Andrew Pepper - The Detective Branch

At the entrance, major-domos were collecting invitations. There was a policeman in uniform standing there, seemingly in a supervisory role. Certainly the way he was barking orders at other officers attested to his seniority. As Pyke tried to slip past, the man put out his arm and read the division and number on Pyke’s collar: E17.

This was the division and letter he’d chosen because E was Holborn, Pierce’s division, and Pyke had met an inspector who worked there a few months ago. ‘Inspector Connell, Holborn Division,’ he said, ‘I’m to report to the Court of Aldermen.’

The man may have seen his pistol but he didn’t comment on it. Raising his hand, he muttered, ‘Up the main stairs, you’ll see it on the left-hand side.’

Pyke had never worn a uniform before, at least not during his time as commander of the Detective Branch, and he was surprised at how uncomfortable it was, the woollen material coarse and scratchy against the skin. It was also hard getting used to the stovepipe hat, the way it didn’t quite sit comfortably on top of his head. Still, the anonymity it afforded him was priceless. No one batted an eyelid at him and he was allowed to pass freely through into the main banquet hall.

Pyke had been there once before, about four years earlier, and on that occasion he had dragged a murder suspect into the kitchens and thrust his arm into a boiling vat of soup. The hall hadn’t changed much in the intervening years. As austere as it was grand, it was filled with long tables that ran in three lines the full length of the room, and which were now decorated with the finest linen, glass and china. There were monuments to great men who had plundered and murdered their way into the history books, and at each end of the hall were two vast stained-glass windows. Pyke had walked past the City Arms on his way into the hall and had noticed the motto: Domine, dirige nos. Lord direct us. Direct us to do what? he wondered. To embezzle? To murder? The contented hum of a thousand polite conversations rippled around the room. These were the great and the good, come to slap one of their own on the back, a man of sixty years who had lied, cheated, even killed.

Pyke approached someone who appeared to be the major-domo in charge and muttered, ‘Palmer around? I’ve got an urgent message for him.’

The man glanced down at his fob-watch. ‘There’s a private ceremony for him about to start in the Common Council room.’

At the top of the stairs an orderly line of guests was waiting to be admitted into the room. He saw Hogarth’s widow and quickly turned his back to her. There were no other policemen in the vicinity and, worried that he was too visible, Pyke hurried past the queue and turned a corner at the end of the corridor. He made sure that no one was following him then tried the first door he came upon. It opened and he let himself into the room. It was an antechamber off the main council room but was connected to it via a narrow door cut into the stone wall. On the other side, he could hear the excited buzz of conversation.

Emboldened, Pyke opened the narrow door and entered the chamber as the first guests began to stream through the main door. He made his way to the front, where a man he presumed to be the Lord Mayor was whispering in the ear of a guest. Pyke cleared his throat. ‘Urgent message for Sir St John Palmer, sir.’

‘M’lud.’ He peered at Pyke through his monocle and frowned. ‘You should refer to me as m’lud.’

‘I need to pass a message to Sir St John Palmer as a matter of urgency,’ Pyke replied, through gritted teeth.

‘I believe he was called down to the library a few minutes ago by another of you chaps.’ It was the other man who addressed him.

When Pyke turned and began to hurry towards the door, the man called out, ‘You tell him we’d like to make a start here in the next five minutes.’

Back in the vast atrium at the top of the main staircase, the queue had dwindled to almost nothing. Pyke had already started to descend the stairs when he saw Fitzroy Tilling and Sir Robert Peel coming up in the opposite direction. They were deep in conversation, and Pyke thought he might be able to slip past them unnoticed. But as they drew level Tilling turned to him, as if startled from a reverie, and their eyes met. Pyke nodded once and kept on walking. Only when he had reached the bottom of the stairs did he glance behind him. Tilling was still talking to Peel but Pyke knew he wouldn’t let this go, which meant he had even less time than he’d imagined. The library was somewhere on the east side of the building, so he now broke into a run, no longer worried about drawing attention to himself. Passing a servant, Pyke paused momentarily and asked where the library was, then started running again, almost even before the man had pointed it out.

It was quiet at this end of the building, away from the guests and the servants scurrying in and out of the kitchens, and he stopped at the entrance to the library, vast oak bookcases towering from floor to ceiling ahead of him. He couldn’t hear any voices; there weren’t even any librarians or porters around. The library was lit by gas-lamps affixed at regular intervals along the panelled walls, and the jets of light produced a slight hissing sound. He saw a shadow pass across one of the bookcases and moved forward very slowly, his pistol drawn. Making as little noise as possible, he came to the end of one of the cases and peered around the corner. That was when he saw them; Palmer and Wells both dressed in their formal attire. They weren’t talking, they weren’t even moving, and it wasn’t until he moved out a little farther that Pyke saw why. Luke Gibb, the man Pyke had known as Eddie Lockhart, had a shiny, twin-barrelled pistol aimed in their direction. As far as Pyke could tell, no one had noticed him. He slid silently along to the far end of the bookcase, so that he would be nearer Gibb when he made his move.

Unless he acted quickly, Gibb would squeeze the trigger and it would all be over. Gripping his pistol in his right hand, Pyke raised the barrel and stepped out into the light.

Wells saw him first and instinctively turned his head. Perhaps he assumed Pyke was a policeman and was there to save them.

Pyke had his pistol aimed directly at Luke Gibb.

‘Put it down, Luke. Just put down the pistol and we can talk.’ Pyke took another step towards him.

‘Listen to him, Gibb,’ Pyke heard Wells say. ‘We can arrive at an arrangement suitable to all parties. Isn’t that right, Detective Inspector?’

So Wells had recognised him. It changed nothing. Pyke took another step towards Gibb, the pistol still aimed at the man’s head. He was now equidistant between Gibb, Wells and Palmer.

Gibb’s pistol was now trained on Palmer. ‘This is your chance, too, Pyke. These are the men who would’ve seen you step out on to the scaffold.’

In the distance, Pyke could hear raised voices and footsteps. Tilling, and perhaps others, would be looking for him.

‘Let me do what I came to do, and you’ll never see me again,’ Gibbs continued. ‘I’ll send you the accounts. You can do what you want with them.’

Wells said to Pyke, ‘Like it or not, Detective, you’re one of us now.’

‘If we let them walk away, it means my brother, both of my brothers, died for nothing.’

This was the man, Pyke thought, who had taken a sledgehammer to Isaac Guppy, who had nailed Charles Hogarth to a wall and who had stabbed Adolphus Wynter.

Without warning, Pyke squeezed his trigger, the blast shattering the eerie stillness of the room. The shot struck Gibb on the side of his face and tore off part of his cheek, mouth and nose. He slumped to the floor, crashing against the bookcase behind him.

Palmer and Wells remained rooted to the spot, too stunned to move. Calmly Pyke bent over and retrieved the pistol from Gibb’s warm grasp.