The Incendiary's Trail (32 page)

‘I do not believe Hawkins will reveal anything, even if captured. I offered him five hundred pounds for information leading to the capture of Boyle and he just laughed. There is nothing we
can do to him that Boyle cannot do twofold.’

‘You are quite the pessimist after your beating, Mr Williamson. Alas, I have worse news. Mr Askern is dead.’

‘What?
How?
’

‘Yes. Last night. His body was discovered this morning. A man was brought to the house at around midnight with a letter purporting to be from me. Mr Allan foolishly admitted the man, whose
lower jaw was covered on account of an “injured tongue”. He had grey eyes and was carrying a sailor’s canvas bag.’

‘Boyle. How did he know about the house?’

‘How indeed? But do we know it was Boyle? No red jaw was seen – only a
covered
jaw. Who is to say that it was not merely someone with his jaw covered? Who is to say it was not
Noah Dyson? His movements during the night are completely unaccounted for and even now we do not know where he is.’

‘What of your man Bryant?’

‘Noah escaped him. We were able to follow his manservant, the Negro, on a jaunt around London to costumiers and the like – but the man himself remains at large.’

‘I did not tell Noah where I was taking Mr Askern – only that it was to a completely secure place. What else do we know of this man who stayed there?’

‘Only that he fled at dawn.’

‘Hmm. How did Mr Askern die? It was quite impossible for anyone to gain access to that room; I checked everything personally. What did you find? What did Doctor McLeod say?’

‘He examined the body and proclaimed a natural death. There was no bodily injury, no blood – no sign at all of violence. I could see all of that for myself. The room was locked from
the inside and there was no sign of forced entry either by door or window. The man simply passed away in his sleep with no indications of agitation, struggle or discomfort.’

‘That seems a remarkable coincidence, especially if there was an anonymous intruder in the house.’

‘My thinking exactly, Mr Williamson.’

‘Which room was the other man accommodated in?’

‘In the attic – the furthest possible room from Mr Askern’s. Even if he had wanted to descend to attack the writer, he would have alerted Mr Allan in doing so.’

‘I cannot believe that the death was natural. Not in light of all that has happened.’

‘Nor I, but there is no evidence to suggest otherwise.’

‘At least, no evidence that has yet surfaced.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I do not know. I am tired . . . tired of all of this. What else is left? Is there is any chance of us finding Boyle now? Perhaps Noah himself is dead and we will find him rotting on the
mudbanks in a day or two. Mr Boyle and Henry Hawkins will vanish.’

‘Come, Sergeant. That is not the spirit I expect from you.’

‘I am trying to be realistic. Mr Boyle may have finished his series of killings – except perhaps for mine. Would it be so reprehensible if I were to follow his instructions and
dredge up a suitable corpse to satisfy the newspapers and Commissioner Mayne? A phial of clothier’s dye applied to the jaw . . .’

‘Enough of that talk! He must be caught. The reputation – no, the continued
existence
– of the Detective Force depends on it. How can we survive if we allow this man to
escape? How can we respect ourselves, Mr Williamson? He is in London somewhere. We are many and he is one. I would like you – even in your frail condition – to pay a visit to Mr
Allan’s house and conduct your own investigation. Tomorrow morning at the very latest. It may be our only remaining link to Mr Boyle.’

‘Your fervour is admirable, sir. How do you maintain it?’

‘Justice, Mr Williamson: my thirst for justice.’

‘Only that?’

‘Of course. What else would it be?’

The two men stared at each other for a moment.

‘There is also the fact of my own pride and reputation,’ added Mr Newsome. ‘I am sure you can imagine how Commissioner Mayne has reacted to recent events. It is I who bears the
onslaught of his doubts and remonstrations, his daily trawl through the newspapers for derogatory stories about the police, his insinuations of my own personal responsibility for recruiting a thief
to catch a murderer. If the whole business is not brought to a satisfactory conclusion very shortly . . . well . . . the consequences will be more to my detriment than to yours. Thank G— I
will be able to keep Mr Askern’s death away from the newspapers for the time being.’

Muffled shouts were heard at the front door and a voice asked for Mr Newsome. Heavy footsteps clattered towards the room where the two detectives sat, and there was a knock at the door.

‘Enter,’ said Mr Williamson.

The door opened to reveal Noah standing between two constables, his wrists bound in handcuffs. The faces of the three showed that a struggle of some magnitude had taken place. All were
perspiring and the two policemen were bleeding freely from the lips and nose.

‘Well, good afternoon to you, Mr Dyson,’ said Mr Newsome.

‘It took four of us to apprehend him,’ said the constable to Noah’s right. ‘Jones is still unconscious.’

‘Well done, Constable. You have apprehended an escaped convict.’

Noah stared at Mr Newsome with animal ferocity. Sergeant Williamson looked with incredulity between Noah and his superior.

‘You are making a mistake, Inspector Newsome,’ said Noah. ‘I am your only means of apprehending Lucius Boyle.’

‘Indeed you are, Mr Dyson. But I am fatigued trying to run around after you. I think it would be easier if you were kept in one place where both I and Mr Boyle can be sure that you reside.
If he wants you, he will know where to come – and a gaol is exactly where I want him. I am placing you under arrest and returning you to the very same cell at Giltspur-street where we first
met.’

‘On what charges?’

‘As I say, I have evidence that you are an escaped convict from New South Wales. Then there is the matter of Razor Bill and the fire in Oxford-street. Should these crimes prove
insufficient, I believe I will think of something else.’

‘—!’

‘Ah, the convict vocabulary emerges! Constables – take him away. ’

And as Noah was once again thrown into gaol, it is apt that we cast our eyes back once again to the story of his previous life, of his early transportation and the events that
were to set the direction of his future.

After finally leaving Woolwich, the months at sea were an education, albeit not the kind he would have experienced in books. In calm seas, the convicts would be allowed on deck to fully extend
their legs and expose sickly skin to a sun of unprecedented ferocity. It was here, amid the scent of tar and hemp, that Noah first beheld the violent blue immensity of the sea. It was here that he
saw sharks longer than a man, and distant behemoths breaching. For a city boy, it was what he had imagined Heaven to be: a limitless vault of sea and sky and light.

Sydney would be more wretched, though he was one of the lucky ones. While older men went directly into government service to break their backs building roads, he was assigned to a settler out at
Parramatta. The benevolent gentleman in question was one Henry Matthews, himself an ex-convict from the first transportations, and a modest landowner who was kinder to his convicts than most.

Young Noah was put to work on the land, where the sun blistered his skin and the labour raised calluses on his hands. And not only his hands; he had accepted – there at the rim of the
world – that he was truly abandoned as London continued without him, so far away as to be in a dream. It was only in his dreams that he walked its streets, pursuing Lucius Boyle into blind
alleys where the enemy would disappear.

It was a book that saved him – at least for a period. Mr Matthews was quite illiterate and used the books in his possession for lighting fires. When Noah unfolded a page and began to read
to himself, his master was astounded and bade Noah read aloud from the scrap. Thereafter, when his daily work was done, he would read to delight Mr Matthews. And, foreseeing a time when the reading
matter would end, Noah began to elaborate upon the lines before him, lengthening and embellishing the stories so that one of ‘his’ pages lasted two normal pages. It pleased his master
and it earned him a few extra pennies.

It continued like this for a year or so, the young boy turning into a young man. Mr Matthews, who was perhaps sixty, became less able to work and requested another convict. The man who arrived
– John Carter – was a brutal sort: a thief and bully from London who immediately resented Noah. Nor was it coincidence that this man had arrived at this settlement.

Through machinations unknown, Lucius Boyle had managed to send out a message to Noah. Perhaps he had contacted a number of criminals bound for the Antipodes, or perhaps it was just John Carter.
Perhaps money had exchanged hands as convicts were allocated. But within a few days, as the two convicts worked to saw down trees, the message was passed on:

‘The General says you are never to return. London belongs to him now. Return and you will die.’

As one might imagine, Noah boiled with anger. Even here, beyond the seas, his enemy and betrayer mocked him. Thereafter his fortunes would decline rapidly, but there is no room here for the
murder of Henry Matthews, the flight of Noah and his escape upon a Dutch East India vessel bound for China. That story, and the multitude that followed across the world’s trade routes, is for
another book.

TWENTY-THREE

Sergeant Williamson sat on the bed of the attic room at Mr Allan’s house that next morning and looked again at the paper Noah had handed to him. It was nothing but a
common advertising flyer of the type handed out in the street or pasted to the sides of buildings:

In itself it meant nothing, but with the information Inspector Newsome had given him about the pursuit of Benjamin, it suggested obvious conclusions. Now, however, he felt his
loyalties torn.

His initial desire – before Noah’s surprise visit and the business with Mr Newsome – to solve the curious case of Mr Askern’s death had been replaced with a sense of
futility at the whole endeavour. Lucius Boyle had no doubt gained access to the house through some intervention of Inspector Newsome, no matter what the latter said about the letter being forged.
Still, there may a clue that could entrap at least one of the possible perpetrators.

No personal belongings had been left behind by the murderer. The bed had not been slept in and there were no obvious physical clues. Much as he hated to admit it, the only hope of finding the
man was Noah, now locked away at Giltspur-street gaol. Would Mr Newsome allow Henry Hawkins or Boyle himself into the cell late one night and end the case with a final corpse? And was there any
truth in what Mr Newsome had said about Noah being an escaped convict? Despite his better judgement, Mr Williamson had begun to believe that Noah might be an innocent man after all.

‘You look at a loss, sir,’ offered PC Cullen, who was still under orders to guard Mr Williamson’s life as if it were his own.

‘I have much on my mind, Constable Cullen.’

‘Aye, this Red Jaw or “General” is the scourge of London.’

‘What do you know of him?’

‘What I have read, and what people say. They say he has the power of not being seen, taught to him by a Chinese magician. He can influence men’s thoughts with only the power of his
mind. Nobody is safe from him; even if they were locked away in the depths of Newgate, he would find out his victim and vanish. I’m not saying I believe such things myself – it’s
just what is being said.’

‘Hmm.
I
do not have magic on my side.’

‘Is this latest murder the work of Red Jaw?’

‘Very possibly, though I would thank you not to advertise the fact.’

‘Of course, sir.’

‘Hmm. Tell me, Constable – if you wanted to kill a man in the basement, how would you do so from this room without actually going downstairs and entering the room by the door or
window? What do you think our myth-makers would make of that?’

‘Why, if we are to accept what is said – which, as I say, I don’t fully believe – Red Jaw might do it with his mind alone. Or he would assume a different shape and float
like a vapour without making a peep of noise.’

‘Well, that is quite ridic—’