Cinderhouse retired to the dining room table and began to sew, while Jack rooted through the drawers in Elizabeth’s bedroom until he found a pair of underpants that fit him well enough if he bunched them up at the waist. He found a smoking jacket in the closet in the hall and put that on, too, and paced about the house, barefoot. He hovered over the bald man for a while, watching him work, but the tailor kept pricking himself, his hands shaking with fear, and so Jack wandered away. He didn’t want blood on his new suit. At least, not just yet.
He found half a stale loaf of bread in the kitchen cupboard, along with a cheese that wasn’t much more than rind. He ate them too quickly and was only halfway through the bread when he had to step out the back door and vomit it all back up. After that, he ate slowly, swallowed a little bit of water with each mouthful.
When he felt satisfied that he would hold the bread down, he went back to the parlor and stood in the shadows under the stairs and watched Elizabeth struggle with his bonds, unaware that he was being observed. Jack’s gaze settled on the mantel. Cinderhouse’s tongue was nailed to the forward edge. It had stopped dripping and was beginning to shrivel a bit around the edges. It had always fascinated Jack how long a person’s tongue was once it was out of the mouth, free to stretch itself out a bit.
Now he missed Cinderhouse’s chattering. Only a little. The bald man still expressed himself with grunts and gestures, but of course that was the most rudimentary and imprecise of languages. Jack frowned and wondered if he ought to have punished Cinderhouse in some other way. Left him with his words so they could have a proper conversation.
Then he realized that what was really needed was a second tongue on the mantel. Two tongues might converse with each other. What secrets would they tell? He left the shadows and went in search of his medical bag. It was still on the floor against the wall where he’d left it when they’d first entered the house. He opened it and rummaged through until he found a fine scalpel, still dotted here and there along its short sharp blade with Jack’s own blood. He went back to the parlor, and Elizabeth stopped struggling when he saw him. Jack smiled at him in what he hoped was a reassuring way and removed the gag from the homeowner’s mouth. Elizabeth started to say something, but Jack shushed him and went right to work.
When he had finished, he left the gag loose around Elizabeth’s neck so he wouldn’t choke to death on his own blood. Jack pounded a nail through Elizabeth’s tongue into the edge of the mantel. It made a fine companion piece to Cinderhouse’s tongue, although there were subtle differences between the two pieces of meat, not the least of which was that the bald man’s tongue was much more ragged at the far edge where it had been torn out. Absolutely fascinating to see the many variations the human body worked upon itself. God’s wonders were truly infinite.
Jack stepped back and wiped his fingers on the front of the smoking jacket. He hefted the hammer once or twice, tested its weight, and slashed at the air with it, letting it swing his arm around, wondering at the simple power of it. He saw Elizabeth out of the corner of his eye, still drooling blood down the front of his shirt, his eyes wide with pain and terror. Jack sighed and put the hammer down on the mantel top. He hadn’t intended to frighten the poor fellow. Hammers were not his style. Didn’t everyone know that by now? He patted Elizabeth on the shoulder and left the room.
He checked on Cinderhouse, who was still toiling away over the suit at the dining room table, then took the stairs up to the bedroom once more. He closed the door and turned the lock and lay down on the bed. The ceiling was tin, painted white, with swirling decorative grooves that looped across its whole expanse. He followed the grooves with his eyes, making pictures in the patterns up there, until he fell asleep.
23
They were waiting for the wagon from Scotland Yard, and Hammersmith was visibly chafing at the sense of wasted time. Day offered him his flask of brandy, but Hammersmith waved it away. Day took a long pull at the flask, recorked it, and stowed it in his jacket, on the other side from the Colt Navy so that their weight balanced and didn’t pull the jacket off-center.
“I hope the others have caught somebody, too,” Hammersmith said.
“How are you, Nevil?”
“What?”
“You asked after me earlier,” Day said. “What about you?”
“I’m fine.”
“I see.”
Day stared at the green tea shop where Adrian March stood guard over the prisoner. The air was better out here on the street, even if the sky remained suspiciously grey.
“I’ve got to find a new flatmate,” Hammersmith said.
“It’s been six months. More than that, hasn’t it?”
Hammersmith nodded, looked away at the sky, both of them waiting for it to open up and soak them. “His family came. Took his things. What things they wanted.”
Constable Colin Pringle had been off duty when he was murdered, helping his friend Hammersmith on a case he wasn’t even supposed to be working. Hammersmith hadn’t mentioned Pringle even once since then. Day was surprised to hear him speak of him now, but he stayed silent, afraid any sound he made might chase the sergeant back into whatever hole he’d been living in for seven months.
“Left me with his suits.”
Day looked down at the footpath and waited.
“Can you imagine me in a suit?”
Day smiled at him. “Maybe when you make inspector.”
“Never happen. I’d give them to you, but they wouldn’t fit. You’re bigger than he was.”
“So are you.”
“I suppose so. Where would I put them if some new chap moved in? He wouldn’t want a dead man’s clothing taking up all the space in his room.”
“You could donate them to the poor.”
“Would Colin like that, do you think? Would he be pleased to see his suits worn by shit-shovelers and knocker-uppers?”
“It might amuse him. But I didn’t know him as well as you did.”
There was a long companionable silence. Day looked up at the sky and Hammersmith looked down at the tops of his shoes.
“You shouldn’t worry, you know,” Hammersmith said.
“About what?”
“I was thinking about my father.”
“You’ve lost a lot in the past year.”
“I was thinking about him the way that I remember him, not the way that he was at the end of things. By then his body had failed and his mind had gone. He wasn’t the same man. But when I was younger. .”
“I’m sure he was a good father.”
“Well, I don’t know. I don’t know what’s a good father and what’s a perfectly average father, since I never had more than one to compare, you know? But what I remember best of all are the small things, not the big events, not the things you think you’ll remember, like a trip to the Crystal Palace.”
“But the small things?”
“Yes. When he would put his hand on my shoulder as we walked along. Or when he showed me how to tie my boots. He was patient with me.”
“Nevil, your boots are untied.”