The Hellfire Conspiracy (9 page)

It was a squalid room full of broken furnishings, and it reminded me of my past. The dining table was heaped with the makings for paper flowers, a depressing little industry in which my late wife’s family had been employed. One had to make hundreds in a day, and then sell those hundreds to people who had little use for them, in order to make even the most negligible of profits.

Barker spoke gravely with Mrs. Bellovich for several moments. The poor woman was so terrified, she was trembling. She kept shaking her head as if to confirm that her daughter was not there.

“Ona Bellovich!” the Guv called out in English. “You had better come out at once. I would hate to take this good woman down to police headquarters.”

Svetlana Bellovich stared apprehensively at my employer, though it was obvious she didn’t understand what he had just said. What a life she must have lived already that the presence of officers of the law, real or spurious, was enough to turn her into a quivering mess. What terrors and deprivations she must have gone through before arriving on our comparatively safe shores.

“Miss Bellovich!” my employer went on in a loud voice. “No one holds you responsible for Miss DeVere’s disappearance, but if you do not show yourself, we may be forced to search the house.”

Someone began knocking at the door behind me, and I heard men’s voices calling out in a foreign tongue. The handle jiggled, but I dug in my heels and refused to allow anyone to enter.

“Very well,” Barker said, heaving a sigh. “Mr. Llewelyn, take Mrs. Bellovich to jail. I’ll start searching the rooms.”

“Nyen!”
a voice cried from somewhere in the house. A girl of about twelve years old came running out, into the arms of her mother. The two spoke to each other quietly for a moment, while outside the beating on the door continued.

“Miss Bellovich, I have no wish to cause harm to you or your mother, but you must come forward and speak to the police. I work for Gwendolyn’s parents and am trying to find her. You have information that may help us. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” she said meekly. The girl looked like a younger version of her mother and wore a similar print dress and kerchief.

“Do you speak English?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Why don’t you tell the gentlemen outside that you are safe and that we are only going to talk to you? Lad, open the door.”

When I did, three men fell in, almost at my feet. They rose quickly. One seized my wrist and I was about to clout him with my stick, while the other two went for Barker, when Madame Bellovich raised her hands and spoke. Whatever she said convinced them to leave with nothing but mutterings and frowns in my direction.

Barker and the mother and daughter sat down at the wobbly table, and Ona began to speak quietly. My employer put questions to the girl, while her mother left and returned minutes later with cracked mugs full of strong, evil-tasting tea. Our assault upon their house began to take on a more domestic aspect. Barker shook his finger in Ona’s face like an uncle admonishing his niece. By the end of it, the Guv had both the girl and her mother nodding and smiling, though there were still tears in Ona’s eyes and strain on her mother’s face.

Barker pushed himself out of his chair, which squeaked in protest. He shook hands with both women, and when he gestured toward me, I raised my bowler in response. When we opened the door, all three men were waiting outside, but we merely made our way past them, like rent collectors on the first day of the month. It confounded them enough to let us pass freely down the stairs and into the street unmolested.

“So let me get this straight,” I said, after we were settled into the vehicle trundling down Commercial Street. “Miss DeVere borrowed a dress and kerchief from Ona Bellovich and slipped out of the C.O.S. without being seen. A sailor suit would have been noticed by dozens of people in those streets, as would a cloak in this warm weather. But why did Ona help her?”

“She complied because Gwendolyn insisted upon it. Apparently, this was to be her grand exit. She planned to run away with Ona and stay hidden for the rest of the day, all night, if necessary, until her mother agreed to quit the volunteer work. Ona says Gwendolyn thought her mother’s duties to be degrading. She had planned everything rather well, but of course, she had not planned on Mr. Miacca.”

“You think he has her?” I asked. “He has definitely not stated as much. It might still be white slavers. With her peasant clothes they might have taken her for a poor girl.”

“The slave trade would have tried to get her out of the country by now, and, as I said, I have an associate guarding the ports, with a competent crew. Scotland Yard is watching Newhaven and Dover, as well. I don’t believe anyone could have successfully smuggled her out from under our collective noses. More likely, Miacca has her here, and you know what he does to bad children.”

“’L
O, PUSH!”

The street arab I’d caught the day before came running toward us with a note in his hand. He was out of breath and after delivering it into my employer’s hand, he leaned against a building, gasping for breath. It was my experience that these boys were out of doors much of the time and accustomed to walking the city. He must have trotted all over the East End looking for us.

Barker unfolded the note, and I saw his shoulders sag. There was only one event that could have caused such a reaction.

“She’s dead, isn’t she?” I asked, putting a few bob into the street boy’s hand and sending him on his way.

Barker nodded and looked away.

“Floating in the river like the others?” I asked. “Where?”

“She was found among the construction pilings at Tower Bridge. They are bringing the Thames police steam launch to collect the body. We are to meet them in Wapping.”

“I’m sorry, sir.”

The Guv scratched his ear. “Our chances were even at best, lad. I knew that when I took the case.”

No hansom in London could have brought us there fast enough to suit me. I could feel the blood rushing at my temples, and at one point in our journey I wanted to vault over the top, push the driver out of his box, and whip some speed out of our horse. As for Barker, he had retreated into himself. I think he was preparing to be humbled. He had not found Miss DeVere’s killer nor had he discovered the body. It is not possible for one man to right every wrong, catch every criminal, or save every victim. I worried that perhaps he felt that success was merely his duty while anything less was failure.

When we arrived, we found that as usual we were late and Inspector Swanson was in possession of the body. The launch had arrived a few minutes before we did, and the little corpse was lying on a flat, two-wheeled barrow, which stood nearly upright. She was huddled down on the bare wood, due to gravity, her sodden clothes and hair dripping on the stone dock. She was dressed in white undergarments: camisole, and pantaloons. Her face, despite the rouge and kohl, was gravely still, and she almost looked as if she were sleeping; almost, I say, for the lids were half open, the bottom of her irises visible and blue.
Hamlet’s Ophelia,
I thought. She reminded me of Ophelia drowned in some painting I had seen, though it was obvious she had died another way.

“Strangled,” Barker muttered, looking at the purple marks like sooty fingerprints on her slender throat. Then he reached down and raised the delicate wrist of her right arm. The tip of her index finger had been lopped off bloodlessly. I walked to the edge of the dock and looked down, trying not to be so angry that I started rampaging through the streets.

Swanson and Dunham were arguing. Scotland Yard was taking this case seriously, but I recalled when it was just Barker and I and Major DeVere who were searching Bethnal Green for this missing girl before it became a question of jurisdiction and a feather in someone’s cap, with a possible commendation or promotion.

“Have the parents been told?” the Guv asked.

“Not yet,” Swanson said.

“May I be the one to tell them?”

“So you can take the credit?”

“Credit for what?” Barker asked, with a bitter edge to his voice. “What have I accomplished? She’s dead, isn’t she?”

It wasn’t fair, I thought. Barker hadn’t been called in until after Miss DeVere had been taken. In fact, it had been hours later, after her father in his shining helmet had ridden the length and breadth of Bethnal Green. Cyrus Barker did not undertake a case he felt he had no chance of solving, but when he did, he took sole responsibility even, I thought, over matters he could not control.

Swanson shook his head. “I’m sorry, Barker. You are not officially involved in this investigation. The duty falls to me.”

“I need to consult with my client. We’re both going to the same destination,” Barker reasoned, “and I am already paying for a cab, but it is your decision. Of course, I could leave now on my own and devil take the hindmost.”

“I shall take my own vehicle,” Swanson offered. “And if you follow and let us do our job, I shall allow you to enter the residence with me unofficially.”

“It is the most I can expect under the circumstances,” my employer answered.

“Have you examined the body?”

“’Tis a wee lass, Cyrus, and in public,” the inspector replied, looking somewhat uncomfortable. “I thought it best left to the coroner.”

“Cover her up,” Dunham ordered. “Sergeant Bellows, I am leaving you in charge. When the coroner arrives, take down anything he says and then release the body to him.”

“Yes, sir,” the sergeant said, with a tug on his helmet.

“Come, gentlemen,” Swanson said. “We must give the DeVeres the sad news.”

“Do you think,” I asked as we rattled along in the cab behind Swanson and Dunham’s vehicle, “that Major DeVere shall retain our services so we can find Miacca?”

“One never knows in such circumstances,” Barker replied. “First of all, I am not certain that DeVere will be motivated more by a desire to get this over with or by a need to punish his daughter’s killer. Also, he’s got a wife to take into consideration. I doubt he can make any sort of thoughtful decision on the subject just now. We must prepare to be dismissed and we must prepare to continue.”

“I do not envy the inspector his duty,” I said. “This will not be pleasant.”

“It isn’t an easy thing, but Donald has done it dozens of times before. It’s part and parcel of being a C.I.D. man.”

“Forgive me, sir, but are we any closer to finding Mr. Miacca? Do you think we might have caught him if we’d had more time?”

“I’ll admit, Thomas, that this case has been difficult. He is a clever adversary and has left us with precious few clues. But even he shall eventually make a mistake and thereby expose himself, or we shall find that one clue which will break this case open. Miacca isn’t going to stop killing girls. A pot can only simmer so long before it blows off the lid.”

We eventually pulled up in front of a private residence in Fulham. The DeVere family lived in a terraced house in Dawes Lane and the servants saw that everything was clean and polished and painted. It seemed a cruelty to come in and ruin this domestic order.

Donald Swanson said that he would inform the DeVeres that their daughter was dead, and I suppose in a way, he did. When we were halfway out of our vehicles, the door to one of the residences opened and Hypatia DeVere stepped out, arms out at her sides. Her eyes were as large as saucers, and there was an unspoken question on her lips. Without ado, Swanson answered it by removing his bowler and looking down. Dunham, Barker, and I did likewise. The woman went down just then, the way I’ve seen a deer go down when it is shot through the heart by a hunter. Her servants caught her, but they could not stop the wail of grief that escaped her. It reverberated down the street. I cannot imagine a more mournful sound than that of a woman who has just been told that her child is no more.

I thought it was over, but I was wrong. She was only getting her breath. The next cry was even louder. Leaving the prostrate woman to her housekeeper, the butler stepped out the door and took charge, which meant that he herded us in quickly before we attracted any more attention. DeVere came downstairs then, a picture of abject misery, and after trying unsuccessfully to soothe his wife, he had the butler send for their physician. The four of us stood about in the entranceway while the major helped his wife up the stairs.

I’d noted how clean the street was, and now I was impressed by the front hall. Fulham, its streets and its houses had the order of a German village. All was fashionable and well tended. Each house was similar to its neighbors, save one thing. It seemed nothing so common as dirt had any place here and yet, one of those houses had a little girl who’d been murdered. I could not see things going on as they were after this.

An ashen-faced and sober Trevor DeVere came down the stairs a short while later.

Swanson cleared his throat. “Sir, we shall need you to come and identify the body.”

The man I had seen fall apart when I first met him now summoned control of himself.

“Very well, Inspector,” he replied. “Where is she now?”

“In the morgue in Stepney, sir.”

“Cannot she be transferred?”

“There must be a postmortem and inquest.”

“Postmortem? By the heavens, you shall not take a blade to my child,” the major growled, his features turning red.

“It is the law, sir.”

“Then change the law. I won’t have some idiot elected official hacking away at my child’s body so he can have his bloody two quid.”

DeVere was well informed. The coroner’s position was indeed elected, and for each postmortem he performed he received a payment of two pounds. The Stepney coroner, Dr. Vandeleur, was no drinker, which we knew from working with him on earlier cases. He was a competent coroner and medical man, which I’d heard was not always the case.

“When can you come and identify the body, sir?”

“I’ll be there in an hour. I must see that my wife is sedated.”

“Afterward,” Barker added, “perhaps we might confer about what you wish us to do.”

DeVere nodded absently. He rose, nodded again, and left the room. Decorum had been set at naught in deference to the death of a child. We rose and saw ourselves out.

In the street, the Guv thanked Swanson for allowing him to be there, and we left on foot. That morning, Mac had pressed our umbrellas and macintoshes upon us, and I was glad he had, for it began raining. I could not get the image of Gwendolyn DeVere’s face out of my head, with its calm features and half-closed lids. For some reason, she made me think of my late wife, Jenny. I had failed her, as we, Barker and I, had failed Miss DeVere. Men make these promises too cavalierly, I thought, to shelter and protect someone from any harm whatsoever. It is pure swank on our part. Man is not omniscient; he cannot watch everyone twenty-four hours a day; and no man is invincible, not even Cyrus Barker. One can no more escape Fate than one can the rain that now fell upon our umbrellas.

We walked in silence. There was little chance of finding a vehicle in this weather. Barker looked as grim as I had ever seen him. We went a half mile to Waltham Green station and boarded a train.

Eventually we reached Whitehall and the blessed dryness of our antechamber. We shook off our raincoats and hung them, greeted Jenkins in monosyllables, and went into our offices. The Guv sat down in his big leather swivel chair and rested his head in the corner of its wing, ignoring the stack of entreaties from people wishing to hire one of the most illustrious private enquiry agents in London. Instead, he sat forlornly, drawing abstract runes with his finger on the edge of his desk. He did not even take solace with his pipe. Perhaps he thought he did not deserve it.

I am suggestible, and being locked up with a brooding employer did not help my confidence.
Barker was going to lose this case,
I thought.
DeVere was going to come soon and dismiss us.
Word would get out of our defeat, and there would be fewer letters requesting our services. The advertisement he placed in
The Times
would suddenly take on a pleading tone. Barker would begin to consider returning to his old life aboard ship. Perhaps he would sign on as captain aboard a vessel bound for Asia, and where would that leave me? There were two very silent and self-absorbed men in Craig’s Court that day.

DeVere came in from the pouring rain sometime later, looking as if his face were clay and some sculptor had just carved fresh lines around his mouth and eyes. He fell into our visitor’s chair and the breath slowly drained out of him.

“It was she?” Barker asked.

Trevor DeVere nodded.

“You have my condolences, sir, on the loss of your daughter. She is in a better place, but I do not suppose that is of much comfort to you right now. You have several options in front of you. You may discharge me and see to the needs of your wife. In time, perhaps, the two of you will find acceptance in this, if not peace.

“Your second choice is to retain my services and allow me to search for your daughter’s killer. It may take time, but I still believe I can do it. It is possible, however, that finding her murderer will give you cold comfort. It shall not bring her back and will allow the memory of her death to linger in your home for months, even years to come.”

“I came here to sack you, Barker,” DeVere finally said, “though it was against the wishes of my wife. She said that if Gwendolyn could be found, you would be the man to do it. I have no confidence in anyone or anything at the moment, and my wife is too distraught to give me any more advice, but I believe I shall continue to retain your services. That is, if you have the stomach for it.”

“That is well,” Barker said. “I have made a contract with you that I would find the man who took your daughter and I intended to fulfill that contract whether I was working for you or not. In a way, I suppose, I feel I am working for the parents of the other murdered girls who could never afford my services.”

“I do not care for whom you are working, as long as you find the man who murdered my little girl.”