Don’t you understand him yet? To kill, he needs a motive he can justify!”

Becker froze.

“Very smart,” Brookline said. “The little shit saved your life.”

“Colonel, the pool of blood at your feet is spreading. Are you sure you do not wish us to send for a surgeon?”

“I suspect that a surgeon would not be of help.” Brookline wavered.

“Instead of hanging yourself, as your father did, you choose to commit suicide by bleeding to death?”

“The consequences of combat are honorable.”

“Given the amount of blood that you are losing, the two of us do not have much time to arrive at the truth. Why do you flagellate yourself, Colonel?”

“You dare talk of such things when women are present?”

“They are about to hear worse. Answer my question. Why do you flagellate yourself?”

“You are a sneak.”

“I agree. Invading your bedroom was contemptible. Why do you—”

“To punish myself for all the people I killed.”

“Do you punish yourself for killing the former soldier with whom you and your mother lived? Do you punish yourself for attempting to kill your mother?”

“It was a horrid thing to do. I was a child. I was confused and did not realize what I was doing.”

“Do you punish yourself for all the people you killed in India because of the opium trade?”

“I have nightmares about them.”

“Perhaps a better word is ‘dreams.’ ”

“Dreams?”

“Of a particular sort.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You know the type I mean. Despite our differences, we are both men and understand the consequences of certain dreams. We don’t need to embarrass the ladies by being explicit.”

I was indeed embarrassed. Disturbingly so. This was a rare instance in which Father’s comments made heat rise to my cheeks.

“Did you flagellate yourself after you killed those five people on Saturday night?”

“As penance.”

“Did you flagellate yourself after you killed those eight people in the tavern on Monday night and the three people in the surgeon’s house?”

“To atone.”

“I saw more than bloodstains on the cot in your bedroom.”

Despite the wind and the bells of fire wagons in the distance, the street became unnaturally silent.

“My bedroom?” Brookline asked.

“You flagellate yourself to complete the arousal that killing stimulates in you. The evidence of that arousal was on your cot.”

Brookline’s bellow so startled me that I took a step backward, as if I were being attacked.

His roar reverberated toward the constables who waited in a line three shops away on each side of him. His cry of anguish rose to the sky, where the stars and a half moon impassively received it.

His head was thrown back. His mouth gaped. His arms stretched toward the heavens.

Slowly, his cry diminished. As he lowered his arms and head, his shoulders heaved with a profound exhale that might have been a sob. One of Father’s books is called Suspiria de Profundis, a sigh from the depths. That was what I heard: the most racking sigh that I imagined could ever come from the depths of a human being.

Brookline turned away. In a daze, he shuffled along the street, trailing blood.

Father kept pace with him. “You kill because you enjoy it. Everything else is a lie that an alien part of you repeated until you believed it.”

The line of constables who waited in that direction stepped toward Brookline as he approached. They prepared to secure him with handcuffs.

“Shackles are not required,” Father told them. “He doesn’t intend to escape. It’s obvious where he is going. Let him proceed.”

They parted, allowing him through but staying with him.

The streetwalkers whose help Father had enlisted emerged from hiding places along the street. Their haggard features and windblown rags reminded me of drawings of banshees.

“Doris!” Father called. “Melinda! Is this the man who promised you an additional sovereign?”

“He dressed different and wore a yellowish beard, but he’s the same size, and I’d recognize his voice anywhere,” Doris responded.

“Colonel, does your concern for the poor extend to paying these kind ladies the additional fee that you promised them for antagonizing me at Vauxhall Gardens?”

Brookline stumbled on, staring at something far beyond the shadowy street. Margaret and I followed. So did Becker and Commissioner Mayne. So did the constables and the streetwalkers, who kept pace with Brookline.

Father walked directly behind him.

“Colonel, what happened to your concern for the poor? If you have any honor, you will keep your promise to these ladies.”

Staring straight ahead, Brookline fumbled in his coat and pulled out his pockets, dropping coins onto the cobblestones. Their copper, silver, and gold made different metallic sounds as they landed and rolled.

The streetwalkers raced for the coins, fighting for them.

With his outturned pockets blown by the wind, Brookline reached a signpost that said Cannon Street. He staggered to the north past dismal buildings that seemed about to collapse. The constables and the rest of us stayed with him.

“What about Ann?” Father asked. “Do you have information about her?”

“Who?”

“Ann! You brought me to London, claiming you had information about her!”

“For all I know, the slut died from consumption after you abandoned her.”

“I didn’t abandon her! Tell me! Do you have anything at all to report?”

“How could a prostitute with consumption have possibly survived? For most of your life, she’s been rotting in a pauper’s grave. You’re a fool.”

I was close enough to see the emptiness that seized Father’s face. The last vestige of his youth slipped away. His skin shrank around his cheeks. His eyes receded with hopelessness. A moan escaped him—or perhaps it was a sob, rising from the depths of his broken heart.

A wretched-looking woman stepped from a decaying structure and stared in fear at us. A sickly thin man appeared behind her.

Speechless, they followed Brookline, seeming to sense what was happening.

Other pathetic men and women emerged from bleak doorways, frowned at Brookline, and joined the horrid procession.

Soon dozens of people were with us, then a hundred, then two hundred, their footsteps scraping on the cobblestones.

Brookline reached a large intersection. A sign on a wall said Cable Street. Abruptly I remembered something that Father had written. Chilled, I understood that Brookline had taken the route by which his father’s body had been brought here forty-three years earlier.

The procession halted as Brookline wavered toward the middle of the crossroads. The lanterns of the constables illuminated him. He scanned the crowd that filled the intersection, although his faraway gaze made it seem that he couldn’t see us.

Again he exhaled an immense sigh from his depths.

He fumbled to pull something from beneath his coat.

“Stay back!” Becker warned us. “It might be a weapon!”

Brookline’s knees bent. His tall body didn’t drop as much as it collapsed. He landed face downward on the stones.

He trembled, then lay still.

Hushed, the crowd stepped forward, surrounding him at a careful distance.

“Cannon and Cable streets,” Commissioner Mayne said. “Somewhere under this crossroads, under these paving stones, John Williams is buried.”

“Not somewhere,” Father told him. “Here. I’m certain Brookline knew the exact spot where his father’s bones rest.”

“Emily and Margaret, look away.” Becker stooped warily to turn Brookline onto his back.

But we didn’t turn away. Normal emotions had deserted me. I was so numbed that I didn’t flinch or feel nauseous when I saw the knife that Brookline had pulled from beneath his coat and slid between his ribs when he landed.

As when Brookline had wailed toward the sky, his mouth was open in anguish.

“He was already dying, and yet he felt the compulsion to use the knife. It’s not precisely a stake through his heart,” Father said. “But I imagine Brookline intended it to be the same as what ultimately happened to his father. Margaret, I’m sorry.”

“He was dead to me a long time ago,” the elderly woman replied. “There’s no need to feel sorry about that. But for what he did because of my weakness, God pity me.”

“A man can find within himself, in a separate chamber of his mind, a separate alien nature,” Father said, echoing something he had written. “But what if that alien nature contradicts his own, fights with it, and confounds what he once thought to be the inviolable sanctuary of his soul?”

“Can you do without me?” Becker asked abruptly, glancing from Father and the commissioner toward Margaret and me.

“We are safe now. Go!” I urged.

Becker broke into a run, hurrying through the crowd, racing toward the glow on the dark horizon.


FLAMES CRACKLED. Horses reared in terror. The din of bells summoned more help as men lay on the docks, stretching over the side to fill pails with water. They handed the pails to a line that led toward the warehouse. In a rush, another line brought empty pails back. Hoses went from the water to fire wagons, where men furiously worked the pumps and other men directed a spray toward the warehouse.

In the chaos, Becker charged toward a constable. “Where’s Detective Inspector Ryan?”

“Don’t know him.”

In the reflection of flames, Becker sprinted toward another constable. “I’m looking for Detective Inspector Ryan!”

“Haven’t seen him.”

Breathless from his rush to the docks, Becker looked around frantically.

“Did you say you were looking for Ryan?” a guard asked.

“Yes!”

“He was with those constables who were killed,” the guard reported.

“Ryan’s dead?”

“I don’t know.” The guard needed to raise his voice to be heard above the shouts and the roar of the fire. “He was stabbed.”

“Stabbed?”

“I helped him from the warehouse before it blew up. It tossed us through the air. I never saw him after that.”

“Where? Show me where the blast threw you!”

“Over there!”

The guard indicated a gravel area. No one was there.

Becker strained to look in every direction. “Ryan! For God’s sake, where are you?” He stopped a man hurrying by. “Do you know where the injured were taken?”

“There! To the spice warehouse!”

The man pointed toward a building near the burning warehouse.

Becker ran to it.

The living and the dead were positioned on blankets. Becker rushed to each of them, searching their faces, wiping soot from them.

Desperate, he ran back to the opium warehouse. Through the flames, he saw where a doorway had been blown apart. Anyone coming through it would have been lifted by the explosion and—

Becker followed a line from the doorway toward the section of gravel that the guard had indicated. He found blood. He followed it to the wood of the dock. The blood went over the side.

“Ryan!”

Kneeling, Becker stared down toward the greasy water. Despite the speed with which his heart pounded, it nonetheless seemed to stop when he saw a figure half submerged, right arm snagged on a loop of rope.

“Help me!” Becker yelled. “For God’s sake, someone help!”

A constable heard and raced toward him.

“I’m a policeman!” Becker shouted. “That’s Detective Inspector Ryan down there!”

Becker pulled his overcoat off with such urgency that several buttons popped. He yanked off his boots and jumped.

The water was painfully, shockingly cold. Plunging into it, Becker felt the cold only briefly. In seconds, numbness spread through him. His hands shook as he grabbed a rope that the constable dropped to him. He tied the rope under Ryan’s arms and motioned for the constable, who’d been joined by another man, to pull Ryan up.

But as Ryan was lifted from the water, the reflection of the flames showed the terrible slash in his abdomen.

Becker almost gagged but stifled the urge and yelled, “Stop! He’s been cut! We’re separating the wound!”

The constables eased Ryan back into the water. Becker, whose tenant-farming father had insisted he learn to swim before he could fish from a river that flowed near the farm, gripped Ryan with one arm and pulled at the water with the other, forcing his way along the dock. His water-soaked clothes weighed him down, but he gripped a piling and pushed beyond it. He grabbed at more water, fighting toward a walkway that stretched down from the dock.

There, the constables waited, helping to lift Ryan from the water.

“He’s dead,” one of them murmured.

“No!” Becker said. “He can’t be! I won’t let him be!”

“Look at the gash in his stomach,” the other constable said, not even bothering to note the slice in Ryan’s left arm.

“I think he moved,” Becker said.

“I want him to,” one of the constables said, “but it’s just the flames playing tricks.”

“He did! His lips! I saw them move!”

Becker leaned close, straining to hear what Ryan said.

The other constables leaned close also.

“Snow,” Ryan murmured.

“The poor man’s hallucinating. He thinks it’s snowing.”

“That’s not the snow he means! Help me lift him! Help me take him to Dr. Snow!”


WILL INSPECTOR RYAN survive his wounds?” Lord Palmerston asked.

For the second time in two nights, De Quincey, Emily, and Becker stood in the ballroom of Lord Palmerston’s mansion. Commissioner Mayne had been summoned also.

Dawn paled the darkness beyond the windows. But Palmerston was dressed as if for business, wearing his customary gray slacks, black waistcoat, and black coat, the hem of which descended to his knees. His heavy frame continued to give him authority, as did his thick, long, brown-dyed sideburns that emphasized his powerful eyes.

“Dr. Snow is cautiously optimistic, Your Lordship,” Becker explained. “The doctor says that under usual circumstances, Ryan would have bled to death, but apparently the cold water did something to his body—reduced the blood flow is how I understood it. The doctor disinfected the wounds and closed them. Now it’s a matter of waiting to see if Ryan’s body can heal itself.”

“Where is Ryan now?”

“Resting at Dr. Snow’s residence until he can be transported to a hospital,” Becker replied. “Ryan had sufficient strength to warn us about the men who helped Brookline. They were arrested, trying to leave the city in hearses that Ryan heard them talk about. The men were dressed as undertakers and had money they stole hidden under corpses in coffins.”

“Commissioner Mayne, send a constable to Dr. Snow and tell him that I want Ryan brought here instead of to a hospital.”

“Your Lordship is very generous.”

Lord Palmerston nodded. “When Ryan is well enough to converse, I’ll have an opportunity to learn further details about what happened. During last night’s confrontation, did Brookline say anything about me?”

“About Your Lordship? I, uh…”

“Answer my question, Commissioner.”

“He did in fact speak about you.”

“In what specific words?” Palmerston’s gaze suggested that the conversation had entered dangerous territory.

“With Your Lordship’s forgiveness…”

“Get on with it.”

“He said that you and your… I beg your indulgence… what he called your wealthy, powerful, arrogant friends were greedy and indifferent to the poor.”

“And?”

“That is all, Your Lordship.”

“Nothing about politics?”

“No, Your Lordship. Is there something specific that occupies your concern?”

“Brookline was privy to numerous confidential discussions. It would be unfortunate if he had broadcast their contents.” Palmerston’s eyes relaxed. He changed the subject. “Becker, you’re shivering.”

“The water was very cold, Your Lordship.”

“Will it make you feel warmer if, with Commissioner Mayne’s approval, I promote you to the rank of detective?”

Becker looked as if he didn’t believe he’d heard correctly. “Detective?”

“Stand before the fire.” Palmerston motioned to a nearby servant. “Bring Detective Becker dry clothes and a blanket. Hot tea for everyone.”

The servant departed.

“De Quincey,” Palmerston asked, “why are you walking in place? Your face shines with sweat.”

“With Your Lordship’s forgiveness…” De Quincey pulled a bottle from his coat and swallowed from it.

Palmerston looked horrified. “Is that…?”

“My medicine.”

“You’re pathetic.”

“Quite so, Your Lordship.”

“Aren’t you worried about ruining your health?”

“After a half century of laudanum, my health was ruined long ago, Your Lordship.”

“And aren’t you ashamed of setting such a poor example to your daughter?”

“On the contrary, I set an excellent example. Emily’s daily experience with me teaches her never to touch a drop of this evil substance.”

Palmerston, whose riches came largely from the opium trade, considered the word “evil” in reference to the drug. Briefly his eyes hardened again.

“Yes, well, I summoned all of you so that I might do something that a man in my position almost never does—admit a mistake. You have my regret that I misjudged Brookline and misjudged you. If there is anything I can do to express my gratitude for your help, you need only ask.”

“My daughter and I find ourselves without lodgings, Your Lordship,” De Quincey said promptly.

Palmerston was surprised by the quick response.

“Colonel Brookline arranged for our previous accommodations,” De Quincey elaborated, “but the association is so disagreeable that I’m afraid neither my daughter nor I could sleep peacefully under that roof.”

Palmerston made a calculated decision. “The two of you shall remain here under my protection. Perhaps you’ll think of something else that Colonel Brookline said about me. If there’s nothing further…”

“Actually, Your Lordship…” Emily, who’d been silent, stepped forward.

“Yes, Miss De Quincey?” Palmerston looked uneasy, as if sensing what was about to happen.

“An undertaker needs to be paid sixteen pounds for funeral expenses involving the first set of victims.”

“Funeral expenses?”

“In addition, my father made promises to a group of beggars on Oxford Street. For their considerable help, they were guaranteed an abundance of food throughout the next year.”

“Beggars? Food?”

“I myself promised one of them—a boy with acrobatic capabilities who was wounded—that his tuition and board would be paid at a commendable school.”

“Tuition? Board?”

“Also, I promised a group of privately employed ladies that they would be taken to a farm where they could become healthy in clean air, growing vegetables.”

“Privately employed ladies?”

“Prostitutes, Your Lordship,” Emily explained.

“Detective Becker, is this young woman always so forthcoming?”

“I’m pleased to say that she is, Your Lordship.”

Emily concealed a smile, but not enough so that the new detective failed to notice it, concealing his own smile.

“I grant your requests on one condition,” Palmerston pronounced. “An exceeding number of newspaper reporters wish to speak with all of you. You shall make clear that all the efforts to save the city were coordinated through my office and that I myself personally directed the unmasking of Colonel Brookline.”


RYAN LAY ON A BED in a servant’s room in the mansion’s attic.

Emily tried not to show how alarmed she was by his pallor. De Quincey and Becker stood on the other side of the bed.

“Dr. Snow told me that your wounds do not appear to be infected,” Emily assured him, hoping that her brightness didn’t sound forced.

Ryan’s eyelids flickered. Slowly he focused on his visitors.

“Are you in pain?” Emily asked.

“No,” Ryan managed to say. “Dr. Snow gave me laudanum.”

“Be careful not to become habituated,” De Quincey cautioned.

“I would laugh,” Ryan murmured, “but it might tear my stitches.”

“Ah, I detect a smile,” Emily said victoriously.

“Despite the circumstances, I admit I enjoyed meeting you and your father, Miss De Quincey.”

“If that is intended as a good-bye, it is premature. You have not seen the last of Father and me. Rather than return to debt collectors in Edinburgh, we plan to stay in London a while longer.”

Ryan considered her statement and nodded, surprising her. “Good. London will be more exciting for your presence.”

Emily felt warmth in her cheeks. “Excitement turned out to be a dubious experience. Father and I look forward to the humdrum of resuming his discussions with booksellers and magazine writers.”

“Surely you can spend your time to better advantage,” Ryan found the strength to say. “London has greater attractions than magazine writers.”

“Yes, I heard so much about the famed Crystal Palace that I am eager to see it,” Emily enthused. “A glass structure so tall that full-grown elm trees decorate its interior.”

“It is indeed a marvel. After the Great Exhibition three years ago, it was disassembled at Hyde Park and rebuilt at Sydenham Hill.”

“I volunteered to escort Emily and her father there,” Becker said happily.

“How thoughtful,” Ryan muttered. “I would have been pleased to volunteer as well.”

“Your convalescence frustrates you, I am sure,” Emily noted. “That is another reason Father and I decided to stay in London.”

“Another reason?”

“Dr. Snow has obligations that prevent him from visiting you as often as he would prefer. He taught me to administer treatment to you in his absence.”

“Since we are not related, the intimacy might be uncomfortable for you, Miss De Quincey. I fear I will be a burden.”

“Nonsense. Given what Florence Nightingale has accomplished for nursing in the Crimean War, it’s obvious that an injury has greater priority than false modesty. Women will soon have a profession to pursue besides being a servant, a shopgirl, or a governess.”

“One thing I have learned from my experience with you is to appreciate new thoughts. I shall be grateful for the attention, Miss De Quincey.”

“Please call me ‘Emily.’ Detective Becker learned to do that. After everything that we have been through together, why do you insist on being formal?”

“Detective Becker?” Ryan looked at him, puzzled.

“My stature has risen,” Becker explained. “I owe it to the opportunity you gave me and look forward to many more adventures together.”

“I believe I have experienced sufficient adventures.” Ryan’s eyelids began to droop.

“Weariness makes you say that,” Emily decided. “You and Detective Becker are men of action if I ever saw them. We shall let you sleep. But in your hazy condition, perhaps I can persuade you to tell me your first name.”

Ryan hesitated. “Sean.”

“And what is my name?”

“Miss…”

“Please try again.”

“Your name is Emily.”

“Very good.” She looked at Becker. “And what is your first name?”

Becker hesitated also. “Joseph.”

“Splendid.”

Emily looked from one man to the other. Becker seemed only a little older than her twenty-one years, a tall, strapping, handsome fellow with solid manners, and a slight scar on his chin that somehow made him more attractive. In contrast, Ryan was almost twice her age, theoretically too old to be considered as anything but at best a brother, and yet the lines of experience in his face made him oddly pleasing to look at, not to mention that his confidence and even his gruffness were appealing.

What strange thoughts, she told herself, but as Emily did with all new concepts, she refused to suppress them.

“Sean and Joseph.” She touched their hands. “I believe we can finally declare that we are friends.”

“There is no such thing as forgetting,” De Quincey said with a smile. “But for a change, this is one circumstance I shall happily always remember.”