‘What do you know about Jemmy Crane?’ Pyke asked Godfrey, once he was sure they were alone.
‘Crane?’ Godfrey’s face was suddenly creased with worry.
‘He said he knew you.’
‘We used to know some of the same people back in the old days. Why do you ask?’
Briefly Pyke told his uncle about the murder investigation and his suspicions regarding Crane, and also about Field’s interest in Crane.
‘He’s a nasty one, that’s for sure. Ruthless, too. He used to be an associate of Dugdale’s back in the twenties. The market for free-thinking tracts on religion and politics died away and men like Crane and Dugdale turned to pornography. Dugdale clung on to his radical beliefs but Crane never had any such beliefs in the first place.’
‘You haven’t come across him for a while, then?’
‘Not for years. But I don’t doubt he’s the same as ever. A man like that wouldn’t think twice about slitting your throat if there was a profit in it.’ Godfrey hesitated. ‘But then again, you could say the same about Field.’
‘I know.’
‘Field once poured lamp oil down another man’s throat and lit it with a match. He read the newspaper while the man choked to death. I’m sure you’ve heard the stories.’
‘A rock and a hard place.’
Godfrey considered what Pyke had just said. ‘Of course, you could just walk away from everything. Spend some time with your son.’
Pyke let this last remark pass without an answer.
As he waited for a hackney carriage, Jo emerged from the apartment and joined him on the pavement. ‘I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed our trip to the zoological gardens.’ She shifted awkwardly from foot to foot.
‘Except it seems I’ve encouraged Felix to play truant from school.’
Her brow creased with worry. ‘I told Felix you’d be angry when you heard about it.’ She took off her bonnet and scratched the top of her head. It gave Pyke the chance to admire the colour of her hair. ‘I hope I didn’t assume too much.’
‘Not at all,’ he said, smiling. ‘Use me as much as you want to. If it helps, that is.’
Jo fiddled nervously with her hair. ‘Actually the reason I came out to speak with you is that Godfrey will be dining out on Wednesday
…’ She paused, perhaps flustered at the way this had come out. ‘What I meant was, Felix wanted to help cook a meal for you, and he, or rather we, wondered if you might come here to dine that evening.’
Pyke stared into her blue eyes and what felt like the briefest spark of attraction passed between them. ‘I’d be delighted to,’ he said, even before he’d had time to think about it.
‘Around seven?’
He nodded. ‘Until the day after tomorrow, then.’
Pyke watched her as she gathered up her skirt and climbed the steps to Godfrey’s apartment. As he did so, he wondered whether the idea for dinner had been hers all along.
TEN
Early the next morning, when the air was still cool, it took Pyke fifteen minutes to walk from the Whitechapel Road to the row of decrepit houses that Field had told him about — across from a scrubby field and a lake of stagnant water. The dwelling in question was a ramshackle cottage standing on its own at the far end of the lane. Pyke circled the property from a distance, trying to determine whether it was occupied, then crept up to each window, listening for voices or the sound of footsteps. From what he could tell, there were two or perhaps three men occupying a room at the back of the cottage — he could hear them talking. Making as little sound as possible, he tried the front door. Unsurprisingly it was locked and, using the jemmy and picklocks he’d brought with him, it took him the best part of five minutes to gain access to the front hallway. Once inside, he stood and listened, and when he was sure no one had heard him, he shuffled up the creaking staircase and tried the rooms immediately adjoining the landing. Both were unoccupied so he moved along the passageway. He was sweating slightly, and could feel his heart thumping against his ribcage. It was true that stumbling upon intruders was a terrifying experience for those whose houses were being invaded, but carrying out a burglary was just as unnerving.
The door at the far end of the passageway was unlocked, and when he opened it, Pyke had to pause and blink, to adjust to the sudden excess of light. Part of the roof was missing; initially he thought that the wind must have been responsible, but later he realised that the hole had been cut deliberately, to allow light to flood into the room. But Pyke’s gaze was drawn not to the hole in the roof but to the figure draped over a sofa in the middle of the room and the camera obscura resting on a wooden stool in front of her. She was perfectly naked. He stood there for a few moments but she neither moved nor reacted to his intrusion. It wasn’t until he crossed the room and shook her that he realised she was full of laudanum. Bessie Daniels, for it was undoubtedly her, stirred and looked at him through heavy-lidded eyes; when she tried to speak through her hare-lip, her words were slurred to the point of incoherence. Pyke found a sheet and threw it over her, then inspected the camera.
He had read about the process, invented by a Frenchman, Louis Daguerre, but this was the first time he had actually seen up close how it worked. Light — as much as possible, hence the cutting away of the roof — flooded through the camera lens and the resulting image was captured on a copperplate which had been exposed to an iodine solution, forming a light-sensitive silver iodide. The plate would then be developed over heated mercury, which would amalgamate with the silver, and finally the image would be fixed in a solution of salt water. The exposure took fifteen minutes, during which time the subject had to remain still; something that perhaps explained why Bessie had been drugged.
‘Bessie.’ Pyke shook her arm and in the process noticed an amethyst ring on one of her fingers, a serpent motif carved into the bright purple stone.
She stirred again and gave him a bewildered stare. ‘Eh?’
‘Harold Field sent me.’ He waited for a reaction.
She looked at him, confused. Pyke could smell gin and laudanum on her breath. For a while, he wasn’t sure she’d understood what he’d said, but then she fell back on to the sofa and giggled. ‘Tell him
…’
Pyke waited. ‘Tell him what?’
More giggling. Down below he could hear voices. Footsteps, too.
‘Tell him what, Bessie?’
‘Morel-Roux.’
That made him pay attention. ‘The valet? What’s he got to do with it?’
But she wouldn’t answer him.
Pyke decided he could leave her where she was — and come back and talk to her later, when she was sober — or he could take her with him. He opted for the latter. Scooping Bessie up in his arms, he staggered to the door and heaved her up over his shoulders. She was as limp as a corpse. At the top of the staircase, he steadied himself and gripped the banister. He had made it halfway down when a door opened below him and he heard someone say, ‘Is it time?’ There was nowhere to run. Pyke tried to take the final few steps two at a time but they were on to him before he’d reached the bottom, two of them, one armed with a pistol.
‘Put her down slowly and raise your hands.’ One of the men, with a hatchet face, called out to Crane. Pyke did as he was told. Bessie Daniels giggled as Pyke laid her down on the floor.
Crane appeared in the hallway. ‘Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t tell Sykes to pull the trigger and blow a hole the size of my fist in your chest.’
Pyke took a moment to run through his options. He could always try to bolt for the door but Sykes would surely fire the pistol and, at such close range, he would probably hit his target.
‘Make your choice, sir. Tell me why you came here or prepare to meet your maker.’ Crane smoothed back his hair and wiped his hands on his trousers.
Pyke stared down at Bessie’s comatose body. ‘I was asked to find this particular woman.’