“Evenin’, Gents!” he announced, arriving a few moments later. “One more for dinner?”
“I’ve ordered for you,” said Holmes gesturing to the seat furthest from the door. Johnson was always careful when meeting us in public and liked to make sure he could hide himself away in the shadows.
“Oh, I dare say there’s nothing that comes out of that kitchen that could do me a mischief,” Johnson replied. “If you’d ever seen my mother’s cooking you’d know I’m immune to poison.”
Poisonous it was not, though all three of us found ourselves loosening our collars and taking a little more of the claret than we might otherwise have done—anything to try to cool our burning tongues.
“God knows how we ever beat them,” said Johnson once he was finished eating. “I feel beaten up just by eating the food.”
“Invigorating, isn’t it?” said Holmes, taking one last mouthful of something hot and creamy that involved lamb.
“I’ll not feel the cold for a week,” Johnson agreed. “So—” he reached for his clay pipe “—I’m guessing you want to talk to me about the bodies found in Rotherhithe.”
“You guess correctly.”
“I thought it would only be a matter of time. In fact, I had half a mind to head over to you myself. I know the papers have been full of rubbish about it being gang violence but, I thought, my Mr Holmes ain’t stupid enough to fall for that.”
I couldn’t help but smile at the uncomfortable look that passed across Holmes’ face.
“I confess my attention was elsewhere when the news was first released,” he said, “and I didn’t give it the attention it clearly deserved.”
“You and the rest of London,” said Johnson. He smiled, and his good humour was so soft and genuine it transformed his face. “You’ve got a better excuse than most though,” he continued. “One man can only keep his eye on so much after all.” He took another mouthful of his drink and lit his pipe. “Probably best if I give you the lot then,” he said, “belt and braces, just the way you like it.”
CHAPTER SIX
“The first body,” Johnson continued, “weren’t nothing really. Or so it seemed at the time. You know what it’s like—sometimes the patterns are only clear once you can step back and take them all in. Up close they’re just a bloody mess. The body was certainly that—more meat than skin, waterlogged and ragged, as frilly as a girl’s petticoat. It were found at the docks, bobbing in the water like a kiddie’s boat.
“It caused a bit of fuss for a few minutes as people gathered round to watch it get fished out. Then the law turned up, dumped it in a sack and people got back to work. Most folk assumed someone had just fallen in and then been given a going over by one of the boat propellers. It happens from time to time. Besides, it don’t take long for anything to turn nasty in the Thames. That water’s more alive than most of the folk what live along it if you ask me. Full of disease, rats, and fish what would have your hand off soon as look at you. It’s a merciless stretch of water. Once you’re in it, it don’t like to ever let you go.
“Anyway, the law took the body off and nobody thought any more about it until the next came along.
“It looked as bad as the first but you could tell this one were different. Its hands and feet were chained, for one thing. This wasn’t just some drunk who’d stumbled off the jetty, this was someone who had been thrown in.
“People started gossiping then right enough. Was he washed up from a prison ship, they said. Like they were still shipping folk off to Australia or something. Prison ship … I asks you. If there’s one thing that will always surprise me, Gentlemen, it’s how ruddy thick people can be. If he were a prisoner he must have escaped. Though how he’d have got far, what with the chains, is another question.
“I made it my business to ask around about those chains, Gentlemen, and one thing I can say with some certainty is that they were not prison issue. If there’s one thing you can be fairly sure of in that part of the city it’s that a good few of its residents know only too well what prison chains look like. So … whoever chained him up did so for reasons other than the law.
“That decided, I made it my business to find out a little more about body number two.
“It was discovered by a bunch of kids. Bless you, Doctor, but you pull a face like that as if the kids round those parts ain’t never seen a dead body before. I tell you, my main worry was what the little buggers might have done to it before the police put it under lock and key, I wouldn’t trust the sods around there not to sell a few chunks as pie meat! Merciless, they are.
“I paid a visit to a copper friend of mine—I know, I know, there aren’t many but he’s a decent enough bloke and I’ve always had time for him just as he’s always had time for me. He told me as much as he could find out, which weren’t much. The body had been dead before it hit the water—the police surgeon could tell that much. He could also tell that the body had been beaten up before being fed to whatever mad zoo of sharp-toothed buggers it had been. There were distinctive bruise marks that suggested he’d been clubbed. He was still alive when the animals had him though as his hands were fair in pieces, him having raised them to try and fend the monsters off.
“The police surgeon had spent a fair amount of time in India and was sure that he recognised some of the wounds as matching those you’d expect if the bloke had come off on the wrong end of a fight with a tiger. Which is strange, I grant you, but you get all sorts of animals in that neck of the woods, what with the ships and the import businesses. He also identified a number of puncture wounds that he insists are the work of a snake. Again, you get all manner of slithery bastards sneaking free around the docks, though the chill usually kills them off pretty damn quick. I remember, when I were a kid, me old pa bringing home a fat python he’d found. Tasted just like chicken.
“Anyway, all this added up to a pretty rum way of getting dead. Their first assumption—and I have to say it was mine too—was that the victim had broken into one of the less reputable animal exporters. You know what they’re like down there. If it ain’t animals for toffs, or experiments for those gentlemen of science who haven’t the paperwork to get things done right, then it’s the Chinks and their medicines. Not that I’ve got anything against that. I don’t see how a tiger’s diddly in soup can add years to me life but I’ll eat anything once—twice if I like it.
“So I reckoned it was worth asking around to see what was what in that line of trade. And I tell you, they’re all as crooked as my gran when the gin money was in. Still, accounting for the fact that I wouldn’t trust none of ’em to look after a Jack Russell, let alone a lion, there seems to be two that are particularly known for that perfect combination of scale and corruption—they’re big business and they’re run so far on the wrong side of the law they’re coming back to meet it. So, if it comes down to an animal dealer being involved I’ll stake my reputation on it being one or the other.
“The first is a sour old Eyetie goes by the name of Mario—don’t they all? His main business is private homes—finding that special something for the Lord and Lady what has everything. Though why you’d ever want a rhino in your backyard I don’t rightly know, but the story is he’s sold two: one to a nob in Bath the other to a mad Scotchman. How the Hell he shipped ’em in then got them to the client without anyone cottoning on, I don’t know. But there you are, he’s good at his game, and that’s a fact. He also supplies nasty stuff to those silly sods who get a kick out of that sort of thing. You know the sort, Mr Holmes. Jumped up little gangsters what haven’t the muscle to scare people without getting all theatrical. End up keeping a cellar full of hyenas or a fish tank full of sharks just to scare the locals. In my day we just used to break your ruddy fingers not shove a rare viper down your trousers. I blame the music hall—gives people a taste for showing off. He might be your man—if there’s even a connection—but my money’s on number two.