Where Shadows Dance

Chapter 8

Sir Henry Lovejoy, once the chief magistrate at Queen Square, now the newest of Bow Street’s three stipendiary magistrates, drew a handkerchief from his pocket and pressed its snowy folds against his damp upper lip. The day had grown uncomfortably warm, the insects in the surrounding dank grass setting up a loud, maddening hum that seemed somehow to accentuate the foul stench of death and decay rising from the body before him.

Wrapped in a dirty canvas, the unidentified corpse lay halfhidden in a weed-choked ditch on the edge of Bethnal Green. A wretched, insalubrious area on the northeastern fringes of London, the district was a favorite dumping ground for dead cats and dogs, unwanted babies, and victims of murder.

“He ain’t a pretty sight, I’m afraid,” said Constable OʹNeal, a stout, middle-aged man with florid jowls and a prominent nose. Slopping noisily through several inches of slimy water, he leaned over with a grunt to draw back a corner of the canvas and reveal a bloated, discolored nightmare of a face.

“Good God.” Lovejoy bunched the handkerchief against his nostrils. “Cover it up again. Quickly, before the children see it.”

The constable threw a skeptical glance at the knot of ragged, half-grown urchins who’d gathered nearby to gawk at them, and dropped the canvas. “Yes, sir.”

Normally, the discovery of another body in one of the poorest districts of London was of no concern to Bow Street. But there were circumstances surrounding this man’s death that Lovejoy found troubling. He said, “So what exactly have you discovered, Constable?”

“Not much, I’m afraid. You did notice his clothes, sir? They’re uncommon fine. The local magistrate reckons the body musta been brought from someplace else and dumped here. Ain’t no gentlemen missing from around these parts, sir.”

Lovejoy sighed. “No identification on him?”

“None, sir.”

Lovejoy turned to stare thoughtfully across the green, toward the dark, grim walls of the madhouse and, beyond that, Jews Walk. This was an area of marshy fields and tumbledown cottages, of Catholics and Jews and impoverished French weavers.

The constable cleared his throat. “And then there’s the lad I was telling you about—Jamie Durban, sir.”

Lovejoy brought his gaze back to the constable’s jowly face. “Where is he?”

“Here, sir.” The constable motioned to one of the ragged boys. “Well, come on, then, lad. Say your piece.”

Jamie Durban—a scrawny, carrot-topped lad of ten or twelve—wiped the back of one hand across his nose and reluctantly stepped forward.

Lovejoy looked the boy up and down. He was barefoot, the flesh of his arms and legs liberally streaked with dirt, his ragged shirt and breeches two sizes too big for his slight frame. “So what have you to say for yourself, Jamie Durban?”

The lad threw a frightened glance at the constable.

“Go on. Tell him,” urged the constable.

Jamie swallowed hard enough to bob his Adam’s apple up and down in his skinny throat. “It were Saturday night o’ last week, sir—or rather, I suppose you could say early Sunday mornin’.”

Lovejoy fixed the boy with a hard stare. “Go on.”

“I were ’eadin’ ’ome along the east side o’ the green, when I seen a swell carriage drawn up just ’ere—beside the ditch.”

“What makes you think it was a gentleman’s carriage and not a hackney?” asked Lovejoy. “It was rather dark last Saturday, was it not?”

“Not so much, sir. The moon was still pretty new, but it was clear and the stars was shinin’ somethin’ fierce. It was a gentry cove’s carriage, all right. A curricle, drawn by a pair o’ highsteppin’ dark ’orses and driven by a cove wearin’ one o’ them fancy coats with all them shoulder capes.”

Lovejoy studied the boy’s pale, delicate features. “And?”

“I could see the gentry cove was wrestlin’ with somethin’ big and bulky ʹe ʹad on the floor o’ ’is curricle. So I nipped behind the wall o’ the corner house there to watch, and I seen ’im dump it’ere, in the ditch. It’d rained some that day, and I ’eard the splash when it ’it the water.”

Lovejoy’s gaze drifted back to the silent, canvas-covered body at their feet. “What did the gentleman do next?”

“Why, ’e got back in ’is curricle and drove off. Toward the west, sir.”

“And what did you do, Jamie?”

Jamie dug the bare toes of one foot into the dirt, his gaze averted.

“Speak up, there, lad,” barked the constable. “Answer the magistrate’s question.”

Jamie’s jaw went slack with remembered horror. “I ... um, I waited ’til I was sure the cove was long gone. Then I come and took a peek at what ’e’d ’eaved into the ditch.”

“Are you telling me,” said Lovejoy, “that you have known this body was here since last Saturday night? And you only just got around to telling the constables about it today?”

The boy took a step back, his eyes widening. “I kept thinkin’ somebody was bound to find ʹim. Especially once ʹe started smellin’. But then ’e jist laid ’ere and laid ’ere, and finally it got so’s I couldn’t stand it no more. So I told Father Dean at St. Matthew’s, and ’e said I should own up to what I seen.”

Lovejoy frowned. “You’re certain this was Saturday night?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And when you first saw it, was the body fresh? Or was it already showing signs of decay?”

“Oh, ’e were fresh, all right. Why, ’e were still warm!”

Lovejoy frowned. “What time did you say this was?”

“Jist after three, sir. I remember I ’eard the night watchman calling the hour as I was crossin’ the green.”

Lovejoy and the constable exchanged glances. “And what were you doing out at three in the morning, lad? Hmm? Speak up there.”

Jamie Durban took another step back, his previously pale face suddenly flushing scarlet.

“Go on, then. Answer the magistrate’s question,” urged the constable.

His nostrils flaring in panic, the boy whirled to take off across the green, arms and legs pumping, hair flashing golden red in the hot sun.

“Bloody hell.” The constable lumbered up out of the ditch. “You want I should go after him, sir?”

Lovejoy watched the boy run. “No. Let him go. I assume you know where he lives?”

“Yes, sir. In Three Dog Lane. Lives with his widowed ma and three sisters, he does.”

His handkerchief pressed once more to his nostrils, Lovejoy hunkered down beside the ditch. The weeds had been trampled by countless rough boots, the fetid water churned and muddied. Whatever evidence might have been recoverable days ago had been lost to the rain and the passage of time and careless men. He glanced up at the constable. “You’ve searched the area?”

“We have. Nothing, sir.” The constable paused. “You want we should send the body to the dead house in Wapping, sir?”

Lovejoy frowned. London had several dead houses, or mortuaries, for unidentified or unclaimed bodies. But they were miserable, filthy places, most with little space for a proper postmortem.

He shook his head. “Fetch a shell from the dead house, but have a couple of lads carry the body to the surgery of Paul Gibson, on Tower Hill. Perhaps he’ll be able to give us something to go on.” He pushed to his feet. “And check the pawnbrokers’ shops and fences in the area. See if young Mr. Durban has sold any men’s jewelry or other items in the last week.”

“You think he stole something from the body, sir?”

“How else did he know the corpse was still warm?”

“Aye, good point that, sir. Although I suppose—” The constable broke off, his gaze shifting to something over Sir Henry’s shoulder.

“What is it?” Lovejoy turned to find a tall, bone-thin clerk hurrying toward them across the green. He drew up before them, his breath coming in noisy gasps.

“Sir Henry,” said the man, his pale forehead gleaming with sweat. “A message for you from the Foreign Office. The Undersecretary, Sir Hyde Foley, wishes to see you. At once!”