Lord John and the Private Matter

Page 6

The scalp had begun to loosen, and shifted unpleasantly under his probing fingers. There were assorted lumps, presumably left by kicks or blows … yes, there. And there. In two places, the bone of the skull gave inward in a sickening manner, and a slight ooze moistened Grey’s fingertips.
Byrd made a small choking sound as Grey withdrew his hand, and blundered out, handkerchief still clasped to his face.
“Was he wearing his uniform when he was found?” Grey asked the constable. Deprived of his handkerchief, he wiped his fingers fastidiously on the shroud as he nodded to the two prisoners to restore the corpse to its original state.
“Nah, sir.” The constable shook his head. “Stripped to his shirt. We knew as he was one of yours, though, from his hair, and askin’ about a bit, we found someone as knew his name and regiment.”
Grey’s ears pricked up at that.
“Do you mean to say that he was known in the neighborhood where he was found?”
The constable frowned.
“I s’pose so,” he said, rubbing at his chin to assist thought. “Let me think … yes, sir, I’m sure as that’s right. When we pulled him out o’ the water, and I saw as how he was a soldier, I went round to the Oak and Oyster to inquire, that bein’ the nearest place where the soldiers mostly go. Brought a few of the folk in there along to have a look at him; as I recall, ’twas the barmaid from the Oyster what knew him.”
The body had been turned over, and one of the prisoners, lips pressed tight against the smell, was drawing up the shroud again, when Grey stopped him with a motion. He bent over the coffin, frowning, and traced the mark on O’Connell’s forehead. It was indeed a heelprint, distinctly indented on the livid flesh. He could count the nailheads.
He nodded to himself and straightened up. The body had been moved, so much was plain. But from where? If the Sergeant had been killed in a brawl, as appeared to be the case, perhaps there would have been a report of such an occurrence.
“Might I have a word with your superior, sir?”
“That’d be Constable Magruder, sir—round the front, room on the left. Will you be done with the corpse, sir?” He was already motioning for the two sullen prisoners to restore O’Connell’s wrappings and nail down the coffin lid.
“Oh … yes. I think so.” Grey paused, considering. Ought he perhaps to make some ceremonial gesture of farewell to a comrade in arms? There was nothing in that blank and swollen countenance, though, that seemed to invite such a gesture, and surely the constable did not care. In the end, he gave a slight nod to the corpse, a shilling to the constable for his trouble, and left.
Constable Magruder was a small, foxy-looking man, with narrow eyes that darted constantly from doorway to desk and back again, lest anything escape his notice. Grey took some encouragement from this, hoping that few things did escape the constable of the day and the Bow Street Runners under his purview.
The constable knew Grey’s errand; he saw the wariness lurking at the back of the narrow eyes—and the quick flick of a glance toward the magistrate’s offices next door. It was apparent that he feared Grey might go to the magistrate, Sir John Fielding, with all the consequent trouble this might involve.
Grey did not know Sir John himself, but was reasonably sure that his mother did. Still, at this point, there was no need to invoke him. Realizing what was in Magruder’s mind, Grey did his best to show an attitude of relaxed affability and humble gratitude for the constable’s continued assistance.
“I thank you, sir, for your gracious accommodation. I hesitate to intrude further on your generosity—but if I might ask just one or two questions?”
“Oh, aye, sir.” Magruder went on looking wary, but relaxed a little, relieved that he was not about to be asked to conduct a time-consuming and probably futile investigation.
“I understand that Sergeant O’Connell was likely killed on Saturday night. Are you aware of any disturbances taking place in the neighborhood on that night?”
Magruder’s face twitched.
“Disturbances, Major? The whole place is a disturbance come nightfall, sir. Robbery from the person, purse-cutting, fights and street riots, disagreements betwixt whores and their customers, burglary of premises, theft, tavern brawls, malicious mischief, fire-setting, horse-stealing, housebreaking, random assaults …”
“Yes, I see. Still, we are reasonably sure that no one set Sergeant O’Connell on fire, nor yet mistook him for a lady of the evening.” Grey smiled to abjure any suspicions of sarcasm. “I am only seeking to narrow the possibilities, you see, sir.” He spread his hands, deprecatingly. “My duty, you understand.”
“Oh, aye.” Magruder was not without humor; a small gleam of it lit the narrow eyes and softened the harsh outlines of his face. He glanced from the papers on his desk to the hallway, down which echoed shouts and bangings from the prisoners in the rear, then back to Grey.
“I’ll have to speak to the constable of the night, go through the reports. If I see anything that might be helpful to your inquiry, Major, I’ll send round a note, shall I?”
“I should appreciate it very much, sir.” Grey rose promptly, and the two men parted with mutual expressions of esteem.
Tom Byrd was sitting on the pavement outside, still pale, but improved. He sprang to his feet at Grey’s gesture, and fell into step behind him.
Would Magruder produce anything helpful? Grey wondered. There were so many possibilities. Robbery from the person, Magruder had suggested. Perhaps … but knowing what he did of O’Connell’s ferocious temperament, Grey was not inclined to think that a gang of robbers would have chosen him at random—there were easier sheep to fleece, by far.
But what if O’Connell had succeeded in meeting the spymaster—if there was one, Grey reminded himself—and had turned over his documents and received a sum of money?
He considered the possibility that the spymaster had then murdered O’Connell to retrieve his money or silence a risk—but in that case, why not simply kill O’Connell and take the documents in the first place? Well … if O’Connell had been wise enough not to carry the documents on his person, and the spymaster knew it, he would presumably have taken care to obtain the goods before taking any subsequent steps in disposing of the messenger.
By the same token, though, if someone else had discovered that O’Connell was in possession of a sum of money, they might have killed him in the process of a robbery that had nothing to do with the stolen requisitions. But the amount of damage done to the body … that suggested whoever had done the deed had meant to make sure that O’Connell was dead. Casual robbers would not have cared; they would have knocked O’Connell on the head and absconded, completely careless of whether he lived or died.
A spymaster might make certain of the matter. And yet—would a spymaster depend upon the services of associates? For clearly, O’Connell had faced more than one assailant—and from the condition of his hands, had left his mark on them.
“What do you think, Tom?” he said, more by way of clarifying his thoughts than because he desired Byrd’s opinion. “If secrecy were a concern, would it not be more sensible to use a weapon? Beating a man to death is likely to be a noisy business. Attract a lot of unwelcome attention, wouldn’t you say?”
“Yes, me lord. I expect that’s so. Though so far as that goes …”
“Yes?” He glanced round at Byrd, who hastened his step a bit to come level with Grey.
“Well, it’s only—mind, I ain’t—haven’t, I mean—seen a man beat to death. But when you go to kill a pig, you only get a terrible lot of screeching if you’ve done it wrong.”
“Done it wrong?”
“Yes, me lord. If you do it right, it doesn’t take but one good blow. The pig doesn’t know what hit ’im, and there’s no noise to speak of. You get a man what doesn’t know what he’s doing, or isn’t strong enough—” Byrd made a face at the thought of such incompetence. “Racket like to wake the dead. There’s a butcher’s across the street from me dad’s shop,” he offered in explanation. “I’ve seen pigs killed often.”
“A very good point, Tom,” Grey said slowly. If either robbery or simple murder was the intent, it could have been accomplished with much less fuss. Ergo, whatever had befallen Tim O’Connell had likely been an accident, in a brawl or street riot, or … and yet the body had been moved, sometime after death. Why?
His cogitations were interrupted by the sound of an agitated altercation in the alleyway that led to the back of the gaol.
“What’re you doing here, you Irish whore?”
“I’ve a right to be here—unlike you, ye draggletail thief!”
“Cunt!”
“Bitch!”
Following the sound of strife into the alley, Grey found Timothy O’Connell’s sealed coffin lying in the roadway, surrounded by people. In the center of the mob was the pregnant figure of Mrs. O’Connell, swathed in a black shawl and squared off against another woman, similarly attired.
The ladies were not alone, he saw; Scanlon the apothecary was vainly trying to persuade Mrs. O’Connell away from her opponent, with the aid of a tall, rawboned Irishman. The second lady had also brought reinforcement, in the person of a small, fat clergyman, dressed in dog collar and rusty coat, who appeared more entertained than distressed by the exchange of cordialities. A number of other people crowded the alley behind both women—mourners, presumably, come to assist in the burial of Sergeant O’Connell.
“Take your wicked friends and be off with ye! He was my husband, not yours!”
“Oh, and a fine wife you were, I’m sure! Didn’t care enough to come and wash the mud from his face when they dragged him out of the ditch! It was me laid him out proper, and me that’ll bury him, thank you very much! Wife! Ha!”
Tom Byrd stood open-mouthed under the eaves of the shed, watching. He glanced up wide-eyed at Grey.
“And it’s me paid for his coffin—think I’ll let you take it? Likely you’ll give the body to a knacker’s shop and sell the box, greedy-guts! Take a man from his wife so you can suck the marrow from his bones—”
“Shut your trap!”
“Shut yours!” bellowed the widow O’Connell, and she took a wild swing at the other woman, who dodged adroitly. Seeing a sudden surge among the mourners on both sides, Grey pushed his way between the women.
“Madam,” he began, grasping Mrs. O’Connell’s arm with determination. “You must—” His admonition was interrupted by a swift elbow in the pit of the stomach, which took him quite by surprise. He staggered back a pace, and stamped inadvertently on the toe of the tall Irishman, who hopped to and fro on one foot, uttering brief blasphemies in what Grey assumed to be the Irish tongue, as it was no form of French.
These were rapidly subsumed by the blasphemies being flung by the two ladies—if that was the word, Grey thought grimly—in an incoherent barrage of insults.
The pistol-shot sound of a slapped cheek rang out, and then the alley erupted in high-pitched shrieks as the women closed with each other, fingers clawed and feet kicking. Grey grabbed for the other woman’s sleeve, but it was torn from his grip and he was knocked heavily into a wall. Someone tripped him, and he went down, rolling and rebounding from the wall of the shed before he could get his feet under him.
Regaining his balance, Grey staggered, then landed on the balls of his feet, and snatched out his sword in a slashing arc that made the metal sing. The thin chime of it cut through the racket in the alleyway like a knife through butter, separating the combatants and sending the women stumbling back from each other. In the moment’s silence that resulted, Grey stepped firmly between the two women and glared back and forth between them.
Assured that he had put at least a momentary stop to the battle, he turned to the unknown woman. A solid person with curly black hair, she wore a wide-brimmed hat that obscured her face, but not her attitude, which was belligerent in the extreme.
“May I inquire your name, madam? And your purpose here?”
“She’s a class of a slut, what else?” Mrs. O’Connell’s voice came from behind him, cracked with contempt, but controlled. Silencing the other woman’s heated response to this with a peremptory movement of his sword, he cast an irritated glance over his shoulder.
“I asked the lady herself—if you please, Mrs. O’Connell.”
“That would be Mrs. Scanlon—if you please, my lord.” The apothecary’s voice was more than polite, but held a note almost of smugness.
“I beg your pardon?” Taken by surprise, he turned completely round to face Scanlon and the widow. Evidently, the other woman was equally shocked, for beyond a loud “What?” behind him, she said nothing.
Scanlon was holding Francine O’Connell by the arm; he tightened his grasp a little and bowed to Grey.
“I have the honor to introduce you to my wife, sir,” he said gravely. “Wed yestereen we were, by special license, with Father Doyle himself doing of the honors.” He nodded at the tall Irishman, who nodded in turn, though keeping a wary eye on the tip of Grey’s rapier.
“What, couldn’t wait ’til poor old Tim was cold, could you? And who’s the slut here, I’d like to know, you with your belly swole up like a farkin’ toad!”
“I’m a married woman—twice married! And you with no name and no shame—”
“Ah, now, Francie, Francie …” Scanlon put his arms around his incensed wife, lugging her back by main force. “Let it be, sweetheart, let it be. Ye don’t want to be doing the babe an injury now, do ye?”