Murder as a Fine Art

7

A Garden of Pleasures



IN 1854, THE BRITISH EMPIRE was the largest the world had ever known, far greater than Alexander’s conquests or that of the Romans. Its territories encircled the globe, including Canada, the Bahamas, Bermuda, Gibraltar, Malta, Cyprus, a third of Africa, and a significant portion of the Mideast as well as India, Burma, Malaya, Singapore, Hong Kong, Borneo, New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Fiji, Samoa, Australia, New Zealand, and portions of Antarctica.

The man at the center of it, arguably the most powerful man on earth, was Henry John Temple, known officially as Lord Palmerston. For almost half a century, beginning in 1807, Palmerston had developed an expanding, profound influence in the British government, first as a member of Parliament, then as secretary at war (nineteen years), secretary of state for foreign affairs (fifteen years), and currently the home secretary, a position that put him in charge of almost everything that happened on domestic soil, particularly with regard to national security and the police. Most observers were confident that Palmerston would soon become prime minister, but prime ministers came and went, whereas a man who had a lifetime of influence in the War Office, the Foreign Office, and the Home Office in effect controlled the government. Prime ministers and even Queen Victoria herself frequently summoned Palmerston, demanding to know why he enacted policies that neither Parliament nor the prime minister had authorized.

At nine o’clock Monday morning, Ryan sat in front of this great man in his Westminster office. Palmerston was seventy years old, with long, thick, brown-dyed sideburns that extended all the way to his strong chin and framed his dominating gaze. His age had affected neither his energy nor his ambition. His office was decorated with a large map of England and another of the world, with every British territory colored in red and stuck with a pin of the British flag.

Palmerston’s wealth was manifest in his garments, their cut and their stitching of such obvious quality that Ryan felt poorly dressed, even though he had put on his only fine clothes: the expected gray trousers, matching waistcoat, and black coat that came down to his knees. In keeping with fashion, straps attached to the bottom of Ryan’s trousers were looped under his boots, applying tension to prevent the trouser legs from wrinkling. The tightness of the legs, especially when sitting, made Ryan wish for his loose, comfortable street clothes.

Seated next to Ryan was Police Commissioner Mayne. In a corner, taking notes, sat Palmerston’s male secretary. Next to the office’s closed entrance stood Palmerston’s protective escort, retired colonel Robert Brookline. Years earlier, Palmerston had been shot by a would-be assassin. He had resolved that it wouldn’t happen again. Brookline, a twenty-year military veteran with battle experience in India and China, was more than qualified to protect him.

“I was in the cabinet when the first Ratcliffe Highway murders occurred,” Palmerston told them. “I remember the fright that spread through the nation and how the Home Office bungled controlling it. On my watch, I won’t allow that fright to happen again.” He pointed toward a stack of newspapers on his desk, the five dozen that were published in London. “The hysteria of these reports is bound to lead to more incidents like the riots after the murders on Saturday night. Inspector Ryan, I understand that you were involved in both those riots.”

“Yes, Your Lordship. At one point, the crowd decided I was a suspect and turned on me.”

“Indeed.” Palmerston glanced at Ryan’s red hair.

“Then it turned against someone else. We stopped him from being seriously injured and possibly killed.”

“I haven’t heard you mention him, so I gather that the mob was mistaken.”

“Yes, Your Lordship. He isn’t the killer.”

“You’re certain?”

“Definitely.”

“How refreshing to hear someone say he is definite about something. What about the Malay?”

“He appears not to be able to speak English, Your Lordship, and despite the best efforts of the Foreign Office, we haven’t found anyone who speaks Malay.”

The reference to the Foreign Office, which Palmerston had once controlled and which, it was rumored, he continued to control, made His Lordship’s eyes even more alert.

“We have the Malay in custody,” Ryan added, “but his foot size doesn’t match the prints at the murder scene. I’m inclined to think that he wasn’t involved, except as a paid messenger.”

Palmerston shook his head impatiently and turned his withering attention toward Commissioner Mayne. “What’s being done to assure the population that the streets are safe?”

“Your Lordship, all detectives and constables are working extra hours. All rest days have been canceled. Patrols have been doubled. A witness says she was suspicious about a tall man with a yellow beard. The man wore a merchant sailor’s cap and coat.”

“What sort of witness?”

“A prostitute.”

“A prostitute,” Palmerston said, unimpressed.

“We searched our card catalogue at Scotland Yard to determine if any criminals have that color of beard.”

“And?”

“The only criminal who matches that description died three years ago,” the commissioner replied.

“A sailor with experience in the Orient might know how to speak the Malay’s language,” Palmerston granted. “He would also know which ships arriving in London might have a Malay working on them. But if the killer is indeed a sailor, he might be at sea again by now.”

“Yes, Your Lordship,” Mayne responded. “Our constables are making inquiries at the docks. If anyone remembers a sailor who matches that description, we’ll send a message via the next ship to warn the authorities at the suspect’s destination.”

“Which could take weeks or even months, by which time the suspect could be on another ship,” Palmerston responded with greater impatience.

“Yes, Your Lordship. Without a transocean telegraph, our options are limited.”

“At the moment, I wish the telegraph hadn’t been invented. Colonel Brookline, what’s your opinion of it?”

The strong-featured man who stood at military ease replied, “It’s been of immense help in the Crimea, Your Lordship. Commanders are able to communicate orders with remarkable speed.”

“It didn’t stop those idiots Raglan and Cardigan from perpetrating that disaster with the Light Brigade. If I still controlled the War Office, I’d have relieved them of their command. Raglan sends an imprecise order. Cardigan gallops off with his cavalry, not certain where his objective is but determined to be a hero. After nearly destroying the Light Brigade, he has a champagne dinner aboard his yacht in a nearby harbor. Thanks to the telegraph, everyone instantly knows what happened thousands of miles away, and the government might fall because of the bungling of the war. Forty-three years ago, it took three days for mail coaches to spread throughout the country. But yesterday the telegraph sent reports of Saturday’s murders to every town in the land even before the newspapers could be put on trains. People are huddled in the streets. Many have pistols. My informants tell me the sole topic of conversation is how everyone plans to leave their places of employment early so they can hurry home before the fog returns. It’s not only in London that this is happening. The whole country’s terrified, and I’m the one responsible for reassuring everybody.”

“Your Lordship,” Ryan said. “There’s another possibility that we’re investigating.”

“You have my attention, Inspector.”

“The footprints we found did not have hobnails in the soles, suggesting that the killer is not a laborer. The razor I found is almost certainly the second murder weapon. Its handle is well-crafted ivory. Its steel is high quality. Very expensive. That too suggests the killer is not a laborer.”

“Stop using negatives, Inspector.”

Ryan felt heat rise to his cheeks. “Your Lordship, we need to consider the possibility that the killer might be someone of means and education.”

“Consider…? Good heavens, man, that’s inconceivable. The razor must have been stolen. Someone with means and education couldn’t possibly be responsible for these hideous crimes. Their extreme violence makes that obvious. Only a common person could have committed them. Or else a drug abuser.”

“A drug abuser, Your Lordship?”

“The Opium-Eater is everywhere in these newspapers. A month ago, he wrote in lengthy, bloody detail about the original killings. It’s as if the murderer used the Opium-Eater’s essay as an instruction manual. Or could the Opium-Eater himself be responsible for the murders?”

“Your Lordship, he’s barely five feet tall. He’s sixty-nine years old. It would have been physically impossible for him to have killed all those people.”

“Whether he’s innocent isn’t the point. Someone whose faculties have been corrupted by a lifelong opium habit is an obvious suspect. Arrest him. Make certain that the newspapers know about it.”

“But…”

“If we put him in prison, the public will breathe easier, convinced that we’re doing something. I do not wish to be argued with, Inspector. Arrest him.”

“Your Lordship, I merely want to point out that, if the pattern holds true, there’ll be another multiple killing. If De Quincey’s in prison when the murders occur, it’ll be obvious we arrested the wrong man.”

“In twelve days, Inspector. That’s when the next murders occurred forty-three years ago. Twelve days ought to be enough time for you to find the madman responsible. It had better be, or else you won’t be a detective any longer, and that’ll be the least of your worries. Meanwhile, De Quincey’s arrest will prove we’re doing something. Putting him in prison will make the population feel safe.”

“Perhaps earlier than twelve days, Your Lordship.”

“Excuse me?”

“De Quincey believes that the killer is exaggerating the Ratcliffe Highway murders. If he’s right, the next killings will happen much sooner than the last time and be more savage.”


TO AVOID ATTRACTING ATTENTION, Becker used a cab instead of the police wagon to transport De Quincey and Emily from their townhouse near Russell Square. He chose a roundabout route and looked back to see if any vehicle stayed behind them, a task made less difficult because fewer than usual carriages were on the streets.

Their first destination was the office of the undertaker in charge of burying the Hayworth family. True to her word, Emily had visited the victim’s brother the previous evening and made good on her vow of determining that he was with his wife and son.

Now she told the undertaker, “The deceased had one pound, eight shillings, and two pennies in a cash box. That will serve as a down payment for the funerals.”

Standing in the background, Becker was amazed by Emily’s forthrightness, while De Quincey seemed not to find it unusual.

“One pound, eight shillings, and…!” the undertaker exclaimed. “But all five funerals amount to sixteen pounds! Someone stole my hearse last night! If I’m not paid beforehand, I don’t see how I can arrange for the disposition of the remains in a timely way!”

“I’m sorry about your hearse, but the deceased’s brother is capable of paying only one pound a month until the debt is retired,” Emily responded calmly.

“At that rate…”

“Yes, sixteen months. Delayed but assured. The alternative is that you lose the opportunity to gain a desirable reputation.”

“Lose what opportunity? What are you talking about?”

“These murders have attracted the attention of the newspapers.”

“They certainly have. The murders are all everyone is talking about. Everywhere I go—”

“If you accept one pound a month, my friends in the police department will tell reporters that you’re the undertaker in charge of helping the deceased’s brother in his time of anguish. Your firm’s name will become highly regarded. Your business will prosper.”

“Well, that’s excellent, but I still don’t see…”

“If you refuse, my friends in the police department will tell every reporter how heartless you are at a time when you’re supposed to provide comfort. Everyone in London will read about your cold manner.”

“But…”

“A moment’s reflection will persuade you that one alternative is better than the other.” Emily stood. “In the meantime, here are one pound, eight shillings, and two pennies. Your firm has a stellar reputation. I am confident that you will give the deceased and his family a funeral that people will praise for a long time.”


BECKER HAD NEVER HEARD any woman speak that way. Concealing his amazement, he escorted her and De Quincey outside to the cab, where he scanned the street and observed that no vehicle had stopped in wait for them to emerge from the undertaker’s.

“I don’t think we’re being followed,” he remarked as they continued toward their ultimate destination.

“The killer doesn’t need to follow,” De Quincey said pensively. “After all, he knows where I’ll be at eleven o’clock.”

“But I need to plan for other possibilities. He might intend to surprise you en route.”

“Yes,” De Quincey conceded, “he does not lack surprises.”


FIVE MINUTES AFTER paying the toll and crossing the stone piers of Vauxhall Bridge, Becker told the cabdriver to go beyond the railroad tracks and stop at Upper Kennington Lane. He helped Emily down, then turned toward De Quincey, but discovered that the man, surprisingly limber for his age, was already beside him on the ground.

Amid the odor from a nearby distillery, Becker scanned the working-class neighborhood, mostly shops with rooms above them.

The news of the murders had visibly affected the mood even here on the south side of the Thames, a distance from Ratcliffe Highway. Pedestrians no longer had a leisurely pace. Their expressions were pensive and guarded. A man selling roasted potatoes from a cart appeared suspicious of any customers who approached him, for fear one of them might attack him.

To avoid notice, Becker had been given permission to exchange his uniform for plain clothes. It was a further step in his goal to becoming a police detective, but he wished it had happened under other circumstances.

A few people looked with disapproval at Emily’s unorthodox unhooped dress, in which the movement of her legs was visible. Otherwise no one paid attention as they walked along a wooden wall on their right and came to a wide, tall building. Above a large entryway, a faded sign announced VAUXHALL GARDENS.

De Quincey took his laudanum flask from his coat pocket.

“That’s the third time you drank from it since we left the house,” Becker said.

“Thank you for keeping count.”

“The volume of laudanum you consumed so far today would kill most people.”

“It’s medicine prescribed by a physician. When I try to stop, that is more likely to kill me.” De Quincey’s brow was filmed with sweat as he looked at his daughter and changed the subject. “Pleasure gardens were once the rage, Emily. I came here when I was in my thirties to watch a reenactment of the Battle of Waterloo.”

“A reenactment of Waterloo? That seems impossible.”

The morning sky was again clear, a breeze having chased the fog.

“One thousand soldiers took part in it,” De Quincey said, talking to distract himself from what he needed to do. “The audience, perhaps ten thousand, was transported by the din of the muskets and the smoke from the gunpowder.”

“This place is big enough for that?”

“More so.”

“It’s almost eleven,” Becker pointed out.

De Quincey took a nervous breath and nodded.

“Remember,” Becker said. “A dozen constables wearing street clothes gradually came here one at a time, pretending to be customers. If there’s an incident, they’ll rush to help. I still think you should allow me to walk with you so I can defend you in case of an attack.” He looked down at the bulge of the truncheon and handcuffs under his civilian overcoat.

“Whatever the killer has planned, it won’t happen if you’re at my side,” De Quincey responded. “If I’m wrong and this becomes violent, at least I know that Emily has your protection. As for me, I need to take the risk on the chance that I’ll learn about Ann.”

“After all these years, she still means that much to you?” Becker asked.

“When I begged on the streets of London, I owed her my life.”

De Quincey stepped through the entryway.

After counting to twenty, Becker and Emily followed.

The gate was in dire need of fresh paint. Its wood was splintered and in some places broken.

The ticket seller barely looked up from a newspaper he was reading. The item on the front page was about the murders.

“Two shillings,” he said distractedly.

Becker paid from coins he’d been given at Scotland Yard.

Beyond the entrance, they surveyed the almost deserted facility and watched De Quincey proceed along a white gravel path between leafless trees. He seemed to expect that someone would approach him as he passed a concert stage. When that didn’t happen, De Quincey looked ahead toward a long line of open compartments in which dining tables provided a view of the concert area. Again, no one approached from the stillness.

Pretending to admire their surroundings, Becker and Emily passed a building that had the spires, arches, and domes of an East Indian palace. They turned toward a man in circus clothes who walked across a tightrope stretched between trees across a lawn. The performer held a pole to maintain his balance. His once-red costume was faded and frayed.

Becker wondered where the other constables were positioned. Perhaps some had joined a handful of people who looked with disinterest at the tightrope walker and seemed to wish for the return of their money. They were far more fixated on the somber topic of their discussion, and Becker had no doubt that the topic was the murders.

Leafless trees stretched into the distance. Bare bushes surrounded a statue of a man on horseback. The horse’s tail had fallen off.

“Perhaps in spring when the leaves return, this place will be more appealing,” Emily conjectured, looking ahead toward her father.

The smell of smoke and the crackle of a fire brought them to a large canvas balloon where customers could pay to be taken aloft. Like the tightrope walker’s costume, the colors on the balloon were faded. The fire had a screen that prevented sparks from igniting a canvas tube attached to a chimney. The tube captured hot air from the chimney and used it to swell the balloon, beneath which was a wicker basket for passengers. Smoke leaked from the balloon.

A sign proclaimed, SEE VAUXHALL BRIDGE FROM THE HEIGHTS! WESTMINSTER BRIDGE! ST. JAMES’S PARK!

“And maybe a close view of the Thames if the balloon crashes,” Emily suggested.

De Quincey kept walking ahead of them, moving deeper into the gardens.

“There used to be acrobats, jugglers, and musicians,” Becker said. “Fireworks. At one time, I was told, fifteen thousand lamps illuminated the grounds at night, so many that the glow could be seen across the Thames. But now…” He pointed toward shattered globes on poles along the path. “The owners had financial difficulties. The evening festivities used to glitter like a royal ball. But the things that happen here at night became unsuitable.”

“You’re referring to prostitution?” Emily asked.

Becker felt himself blush.

“I don’t mean to embarrass you,” she said.

“The truth is, I was worried about embarrassing you,” Becker said.

“Father always speaks directly with me. Even when I was a child, he didn’t treat me like one. In Father’s household, among my six surviving brothers and sisters, I grew up fast.”

“Yes, with the bailiff searching for him, I imagine you learned about life quickly.”

“Father called me his spy.”

“Oh?” The word attracted Becker’s attention.

“In Edinburgh, many times he couldn’t live with us for fear of being arrested, so he found secret lodgings, where I brought him food and other necessities such as pen and ink. With the bailiff watching our home, I squirmed from back windows, over walls, and through holes in fences. When I finally reached Father in whatever room he’d managed to find refuge, he gave me manuscript to take to his publishers. But his publishers were being watched also. Again I needed to go over walls and through back windows to deliver the pages, receive payment, and return to Father. Of the money I gave him, he subtracted the minimum he needed and told me to take the bulk of it to Mother.”

“Sounds like you had a difficult childhood.”

“To the contrary, it was fascinating.”

Becker heard rapid footsteps behind him.

“Stay close,” Becker told her.

Ready for trouble, he turned, surprised to see Ryan hurrying along the path.

Ryan didn’t look his usual self. In place of his scruffy street clothes, he wore a dress overcoat that hung open, revealing formal gray trousers, a matching waistcoat, and a black coat that came down to his knees. If not for the newspaperboy’s cap concealing his red hair, he could have passed as a commissioner rather than a detective.

“Everything’s quiet,” Becker reported.

But Ryan’s features were troubled. The sky matched his gloom, dark clouds now drifting in.

“What’s wrong, Inspector?” Emily asked.

“When I met your father yesterday, I’d have been pleased to do it. But now…”

“To do what? I don’t understand.”

“I’ve been ordered to arrest him.”

“Arrest him?” Emily exclaimed. “You can’t be serious.”

“I wish I weren’t. Where is he?” Ryan asked.

“Ahead of us,” Becker told him.

“But where?”

“On the path. He’s…” Becker turned to indicate De Quincey’s location. “My God, he isn’t there. What happened to him?”


THE OPIUM-EATER PROCEEDED along the path. Decades of drinking large quantities of laudanum had created many realities for him. The unnatural combination of elements at Vauxhall Gardens—the spires and domes of an East Indian pavilion, the outdoor concert stage, the tightrope walker, the hot-air balloon, smoke leaking from it, and even a statue of Milton—so resembled his opium dreams that he didn’t know if this was a wide-awake nightmare or if he was still in bed, asleep.

Disoriented, he wondered if perhaps he had never left Edinburgh. Perhaps he had never received the message that promised to reveal what had happened to Ann if he came to London. More than anything, he hoped that he was dreaming because that would mean the murders had not occurred on Saturday night and that even worse would not soon happen.

The front area of the gardens was devoted to public events such as dances, plays, concerts, and banquets. But the rear section provided an amazing forest in the middle of the city. At one time, the forest had been scrupulously maintained, inviting people to walk among the trees, but over the years, negligence and lack of funds had caused it to revert to a wild state of which his friend Wordsworth would have approved but which in fact was so densely overgrown, filled with so many hiding places, that De Quincey felt threatened.

Adding to the sense of chaos were faux ruins among the trees, reproductions of ancient Greek and Roman landmarks that appeared to have collapsed in a weird concatenation of centuries, pillars of the Parthenon lying next to a segment of the Colosseum, dead weeds and vines obscuring them.

Again the Opium-Eater had a dizzying sensation that what he saw was the result of laudanum. But no matter how much he attempted to assure himself that he was enduring an opium nightmare in Edinburgh, he kept remembering the smell of the murder scene and the grief on the face of the victim’s brother.

An intersection gave him a choice of three directions: left, right, or straight ahead. Arbitrarily he chose the white gravel path on the left. Thicker forest flanked him: a skeletal tangle of leafless shrubs and trees. His chest felt swollen. His breathing was rapid.

Ann.

He had never forgotten the long-ago evening of his youth when he had told her how much he loved her. He had vowed to return to London in eight days, to share his future with her just as she had shared her meager resources with him.

But Ann had understood the future far better than he had. Tears had trickled down her cheeks. She had returned his embrace, but she hadn’t said a word, and indeed he had never heard her speak again.

How he longed to walk hand in hand with her once more, to listen to the music of the street organ with her, to kiss her. Countless times he had dreamed about her. Again and again in various essays and books he had written about her—accounts that the killer had obviously studied. There was always the chance that the summons here wasn’t merely a taunt. Perhaps the killer had become similarly obsessed with Ann and had discovered crucial information about her.

De Quincey resisted the urge to take out his flask and swallow more laudanum. But more than by fear, he was motivated by hope—and the need to punish himself for leaving Ann. If there was even the slightest possibility that he could learn something about the woman he had searched for throughout his life, he couldn’t turn away.

On each side, the trees and bushes seemed to reach for him. A cold wind seeped beneath his overcoat. His boots crunched unnervingly on the gravel. Branches scraped. The wind made a faint keening sound.

Then he realized that the keening sound wasn’t the wind but instead a voice. A woman’s voice.

“Thomas.”

It came from his right—a high-pitched, mournful plea.

“Thomas.”

“Is it you, Ann?”

“Thomas.”

Unsure if he was imagining the voice, he stepped from the path. His boots crushed dead leaves as he shifted between bushes and tree trunks, straining to see in the accumulating shadows.

“Ann?”

“Here I am, Thomas.”

“Where?”

A woman stepped from behind a tree.

He stared. Then he gasped and stumbled backward, certain that he was indeed experiencing a nightmare.

The woman was wizened, almost bald. Her face was gaunt, her eyes sunken. Sores festered on her cheeks.

“Here, Thomas. Take me. Your Ann.”

“No.”

“You didn’t return when you promised. You abandoned me.”

“No!”

“But now we’re together.” Dressed in rags, the festering woman held out her arms. “Love me, Thomas. We’ll always be together now.”

“You can’t be Ann!”

“This is what you want.” The woman raised her ragged coat and skirt, exposing her wrinkled nakedness. “Love me, Thomas.”

As a scream formed in his throat, another plaintive voice startled him.

From another tree, another wizened, festering woman emerged, raising her coat and dress, exposing herself. “Here I am, Thomas. Your sister Jane. Do you remember me? Do you remember playing with me in the nursery? Do you want me? You can have me.”

Now he did scream as another woman stepped from a tree, raising her coat and dress.

“Here, Thomas. I’m your sister Elizabeth. Remember how you sneaked into the room where I lay dead? You stared at my body all afternoon. Then you kissed me. You can kiss me again now, Thomas. You can have me.”

“I’m Catharine, Thomas.” Yet another woman emerged, exposing herself. “Remember me? The little girl who lived near you at Dove Cottage? Wordsworth’s daughter? Remember how you lay on my grave for days, sobbing, thinking of Jane and Elizabeth and Ann. The terrible loss. But not any longer. We’re here, Thomas. You can have us all.”

Weeping uncontrollably, De Quincey watched even more women step from the trees, their features destroyed by pustules.

“I’m Ann!”

“No, I’m Ann!”

“I’m Jane!”

“Elizabeth!”

“Catharine!”

“Love us, Thomas!”

He shrieked, the wail coming from the depth of his soul, from the pit of his despair. His tears burned his eyes. He sank to his knees, screaming, “No! No! No!”


WE NEED TO SEPARATE!” Ryan said. “You take that path! I’ll—”

“Wait. I hear something,” Becker said.

“Voices. Women’s voices,” Emily said. “They’re calling names.”

“That way!” Ryan pointed to the left and started to run.

Becker hung back, needing to stay with Emily and protect her. But she surprised him by rushing ahead, her bloomer dress and her frantic need to reach her father giving her a speed that Becker had difficulty matching.

They rounded a corner.

“No!” De Quincey’s voice shrieked from the trees.

“Ann! Jane!” the women’s voices shouted.

“Here!” Ryan charged into the undergrowth.

“Elizabeth! Catharine!” the women chanted.

“Emily, stay back!” Becker warned.

But she was too determined. Branches snapped as they forced their way through the trees.

De Quincey kept wailing.

“Ann! Jane! Elizabeth! Catharine!” the women chanted.

Becker pulled his truncheon from beneath his coat, charging past bushes.

Emily hurried to follow.

Ahead, Ryan abruptly stopped at the sight of De Quincey on his knees, sobbing. Becker joined him, gaping at ragged women—streetwalkers, old and infected—who shouted the mystifying names.

“Emily, you shouldn’t see this!”

“But what’s happening?”

Becker had no idea. He braced himself, scanning the trees for a threat. All he saw was the women.

De Quincey’s shoulders heaved, his convulsions rising from the deepest part of his soul.

“Father!” Emily ran to him. “Are you hurt?”

De Quincey sobbed too forcefully to answer.

The women focused on the truncheon in Becker’s hands. With panicked sounds, they backed into the trees.

“Stop!” Becker ordered.

But the women hurried away.

De Quincey sank all the way to the ground.

“He doesn’t seem injured!” Emily said, straining to hold him up. “I don’t understand!”

Becker removed another piece of equipment from beneath his coat—the clacker that he used to sound emergencies. He gripped the handle and spun the blade. Its ratcheting alarm was ear-torturing, easily heard throughout the gardens.

The last of the wizened women vanished into the trees.

“Inspector!” a man yelled. The newcomer hurried toward them through bushes, one of the plainclothes constables who’d arrived earlier and positioned themselves throughout the grounds.

“Run to the entrance!” Ryan shouted. “Lock the gates! Don’t let anybody out!”

As the newcomer raced away, other constables charged through the undergrowth.

“There are women in the forest!” Becker told them. “Prostitutes! Catch them! Be careful—they might not be alone!”


Continuing the Journal of Emily De Quincey

In all my years with Father, I have seen him weep only twice before: at the deaths of my brother Horace and that of my beloved mother, his dutiful wife, Margaret. But now the severity of his grief far exceeded his deep reaction to those losses, and when I came to realize the significance of the names the women had shouted, I understood why.

Constable Becker lifted Father and carried him through the trees. The constable is so tall and Father so short that Father seemed like a child in the constable’s arms. Inspector Ryan walked with me, warily looking around at the forest as if he expected that at any moment we might be attacked. That Becker now wore street clothes instead of his uniform and Ryan now wore go-to-church clothes instead of his ruffian’s costume only made the world seem even more upside down.

We reached the performance area of the gardens, passing the hot-air balloon and the tightrope walker, who now stood on the lawn and looked fearfully at the commotion.

The spires, arches, and towers of the East Indian pavilion beckoned us. Inside, a spreading flower was painted on the vaulted ceiling. The walls depicted Oriental scenes: a tiger in a jungle, a turbaned man on an elephant, a magician playing a flute to an upright hooded snake, a crowd marveling at wonders in a colorful bazaar.

Constable Becker set Father on a bench against a wall. No matter how fervently I tried to calm Father, he didn’t seem to hear me. His sobs came from a part of him that I couldn’t reach.

Becker and Inspector Ryan were manifestly disturbed by this dramatic show of emotion. I suspect that they had never seen a man weep before, ever, so strenuously have most people been taught to keep their feelings to themselves.

The constables who brought in the pathetic women I’d seen in the forest were disturbed by Father’s weeping also, as were the captives who almost certainly had never seen a man weep and who had probably allowed themselves to weep only if alone or with a few trusted friends. Everyone in the strange pavilion had been trained to believe that a show of emotion is a weakness, and Father’s helpless display of absolute sorrow was something they couldn’t comprehend, almost as foreign as the Oriental scenes on the walls.

More constables came in, bringing more women. Many of the prisoners were weak from visible illness, but all of them struggled as best they could and cursed with such crudity that heat singed my ears.

“Perhaps you should go,” Ryan told me.

“I won’t leave Father,” I responded.

The women were handcuffed in a line, right wrist to a neighbor’s left wrist, then led around a pillar where the final two wrists were secured and the group formed a circle.

Although I had witnessed streetwalkers in Edinburgh, I had never seen any in a worse condition. Disease had ravaged them. Their faces were riddled with sores. Some had almost no hair. Their shriveled mouths showed gaps where teeth had been. Their complaints reverberated off the arched ceiling.

“Quiet!” Becker yelled.

“You won’t get my money!” one shouted.

“We don’t want your money!” Ryan yelled back. “Not that I believe you have any for me to steal.”

“Got plenty of money.”

“Sure.”

“Earned it, I did!”

“I’m definitely sure of that.”

A constable brought in another woman and handcuffed her to the others.

“How many so far?” Ryan asked.

“Twenty-three,” Becker answered. “And here comes another one.”

“Found these on her,” the arriving constable said, holding up two gold coins.

“Them’s mine! Give ’em back!”

“Two sovereigns. That’s more than most clerks earn in a week. Where’d you steal them?”

“Earned ’em.”

“Tell me another one,” the newly arrived constable said. “Nobody paid two sovereigns to play Bob-in-the-Betty-box with you.”

“Constable,” Ryan warned and nodded in my direction, making the newcomer aware of my presence. “A lady’s here.”

“Oh. Sorry, Inspector. I apologize, miss.” The man turned red. “Sometimes they don’t understand unless I speak to them in their language.”

“Didn’t play Bob-in-the-Betty-box,” the woman objected. “Earned ’em, I tell ya. Honest work.”

Becker studied the women and said, “If one of them has gold coins, maybe others do.” He approached a woman on his left. “What’s your name?”

“Doris.”

“Show me the inside of your pockets, Doris.”

“No.”

“I’ll search you if you don’t.”

“Now I’m scared. He wants to search me, girls.”

They laughed.

“I charges for men to search me,” Doris said. “How much do you want to pay for me to search your pollywog?”

The women laughed harder.

I tried to make it seem that I heard this kind of talk every day.

“Gibson, give me some help,” Becker told the newly arrived constable. With distaste, the two men searched Doris’s pockets.

“The bugger’s thievin’ from me!” Doris objected. “Yer my witnesses!”

“I’m not trying to steal from you,” Becker insisted. “Stop fighting. What have you got here?”

Becker held up two gold coins. “Who else has these?”

A noisy, frenzied struggle resulted in the discovery that each of the women, all twenty-four of them, had two gold coins.

Becker frowned. “Where’d you get your coins, Doris?”

“Worked for ’em, and not the way you think.”

“Then how?”

“A gentleman paid me.”

“To do what?”

“To sneak in this morning before the gardens opened.”

“And then what?” Ryan interrupted.

“To hide in the forest.”

“And then?” Ryan persisted.

“When he came along”—the woman pointed toward Father—“I was to call to him.” Doris mimicked the tone that I had heard earlier among the trees. “Thomas. Thomas.”

She sounded as if she were pleading for help.

At the sound of his name, I felt Father become tense.

“Thomas! Thomas!” the other women joined in. The sound boomed violently off the Oriental walls.

It hurt my ears.

Father stopped weeping.

“All right!” Ryan shouted, raising his hands. “Stop! If you want your sovereigns returned, shut up!”

Gradually, they quieted.

“The gentleman told me to say I was Ann,” one of the women volunteered.

“And I was to say I was Jane,” another said.

“Elizabeth,” a third joined in.

“Catharine,” a fourth added.

“No, I’m Ann.”

“I’m Jane.”

“I’m Elizabeth.”

“I’m Catharine.”

I felt Father’s head rise from where he slumped next to me. Holding him, I looked down and was struck by how red his eyes were from sobbing and how hard the blue of them was.

The litany of names resounded off the walls.

Again Ryan shouted, “Damn it, stop!”

His stern look had its effect, although the harsh echo of their voices took long seconds before the room became still.

“A gentleman told you to say these names?” Ryan demanded. “What gentleman?”

They pouted and didn’t answer.

“I asked, what gentleman? Describe him!”

Doris looked at Becker. “I don’t like the way he speaks to me. You’re much nicer.”

“Thank you, Doris,” Becker responded. “Tell me about the gentleman, and I’ll bring you hot tea.”

“Hot tea?”

“I promise.” Becker turned toward a constable by the door. “Webster, would you mind taking care of that?”

The constable looked at Ryan, who nodded his permission.

“The gardens have a shop just down the path,” Webster said.

“And you’ll give us our sovereigns back?” Doris asked Becker fretfully.

“I promise to give you your sovereigns back.”

Doris smiled, showing toothless gaps.

As when Ryan and Becker had first met Father and me, I suspected the two had a stratagem in which Ryan made the women feel threatened while Becker was solicitous, winning their cooperation.

“Doris, what did the gentleman look like?” Becker asked.

“Tall, he was. Strong-looking.”

“How old?”

“Wasn’t young, wasn’t old.” Doris pointed toward Ryan. “Like him.”

“Did he have a beard?”

Doris nodded emphatically. “Yellowlike.”

I felt Father sit up beside me.

“How was he dressed?” Becker asked.

“Like a sailor,” Doris answered. “But he didn’t fool me. No sailor ever gave me two sovereigns. A shilling if I was lucky. Never two sovereigns.”

“Forty-eight pounds all told,” Ryan noted. “A man of means.”

“Doris, how did he talk?” Becker asked.

“Not like any sailor I ever met. This one was educated, he was. A gentleman.”

“Weren’t you afraid? After all, he was lying about himself.”

“ ’Course I was. Since Saturday night, everybody I know is afraid. But he gave me two sovereigns.” Doris spoke as if that was all the fortune in the world. “Ain’t never seen two sovereigns before. Sometimes he used fancy words I didn’t understand.”

“Like what?”

Doris searched her memory. “Like ‘rehearse.’ Didn’t have the faintest. Turns out it means he needed to get us together in an alley and tell us what to say and be satisfied we remembered it.”

“Tonight we go back and get another sovereign,” a woman near Doris said proudly.

“Another one?” Ryan asked in surprise.

“Hush, Melinda,” Doris warned.

“No, tell me.” Ryan stepped forward.

“To make sure we did what we was supposed to, he said if we was good he’d give us another sovereign tonight,” Melinda said.

“Where?”

“In the same alley where we…” Melinda looked at Doris.

“Rehearsed,” Doris said, pleased that she remembered the word.

“Tell me where,” Ryan persisted.

“Oxford Street.”

The name made Father stiffen as I held him.

“Can we have our tea now?” Doris asked. “I was cold in them woods.”

“It’s on its way,” Becker promised.

“Melinda, will you take me to where the alley is?” Ryan asked.

“No!” Doris objected. “Then the gentleman’ll see you and he won’t show up to give us the other sovereign.” She scowled at Melinda. “I told you to hush.”

“He won’t see us, I guarantee,” Ryan assured her. “And for cooperating we’ll bring you biscuits with your tea.”

“Biscuits? Lordy, you treat me just like a lady.”

“Just like a lady,” Ryan agreed.

“Yellowlike,” Father said, startling me. It had been a long time since he’d spoken.

Everyone looked in his direction.

“Excuse me?” Ryan asked him.

“She said ‘yellowlike.’ The beard was ‘yellowlike.’ ”

Father surprised me even more by standing. His sobbing had made his face seem narrower than usual. His blue eyes were even more stark.

“Yellowlike. That’s what I said,” Doris agreed, uneasy about Father’s intensity.

“Which means not yellow but somewhat like it,” Father said. “Could the color have been closer to orange? Perhaps a cross between the two?”

Doris cocked her head one way and then the other, thinking. “A little orange, a little yellow. Ain’t seen many beards like it.”

“That’s the color I describe in ‘Murder as a Fine Art,’ ” Father told Ryan. “In the essay, I suggest that the color might have been a disguise.”

“Disguise?”

“John Williams worked on ships that sailed to India. Some criminal sects there change the color of stolen horses with dyes, one of which is the color Doris describes and which I mentioned in my essay. I raised the question of whether Williams dyed his hair to disguise his appearance when he committed his crimes.”

“You’re suggesting that our man dyed his beard for the same purpose as well as to imitate what was in your essay?” Ryan asked.

“I’m suggesting far more. I have trouble imagining that the killer grew a beard, a several-months’ process, and kept dyeing it. Meanwhile, he would also be forced to dye his hair to match it, lest the discrepancy between his hair and his beard attract more attention than the unusual color of the disguise. It’s all too complicated.”

“The beard itself is a disguise?”

“Without question. Just as he disguises himself in sailor’s clothes. Perhaps he has a theatrical background.”

“An actor?”

“Someone who is an expert in changing his appearance. Make inquiries at shops that sell wigs and makeup to performers.”

Ryan turned to one of the constables. “You know what to do, Gibson.”

“On my way, Inspector.” The constable hurried from the pavilion.

Becker asked Father, “What about the names the women called to you? We know about Ann. But who are Jane, Elizabeth, and Catharine?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“But…”

“I wrote about them in my work. The killer read about them and used them to hurt me. That’s all you need to know.”

“He kissed his dead sister is what he did,” Doris said.

“Be quiet!” Father shouted.

“Lay on his neighbor’s dead girl’s grave, he did. Clawed at the ground for nights on end. The gentleman told us what you was. Told us not to feel sorry if we made you upset and worse by calling those names at you. Said you deserved it.”

“Shut up!” Father raised his hands and made a pushing motion, as if shoving away apparitions. I have never seen him so agitated. “Damn you, not another word!”

Abruptly the door opened, and the constable who’d gone for tea came back with four waiters carrying trays.

“The biscuits! I don’t see the biscuits!” Doris complained.

I turned toward Father, but he wasn’t there. He had left the pavilion, closing the door behind him.


“Father.” I hurried out to him.

He stared down at the gravel path. His hat was in his hands. The cold wind ruffled his short brown hair. Dark clouds covered the sky.

“There is no such thing as forgetting,” he murmured.

The door opened, Ryan and Becker stepping out.

“De Quincey,” Ryan said.

Father didn’t reply to them, either.

The two men stood in front of him.

“I’m sorry,” Ryan said. “I need you to explain why the names disturbed you.”

“It isn’t your business.”

“The killer made it my business,” Ryan persisted. “Whatever twisted connection he feels with you, I need to understand it.”

“Leave him alone,” I said. In the woods, when I had recognized the names the women called out to Father, their horrid significance had become apparent to me—and why Father was so devastated. “You can see how this affects him.”

“Miss De Quincey, surely you can understand,” Ryan insisted. “I can’t depend on your father for help if the killer is able to manipulate him. It jeopardizes the investigation.”

“Once,” Father said.

His voice was so faint that it took me a moment to realize what Father said.

“Excuse me?” Ryan asked.

“This time only,” Father said more audibly.

He looked up at Ryan and Becker. His gaze was anguished and determined.

“The killer manipulated me this time only. I won’t permit it to happen again. He’s twice the monster I imagined him to be. But now I’m prepared. Never again.”

“And the names?”

“To keep secrets,” Father said, “to push them down, to try to hide them is to be controlled by them. I have written about them, but I have never been able to speak about them. Why is that, do you suppose? I find an empty page friendlier than speaking to another person. I allow strangers to read my deepest troubles, but I cannot allow myself to disclose my troubles face-to-face.”

Father removed his laudanum flask and drank from it.

“You’ll kill yourself with that,” Becker said, repeating what he’d warned Father earlier.

“There is more than one reality,” Father said.

“I don’t understand.”

“And some realities are more intense than others. You wish to know about Jane, Elizabeth, and Catharine?”

“Not wish to. I need to,” Ryan insisted.

“Jane was my younger sister. She died when I was four and a half.” Father took a deep breath. “She was as bright as the sun, too young to be anything except innocent. How I loved to play with her. She contracted a mysterious fever and was hidden away in a sickroom. I never saw her alive again. My grief became more extreme when word traveled through our house that Jane’s vomiting had so annoyed a servant that the servant had slapped Jane to make her stop. Slapped a dying child. It is no exaggeration that I was overwhelmed by a revelation that the world of my nursery was not as it seemed, that evil existed, that the universe is filled with horror. Please tell them your middle name, Emily.”

“It is Jane,” I said proudly. “In honor of Father’s dead sister.”

“There is no such thing as forgetting,” Father emphasized. “By paying those pathetic women to call out Jane’s name, the killer wants me to remember the servant who slapped my dying sister. He wants me to know that he is slapping me.”

Father’s words came faster, his torment pushing him.

“And now for my sister Elizabeth. She was nine. I was six. She had a large head, which physicians believed was caused by hydrocephalus.”

Ryan and Becker looked confused.

“Water on the brain,” Father rushed on. “Perhaps her large head explained her amazing intelligence and sensitivity. Although I had two remaining sisters with whom I played, Elizabeth was my second self. Where she was, there was Paradise. We enjoyed endless games together. She read to me wonderful stories from The Arabian Nights. Sometimes the stories were so beautiful they made Elizabeth weep. In those cases, she read the stories to me a second time. I slept in the same room with her. I was secluded in a silent garden from which all knowledge of oppression and outrage was banished.”

Father stared up at the darkening sky.

“One Sunday afternoon, Elizabeth visited a friend at the nearby house of a servant. She drank some tea. As evening came, the servant escorted her home through a meadow. The next morning, Elizabeth had a fever. The illness grew rapidly worse. In a week, she succumbed. Was the water in the tea she drank contaminated? Was there something about the meadow through which she walked that made her sick? I can never know. The physicians thought that perhaps her large head had been the cause.”

Father trembled.

“You don’t need to do this,” I said.

“Inspector Ryan says he requires an explanation,” Father answered bitterly. “When a nurse told me about Elizabeth’s death, I could not take it in. Six years old, I literally felt as if I had been knocked unconscious. During her rapid illness, I had not been allowed to see her, but when I learned that her corpse had been laid to rest in an upstairs bedroom, I could not stay away. At one in the afternoon, when the servants were eating and everyone else was resting, I crept up the back stairs and stared at the door to the room. It was locked, but the key had mistakenly been left in place, so I used it to open the door. Hearing the voices of the servants downstairs in the kitchen, I entered and closed the door behind me so softly that no echo ran along the hallway.

“The front of the bed obscured my view. I stepped forward, slowly bringing Elizabeth’s body into sight. Dear sweet Elizabeth. The frozen eyelids, the marble lips, the rigid hands crossed on her chest—they could not possibly have been confused with those of anyone alive. Only her large noble forehead was the same. The window was open. Gorgeous sunlight streamed in, and yet a wind seemed to blow, mournful, a wind that swept the fields of mortality for a hundred centuries.”

Father braced himself and continued.

“A vault seemed to open in the blue sky beyond the window. I was taken away as if flying. Frost surrounded me, making me shiver. At once, I was back in the room, realizing that a long time had passed, that I was standing next to Elizabeth’s corpse. I suddenly heard a footstep outside the door. In a rush, I kissed Elizabeth on the lips, then waited for the footsteps to pass, and crept from the room without being discovered.

“The next day, the physicians arrived with a surgeon, who cut Elizabeth’s magnificent head open, believing that a defect in her brain had caused her death. I know this because I was able to sneak into the room again and saw the bandages that concealed what the surgeon had done to her skull. I dreamed many times about the opening that lay under those bandages, the gateway to what used to be her mind. I later heard that the surgeon described Elizabeth’s brain as being the most beautiful he had ever seen.”

“Dear God,” Ryan murmured.

“And now Catharine,” Father said, more determined. “She was William Wordsworth’s daughter. William was my idol. As a youth, I wrote him letters of admiration. To say that his poems transported me is an understatement. His belief in the freedom of emotion, of opening ourselves to new perspectives, seemed to me the only way to conduct my life. He answered my letters and even suggested that I visit him in the Lake District. Twice I made the journey there, but each time, my insecurity prevented me from knocking on his door. Only much later, accompanied by Coleridge, whom I also befriended, was I able to muster my resolve to meet him. I soon established a residence in the area and frequently visited Wordsworth at Dove Cottage, the home he rented. How quickly circumstances changed. When William decided that he needed a larger home, I rented Dove Cottage. I wanted to sleep in the room where he had slept, to eat in the room where he had eaten.

“But unfortunately idols turn out to be imperfect. William could be petty and was maddeningly indecisive about the details of a project that I agreed to help him self-publish. We sometimes argued, and our disagreements affected my relationship with his wife, Mary, and his sister, Dorothy. What kept the friendship going was the affection I felt for his three-year-old daughter. Her name was Catharine. I spent as much time with her as I possibly could. We played for entire afternoons, just the two of us at Dove Cottage. The killer wants to make something evil of that, but my affection for Catharine was simply a version of the love that I felt for my dead sister Jane and my dead sister Elizabeth. With Catharine, I was a child again. I was in the nursery garden of my boyhood from which all oppression was banished.

“I received a note from William’s sister, Dorothy, which I remember to this day. ‘My dear friend, I am grieved to the heart when I write to you, but you must bear the sad tidings. Our sweet little Catharine was seized with convulsions on Wednesday night. The fits continued till a quarter after five in the morning, when she breathed her last.’ ”

Father paused.

“Breathed her last. Like Jane and Elizabeth. After Catharine’s burial in a churchyard near Dove Cottage, I went there every night and lay on her grave and did indeed claw at the earth as the diseased woman in the pavilion told you I did. I would have died to bring Catharine back. And Jane and Elizabeth. Truly I would have given my life to bring them back—and Ann, I grieved for Ann. I grieved for all the losses of my life.

“Again and again, I wrote about each of them. I revealed my anguish on the page in a way that I never until now allowed anyone to hear from my lips. Until Catharine’s death, I drank opium only sparingly to alleviate my stomach and facial pains. But afterward, it became the extreme that I wrote about in my Confessions.”

Ryan and Becker didn’t express any reaction for several seconds. But the looks on their faces made clear how stunned they were.

Father stared at the dark sky and then at the bare tree branches, which now were motionless.

“The wind stopped,” he said. “I thought perhaps a storm was coming, but now it appears”—he pointed to the north—“that the fog is forming early over the Thames.”

He turned toward Ryan and Becker. “The killer wants me to identify him with the servant who slapped my dying sister for her uncontrolled vomiting. My work is not vomit. It is my attempt to understand the pain that made me who I am, just as I hope my readers will understand who they are. The killer perverts my work to suit his foul intentions, and by God, I will make him pay for that as much as I will make him pay for brutally stealing the lives of those five poor souls on Saturday night.”

“And probably even more lives to come,” Ryan found the voice to say.