City of Light (City of Mystery) (10 page)

Death has a certain
smell.  Moldy of course, the aroma of decay, but that comes later.  In the
beginning there is something faintly metallic about it, as if the air around a dead
body is shimmering with the departing energy of what was once a human life. 
Rayley was not sure he believed in souls, much less any evidence of a soul
departing, and yet he had noticed it many times, this strange sense of movement
around a still body.  The Parisian police stood back to let him pass, and a
momentary silence fell on the group.  Rayley dropped to his knees, heedless of
his tweed trousers, and turned Graham’s face toward his.  

The man’s
complexion, once florid and bursting with youth, was now greenish-gray, the
features so bloated that Graham looked Mongoloid, his eyelids stretched into
slits, his cheeks hanging with an unnatural fullness.  Rayley put one hand on
Graham’s chest and the other hand on top of that one, then used the full weight
of his own body to give a strong push.  A murmur ran through the French who
evidently thought he was trying to resuscitate a corpse, but, with the third
push, Rayley was rewarded with a spurt of water from Graham’s lips, dark as
brandy and foaming.

Graham was in the
same suit he’d worn two days before, when they’d climbed the tower, Rayley
noted, rocking back on his heels as the French began to chatter again.  The
body clearly had not been submerged for long and the presence of water in the
lungs… Well there had been some, certainly, but not as much as you’d expect and
probably not enough to prove Graham had been alive when he entered the river.  Isabel
had described the three of them as all being like fish out of water.  And now
Graham had gone from a fish out of water to a man who’d found entirely too much
of it.  Rayley glanced at the body again, then at the river.  

The Seine ran
tranquil, at least in comParison with the Thames, and at this particular pass
the river was neither broad nor, judging by the succession of boat markers,
particularly deep. If Graham had somehow stumbled and fallen in, if he had
jumped or been tossed from one of the bridges, this alone should not have led
to his death.  His hands and feet were unbound and bore no evidence of ever
having been restrained, so why had he not merely paddled his way to one of the
shores?  It was unlikely the man had been completely unable to swim and
besides, if he had struggled over time, his lungs would have given up far more
water than this single little squirt of fluid.  Graham had most likely been
dead, or at least dying, when he entered the river.

Rayley carefully
lifted the head, but saw no evidence of a blow.  On the hill behind him a few
of the young officers were emptying a satchel, a leather folder which had
evidently been found along with Graham’s body.  The contents must have provided
his name and nationality and thus caused the French to summon Rayley.  But it
must have held these other papers too, which the flics were carefully peeling
part from each other and spreading along the bank, securing each sheet with a
pebble.  It was probably a pointless task, since any words once written on
those papers had surely been obliterated by the river, but Rayley was still
relieved to see them making the effort.  For Graham had said other things that
first night too, had he not?  Something about how newspaper men wouldn’t stop
until they had gotten all the answers.  At the time, Rayley had dismissed it as
boyish boast, Graham’s silly attempt to elevate his own profession to the
status of Rayley’s.  It was hard to imagine that the man, whose primary
interests appeared to be flirting with American journalists and passing along
gossip, might have stumbled onto a real crime or that such a crime could have
led to his death. 

But anything was
possible.  At least at this stage of the investigation.

London 

9:55 AM

The boy who rose
from the bench to greet them may have claimed to be fifteen, but he looked
closer to twelve.  Slender, pale, and blond, his eyes of that transparent hazel
color Trevor associated with the working classes.  He chewed his lower lip as
the officer unlocked the cell door to let Trevor, Tom, and Davy in, and the
minute the man was out of sight he exploded into protest.

“I swear I didn’t
steal the money, Sir.  On me Mum’s grave, I swear it.”

“Sit down, son,”
Trevor said.  The boy was evidently still confused about why he’d been brought
back in for questioning a second time, for he launched into a rambling,
tear-filled explanation of how he would never cheat the telegraph office, how the
coin in his pocket was an extra gratuity for services rendered, how they could
ask the maid at the door if that wasn’t just what she said to him.

“No one is accusing
you of stealing any money,” Trevor said. He had yet to introduce himself or the
others, but Charlie Swinscow didn’t seem interested in such formalities.  He
had sunk back down to the narrow bench and was wiping his eyes with his
shirtsleeve. “But we do need to understand how you came to be in possession of
such a sum.  Fourteen shillings is rather a lot for a boy your age to be
carrying about, is it not?”

A strange emotion
flickered across Charlie’s face, a mixture of shame at war with pride. “Friend
gave it to me.”

“What is your
friend’s name?”

“I don’t know.”

“Oh, but he would
have to be a very good friend to give you fourteen shillings, would he not?  I
suspect what you’re saying is that he made you promise not to say his name.”

The pale eyes were
fixed on a spot on the floor.  The boy remained silent.

“We’re not after
you, Charlie,” Davy said.  “Or any of your friends who deliver telegrams with
you.  We’re after the men who give you money.   You have nothing to fear.”

The eyes flickered.
“’Tis a crime.”

“True,” Davy
conceded.  “But there are small crimes and big crimes, and Scotland Yard only
cares about the latter.”

“The police might
see you as more of a victim than a criminal,” Trevor said, picking his words
carefully and trying to cut Davy off before he promised too much.  Charlie was
quite right – homosexuality was indeed a crime, as was prostitution.  Leading
to incarceration and hard labor in the hands of an unsympathetic judge and it
was impossible to predict how a judge might approach a case such as this one. 
Female prostitutes were rarely prosecuted, which was probably why Davy had
rushed to assure the boy that the Yard would take little interest in the case. 
But Trevor was not at all sure his superiors would view male prostitution as an
analogous crime.

“Victim?”  Charlie
asked warily.  The word seemed to stir up the same sort of war of emotions that
had followed the mention of the fourteen shillings. 

“We need two things
if you are to help us,” Trevor said.  “And, in turn, to allow us to help you.  Our
medical officer here is Thomas Bainbridge and he will examine you to
corroborate that the events you described actually took place.  Do you understand?  
Any evidence he finds will only serve to verify the truth of your statements
and this will all go to your favor.  The second thing we need is the name of
the man who gave you the money.”

“I done told the
copper.  Charles Hammond.”

“Yes, yes indeed,
you did tell the copper. But we need the name of the man who gave the money to
Mr. Hammond.  The one you were with when you earned it.”

The eyes met
Trevor’s directly, the quivering chin lifted. “’Twas more than one.”

A beat of silence
filled the cell.  

“Then we’ll need as
many names as you can recall,” Trevor said.  “It isn’t just you, Charlie. 
We’ll be talking to Henry when we find him and the other lads who work for the
telegraph as well, so no one will know who tells us what.  There will be no um,
no social repercussions for your willingness to cooperate.”

Charlie was still
staring at Trevor, an ironic smile playing around the corner of his thin mouth,
as if he were wondering if Trevor could possibly be as much a fool as he
appeared. Then, slowly, his eyes moved to Davy and finally to Tom.

“You’re the one
who’s a doctor?”

Paris

10:10  AM

“I’ve done all I can
here,” Rayley said aloud, privately thinking it wasn’t much.  He could only
hope the body would yield more information when he got it to the morgue and
could cut off the sodden clothing and conduct a proper examination.

Carle, who had arrived
a few minutes earlier, relayed the message to the flics, who were standing by
with a canvas stretcher.  Apparently, based on little more than his shared
nationality with the corpse, the French were more than happy to let Rayley
handle the transfer of the body.   He knew he shouldn’t be surprised.  Graham
was a foreigner, a reporter, middle class at best.  It was hard, based on the paltry
evidence given up by his body, to even determine if a crime had occurred.  So the
officers standing on the sidewalk above were literally turning their back on
the affair, off to find other victims who were more interesting, or at least
more French. 

Even the crowd watching
from the far bank had dispersed, and as Rayley looked across the water, his
eyes fell on one of the few remaining gawkers.  A young boy, sitting on the
bridge, with one arm draped around an ornate black lamppost and his legs
dangling over the side.  Rayley squinted into the sunshine.  

There was something
familiar in his form.  Rayley was almost certain he had seen him before. 

Was he a messenger,
a waiter, a carriage boy?   Could he possibly have been one of the young men
who had served champagne at the party on the night Rayley and Graham had first
met?   Rayley felt a rush of anxiety.  He and Trevor had always suspected the
Ripper attended the crime scenes in Whitechapel, that he wouldn’t have been
able to resist the chance to slip back and admire his handiwork one more time.  The
two detectives had stood shoulder to shoulder in the blood-stained street and surveyed
the jostling crowd, certain that somewhere among the eager onlookers was the perpetrator
himself, the secret guest of honor at a party he’d created.

But no, Rayley
thought, actually shaking his head to clear the thought.  He was being
paranoid. The boy on the bridge was a slight lad, surely unable to subdue the
strapping Graham or carry his body down to the river.  Rayley signaled, and the
flics sprang forward with the stretcher, eager to get on with it.  He took one
final look at Graham’s face before the rough green blanket was raised.

I won’t leave Paris
until I find the man who brought you to this water, Rayley silently promised
the body.  Perhaps you were a fool, but you were my fool, just as the fat man
said.  You deserve better than this.

CHAPTER SEVEN

London

April 22

3:40 PM

“Do you know a woman
named Isabel Blout?”

Geraldine looked up
from her tea, surprised at Trevor’s question.  “What business could you
possibly have with Isabel Blout?”

“Rayley Abrams met
her in Paris and has written asking if I could learn anything of her history. 
I take it she’s a bit of a socialite.”

Geraldine paused to
consider before she spoke - a rare event for her, and duly noted by Trevor.  “I
scarcely know the girl, but calling her a socialite stretches the truth,” she
finally said.  “Isabel married one of the richest men in London and was thus afforded
the invitations and privileges one would expect…”

Trevor tamped at his
pipe thoughtfully, knowing full well where Gerry’s unfinished sentence had been
headed.  “So she was invited to all the right parties but was never fully
accepted into the inner circles of society.” 

Gerry nodded. “Her
story didn’t sit quite right among his friends. Too many unanswered questions,
you know, and society tends to like its questions duly answered. They prefer
for people to marry their own kind.”

“What sort of
questions did people ask?”

“The first question
was why, after all this time, George Blout had married at all.  Confirmed
bachelor, you know, rarely seen outside the confines of his men’s club, and far
past the age where anyone would expect him to walk the aisle, much less to take
on a girl with such an obscure background.  She came from Manchester, I think. 
Perhaps Liverpool.  One of those towns where they…you know, darling.  One of
those places where they make useful things.”

Trevor sat back, the
picture unfolding swiftly before him.  A factory town, sprung up around a
port.  A city of industry, billowing smokestacks and dirty streets.  Brutal repetitive
work that began in childhood and ended, more often than not, in premature
death.

“She had a notably
beautiful face.  Enough so that George must have convinced himself that her
origins didn’t matter,” Geraldine continued.  “Heaven only knows how she found
her way to his table but they married when she was no more than sixteen and he
was…well, George is older than me, I believe, which would have made him well past
sixty when he took his bride.  If memory serves, it was a bit of a scandal.”