Alex Grecian - The Yard

Henry nodded and smiled.

“It’s settled, then,” Kingsley said. “Now let’s get out of this place.”

He stepped aside and waved Henry through into the fresh air. Before he followed, he blew out the flame and set his lantern on the floor.

What’s all this, then?”

Inspector Day turned and held his lantern up. The guard from the entrance of the workhouse was approaching with his gun drawn.

“I’m a detective with the Yard,” Day said. “Do you remember me?”

“Aye, that I do, sir. What’s happening in here?”

“There’s a homicidal madman somewhere in the building. He’s extremely dangerous and armed with scissors.”

“Did you say he has scissors, sir?”

“Yes. He’s a killer and he’s already injured at least one person here.”

“What can I do to help?”

“The injured man is somewhere back there, behind me. Do you have any medical knowledge? Or is there a doctor here somewhere?”

The guard shook his head. “Only the one doctor what come in with you, sir. I’ve got this pistol, though, if that can be of service to you.”

“Perhaps it can at that. The man we’re looking for has escaped down this hall. I don’t know in which direction he’s gone. He’s tall, dressed expensively in a dark suit and cloak. He has a tall hat, if it hasn’t been jostled off by now. His appearance is quite different from that of anyone else you’ll find in this place. You go that way and I’ll go this. Fire your pistol if you encounter him and I’ll come running.”

“Yes, sir. Good luck, sir.”

“And to you.”

Day watched the guard hustle away in the other direction and he shook his head wonderingly. At least there was one person in all of London who respected the bloody Yard.

He drew his Colt Navy from his pocket and moved down the hall. The lantern light didn’t penetrate far into the warren of cubbyholes. His whistle and the screaming of the injured man had turned the rest of the inmates shy. There weren’t many men showing themselves in the narrow tunnel. At every opening where there wasn’t evidence of a tenant, Day thrust the lantern inside and surveyed the room. It was slow going.

He was finishing his search of the fifth room on the westernmost side of the tunnel when he heard a gunshot somewhere behind him. He listened, waiting for the echoes to subside, and heard another, followed immediately by a third. He dashed out of the room and retraced his steps.

He found the young guard facedown in the hall near the entrance. He knelt and turned the guard over, but the man was dead. Blood seeped from a series of deep stab wounds up and down his torso. As Day watched, the flow of blood slowed to a trickle. He closed his eyes and said a short and silent prayer for the soul of the slain guard. A moment later, he was on his feet and running. There was a trail of blood, small dots that glistened yellow in the light of the lantern. They grew smaller as the trail lengthened, and Day guessed that the killer had not been wounded. The blood was dripping from his scissors.

But Day hadn’t found the guard’s gun, and that could mean the messenger had it now. The danger had doubled.

The bloody trail ended at the entrance to one of the small rooms. Day kept to one side and reached slowly into the room. He set his lantern on the floor and put both hands on his gun. He ducked into the room and swept the gun back and forth. It was empty. Something silvery glinted in the lamplight. Day moved some straw aside on the right-hand berth and found a pair of bloody shears. He wrapped them in his handkerchief and stuck them in his back pocket. Like the other rooms, there was a door on this side and another on the far wall, leading to yet another hallway. Day picked his lantern up and crept past the parallel berths to the second door. He crouched against the wall and peered out into the hall.

There was a sound behind him and he turned in time to glimpse the swirl of a dark cloak as a man leapt out from under the straw that covered the other berth. The guard’s gun went off and Day ducked. The lantern shattered. Day was already moving as he heard the crack of the shot and the tinkle of glass. He leapt forward, but the killer was gone.

Day rushed into the hall he’d come from. Up ahead, he could hear the clatter of shoes against the rough wood of the floor. There was a muffled cry and a thump. Day hurried forward and tripped when he came to a staircase that led into more darkness. At a landing halfway up he found a guard, slumped unconscious, his head sagging off a riser. Day checked and found a faint pulse. He adjusted the guard’s head, hoping to make him more comfortable, and moved carefully up the stairs, sliding his back against the wall, his gun ready at his side.

At the top of the stairs was a closed door. Day reached out and slowly turned the knob. When he heard the latch disengage, he flung the door open and threw himself through the doorway onto the floor.

The room Day found himself in was lit by dozens of candles on every side and an open window on the far wall. Outside, the day was grey and rain pattered against the windowsill. Curtains stirred softly and a cool mist wafted in on the breeze.

He was in the upstairs ward for women and children. The guard on the stairs had no doubt been put there to keep the men below from paying unwelcome visits. Mothers were backed up in a semicircle, hiding their little ones behind their skirts. Day looked the room over quickly, his weapon at the ready. There were beds set up in rows along the walls, plain straw mattresses, but nicer than the men’s barracks downstairs. Day dropped to one knee and glanced along the floor under the rows. Nobody hiding under a bed.

“A man,” he said. “Was a man here?”

One of the women, her eyes wide with fear, pointed to the open window and nodded.

He stood and went to the window and looked out. Inside the workhouse, he had nearly forgotten that it was still daytime. Beneath him, a wet stone path ended at a dark line of trees only a few paces from this side of the building. There was no sign of the killer. Day cursed himself silently and slipped the Colt back into his pocket.

Three men, one of them carrying another, came into sight below. The smallest of the men was carrying a black bag. He stepped out onto the path and looked around, then up. He saw Day peering over the sill and smiled.

“Detective,” he said.

“Dr Kingsley.”

The big man looked up now, revealing himself to be Henry Mayhew. The dancing man grinned and nodded. Day halfheartedly nodded back. The third man looked familiar, but Day couldn’t place him until he noticed the stained bandages around his arm. It was the fellow who had tried to stop the killer and had been stabbed for his trouble.

“Did you catch him?” Kingsley said. He was shouting. “The madman with the shears? Did you catch him?”

“He seems to have gone out this window just moments ago. I’m afraid he’s long gone by now.”

Day pointed at the trees and Kingsley turned to look.

“Well,” Kingsley said, “if he dropped from that window, he may well have hurt himself.”

“Still, he’s too far away by now.”

“Maybe you can catch him when he comes back,” Henry said.

“Why would he come back? He’s got clean away.”

“But he left his hat. Maybe he’ll come back for it.”

Henry set the injured man down against the side of the building so that Day could no longer see anything of him but his legs. Henry stooped and reached for something there out of Day’s line of sight. He held up the tall black hat Day had seen the killer wearing.

“Without this,” Henry said, “the rain will make him extra wet.”

“Why is that, Henry?”