“Number two’s a Taff, goes by the name of Thomas—don’t they all? Does a lot of his business with the scalpel brigade, which is why I think he’s your man. Most of his animals are nothing but pelt and a bucket full of lights before he’s finished counting his money. Doctors buy ’em. Scientists buy ’em. Anyone who fancies seeing what the poor things look like on the inside buys ’em. Can’t pretend to understand why. Doctor cutting up a cadaver’s one thing—I can see how he needs to learn his way around. Still, you can plot your way from a badger’s arse to his top set but it ain’t going to help me when I’m on the operating table, is it?
“So, those are your likely suspects if you want to go down that route. Though I have to say that neither are the sort that would draw attention to themselves by dumping the bodies elsewhere. I mean, if you’ve got a leopard in the cellar then you’ve no worries getting rid of a dead body have you? It’ll be nothing but chewed bones within minutes. Still, rare animals come into play somehow, so I’ve given you the gen.
“Body three—now that turned up not two days ago. The main difference there is he weren’t floating down the river, he was found in a small pile of himself dumped in the corner of the Bucket of Lies. That’s not the pub’s real name of course, it’s the Bouquet of Lilies but as most of the people what drink there can’t read, especially on their way out, the name sort of shifted. Suits it better and all, the only time you’d catch a whiff of lilies there is if one of the regulars had been grave-robbing.
“The body was found by a blind man what picked it up thinking it was his own belongings! You shouldn’t laugh but there you go, there’s not much to put a smile on your face in that part of the city. So you takes your chuckles, as black as they may be, wherever you find ’em. He only realised his mistake when he felt his back getting wet. There weren’t much blood left in the body, not with the chunks it had missing, but what there was soon dripped through the sacking and his shirt. He fair terrified the residents of the Bucket of Lies when he walked back in and asked, ‘Which one of you gits spilled beer in my bag, then?’—upturning the sack so all the contents were spilling over the bar. He was furious when somebody finally explained what it was he’d been carrying around, not because he was squeamish—he were an old veteran from what I understand, and it takes a lot to get a soldier’s lip to tremble as well you know, Dr Watson. Nah, he was kicking up a fuss because he’d gone from wet belongings to no belongings at all. They never did find his sack, poor sod.
“Now, as you two know, by the time you get to three bodies, people really start to take an interest. Not just the police, I’m talking about the papers. There’s nothing sells the gossip sheets better than a bit of spilled blood. Let’s be honest—if they could use that instead of ink they would. They’re a savage bunch, journalists, and no mistake.
“So before the stains on the bar at the Bucket of Lies have so much as dried, people who have never been within spitting distance of the place are talking about it. The gossip starts, the theories, the lies, the stories getting bigger with each retelling. It’s the sort of thing that drives any self-respecting copper off his nut—if there is such a thing as a self-respecting copper, and it takes all sorts so I suppose there must be. How can you conduct a decent investigation once the gossip kicks off, eh? Everyone’s got a story to tell and half of them have made it up.
“So, before you know it, the main thing becomes a need to make the story shrivel up and go away. It’ll happen in time anyway—the public are never interested in anything for long. But if the whole lot can be written off as quickly as possible nobody need panic, and our city’s police force can get back to looking like they know what they’re doing. Besides, it’s not as if anyone important died now is it? Dropping like flies down there anyway, ain’t they—nothing so disposable as the working classes. So everyone starts talking about gangs fighting amongst themselves, and the newspapermen yawn and move on to something more interesting.
“But it ain’t the gangs, Mr Holmes, none that I know of anyway, and I keep my ear to the ground as you know, so there’s not much that gets past me on that score. We’ve had two new faces over the last few months, an Irishman who seems to have a political axe to grind more than an urge to make any real money, and an enigmatic sort by the name of Kane who keeps himself to himself. Haven’t so much as clapped eyes on him but he’s got some clout and has won a few boys over. I can’t see either of them having anything to do with this though, can you? This sort of thing’s no use unless people know who done it. A gang don’t top a bloke in such an over-the-top way unless they’re making a point, and if they’re making a point they open their gobs about it, stands to reason. Nah, this ain’t nothing to do with the gangs and I’d stake my reputation on it. Which in fact, I just have.
“Whatever’s going on here—and I have no doubt that if anyone can get to the bottom of it, I’m talking to him, Mr Holmes—then it’s a lot darker and nowhere near as simple as bloody ‘gang violence’.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
If I hadn’t felt full after my meal, I certainly did after Johnson’s talk. He had a way of speaking that assaulted both the ears and brain. God knows how Holmes, a man who saw the strict delineation of facts as perfection itself, managed to filter what he needed out of it. Nonetheless he always seemed to manage.
“Plenty to be going on with there, I think,” he said. “I may well call on you again. This strikes me as a case where local knowledge —or perhaps just a strong right fist—will be frequently needed.”
“I’m here whenever you need me, Mr Holmes,” Johnson replied. “You know that.”
Holmes paid for our meal and announced that a short walk would do us both good.
“We must decide our next step, Watson,” he said. “And the cold air will energise us to do just that.”
Shinwell Johnson left us the minute we had stepped out of the restaurant, slipping away almost mid-sentence to return to the world he knew so well but which was alien to us. As we walked the streets of Belgravia, Holmes was mostly silent, digesting the facts of the case as well as our meal. Every now and then he would tap out a rhythm on the pavement slabs with his cane, or stop to stare in the window of a shop, the very figure of a relaxed man about town. I knew he was cogitating furiously beneath the surface, however—a swan with urgent, pedalling feet.
“There is nothing to be gained by observing from afar,” he announced after a while, gazing up at the hazy sky above us. “We must make an expedition into enemy territory.”
“A trip to Rotherhithe?”
“Certainly.” He smiled and looked at me. “Will you come?”
“It makes a change for you to ask.” Usually it was all I could do to find out where it was he vanished to in the small hours, leaping— so very unnecessarily—from his bedroom window leaving nothing but the trace of old tobacco and thickly applied spirit gum.
“I know how much you like wandering around the streets with a concealed weapon,” he replied, glancing at my jacket pocket, no doubt checking whether I was carrying it now. I wasn’t.