In the back of the cart lay a long wooden crate of similar dimensions to a coffin. I could see that it had some kind of shipping label plastered over its planking.
I strolled from my hiding place as nonchalantly as I could and managed to get myself into the path of the cart as it clattered into the road. Scar-Face glared at me. I doffed my hat.
«I do beg your pardon. Could you direct me to the underground station?»
He scowled at me for what seemed like a full minute before grudgingly jerking his thumb over his shoulder. Whipping up the horse, the vehicle lurched ahead.
«Most kind,» I rejoined, stepping out of its path before it ran me down.
For a brief moment I was aware of nothing but the label shuddering its way into the distance.
Then I crossed to the pavement, made my way past the yard and didn’t look behind me until I had reached the station. Once there, I stood with my back to the gingerbread-brown tiles, deep in thought. According to that shipping label the crate was heading for Naples.
That afternoon, I found myself standing on the jetty of a grimy wharf in the East End. The day remained unbearably humid and the tarry black warehouses loomed over me like overcoated giants. As I watched, another crate was hauled up from a small rowing boat.
It was a scene far from the dreamy river-scapes of old man Monet. A noxious haze drifted over the drear Thames, insinuating its way like smoke into the nearest doorway where three stout fellows and the even-stouter Delilah now dragged the crate. I followed at a distance and doffed my straw hat. Respect for the dead, do you see, because inside that narrow splintering box were the mortal remains of the unfortunate Jocelyn Poop, would-be lion of the foreign office now little more than ten stones of rapidly deteriorating flesh.
The interior of the warehouse was dim. I stepped back into the queasy green shadows of the gas-lamps as Delilah planted her feet firmly on the floor and, jemmy in hand, began to wrench the planks from the improvised coffin.
«’Ave ’im hart hin just ha jiffy, sir,» she grunted, tossing broken planking over her shoulder. Her three thickset fellow Domestics, meanwhile, prepared the butcher’s slab on to which Poop was to be conveyed.
Melted ice was already pooling about Delilah’s boots and I heard it cracking and splintering as though in a gin-glass as the brutish female began to lift Poop’s body out by the shoulders.
«Cor! What ha stink!» cackled Delilah. «They don’t know ’ow to pack hem, those bleedin’ heye-ties, do they sir?»
I clamped my glove to my mouth and shook my head. The stench was vile and almost overpowering. Hastily, I gestured to the Domestics to get on with it and, within a moment or two, the dead man lay before me, his skin waxy, pockets of ice plastering the soaked fabric of his linen suit. There seemed nothing much to be gleaned from the reasonably intact torso. Poop’s head, however, was quite a different matter. It was little more than a football- shaped outrage, black with congealed blood and matted with weed-like hair.
Stepping gingerly forward I peered at the gory mess and risked taking away the glove from my mouth.
«Contents of the clothing, Delilah,» I barked.
«Right haway, sir.» She returned to the wharf to collect the rest of the delivery.
I nodded towards the other Domestics. «Get me a jug of water and a scrubbing brush.»
One of them nodded in acquiescence. By the time Delilah returned with a small leather satchel, I had cleaned up Poop’s shattered noggin somewhat, exposing a hook nose and a rather unprepossessing moustache. Above the bridge of the nose, the whole of the forehead had been stoved in.
«It was more than a cosh that did this,» I mused to myself. Taking up the jug, I poured water into the wound. Particles of skin and brain matter floated away over Poop’s cheeks in ghastly rivulets like congealed crusts of oil-paint.
I bent closer, holding my breath against the stench of corruption. Anticipating my needs, Delilah stepped forward with a lantern that I took from her fat hand. There was something very odd about the wound in Poop’s head.
I probed with my fingers for some little time then, sucking my teeth thoughtfully, stepped away from the corpse and folded my arms.
«Delilah, I should be most awfully grateful if you could fetch me some plaster of Paris.»
«Plaster of Paris, sir?»
«Yes. Though where you’ll lay your hands on some all the way out here…»
She smiled her dreadful smile and gave a little bow. She was back within twenty minutes. As I said the Domestics were without peer.
While the others prepared the mixture, covering themselves in floury clouds in the process, I laid out the contents of Poop’s pockets that had been thoughtfully documented by the Neapolitan coppers. It was a sad little bundle. A daguerreotype of some ugly tart — probably his fiancee, two tickets to
I decided to leave it there for the time being (a good idea as you can probably tell) and turned to the bowl of wet plaster prepared for me by the Domestics. I took off my coat, rolled up my sleeves and then carried the mixture over to the slab. With Delilah and one of her pals holding Poop’s shattered head steady, I carefully poured the plaster into the great gaping wound. After setting down the bowl I smoked a cheroot and waited for the stuff to dry.
It is not a pleasant thing to make a mould from a fellow’s dead bonce but between us we managed to prise the set plaster from the sticky ooze of Poop’s skull. I turned the impression upwards and dragged the lantern towards it.
«Ah!» I ejaculated. «Do you see it? Do you see it?»
Delilah ambled closer and screwed up her eyes at the plaster impression made by the object that someone had so unsportingly smashed into Jocelyn Poop’s brain.
«Well, Hi’ll retire to Bedlam!» breathed Delilah. «Hit’s a
6. The Woman in the Veil
A FACE it was. Clearly discernible were waves of hair above a noble brow and hollow eyes; the bridge of an aquiline nose and a suggestion of lip completing the picture. It was either the most forceful head-butt in history or the impression of some kind of bust or statue. I took a rough guess that Poop had been attacked with a relic of the grandeur that was Rome, though precise dating was beyond me. I despatched the plaster cast with the Domestics, confident of a speedy identification by one of Joshua Reynolds’s other agents and also passed on a note to the little man himself recommending that a watch be kept on the strange undertaking firm of Mr Tom Bowler.
As for me, it was time for that rooting around I had promised myself.
Back at Downing Street, to change togs, I found I was in receipt of a charming note from Bella Pok.
Rather!
I changed into a dark costume and pumps, bundling my other clothes into a heavy bag, then waited for Delilah to arrive in a brougham.
There is a limit, you see, to what can be gleaned through what the yellow press like to call «the proper channels». As you can imagine, it is only the
I am a practised housebreaker and had done my best to look over the layout of the missing scientist’s
