Fatal Enquiry

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

I had just left the British Museum, passing the Alpha Inn where Grant took his meals every day, and I was ruminating about walking sticks. James Smith and Sons was just around the corner, the purveyor of the best walking sticks in England, if not the world. Whenever I was in this part of town I liked to visit. I stepped in the door and spent a few minutes contemplating umbrellas, life preservers, and dagger canes. I picked up a thin wand with a silver head, plain but effective, and was looking at it when someone I recognized strolled in the door with a jangle of the bell above him. It was Terence Poole.

“Are you following me?” I asked.

“You know, I think I might just be. Buying a stick?”

“There’s no pulling the wool over your eyes, is there?”

He took it from me and tested it, slapping the ball of the head into his palm before handing it back with a nod of approval. “Where is your employer?”

“Why does everyone keep asking me that? How have you been?”

“Let’s see … Since we last met, I had a cozy chat with Commissioner Warren. He gave me some time off to-what’s the phrase? Consider my future? Consider whether I like eating, more like. I preferred the old days when Henderson just turned red and bawled at me.”

“Why were you following me?”

“I wasn’t. I just happened to see you in the British Museum talking with that bookish fellow. Didn’t want to interrupt. I’ve been catching you up very slowly. What was that all about?”

“Research.”

“I understand that shark you call a solicitor had you sprung.”

“I’m a free man, after an unjust but brief imprisonment, yes.”

“Your employer may soon be free, also. Have you heard about Gerald Clayton?”

“No. Has he retracted his testimony?”

“Might as well have. He topped himself yesterday.”

“Are you serious?” I exclaimed. “How?”

“Blew his brains out. He left no note behind. Now there’s no witness against your guv’nor, though if I know Warren he’ll still attempt to prosecute. He doesn’t understand the concept of retreat.”

“Poor fellow,” I said.

“Who? Warren?”

“Clayton, of course.”

“Ah, you’re barmy. He tried to put both of you in jail. For whatever reasons he killed himself, he’s done you and Barker both a favor.”

I tried to fathom why he had done it. Barker had given him a logical way to lessen the impact of a scandal. Why hadn’t he taken it? Unless, of course, the photograph had truly depicted what it showed, and he could not bear the shame.

“Are you going to the funeral today?” Poole asked.

“Clayton’s? That’s awfully quick.”

“Not Clayton, you yob. Brother McClain. You’re a free man now and can attend.”

“I didn’t know it was today. I’ve been concentrating on the case. Are you going?”

“Thought I would, yes. Since your governor can’t appear there himself, I’d like to take his place. Besides, I’m old enough to have seen Andy in his heyday. They don’t make his kind anymore. He knew more about the ‘sweet science of bruising’ than anyone alive today.” He raised an eyebrow in my direction. “Are you going to buy that stick or not?”

“No. I don’t feel like buying sticks today. I’ll have to change for the funeral. What time is the service and where will it be held?”

“Christ Church, two P.M.”

“I shall meet you there.”

After I hailed a hansom, I sat back in the cab and told myself I would never be like Terence Poole. I didn’t want to reach the point where I accepted the death of another human being with such blasé detachment. I had spoken to Gerald Clayton only a few days earlier, and now he was a corpse in a mortuary somewhere. He was younger than I, and now all the good things in life-marriage, raising children, struggling to make a name for himself-that was all over for him now.

What had gone wrong? Had he proposed to his cousin and been turned down? He had suggested to us that she was ready enough. Perhaps he had balked at proposing to her. Certainly, in that case, there must have been several eligible women in London willing to marry him for his fortune. He was young and good-looking enough when his prospects were added to his name. Perhaps he grew despondent over his problems, his mood depressed by tumblers of whiskey until, finally, at the point of despair, he had loaded one of his father’s pistols and pulled the trigger.

I arrived at Brother Andrew’s funeral just in time for the service. My assumption was that few people would take much interest in an ex-boxer and street preacher, but there I would have been utterly mistaken. The service was held in Christ Church, Spitalfields, and was attended by the Lord Mayor as well as several local MPs. Members of the boxing fraternity going back generations were there alongside the poor whom Andrew had helped by the score. Cyrus Barker was sure to be somewhere in the crowd, but knowing that I was being scrutinized, I did not look for him. Besides, wherever he was, he deserved his private grief for a man who had been like a brother to him.

Andrew McClain had yet another mourner: me. I didn’t know him as well as I would have liked, but I had come to rely on him. He taught Barker, and Barker taught me, and there was continuity there. Now that continuity was broken and the world was just a little colder. No more would we come to the Mile End Mission for a meal and a sermon. No more would I hear Handy Andy’s rough, cheery voice calling me Tommy Boy. I was going to miss him.

To my surprise, Charles Haddon Spurgeon gave the eulogy. I would have thought that since Brother Andrew had not officially broken with the Church of England, an Anglican clergyman would have officiated. Nothing so grand as the Archbishop of Canterbury, mind, but someone with whom he had worked, who knew what he did for the downtrodden of the East End. Andrew scraped the bottom of society’s barrel with a heavy ladle. He looked after the lowest tier of London citizens, drunks and former drunks, drug addicts, the maimed and crippled, and the so-called unfortunates. He always had a meal and a blanket and a kind word. He’d listen to your problems and you knew he’d beseech the Lord that night on your behalf.

Where would these people go now? I wondered. To whom would they turn? Would the soiled doves slip away into the night, convinced the one man on earth who cared for them was gone? With Andrew in heaven, who was left down here to tell of a loving God who cares for even the lowest one?

Spurgeon was an ugly man. I’ve heard a wag say he proves Darwin’s theories all by himself, with his low brows and long arms, but those of us who know him would not want him any other way. He is Adonis on the inside, and anyway, an attractive, well-dressed minister would have been entirely inappropriate here. He and Brother Andrew were cut from the same bolt, rough, rude men with loud voices and the power of John the Baptist to evangelize.

Coming out of the church afterward, I found the sun too bright, the sky clear and blue as a robin’s egg, the city’s sparrows chirping by the thousands. The traffic in the street was heavy, dray carts and dog carts and carriages, carrying materials for new buildings, new businesses, new houses. Life was already getting on and so must I. I could not help but think, however, that it was all a bit shabbier and sadder without Andrew in it.

“Come on,” Poole said suddenly at my elbow. “I’ll let you buy me an ale at the Prospect of Whitby. It’s the one good thing about being suspended, drinking in the middle of the day.”

We walked the half mile to the old riverside public house where we soon had two ales set in front of us.

“Did you know him well?” I asked Poole as I took a drink of the ale.

“As a boy, I recall my father placing many a wager on the outcome of his fights. That was back when the Fancy was something to be admired. This earth will never see a boxer like him again. He was strong, tenacious, and quick on his feet.”

“Do you recall when he suddenly gave it up to be a missionary?”

“Recall it?” he asked. “We thought the world had come to an end. He was in his thirties still, young enough to have some years left in him. You’ve got your facts confused, however. He quit in protest against the rules of the Marquess of Queensberry. It was later that he found religion.”

“How did it come about?”

“I heard at ‘H’ Division where I was stationed as a constable that he’d been arrested a few times for drinking and disorderly conduct. My father was upset to hear it, but it didn’t surprise us. What do you do after you’ve conquered a sport all by yourself? Normally, the only way to go is down.”

“Was your father an officer, too?”

“Still is. He’s been behind the desk at ‘C’ Division these past twenty years. Anyway, the next we hear, he’s been arrested in a gin palace again, only get this, he wasn’t drinking. The man had gone temperance. He was protesting the way gin turned good fathers and wage earners into useless sots, forcing wives and mothers to take over all the responsibilities in the home. He vowed to open a mission where it was most needed: not in Africa, or Asia, but right here in London. My father said the man had taken one too many punches to the head. He isn’t often wrong, but he was about McClain. Even a Catholic has to admit he’s done fine work in Poplar, restored families, redeemed fallen women, and weaned men from the bottle. As an officer, I’ll tell you one thing: his stretch of Mile End Road is as crime-free an area as you’ll find in the entire East End.”

“What will happen to his ministry now that he’s gone?”

“Plowed under, I should imagine. His type of ministry, it’s all because of the fire of the leader himself. When that’s extinguished, Mile End goes back to being just another street. It’s up to the executor to say what will become of the mission itself.”

“Who’s that?” I asked.

“Your guv’nor. The responsibility for McClain’s ministry will ultimately fall on his shoulders. Didn’t you know?”

“I had no idea, but I suppose it makes sense.”

We each took a pull from our glasses.

“What have you been doing?” I asked.

“You mean since very nearly getting sacked? I’ve been investigating a little on my own.”

“Have you learned anything?”

“I know one thing for sure. Mr. Nightwine cannot be held responsible for Lord Clayton’s death. My men were with him the entire night, and he never left the Army Navy Club. I’ve interviewed everyone in Clayton’s neighborhood and nobody saw anything unusual that night.”

I thought about that for a moment. “Barker’s house was broken into by some members of the Elephant and Castle gang.”

“Oh, the Elephant Boys, was it? They’re a well-organized bunch. Let’s not forget the Elephant Girls, as well. Some of the best thieves in London. Are you saying the Elephant Boys might have killed Clayton and made it look like Barker did it?”

“It’s possible, isn’t it?”

“Anything’s possible, I suppose.”

“Did you hear anything about this mysterious patron who was supposed to meet McClain the day he died?”

“Nothing confirmed. The people who worked at the mission said Brother Andrew seemed very secretive about whom he was meeting.”

“Barker said Andrew was leaving the Church of England.”

“That would have been a reason for being secretive, I suppose.”

“Hmm,” I said. “About how many murders occur in London annually, would you say?”

“There are about eight a year by Scotland Yard’s reckoning. Why?”

“There are an awful lot of deaths occurring here. There’s the eight at O’Muircheartaigh’s, Clayton, McClain, and Clayton’s son, Gerald. That’s eleven since Nightwine arrived.”

“Hold on there,” Poole said. “McClain died of natural causes and Gerald Clayton was a suicide.”

“You don’t think it unusual to have so many deaths in so short a time?”

“I think you should concentrate on what you know to be murder, which is the attack on the Irishman and Clayton’s death.”

“Neither of which you can lay at Nightwine’s door, since he wasn’t here, or was being watched by your men.”

“Which leaves the Elephant and Castle gang.”

“Perhaps Scotland Yard could bring them in for questioning.”

“That’s what I suggested last week, before I was given the boot, only there’s a catch. They’ve disappeared. Not a one has been seen at the E and C public house since Nightwine arrived.”

“I wonder where they’ve got to.”

“No other gang has any information concerning their whereabouts. However, they also haven’t tried to annex their territory, which means they know they’ll be back.”

“I think your efforts would be best placed in trying to track down the Elephant Boys. And the best place to look would be with the Elephant Girls.”

Poole finished his drink and wiped his mouth with a serviette. “If my wife, Minnie, finds out about this, I’ll be in all sorts of trouble.”