The address given to them for where Silas Morriset was in hiding was a rundown tenement in the East End of London, consisting of buildings seemingly slapped together with some bricks and cement, without much attention to geometry.
“He must be scared to be living in a place like this,” Lucas said as they both stood outside the building and assessed it.
“Hiding is more like it,” Marcus remarked, catching sight of a young boy watching them from across the street. Marcus whistled him over.
“Aye, gov?” the lad asked, his eyes darting over Marcus’s jacket and boots, an assessment in his gaze he hadn’t quite yet learned to hide.
“Do you know the occupants living here?” Marcus nodded across to the building as he pulled out a gold coin, careful not to flash it about, but enough so the boy got a look.
The boy’s jaw dropped but then his eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Some I do, some I don’t.”
“Silas Morriset. What can you tell me about him?” Often, the best information Marcus got was from the street urchins who were all too good at observing everything, for it was the only way for them to survive.
“Aye, I know him.” The boy crossed his hands across his chest, though his eyes lit up in interest. “But it’ll cost ya two of them coins if ya want me to talk.”
“What a little mercenary,” Lucas said.
Marcus merely laughed. “He’s a capitalist, my friend. Nothing wrong with that in this day and age. All right, boy, you have a deal. Now tell me what you know.”
The lad shrugged. “Not much. The man and ’is wife moved in a month or so ago. And the man can’t hold ’is liquor none. Was telling all who could hear the other night how he was gonna be filthy rich soon and was expecting a big payment for him to stay silent ’bout some secrets he got on some rich toffs.”
“Blackmail?” Lucas asked.
“Sounds like it. Anything else, boy?”
“Nah, that’s it,” the boy stated with a shrug.
Marcus grabbed two coins from his pocket and threw one then the other to the lad, who caught them deftly and pocketed them even quicker, before scuttling off.
“Come on, time to pay the man a visit.” Marcus strode over to the wooden doorway that led into the block of apartments and pushed it open. A plethora of smells from excrement to burning fish assaulted his nostrils as he strode into the entrance area. The floor was threadbare, any semblance of carpet long since worn away, and the walls were dusted with mold and mildew.
“What a quaint place,” Lucas said as he wrinkled his nose.
“Which room is it?” Marcus saw several wooden doors dotting both directions of the corridors, with a rickety wooden staircase at the far end of the hall.
“Number four,” Lucas replied. “Around to the right, apparently, and thankfully on this level, because those stairs look like a bloody death trap.”
“Clearly the blackmailing business isn’t going so well for him thus far.”
They walked down the hall, the rotting wood flooring creaking loudly with the two men’s weight, until they came to a door that had a number four painted in the center of it. Pausing at the threshold, Marcus listened. There was silence, but then the sound of wailing started to emanate from inside.
Pulling out his pistol, Marcus slammed his foot into the door, which swung wide open to reveal a woman kneeling on the floor in the middle of the room, howling and holding a man to her chest. A man with a dagger protruding from his back.
“No, not my Silas. No. No. No. Please don’t be dead,” she kept saying as she rocked forward and backward, clutching desperately to the man, her blonde hair splattered with blood as tears streamed down her face.
Silas Morriset and his wife, Marcus guessed. Or rather, a dead Silas Morriset. Damn it, too late again.
“Are you hurt?” Marcus asked the woman, his eyes scanning the rather threadbare room that had a door leading off to the left.
The woman could only shake her head as she clutched Silas tight, her face all but buried in his chest. “He went that way, only a moment ago,” she moaned, barely lifting her head from her husband as she pointed to the door. “He stabbed Silas, then left to the back garden.” She collapsed on Silas and started crying again in earnest.
Marcus raced to the door and yanked it open, Lucas at his heels. They ran across the small back garden to where a gate was wide open. Sprinting through the gate they came to a back alley. He scanned in both directions, but the alley was empty. “Goddamn it!” Marcus kicked out his leg into the air and felt like smashing his fist in something. “Chasing our tails, once again.”
Exhaling sharply, Lucas came to stand beside him. “We can keep looking. Maybe at the end of the alley we’ll see something…”
They both knew the chances of finding a man who they didn’t even know the description of was non-existent in the East End. The alley ran between two main thoroughfares, and the man would be long gone by now. “No. Perhaps, though, we can get a description of him from Morriset’s wife, and possibly find some evidence.”
Because if Morriset was in the business of blackmail, then hopefully he would have proof hidden somewhere in the apartment. They were close, Marcus could sense it; they just needed to catch a break.