Lawless and the House of Electricity Read online

  “Pushed.”

  “Pushed, then, wrapped up tight. Fell—what?—fifteen feet. Got jammed under the boat’s aftmost seat. Invisible from deck.”

  “Just a tarpaulin. Why would you notice it?” I pushed at the basket, heavy with stones. “And the weight intended to drag him to the bottom of the sea—”

  “Simply dinted the boat.” He stuck out his lip. “Strange that nobody looked for him. Nobody noticed him gone.”

  “Maybe they did. We’ll check the records.” I thought a moment. “Who knows how long he’d been there?”

  “Simpson, though?”

  I laughed. “Simpson will say—”

  “You fearful gendarmes.” Dr Simpson stood in the door of the harbour master’s office, obscuring the daylight. “What inarticulate tripe are you attributing to my tender lips?”

  THE UNIVERSITY DOCTOR [LAWLESS]

  Our medic, for all his corpulent frame and bombastic style, had sneaked up on us, absorbed in our deductions. Neither of us held out a hand of welcome.

  Jeffcoat’s lip twisted into a smile. “You’re about to tell us, I’ve no doubt.”

  We stepped back to make way for his Falstaffian bulk. To my surprise, Simpson lost no time getting down on his knees to peer at the skeleton.

  “Oh, dear,” he murmured. “No, no, no. Look, you’ve gone and let the flies in. This would have been a lovely set of remains for my students. Hermetically sealed. How long dead?”

  “We were rather hoping,” I said, “you might tell us that.”

  Jeffcoat and I looked at each other. “You’re doubtless about to say that inside that tarpaulin, damp, salty, shielded from the sea, this fellow may have been dead a week, may have been dead a year. Which will stymie our ever identifying him.”

  Simpson smiled smugly. “My, my, Jeffcoat. What a lot you have picked up under my tutelage.” He lost no time prodding the nasal cavities, poking at the teeth. He frowned at the strips of emaciated skin, picking at them, as if disappointed with his dinner. He felt the ribs, frowned again at the basket, sniffed, blinked, and called for a lamp. “Long dead, all right. Soft tissue almost totally decomposed, bar the odd sinew. In the absence of the usual carrion insects, the body has eaten itself, as it were. Yet the absence of putrefaction is surprising. Six to eight months, at least. Possibly years.”

  “Doctor,” I groaned. “Don’t be messing us about.”

  He touched the skin, sniffed at his fingers, and looked puzzled. “I couldn’t be sure without taking it for further analysis.”

  I stared at him.

  “Lawless,” Simpson snapped, “you whisky-addled Celt, I’m not obfuscating, merely refusing to rule out possibilities you may subsequently discover to be true.”

  “Take it for analysis, then,” said Jeffcoat.

  “You’re the detectives.” He began to get up. “Plenty more you can dig up about him, I’m sure.”

  Jeffcoat placed a hand on his shoulder, preventing him from rising. “You can do better than that, Doc.”

  “Come along, boys.” A desperate look came into his eyes. “Does it matter? Johnny Foreigner lays down his knife and fork out on the high—”

  “How do you know he’s foreign?” Jeffcoat let go his grip. He hauled the doctor up on his feet.

  “His bloody shoes, man. And this Hottentot pot, whatever it is.” Simpson took his chance to step away from us, looking for his exit. “Look, the fellow was tubercular. Angular kyphosis in the thoracic and lumbar region. See? Touch of ankylosis below the neck—”

  I blocked his way. “Did it kill him?”

  Jeffcoat stood shoulder to shoulder with me. “You don’t see signs of foul play? The shoulder here—”

  “Could be. Could be any old injury. Pointless worrying over it.” He saw that we were not going to yield so easily. He rolled his eyes. “Maybe he died of consumption. Let’s say, the ship’s doctor was reluctant to keep him in the sanatorium. I’d be the same. Some halfwit porter found a place to stow the bugger, and they clean forgot.”

  Jeffcoat puffed. “A likely story.”

  “Are you sure,” I said, “he died of consumption?”

  “For heaven’s sake,” Simpson groaned. “I can’t tell.”

  “You can,” Jeffcoat said.

  “Not by looking.”

  Jeffcoat smiled. “You’d need tests?”

  “So you can tell.” I smiled too. “And you will.”

  “We wouldn’t want to turn nasty.”

  “Speak with our friends in the medical council.”

  Jeffcoat gripped Simpson by the arm. “Or your friends at the newspapers.”

  Simpson rocked unsteadily. “Ho, there, must you—!” He noticed the harbour master observing our contretemps. That quieted his complaints. There were scandals aplenty about doctors, and a secret sold to the papers might garner a nice fee.

  “Are you sure,” said I, “he was dead before he was wrapped up?”

  “Are you sure,” said Jeffcoat, “he wasn’t poisoned?”

  “He may have been.” Simpson lowered his voice to a rapid rattle. “He may have died of Drugs. Poison. Might account for the inconsistent preservation of the soft tissue.”

  “But you’d know,” said I, “once you’d taken in the body for analysis?”

  Simpson looked at me.

  “Come off it, you fearful crocus.” I wasn’t going to let him wriggle out of it; he could roll his eyes all he liked.

  He turned, teeth clenched, and barked at the harbour master. “Have the body brought out, will you? I’ll drive it up to University College Hospital myself, before you let every fly in the dockyard lay in him.”

  “Him, eh?” Jeffcoat nodded satisfied.

  Simpson replied testily. “Almost certainly.”

  “Still discernible, poisons and the like, after such a time?”

  “Most likely. If any diagnostic tools can discern them, ours can.” He huffed to the doorway. “I’ll bring up my carriage. The shoes you may send for, if you wish, but take the blasted pot yourselves.”

  * * *

  The harbour master welcomed our further queries as a mother-in-law welcomes her son’s wife.

  How could we check on passengers gone missing? We must have the SS Great Britain’s itinerary, stoppages, moorings, passenger lists; how strictly the passengers’ comings and goings were enumerated; likewise, traders en route. Unlikely this was a Bombay spice merchant, yet one might have done away with him.

  The harbour master demurred. Such a load of copying work would take weeks.

  I shook my head. My librarian friend Miss Villiers would do the job at triple speed; she did not enjoy the Yard’s measly copyist rates, but she loved a mystery. He should send the papers to the Yard. The glimpse of a ten-bob note sweetened his look; I toyed with it a moment, running through any last doubts. Might the body have been secreted there after the lifeboat was deposited ashore?

  Unlikely. The docks were busy day and night. A corpse couldn’t be lumbered around without drawing notice.

  We would not delay Simpson’s analysis. I left the tip squarely in front of him.

  “Jeffcoat, any point in getting a drawing—”

  “To see if anyone recognises the skull?” Jeffcoat laughed. “Why not?”

  “Of the basket. See if any museum johnny can tell us where it’s from?”

  Jeffcoat reconsidered. “Send for your friend Molly. She’s our best artist. True to life, and discreet, mostly.”

  “Ah, yes. Molly. Jeffcoat, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.”

  POST MORTEM [LAWLESS]

  The Erith explosion took us by surprise. That it happened the next day was pure coincidence, I was sure, but it was a coincidence that cost us dear: it was months before I connected our tubercular skeleton and the terrors which loomed over London that summer.

  We heard the boom as we were driving up to the University College mortuary. All London heard it. We should have done something about it straightaway, but Londone
rs ignore anything that doesn’t stop the traffic around them.

  We’d gleaned all we could from the harbour master the previous day. We harassed Simpson, to make sure he attended to the post mortem. We sent for Molly’s minion, Numpty, to sketch the basket. I sent word to Miss Villiers about the copying job; what might be turgid to others would to her be delightful prying.

  Simpson tried to shoo us off. We would have none of it. He was an evasive wretch at the best of times; but this was not the best of times. To identify this lone corpse, with his rabbit-like face, was a long shot, no doubt, but we must know if it was foul play or not. Customs were alerted to suspicious imports around the country docks. An isolated death might point to a larger warren of plots.

  Simpson worked in silence, ignoring our brooding presence. He took samples of the remnants of skin and hair. He annotated the dental patterns. He examined the skin minutely. Since arsenic poisoning hit the headlines, doctors were anxious not to be caught out; if their certified as natural deaths later proved accidental, or criminal, they could lose their licence.

  Simpson found that the disjointed shoulder and damaged hip bone Jeffcoat had spotted were not the only signs of a fall. Checking the ribs, he declared two fractured. Consonant with falling from a height—or being rolled off deck. His skeletal frame made a pitiful corpse. There were no glands left to analyse for consumption, but, along with the tubercular joints, the brittle bones showed signs of starvation. “He is long enough dead to make diagnosis difficult. There remains some skin for the Marsh test, to check for arsenic. I warn you, though, foreigners have strange ways. No Register of Poisons. Many consider arsenic an aphrodisiac. Any murderer you accuse may claim the Styrian defence, saying the fellow took arsenic of his own free will. I will seek the usual things.” Alcohol, poisons, narcotics, opiates. “Given his quaint shoes, I shall cast the net wider. There could be peculiar herbs at work. The analysis will take time. You’re fortunate to have access to my laboratory.” Taking hold of the skull, he stared into the eye sockets. “I’d adjudge him what we now call Caucasian.”

  “Is that a kind of Russian?” said Jeffcoat.

  “No, Sergeant.” Simpson laughed, and he never laughed kindly. He leant his corpulent bulk towards us and whispered, “That means, he’s one of us.”

  I ignored his leer. “How did he die? That’s the thing. Where in the world is he from? Where did he live? The clothes surely give some clue.”

  Simpson gestured to a pile on the next workbench and carried on with his work. We examined the material closely. The leather was good quality, though worn; the stitching was rough, without the pinpoint work we expect today, finished by dextrous children indentured at low wages (a scandal, to be sure, but clothes must be stitched).

  Jeffcoat found the secret pocket, inside the belt loop, for travellers fearful of robbery. Rolled in that little tuck, Jeffcoat found, secured by a twist of paper, a ten-shilling note. He frowned. “My father always said: ten bob in your pocket and you ain’t destitute, my son.”

  It was as if the dead man was refunding my tip to the harbour master. “Pay your way across the river of death, at least.” I spotted pale ink on the twist of paper Jeffcoat handed me, one word faded by time: ROXBURY.

  I dropped it in astonishment.

  “Something wrong, Watchman?”

  I looked at Jeffcoat. Molly would be on her way right now, despatched as far as possible from the double murder. Before I could explain, in burst Molly’s little chap, Numpty, his urgency beyond the appropriate.

  Simpson grunted in reproach, as the boy tugged at my arm.

  “Calm yourself, Numpty. As you’re here, you can sketch the basket. But it’s not rushing anywhere, nor are we.”

  “I ain’t, Sergeant, but you two ’ave to.” He drew breath and declared with all the gravity he could muster, “There ’as been a hexplosion.”

  CONTRAPTIONS & RENOVATIONS [MOLLY]

  Dear Miss Villiers,

  The butler, Birtle, loomed in the doorway. He stepped aside to usher me in with all the hospitality of a vampyre considering his dinner.

  My first steps inside Roxbury House. Before I’d gone two paces, Birtle coughed his pigging cough again. I hadn’t realised: I was still clutching my drawing case. Ladies never carry their own bags; contrary to life on the London streets, you impressed upon me that a country manor rarely threatens a body with theft.

  Birtle bade me leave it on the step. “It will be brought up forthwith.”

  A fearful blunder.

  I strolled into the back hall, nonchalantly gazing about, polite and inquisitive like.

  “Miss? Follow me.” He gave me a dirty look.

  He has me down as a thief.

  I did gawp, I suppose. I ain’t never seen a place so beautifully situated as Roxbury House, stowed up a valley amid the crags, streams caressing the rockery, forests tickling the ramparts.

  I expected to find the interior dilapidated. I’ve seen inside many a house more lavisher and grandiose in London, Bucks Palace by no means the grandiosest. Imagine my flabbergastery to find it jammed to the rafters with contraptions and contrivances I’ve never seen before. As I followed Birtle down the back corridor, he rang one of the servants’ bells, only it didn’t ring: it buzzed, like a bumblebee.

  Clunk, clank.

  Before my very eyes, a sort of cage descended from the ceiling; a porter emerged through the metal grate and went to get my bags. He gave me a friendly tip of the hat, with a sideways look to check Birtle hadn’t seen.

  A clock struck the half-hour, only it didn’t just strike: it played a musical quartet.

  After the chill northern air, I couldn’t understand how it was so warm. As we crossed the threshold of the central hall, an updraft of heat fluttered my unmentionables, emanating from the floor; no sign of a fireplace.

  Whoosh. Thud. A metallic shake, and up through an opening in the marble floor rattled a foursquare trunk, bumping to a stop beside us. Birtle turned to it, with a sigh. He raised a finger, to bid me pause. He pulled at the clasps, his distaste apparent. The lid sprang open, nearly fetching him a nasty blow on the chin.

  I leapt back, expecting a leopard to jump out. It was the afternoon post, sent up from the glasshouses by pneumatic railcar, including a package marked FRAGILE: ELECTRIC. How many passageways are secreted in these interstices? I’d better watch what I say, for who knows how room is interlinked to room?

  The grand entrance was in a state of upheaval. Scaffolding. Dust sheets. Decorators at three levels. The top fellow painstakingly brushed the wall, as if restoring the Mona Lisa; the mid-level workman was delicately removing plaster; at the bottom, a woman mixed paints, daring the occasional daub.

  “Renovations.” Birtle coughed, uncomfortable. “Lady Roxbury had wanted it repainted, but of course…” He took the package, with a glance aloft, then shooed me up the stairs: he couldn’t wait to hand me over to the housekeeper.

  * * *

  Roxbury House is a topsy-turvy world. We climbed two storeys from the entrance and were still at ground level, the hill behind being so steep. We reached the kitchens, with the housekeeper’s quarters adjacent, atop the butler’s flat. The servants’ quarters fanned out from this hub of power, clambering up the craggy hillside. All this too up the rear of the household, leaving the front for drawing and reception rooms, libraries and bedrooms, with wondrous views.

  Birtle’s brows, thunderous black, made it clear he thinks me as tagrag as a Dutch button. But I hadn’t never heard of a mid entrance. I thought you had me well prepared. If I can navigate Catherine Wheel Alley of a late evening, evading flimps, filchers and hedge creepers—

  Damnation take it, I meant to steer clear of costermongers’ argot to pass muster, if not as a lady, then at least as a lady’s drawing mistress.

  * * *

  DEAR WATCHMAN,

  CONTRAPTIONS APLENTY.

  FURTHER REPORTS AS I FATHOM THE ELECTRICALITIES.

  MOLLY

  LIES AND EXAGGE
RATIONS, PART THE FIRST [LAWLESS]

  What a correspondent Molly was. To her first arrival she devoted a series of letters. More followed daily. I had asked her to note the goings-on in the house and grounds. No more than that. I alluded vaguely to the nation’s security, but this was just to give her a sense of purpose. She would be too loyal to wander off and let me down. I didn’t expect her to discover much; I gave her first missives little attention.

  With the growing national panic, though, her surveillance became important. I needed more from her terse reports, more than the wide-eyed wonderment of her letters to Miss Villiers (which she knew Ruth would give me to read, if I were so inclined). We did not need to know of Skirtle’s bosomy voice, like warmed milk, or Birtle’s, as insistent as a door-knocker. Her wide-eyed wonderment was winning, but distracting, even as she tried to focus on the contraptions, and the machinations animal and mineral. Molly loved subterfuge. From the start, she concealed my reports within these letters to Ruth. There could be nothing suspicious in correspondence with her sponsor, whereas notes to Scotland Yard might attract attention.

  * * *

  Once I made it clear that her reportage might be vital to the nation (and diabolically useful to our enemies), she encrypted as if her life depended upon it. She wrote in invisible ink, she wrote in abstruse vocabulary, she wrote in forgotten slangs. She did this partly to annoy me, partly to spice up her bourgeois position, but mainly so I’d need help from Ruth. Miss Ruth Villiers, erstwhile British Museum librarian, now freelance scrivener, notary, and researcher. My raven-haired Ruth had shrugged off her dowdy library clothes for dresses, once her Aunt Lexie had rescued her wardrobe from her home—which she refused to visit, due to a tiff with her father. Of Miss Villiers, more anon.

  I can scarcely think of anyone with a more realistic grasp of the world than Molly. Yet in her letters to Ruth she did overwrite. Those gaffes upon first arrival she overstated; even if Birtle did think her indecorous, they had orders from Roxbury to overlook teething problems. Molly had to make everything wilder. Consider this, in which Jem took her to view the greenhouses:

  Through trees tall as Nelson’s Column, my flaxen-haired Jem named the buildings we pass: Pump House, by the gorge; Shepherd’s Refuge on the crags above; Walled Garden; glasshouses, encompassing the scientific quarter. Below, the menagerie, where his favourite orang-utan gave us a wave; behind, tropical trees rose through a steamy haze; two storeys up, gardeners on the balcony, busy as bees, collected botanicals in the pale northern sun.