The Laws of Murder

CHAPTER TWELVE

As the cab drove to Southwark, Lenox stared out at the wet streets of the city and brooded upon the death of Jenkins, of his friend Thomas Jenkins of Scotland Yard. There were more points of oddity in this murder than most: the twenty pounds, the missing papers, the claim ticket, the unlaced boot, the wound on Jenkins’s left hand, and above all the proximity of the body to the house of William Travers-George, Lord Wakefield.

Where had Wakefield fled? And why?

The Southwark docks were immensely busy. Eighty or ninety large ships were crowded along the banks of the Thames there, some of them with barely room to turn, their complex riggings latticing the sky with shifting shapes. Lenox could smell a strong odor of fish, wood, and especially tobacco — the Tobacco Dock, lined with immense warehouses where merchants with ships that went to America could store the stuff, was nearby.

They alighted at one of the docklands’ many entrances. “There’s a half-crown if you hold the cab,” said Lenox.

The cabman touched his cap.

As they came nearer the water, Lenox and Dallington could feel its sharp breeze. Down in the water, though it was so cold still at this time of year, were the mudlarks, as everyone called them — very poor young boys, some only six or seven years old, who waded near the banks of the river, searching for coal, iron, rope, even bones, anything whatsoever that might be sold. Slightly more prosperous were the wherries that floated between the ships, tiny boats that offered quick passage to the docks for a coin or two, or ran errands for harried ships’ stewards trying to put to sea on time.

This was also the location of the Dreadnought, instantly recognizable because it loomed higher on the horizon than any other ship. She was ancient by now: In 1805, she had been one of twenty-seven ships commanded by Horatio Nelson in the Battle of Trafalgar, part of a fleet that was outgunned by French and Spanish ships, of which there were thirty-three. But Nelson had been a genius. When the day was over the French and Spanish had lost twenty-two ships — the British, none. It was the greatest naval victory in the history of the world, as all English schoolboys learned. Dreadnought had been there.

Now she served a humbler purpose. She was a floating seaman’s hospital, a place where any current or former seaman could find medical care for free, if he didn’t mind close quarters and irregular doctor’s visits. It was one of the most popular charities in London.

In sight of Dreadnought, Lenox and Dallington found a small stall with a sign that said CARGO AND SHIPPING. It looked as promising as anything else. They went in.

Behind the counter was an old white-haired man with scruffy white stubble on his face, dressed in a pea coat and poring over a ledger. He looked up. “Help you?”

Lenox held up the ticket. “We were hoping to claim some luggage. For the ship to Calcutta.”

“You’ve gone three dockyards too far west, in that case,” said the man, smirking. “Not regulars in these parts, are you, chaps?”

“Lenox here sailed with the Lucy,” said Dallington indignantly. “All the way to Egypt and back.”

“Oh, begging your pardon,” said the man, with wildly exaggerated deference. “To Egypt and back you say? Has he written his memoirs? Has he visited with the Queen?”

Dallington frowned. “Yes, you’re very funny.”

“The world must know his story! Egypt and back!”

They left this derision behind with as much self-possession as they could muster and hopped in the cab again, which they directed to drive west as they counted off the docks. In the first yard had been more passenger ships, and while this looked to be full of cargo ships, there was another small stall with a similar sign. This one had a bit more enterprise; it said HELMER’S CARGO, SHIPPING, WOODWORKING.

As soon as they went in it was apparent that Mr. Helmer was also engaged in a different kind of business — five women, very plainly prostitutes, were sitting at a table playing cards. They were genial in their greetings. Helmer, apparently, was at the moment aboard a ship called the Amelia. No, it wasn’t bound for Calcutta; that was the Gunner, in slip eleven. But they wouldn’t be permitted on board either ship without Helmer. Even the ticket, which Lenox held up to show them, wouldn’t allow them that.

“Cheap buggers on the Gunner, if you were hoping to make any money on your backs,” one of them added, by way of good-bye, and for the second time in the docklands Lenox and Dallington left with gales of laughter in their wake.

The information had been good, however. Helmer was just leaving the Amelia when they arrived at it, dashing down the taut diagonal rigging between the ship and the dock, though he must have been sixty and was certainly overweight. He looked up to answer to his name.

“Yes?” he said.

Lenox held up his ticket, and for the first time there was recognition in someone’s eyes. “I’d like to claim my property.” He had decided that it was more likely the ticket was for a piece of cargo than for a berth upon a ship. “If it’s not too much trouble.”

“That ship is leaving in ninety minutes,” said Helmer, his eyes hooded and suspicious. “Why on earth would you take something out of it when you’d paid handsomely to ship it, a hold in the aft?”

“Do I need to provide my reasons?”

“Well — no,” said Helmer. “But it’s unusual, you know.”

“Then you’ll have a story for the pub,” said Dallington. “Here, you can buy everyone a drink to tell it.”

Helmer cheered up considerably when he saw the half-crown Dallington was offering, and led them to slip eleven. “Captain won’t be happy, you know. But I suppose it’s within your rights.”

“What kind of ship is it?” asked Dallington.

Helmer stopped and turned toward him with frank astonishment as they walked side by side. “Isn’t it your cargo?”

“No — my friend’s. I just happened to see him and come along.”

“Which it’s a cargo ship, mostly.” He started walking again. There was a thick plug of tobacco in this entrepreneur’s cheek and a tattoo upon his forearm. Obviously he had once been a seaman, and perhaps after his ship had taken a prize he had used his portion of it to open his business. He seemed successful enough, to gauge by the prostitutes he employed. There must have been immense demand for them, ships full of men isolated for months at a time. “The Gunner takes mail, parcels, and of course goods from England. A great deal of sugar and flour and cloth. For the lads in India, you know. A few passengers, if need be. Sometimes the navy lets a few berths for its men, or the marines, if they’re chasing their ships, is what it is.”

The Gunner was a slovenly ship, Lenox could tell at an instant, with none of the trim efficiency he had come to know on the Lucy (upon which he had, indeed, spent several diverting weeks in transit). Its ropes were slack, its paint was chipping. Men idled fore and aft. It also didn’t look as if it could move very quickly, which made it surprising when Helmer said it was reckoned the fastest mailboat to India.

“They look out for her in Calcutta, you know. Most recent newspapers and such. If you’re lucky the Gunner might bring you a copy of the Times that’s only eight weeks out of date, if you’re one of them great sahibs sitting on a balcony with ten darkie servants. Admiral Fanshawe never sends his mail by any other vessel.”

“You’d think he owned the bloody ship,” muttered Dallington, falling a step behind.

“Or that someone wanted to ship their cargo with very great haste.”

Dallington considered this. “Yes, true.”

As they walked up the gangway a great number of eyes turned toward them, none friendly. Lenox had heard of mailboats whose officers and crew committed acts of piracy when chance threw a weaker foreign vessel in their path. There was a blood oath among all those on board — punishable by death for its transgression — that the secret of these crimes was to stay among them. If it weren’t for the ship’s renowned speed, Lenox would have believed it of the Gunner in an instant. She had no very great appearance of rectitude.

At the top of the gangway they were stopped by a sour-looking lieutenant, irretrievably sun- and wind-burned, past forty. “Who’s these?” he said.

“Two paying customers, what’s let a hold on this ship,” said Helmer. He had some pugnacity in his voice. “Where’s Dyer?”

“Indisposed.”

“Dispose him prompt.”

The lieutenant’s eyes grew dark, but then he saw that Helmer was patting the little pocket of his waistcoat, and understood there was money to be made. “This way.”

The appropriate, extortionate number of coins changed hands, first with the lieutenant and then with Captain Dyer, a rat-faced but well-spoken man — a gentleman’s son, at any rate, probably ex-navy, with no chance of promotion within those ranks because of lack of interest — who took the claim ticket.

“You can have it back, whatever you put in there,” he said, “but not your money. We ship in eighty-four minutes, you know.”

“Just so,” said Lenox.

They descended into the hold by a series of short ladders, the smell worsening the farther they went from daylight. Hammocks were bundled up into the rafters on the lowest level; on every side were small doors with numbers stenciled on them. Dyer and Helmer led the way toward the aft, the rear, of the ship. Numbers 119 and 120 sat on top of each other, their door divided halfway. They were two of the larger storage doors.

“Do we need a key?” said Lenox.

“Only mine.”

Dyer opened the door. Lenox hadn’t been sure what he was expecting, but something more interesting than what he saw — first, an old and very large sea trunk of wood and brass, its lock flapping open, and second, a stack of old hammocks, extras, presumably. “Dallington, help me pull the trunk out, would you.”

With the help of Helmer — who was clearly anticipating further remuneration at the end of this adventure, a hope in which Lenox looked forward to disappointing him — they maneuvered the trunk into the cabin. “Not overly heavy,” said Dallington. “Though it will be some work to get it aloft. Shall I open it?”

The young lord pulled back the lid and frowned. “What’s that?” he asked.

There was something grayish filling the large trunk to its very top edge. “Salt,” said Lenox, and felt his heart begin to race. He dropped to his knees and began to push it aside.

It took a second, two seconds, to brush away the top layer of coarse salt. At the same instant all three standing men gasped. Helmer yelped. “Is that a body?”

“It is,” said Lenox.

Helmer shook his head. “Christ, Dyer, you’ve copped it now.”

Lenox uncovered the face. “Who is it?” asked the ship’s captain.

Dallington had seen, and his eyes widened. He turned to Lenox for confirmation, and Lenox nodded. “Yes, it’s him.”

“It’s who?” said Helmer.

“Eighty-four minutes may be an overoptimistic estimate of your departure time, Captain Dyer,” said Lenox. “This is the body of the Marquess of Wakefield.”