The Kingdom of Bones

THIRTEEN

The wagon measured about eight feet by six. There were two plain benches, one down either side; after the first lurch into motion he sat with his feet braced wide against the bench opposite, as the handcuffs made it difficult for him to steady himself any other way.

He could barely see. The only light came from vents in the roof and a single barred window in the door, through which he could hear boys following in the street and shouting something he couldn’t make out. As the wagon bounced along, Sayers desperately tried to make some sense of the past half hour. He could not.

There was no doubting that his situation was dire. He’d begun by thinking that there had been some terrible misunderstanding that would be cleared up by a closer investigation, but that clearly would not do. No misunderstanding could explain the death of Arthur Steffens or the presence of his remains in Sayers’ room; no simple human error could have placed him there. This was an act of deliberate and double malice, both in the murder and in the directing of blame for it.

Sayers had last seen Arthur in life at the playhouse. He was not lodging at Mrs. Mack’s, but with the stage crew over the pub in Cross Lane. He must have been killed and his body carried up to the attic room sometime between the end of the night’s performance and Sayers’ return from his small-hours walk. Which suggested to Sayers that only someone inside the lodging house would have been positioned and able to take the opportunity.

All of his instincts pointed him to James Caspar. Unfortunately, no evidence did. Caspar’s dissolute habits and their shared antipathy were proof of nothing; Sayers could speak of them and hope that the police might be moved to uncover some damning new information, but such effort on their part was unlikely. They were in no doubt that they had their man.

He heard the driver calling to the horses, and felt the wagon slow. The bone shaking grew more intense as it went into a turn, and Sayers had to brace himself harder or be thrown onto his side. To be shackled in handcuffs was a greater torment than he could ever have imagined. The physical discomfort was bearable, but because of their restriction he fought a constant urge to panic.

The wagon came to a halt. Nothing happened for a while, and nobody came to speak to him. He went to the door and, looking out through the bars, saw that he was in a police yard with a high brick wall around it. An ostler was leading horses across open ground while, over at the yard’s far side, the gates by which they’d entered were being closed by an elderly watchman. The watchman had lost a limb, but moved with speed and skill on his remaining leg and a wooden crutch.

Sayers settled again, and after a while they came for him. He heard the padlock being removed, and then one of the uniformed men looked in through the bars, in case the prisoner should decide to come out fighting.

Six of them were waiting for him in the yard. Big, experienced-looking men, and their sergeant the biggest of them all. They had truncheons at the ready, and for a moment Sayers thought that he was to be driven with a beating toward the police station’s jail entrance. But they formed a group around him and he was pushed, prodded, and generally herded toward the grim redbrick building overlooking the yard.

During the next hour, he was given a prisoner’s examination and photographed. The handcuffs were removed and he was finally able to button his shirt and put on his waistcoat. He moved wherever he was sent, stood where he was told to stand. He resisted any urge to argue or rebel, knowing that neither would go well for him. He needed to maintain his composure until given the opportunity to speak. Any protest before then would be wasted indignation.

At no point was he left alone or unsupervised. Finally, he was walked into a room where Sebastian Becker and two much older, more senior-looking men were waiting. Both were high-collared and bearded and had small, hard-button eyes. The big sergeant from the yard stood just inside the door, and a shorthand clerk sat ready to take down anything that Sayers might say. The room had bare walls of painted brick and a cellar-style window that was too high to reach, and too small to escape through if anyone ever did.

There was a chair, and he was allowed to sit. Sayers was told of the charges against him, and at last had the opportunity to provide an account of himself.

After giving his birth date and such other details of his life that he could be sure of, he started to speak in the knowledge that whatever he said now would be an important record for the days ahead. Forthright or evasive, self-possessed or sniveling, here would be set down his character as the world would know it.

“I was a prizefighter and professional sportsman for seven years,” he said. “I was in training at Chesham for a bout with Charles Wainwright, and I was attacked and struck on the arm with an iron bar. It was an attempt to influence the result, I’m certain of that. But they did their work too well and I was unable to fight at all. I’d borrowed one thousand pounds from the Marquis of Reddesley in advance of the match, and it had to be repaid.

“I wrote a boxing sketch and got up a small company to play it around the halls. As a fighter I had a certain popularity, and I repaid the debt. But people’s memories fade very quickly, and so I turned my hand to management. I’ve managed for several companies since. Whitlock’s for the past two years.”

The two senior men continued to sit without expression throughout, while Sebastian Becker listened closely. He seemed to be searching for some particular meaning or enlightenment that he did not, could not, find.

He said, “I don’t understand you, Sayers.” The story he seemed to understand well enough; it was the man he could not fathom.

“There is much here that I do not understand, Inspector Becker.”

“Is it some form of a blood lust? Something you could no longer satisfy in the ring and so you had to turn it onto the rest of us instead? I’ve seen murder for gain. For revenge. Out of rage or for passion. But never before have I seen such cruel and unusual murder for sheer love of its horror.”

“I’ve harmed no one.”

“You blinded a man in the ring once.”

“I fought by the rules. The man knew the risks.”

“What am I looking at, Sayers? Are you an aberration? Or are you something terrible and new?”

“You are looking at an innocent man, Inspector Becker.”

“Don’t you realize that only cooperation can help you now? You’ll still hang, of course. Nothing can change that. But there’s more than one path to the gallows.”

“You speak of hanging. You found a boy in my room that I neither harmed nor placed there, and you speak of crimes against people that I do not know nor have even met. At no time did I ever hear the name of Clive Turner-Smith until I had it from your lips.”

“You arranged to meet him in the saloon of the public house by the theater during the second act of last night’s performance. Your note was still in his pocket when you speared him with his own blade.”

“I put my hand to no note. And at no time did I ever leave the theater.”

“The saloon bar was a matter of yards from the stage door. No one saw you backstage in that time.”

“I went to look at the play from the back of the auditorium.”

“Where everyone’s attention was on the players. How very convenient.”

“Ask Lily Haynes. She works behind the bar. She saw me. She spoke to me.”

“Not in the second half of the evening, she didn’t. Admit it, Sayers. Stop lying. Behave like a man and not the base thing you have descended to. You’ve left a trail of blood that matches your company’s dates exactly. Did you think that by targeting paupers and unfortunates in different places you might escape notice for your crimes? A fifteen-year-old boy saw through you. And the evidence he provided will damn you.”

Saying this, he picked up the page of pasted newsprint that he’d taken from the body in the lodging house, and thrust it out for Sayers to see. Suddenly, instinct and reason moved a step closer together.

“Caspar,” Sayers breathed.

“Mister Caspar was onstage throughout the evening. He has seven hundred and fifty ticket-holding witnesses. How many could have spoken for you? One. Whom you strangled and stuffed into a box with your second-best suit.”

“In God’s name, Becker, don’t close your mind to me or a terrible injustice will be done!”

“Don’t quote the name of God at me, Sayers. If God exists, you serve a different master. I take it you will not confess.” He rose to his feet. The clerk stopped writing, and began to pack away his notebook and writing kit. One of the two senior men muttered something inaudible to the inspector, and then he and his colleague left the room.

Sebastian Becker came around to stand in front of Sayers. He crouched a little and looked into the prizefighter’s eyes, as if in search of something.

“Help me, Sayers,” he said. “It cannot change your fate, but help me to understand. Lily Haynes would believe no ill of you. Clearly, she is wrong. But how can a man who inspires such loyalty in his friends be capable of such deeds as yours? How can a fiend be in any way human, Sayers? Or a human being truly a fiend?”

“You’d have me explain what I do not know,” Sayers said. “I tell you once more, I am innocent of these deeds. Call back your clerk, and I’ll tell you again.”

Sebastian Becker straightened up and said, “You have killed an officer of the law. That means he was a brother to every man here. But we are not beasts as you are, Sayers. You will face the ultimate penalty, but there will be no rough handling. The true test of justice comes in moments like these.”

Sayers had the impression that these words, though directed at him, may have been more for the benefit of the uniformed man by the door.

“Sergeant,” the inspector said, “take him down.”