Andrew Pepper - Kill-Devil and Water

‘I had nothing against the old man. It was the other servants I hated,’ Morel-Roux said, folding his arms. ‘You know what the most damning piece of evidence was? No sign of forced entry. That meant it had to be one of Lord Bedford’s servants, at least according to the police investigation. I was the newest member of the household and hence the most expendable. The others ganged up on me to save their own necks.’

‘Are you trying to claim one of them killed him?’

‘Of course not.’ Morel-Roux exhaled loudly. ‘The simple truth is, I don’t have any idea who killed him. But I know for a fact it wasn’t me.’

‘Men facing the scaffold always protest their innocence.’ Pyke watched him, unable to decide whether he thought the valet had done it or not.

‘And the law always protects the innocent and punishes the guilty?’ Morel-Roux shook his head scornfully. ‘I know you don’t believe that.’

‘Because you’ve read a book that you think is about me?’ Pyke tried not to let the valet see his incredulity.

‘You’re here, aren’t you?’

‘I’m here at the insistence of my uncle, the author, who was hoping you might want to confess your crime to me in order to further publicise his book.’

‘But if I were innocent,’ Morel-Roux said, choosing to ignore Pyke’s last comment, ‘you wouldn’t want to see me hang, would you?’

‘There are a lot of things I don’t want to see that happen anyway.’ Pyke looked at the valet and felt his resolve weaken. Morel-Roux was right about one thing: if he was in fact innocent, Pyke wouldn’t want him to die. ‘Listen to me: the only way you can absolutely prove your innocence is to prove someone else’s guilt.’

The valet nodded glumly. ‘Lord Bedford was a sweet man. As far as I know, he didn’t have any enemies.’

‘Can you think of anything unusual that happened in the last weeks that you served the man?’

‘I don’t know it for a fact, but I’m fairly sure he had a mistress. In any case, there was someone staying with him the week before he was killed.’

‘A mistress?’ Pyke was mildly curious now. He hadn’t read anything about a mistress, nor had Tilling mentioned one.

‘I think so. No one was supposed to know about her. She was staying in the apartment attached to the mansion. I heard Bedford and the butler talking about her.’

‘But you’re certain she was his mistress?’

The valet shrugged. ‘You spend a few nights in a place like this, you can’t be sure of anything.’

Pyke offered a sympathetic nod. ‘Do you know a man called Harold Field?’

Morel-Roux stared at him blankly. ‘No. Who is he?’

‘How about Jemmy Crane?’

‘I haven’t heard of him either. Why do you ask?’

Pyke thought about what Bessie Daniels had murmured in her addled state but decided against telling Morel-Roux about it.

‘I just want you to find the man who really killed my master.’ Morel-Roux’s tone was pleading, desperate.

‘And why would I do that?’

‘Because to see a poor man go to the scaffold for something he didn’t do would be an affront to your nature.’

Pyke looked at the valet’s pale, sunken face and felt a stab of compassion. He had been in Morel-Roux’s position once; he knew what it was like to face the scaffold. He didn’t know whether Morel-Roux was guilty or not. He had been innocent and Godfrey and Emily had come to his rescue. If Morel-Roux was, in fact, innocent, as he claimed to be, who would come to his rescue?

‘I’ll look into the matter, see what I can find. That’s all I can do.’

Morel-Roux flung himself at Pyke’s feet and wept with gratitude.

Pyke spent the afternoon looking for Arthur Sobers in the taverns, beer-shops, bake-houses and slop-shops of the Ratcliff Highway, to no avail. The possibility that they were now searching for a man who had killed twice — killed and mutilated two women in an identical manner — disturbed him more than he cared to admit, not least because it threw into doubt his notion that Mary Edgar had known her killer.

Sobers might be able to shed important light on Mary Edgar’s last days and, as such, Pyke needed to talk to him before the police did.

He had been labouring under the assumption that Mary had been killed because of something she’d done or someone she’d known, but perhaps she’d just been selected at random by the same man who’d killed Lucy Luckins. This possibility suggested that those who had known Mary — such as William Alefounder — must be innocent of her murder. He certainly needed to find out more about the sugar trader’s private life, and the work he did for the Vice Society. The fact that an agent from the Vice Society had tried to rescue Lucy Luckins from a life of prostitution could, of course, be a coincidence, but this link, or rather Alefounder’s possible involvement with both women, was, at present, the only thing that connected the two murders. One thing was clear: Lucy Luckins had been killed long before Mary Edgar. The mudlark had found her corpse floating in the Thames about six months ago.

Pyke ended his search for Sobers in Samuel’s place near the West India Docks, but from the look of it someone had already beaten him to it. Tables and benches had been overturned and broken, the counter had been pulled away from its fixing and bottles and glasses had been smashed. He found Samuel sitting on his own, bewildered, trying to make sense of what had happened.

‘The Peelers came here looking for the same man you asked about,’ Samuel said, when he saw Pyke standing there.

‘They did all this?’

‘Thought I was lying when I told ’em I didn’t know Sobers or where to find him.’

‘How many of them?’

‘Ten, twelve. Tore the place apart.’ He looked around the room and shook his head. ‘Don’t need me to tell you that.’

‘They find anything?’

Samuel shook his head. ‘I told you I don’t know this Sobers fellow. Who is he anyhow? What’s he done?’

‘I’d say the police reckon he killed the woman I was asking you about.’ Pyke noticed the bruise on Samuel’s cheek, a purple welt already the size of an orange. ‘Do you know the name of the man who did this to you?’

‘I heard one of ’em call him Pierce.’ Samuel frowned. ‘Why? You know him?’

‘Oh, I know him.’

‘Go on.’

‘I think he’s an arrogant, ambitious fool.’

Samuel took a swig of rum and passed it to Pyke. ‘In that case, I should buy you a drink.’

*

Pyke found Pierce in the atrium of the police building on Whitehall. He had just been talking to an elderly, smartly attired man in a high-chair. Pyke waited until the two porters had carried the old man out of the building before he approached the policeman.

‘Who do you want, Pyke?’

‘I hear you tore up Samuel’s place.’

Pierce regarded him with renewed interest. ‘You were there?’

‘You’re looking for the wrong man. Sobers didn’t kill Mary Edgar.’

‘You know that for a fact?’

Pyke looked at the clerks and police constables shuffling past him in the direction of the watch-house. ‘Did you know Lord Bedford had a mistress?’

Pierce stared at him, blood vivid in his cheeks. ‘What? Now you want to take over that investigation, too. Is there no end to your arrogance?’

‘I asked a straightforward question.’

‘You want a word of advice, sir?’ He moved closer and whispered, ‘Forget about your absurd little theories, go home, put a pistol in your mouth and pull the trigger.’

‘Ask the butler.’

‘Ask him what?’

‘Ask him about the mistress.’

‘Are you trying to tell me how to do my job?’

Pyke met his stare and shrugged. ‘Someone needs to. Might as well be me.’