The Humbug Murders (26 page)

“Thank you for your intriguing business offer, Mr. Dodger. It is a most fascinating idea indeed.”

Dodger puffed his thin chest out even further, pursed his lips together in pride, and stuck out his hand for me to shake.

“But,” I continued, “there is much to consider: What you have shown me is utterly horrifying. For example, it is impossible for me to judge whether these subjects have posed consensually.”

Dodger averted his eyes immediately, which told me he knew something to the effect that they had not.

“And we would stand to make powerful enemies should we follow the course you suggest. Let's say you stole away the know-how. What would its current owners do to prevent us from ever capitalizing on it? These are dangerous people, are they not?”

Dodger shrugged. “Life's fulla risk.”

He was right. I'd just seen a man murdered, I'd grappled with a known killer; certainly not the normal state of things for a man of business like myself. I considered the task I would be about in just a few hours: the raid on Marley's place. If proof was indeed found supporting Rutledge's claim that Marley was Smithson, then the entire criminal empire might crumble and this technology become ours for the taking.

“All right,” I said. “For now, you must not show these to anyone else, to save the dignity of these poor girls. And let us not alert the police either, there are few within the institution I trust.”

“Oh, right you are, guv'nor! I feel the very same!”

“How may I get in touch with you?” I asked.

Dodger named a particular inn just south of Whitechapel. “Ask for Nancy. You might 'ave seen her around, like, 'fyou've ever been to the Quarter. Shock of red hair, takes good care of me and me boys? No? You'd like her. A businesslady if you've ever known the like. She can find me anytime.”

A businesslady? “Very well,” I said, shaking his hand. Then I looked away, waved my hand absently as if what I was about to ask was of little consequence, a mere aside. “Speaking of ladies at the Quarter, young man. Do you know anything about a woman calling herself ‘The Lady'? Does the title mean anything to you?” I studied Dodger's expression; it had become stony and calculated. I mentally crossed this Nancy off the list.

“Yeah, I heard of her,” he said. “Scary sort. Talks funny.”

“Funny?”

“Like she's a foreigner or sumfing.”

“Chinese?” I quizzed him.

“ 'Ow would I know what a Chinese lady sounds like?” he retorted.

“But you've seen her. What does she look like?”

“Long hair, always wears dresses and 'ats.”

“You couldn't perhaps be a little less vague? I could find women on every street corner in London that fit that description.”

Dodger shrugged his slender shoulders.

“What connection does this Lady have to Smithson?” I pressed on, leaning in and locking eyes with him. The more dirt I might heap on Marley's grave, the better!

“Don't know nuffin' about that neither,” he said.

I sighed. “And the Quarter? Is she somehow connected to this ring, the Doll House, the network of darkness in that God-forsaken district?”

“Tell you what,” my potential business partner said, stuffing his hand in his pocket. “How about you fink on the matter and get back to me?”

There was no sense in pressing him further, his defensive stance and mineral expression spoke loudly that he would not answer any of my questions.

“I will send word to Nancy once I have fully considered the matter,” I said, extending my arm in the exact manner he had just presented his hand to me. He shook my hand and leaped to his feet. His stomach growled. The poor lad was hungry, but how he acquired sustenance was up to him, the astute businessman that he proclaimed to be.

“You won't regret it, Mr. Scrooge!” cried Dodger, and sped out and down the stairs with a drumroll. I closed the door behind him, and my thoughts drifted back to the photographs, which he had taken with him. If I didn't regret it, somebody would.

Yawning, I turned to extinguish the fire and fall onto my bed in an unconscious slumber, but my eye caught something under the side table.

The boy's thick, green scarf. No part of me considered running after him into the freezing night; his little neck would have to endure the cold. I picked it up to hang it on the hat stand, but as I reached up to drape it over a hook, I was knocked awake by its acrid smell. The scarf stank, a biting, acerbic stench of the chemicals just like those I'd smelled drifting from the Lycia back in the Quarter. Screwing up my nose, I tossed it into the fire.

WHOOSH
! A burst of light flashed and crackled, and bluish flames rose like an inferno for a moment, then subsided. I leaped back and dashed for the washbasin by my sink before dousing the fire with a hiss.

The blackened scarf lay in the hearth like a charred snake after a forest fire. What the
hell
were those villains doing at the Lycia?

Putting such thoughts from my mind, I stumbled to my bed and collapsed into the warm and welcoming arms of sleep.

Thursday, December 22nd, 1833

Three Days to Christmas

THE LACK OF
sleep and terror from last night were a toxic combination, rendering my eyes sore but my resolve piqued. This time yesterday Marley was the last person I ever saw myself speaking with again. A mere year ago, I had broken off my referral relationship with Marley when I had caught him going through confidential papers on my desk. He stood there bold as brass, with a pad and pencil making notes of wealthy men that I had been developing as contacts. But now, with the chill morning air whipping my face, my head was poking out the cab window and I was clutching my hat, shouting and cursing at the horseman to drive his horses faster and deliver me to my former business associate.

“Sit down before you do yourself an injury!” called Adelaide from where she was sitting opposite me in the police cab. I could picture Crabapple rolling his eyes.

“Gossip travels faster than horses, Miss Owen,” I said, angrily retreating back into the cab and adjusting my top hat. “We must beat the morning edition. If Marley gets wind of the murder at the manor, his storage rooms will be emptied faster than you can say ‘Dickens.' ”

I wasn't pleased to find Adelaide in Crabapple's carriage when it pulled up before Furnival's, but there was little I could say or do where that woman was concerned with Crabapple's watchful gaze upon us. Still, I noted with satisfaction the look of surprise and the sting with which she reacted each time I reverted to the formal “Miss Owen.”

As soon as the cab drew to a full stop, I darted up the familiar stone steps to Marley's place and rained a deluge of staccato strikes at his door with the brass knocker. The handle of the knocker quivered when I released it, its head a snarling gargoyle that bore, I noticed, a subtle resemblance to Marley.

“Police!” shouted Crabapple as he rushed up behind me. “In the name of the law, open up!”

A gaslight was lit behind one of the upper windows, which slid open with a crash. Out popped Marley's enraged head, still wearing its nightcap over a shock of greying hair disheveled from its abrupt awakening.

“What's all this?” he shouted down. Then he saw me, and his face screwed up in distaste and fury. “Ebenezer
Scrooge
 . . .” he snarled.

“Open this door immediately,” demanded Crabapple, and Marley retreated. He slammed the window and the ghostly flickering of his gas lamp dimmed and vanished.

The metal clangs of bolts being drawn and locks being turned rang out in the cold, dark December morning. As soon as the heavy door opened just a creak, the host of policemen pressed past Marley and vanished inside his offices, which also served as his home.

“Oy!” he called out. “What's all this? What are you doing?”

“Jacob Marley,” said Constable Crabapple. “We're investigating a series of offenses. Namely harboring stolen goods, dealing with known criminals . . . why, there's even the flavor of murder about you, Marley!”

Jacob Marley smiled. “I have no idea what this is all about, gentlemen, oh pardon me, and
lady
 . . .” He gave Adelaide a nasty wink that was not lost on me. Adelaide a “lady”?
The
Lady perhaps?

I restrained my imagination from wandering further and focused on the task at hand.

“Please, come in,” Marley said, “have a good look around, and then leave me.”

Adelaide and I followed Crabapple inside. The hairs stood up on the back of my neck as I pressed past Marley. As soon as I was in the house, I turned to shoot him an angry glare, but he had descended his stone steps and was standing in the icy street, whispering something in the ear of a plump milkmaid. She nodded eagerly, and he pressed a coin into her hand before she peeled off, her milk jugs dangling as she slipped and slid across the ice. Marley turned back to the house, caught me frowning at him, and grinned mildly as he climbed each step to the front door.

“This is your doing, no doubt,” he hissed at me.

“Come now, Marley,” I said. “You're a man of the world—which explains the sad shape the world is in!”

Crabapple's men turned Marley's offices inside out, sweeping clerks' desks, emptying filing cabinets, and pulling books from their shelves. Several of them stomped upstairs to his residence, and we heard the dull thuds of their heavy boots soiling his lush carpets.

I knew where Marley's storage room was; I used a similar setup myself to receive collateral goods from customers unable to pay their dues. So I nudged Crabapple and nodded towards the back of the office, at a heavy door adorned with a series of practically impregnable locks.

“What's this here?” Crabapple asked Marley.

“The vault,” Marley replied. “The items stored within are of incalculable worth, and I'd beseech your men to—stop! You can't go in there!” He pushed past me and stood in front of the door, arms splayed to either side. “I'm appealing to your common sense, Constable; don't let your men raid my vault! There is nothing of use to you in there, I can assure you.”

Unable to stop myself, I snickered.

“Open this door immediately, Marley,” ordered Crabapple. Sulking, Marley went to his desk, unlocked its middle drawer. He removed it, scowling at me all the while. Secured to the underside of the desk was a small package with keys and combinations to the myriad locks securing the “vault” door.

“You'll pay for this, Scrooge,” he said, glaring. “And you—what's your name, then?”

“Crabapple.”

“Fitting. And you'll find your actions come at a high price, too.”

“Not at all,” I answered, taking off my top hat and brushing the slush onto his carpet. I replaced my hat with a flick of my wrist. “It seems you are to pay today.”

The vault door opened, and the policemen filed in, knocking over oil paintings and upsetting valuable porcelain vases as they did. Marley winced.

“Are these yours?” Crabapple barked, peering inside the vault his men were searching. “What proof do you have?”

Marley retrieved a thick book of ledgers from a safe and placed them with a thud on the desk in front of Crabapple.

The policeman flicked through a few pages. “I can't read this, it's all nonsense! Scrawls and scribbles.”

“Let me have a look,” Adelaide said, having until now been waiting in the reception area at the front of the office, watching and listening. Crabapple looked to me, and I nodded.

“Preposterous!” shouted Marley, as Adelaide took the ledger from the constable and sat down at Marley's desk. She took his magnifying glass by its ivory handle and began inspecting the contents, line-by-line. “Who is this woman? One of your whores, Ebenezer?” Adelaide shifted uncomfortably, said nothing. She continued to study the pages, but I could see pink roses forming on her neck and cheeks as she blushed.

“How dare you, Marley! To assault a lady's honor in that fashion, especially considering Miss Owen is now the only conduit between yourself and your freedom? Why, that is bestial even for you!” I cried, hot prickles of anger spreading across my scalp. I couldn't help myself. “Besides, unlike you, Jacob, I can appreciate a woman for her mind as well as her loyal heart,” I retorted.

“Only because you are so miserly that you no doubt confine yourself to cheaper, more solitary solutions,” he said with a smirk.

“How dare you?” Crabapple fumed. “In front of a lady!”

“My dear gentlemen,” said Adelaide with her nightingale voice and velvet smile. “It would be of such assistance to me if you'd please postpone your disagreement. If Mr. Marley is innocent, as he claims, then it is of utmost importance that I uncover, in these ledgers, the evidence to absolve him.”

My former friend scoffed. He was about to open his mouth to release some acidic poison in Adelaide's direction when we heard a sudden crash from the vaults. Marley and I rushed to be the first through the heavy door, and I made sure to jab my elbow in Marley's side as I jostled past him. A wooden crate lay smashed on the floor, its contents spilling out over the booted feet of the policemen gathered round it: seemingly endless coils of chains and silver boxes.