“I’ll have to use the same pot for both,” Mac told me sotto voce. “Then I’ll have to boil water in the pot afterward to get the coffee odor out. You know how sensitive the Guv is about his tea.”
It was true. Barker is a mass of contradictions, and no more so than when food is involved. Though he kept a chef, it was more for Dummolard’s benefit than his own. The Guv had saved his life on several occasions when they were aboard the Osprey, and Etienne felt he was repaying a debt. The fact that Barker could have lumped all his courses into one pile in the middle of his plate and shoveled it down by the spoonful, so careless was he about food, infuriated Etienne. My employer’s tea was another matter. He was a stickler for it. The tea had to be the proper color and strength, it had to be at the proper temperature, and it had to be served in the handleless cups he had brought from China that matched his teapot with the bamboo handle. It all went to prove my theory that the austerity was to be observed only on my side.
“While we are here,” Barker said, “it would be an excellent time to do some physical culture, gentlemen. Perhaps we can get a skipping rope and some Indian clubs in. Thomas is in training for a match, after all.”
It was overcast that morning, and the clouds marched slowly across the leaden sky like chained prisoners. It began to rain, giving me a more practical problem. Barker’s austerity had extended to our not bringing umbrellas.
“Are you coming?” he asked after we were settled in. We had work to accomplish, and an archfiend to track down.
“Yes, sir.” I turned up the collar of my coat, knowing it would be wet shoes and shoulders for the rest of the day for us, anyway. Mac would be watching as best he could from our window. It would not do to call attention to himself during hours of clear visibility. At night, we could not be seen. I seriously doubted that he could see anything out that window save pelting rain, but I knew Jacob Maccabee would not desert his post for the next eight hours.
We exited the building through the back door, down an alleyway one had to walk sideways to get through, and came out on Globe Road. The moving part of the day was over. It was time to get back to business.
“Swanson!” Barker cried, catching sight of the inspector coming out of the C.O.S. building just after nine o’clock. The man had the common sense to open an umbrella.
“Hallo, Cyrus. Any leads as yet?”
“Nary a one,” the Guv admitted. “We’re dining on scraps so far. Tell me, have your men been exploring the sewers?”
“They have until today. I’m sure they are rejoicing that this rain is washing them out and they don’t have to go down today. I do not think they had any reason to complain. I saw that they were provided with waders.”
“Are Dunham’s lads watching the river?”
“Aye,” Swanson acknowledged. A grim smile came to his lips. “It is river police business, but I just happened to have a few lads standing about with little to do.”
“It would be a shame for the good citizens of London to pay for idle constables simply because of a little rain.”
I would have felt sorry for them were I not out in the wet weather myself on the same errand as they. At least these two men led by example. So far, the rain had not penetrated my macintosh or my leather boots, but it was only a matter of time. I was careful to keep my head down, for one quick look upward would send a brimful of water down the back of my neck.
“I would have thought,” I put in, “that Scotland Yard would have put more patrols in the area. In the streets, I mean, not the sewers.”
“Politics,” Swanson said, putting as much loathing into the word as possible. “If they put more constables into an area, that would be admitting there is a problem; and if word gets out about this Miacca fellow stealing and killing children, it would set off a panic in every house in the East End. That’s thousands of women, and don’t think the ones in Wimbledon or Kensington shall feel safe just because the blighter has so far confined himself to Bethnal Green. Every West End mother shall want a bobby on her doorstep, and if they don’t get it, the MP will put whatever pressure he has upon the commissioner.”
“Then it is in the Yard’s interest not to let this get out,” Barker said.
Swanson smoothed his mustache. “It may be too late for that. Stead is sniffing about, and you know how he is. This is just the sort of thing for him to smear across the front page of his rag and set off a panic London would never forget.”
“So what brought you to the C.O.S.?” Barker asked.
“I was letting them know the sad news. Oh, haven’t you gentlemen heard? Mrs. DeVere killed herself last night. Woke up from her laudanum dreams just long enough to swallow the rest of a new bottle.”
“Oh, no!” I cried.
“Aye, and your client has gone mad with grief. His servants say after he found her, he threw on his coat and ran out the door. He hasn’t been heard from since. I sent word ’round to your house this morning. Apparently, you were out.”
13
I wondered if swanson was trying to bait Barker or merely to shock him. My employer put his head down and shook it. As for me, I felt some guilt over Hypatia DeVere, as if I myself had treated her badly. Had she appeared calm and graceful as Miss Hill the first time I met her, I would have accused her in my mind of being cold, and yet I had thought uncharitably of her for being puffy eyed. She was doing what she should have been doing, which was agonizing over the welfare of her daughter.
So there it was, I thought. Gwendolyn DeVere was dead. Hypatia DeVere was dead. Our client had run off in grief. At least six other girls had also been killed and all because of a monster who called himself a name out of a fairy tale.
My employer turned to me after Swanson left. “Come, lad, let us see about the postmortem.”
“Do you think it will be finished?” I asked as I followed Barker down Globe Road.
“Dr. Vandeleur runs a tight ship,” he said. “If it is not finished, it shall be soon.”
There was a big difference in my mind between finished and almost finished. Finished meant I could look at it all on paper, with drawings. Almost finished was “Look here, while I lift up the liver, at the discoloration of the stomach.” I’d had the misfortune to have been there several times and viewed close to a dozen bodies at least, but they all had been adult males.
I knew the girl was dead and all sentient thought had left her body. I would even agree with Barker that at one point her soul had departed, as well. But I could not help but think that Gwendolyn DeVere would have objected to lying naked on a slab while men sliced her up like a Billingsgate haddock. I had no desire to see the body.
Vandeleur, it turned out, was at a conference in Glasgow and we were passed on to Dr. Trent, his resident, who had done the postmortem himself. He was a stocky young chap with a round head and a Vandyke who looked as if he didn’t allow the nature of his work to interfere with his digestion.
“Have you finished your report on the DeVere child, doctor?” Barker asked.
“Finished an hour ago. How are you connected with it?”
“I am Cyrus Barker, a private enquiry agent. I work for Major DeVere. I saw the corpse where it was found.”
“Were you aware it was connected to several other cases?” Trent asked.
“Aye, I was. Did you find anything out of the ordinary in the postmortem?”
“It was the most remarkable I’ve ever seen.”
He reached for the clipboard and began looking through the papers while I gave a sigh of relief. Perhaps papers were all I would be forced to look at.
“You noted the traces of rouge and the kohl about her eyes?”