While I had not expected Mr. Hancock to heed my warning, I had hoped that the plainclothes officers assigned to discreetly watch him would be able to prevent him from coming to harm—and, in the process, catch our murderer. In this, my hopes were dashed. When I met Inspector Pickering the next morning outside the Memorial Grounds, he told me that Mr. Hancock had managed to evade them altogether. They had lost sight of him and had no idea where he was.
This news, coming after our utter failure the previous night to find anyone who claimed an acquaintance with Gilbert Barton in the pub he frequented, left me with a piercing sense of frustration, but I refused to abandon hope. Inspector Pickering and I had no trouble persuading the management at the Memorial Grounds to make an announcement asking Gilbert Barton to come to the front gate before the start of that week’s football match. The inspector had mustered a number of constables, stationing one at each entrance to the grounds, and Samuel, Mrs. Grummidge’s servant, searched for his friend in the crowd. Alas, he caught no sight of him, and no man claiming to be Barton came forward.
“We could go back to the pub,” the inspector said. “He’s likely to show up there after the match.”
“I think I shall leave that to you and Samuel,” I said. “I have another idea.” I did not get to act on it, however, as before I could even begin to explain it to my colleague, I felt a firm hand grab me and turned to see my husband, his countenance grave.
“Hancock is dead.”
* * *
Barton—for I was now convinced beyond doubt, reasonable or otherwise, that he was our murderer—had chosen an unexpected site to re-create the scene of the death of poor Harold Godwinson. Rather than a location evoking Hastings, he left Mr. Hancock’s body, dressed in mail and a surcoat emblazoned with the cross of St. George, in the very location where Rodney Dawkins had met his untimely end. As expected, his killer had stuck a long arrow into Mr. Hancock’s eye. It was a gruesome sight.
“Is this the end of it, do you think?” Inspector Pickering asked me, grimacing as he turned away from the body. “So far as we know, there are no more costumes waiting to be used.”
“We can’t be certain of that,” Colin said. “Only that there are none left of which we are aware.”
“I think he’s finished,” I said. “He did what he set out to. He killed the people who hurt those he loved, and he sent the message that no one, not even a king, is safe. Surely no one can doubt that Mr. Hancock was the leader of the King’s Boys.”
In fact, quite a few people still doubted that, and even I had to admit we could not prove it, one way or another. But the choice of location—the site of what could be viewed as a battle between the King’s Boys and a perceived (if wrongly accused as a result of my own actions) traitor—was significant. I was confident it would all be explained when I found Gilbert Barton. And find him, I would. After sending Inspector Pickering back to Barton’s favorite pub, I enlisted the aid of my husband in my next task.
We took a cab to Holbrooke & Sons in West Ham. Work stopped by noon on Saturdays, so the factory was quiet, but this did not deter me. While it would be simple to recognize the children I had spoken to with Mr. Riggs’s blessing when I had visited, I also remembered the faces of those two girls I had not been able to question alone. Deducing that they likely lived near their place of employment, I wanted to search the area.
“The entire area?” Colin said, his dark eyebrows tilting.
“Not door to door, if that’s what you mean,” I said. “We will ask around and try to find someone who works there. How hard can it be?”
Fortunately, it was not difficult in the least. I cannot claim this was due to my excellent—if amorphous—strategy, but instead to the fact that a group of children, all of whom worked for Holbrooke & Sons, were playing in the street not half a block from the factory. Several of them remembered me, and I greeted them all warmly before introducing Colin. One, a girl, hung back from the group, and I recognized the look in her eyes. She was one of those I had not met at the factory—one of two whose expressions of cold fear were burned into my memory. My husband noticed me watching her, and with a quick nod gathered the others around him, asking if they wanted to play a game. I pulled her aside while they were distracted.
“Everything is not well at Holbrooke & Sons, is it?” I asked.
“I can’t talk about this, madam,” she said, her eyes darting about nervously. “Not here.”
I nodded, understanding the peril she might face. “Tell me your name and where you live. I’ll come to you there in an hour.”
Colin’s game, which consisted of wielding a rather sorry-looking stick in the manner of a cricket bat, ended as soon as I signaled to him that I had what we needed. A man selling roasted chestnuts passed by, so Colin bought packets for each of the children, who dispersed soon thereafter, delighted with the treat.
At the appointed time, we went to the girl’s home. Her family lived in one room on the second floor of a terrace house that they shared with three other families. Sarah looked nervous when she saw us, but her mother welcomed us inside and insisted on giving us tea.
“I’ve hoped someone would come,” she said, as her daughter hung back from us, looking more scared than ever. “That factory isn’t so safe as they claim, at least that’s what my Sarah tells me. It looks pretty, that’s for sure, but fences around the machines and lots of bright light aren’t the only things that matter. She tells me they lock them in, they do, and won’t let them out until the end of their shift. And that piles of rags and lint are left to accumulate in heaps hidden from sight. One spark near them is all it would take and the whole place would go up in a flash. And if it happened while they was working, they wouldn’t be able to get out unless someone unlocked the door. And fire, you know, can come too quickly for that.” She sighed. “But there’s nowhere better for her to work, is there?”
Horrifying though Sarah’s mother’s words were—on the spot I resolved to go back to Holbrooke & Sons first thing Monday morning—they did not include anything that connected the factory to Gilbert Barton. Neither she nor her daughter recognized his name, nor that of Prentice Hancock.
“Perhaps this is all useless,” I said, as Colin hailed a cab and helped me into it. “But I simply cannot believe that the article about the factory is wholly irrelevant. And what about your mysterious notes and the hunt they’ve sent you on? We’re no closer to discovering the truth about them than we were when the late queen handed you the first one.”
“Don’t lose faith, my dear. We will figure it all out in due course.”
I was not so confident. When we reached home, Inspector Pickering was waiting for us in the library. He leapt to his feet the instant we entered and started apologizing for coming without an invitation, his words tumbling out in an incoherent fashion I can only credit to his awe at finding himself once again in Colin’s presence. Hero worship can prove awfully inconvenient for everyone involved. He managed to compose himself—and barrage us with another round of apologies—before, at last, telling us why he had come.
“I haven’t found Gilbert Barton, let me say that straightaway, so you don’t get your hopes up,” he began. “But it occurred to me that it’s highly unusual for anyone to be so elusive. There are no records of him anywhere, except pertaining to his arrests.”
“A person of his class can easily slip through the cracks,” Colin said.
“You are absolutely correct, sir. The poor aren’t likely to have their birth or baptism recorded, and a boy like Barton wouldn’t have gone to school. When you told me, Lady Emily, about the Holbrooke & Sons article, I decided to mark on a map the locations of Barton’s arrests. They are, after all, the only official records we have of his existence. Aside from two, every one of his run-ins with the law occurred within two blocks of either a factory or a shop where work conditions were particularly vile. And within weeks of him being released from jail, something happened at each of those places that shut them down permanently. He was arrested with Rodney Dawkins twice, if you recall, and those are the only times when it was for a crime that you’d expect from a gang member. They were caught stealing. But every other time, he was hauled in for disturbing the peace or petty vandalism. The King’s Boys don’t typically engage in either.”
“Are you suggesting he was getting arrested on purpose?” I asked.
“I think so, Lady Emily.” His cheeks darkened. “But I confess I have not the slightest inkling as to why.”
“I assume you have the details as to what led to the closure of the establishments in question?” Colin asked.
“Yes, sir, of course,” Inspector Pickering replied. “Arson, each time. The buildings went up in flames when they were vacant. No one was injured in any of them.”
“Holbrooke & Sons,” I said. “He’s going to set it on fire. There is no shift Saturday afternoon or Sunday. This is his opportunity.”
It was barely seven o’clock in the evening, and the sun had long ago slipped below the horizon. As we approached Holbrooke & Sons, I expected to see the sky ablaze above it. Instead, there was only unrelenting darkness. We slunk out of the carriage and made our way to the entrance of the factory, but of course it was locked. Two constables, walking their beat, called out to us, assuming we were bent on some nefarious end.
The inspector presented them with his credentials and Colin spoke to them in a low, measured tone that no one could ignore. I could not hear his words, but when he stopped speaking, they nodded and set off down the street.
“They’ll have the fire brigade at the ready, should it become necessary,” he said.
And then I saw it—a small, flickering light shimmering through a glass window on the building’s first floor. No sooner had I called out and pointed toward it, than a huge blast blew me off my feet, and the building, in an instant, was engulfed in flames. I pulled myself up to my knees, caught my breath, and looked around for Colin. He and the inspector were a few yards away from me, both of them looking as battered as I imagined I did, but neither showing sign of serious injury. We came together, standing on the pavement on the other side of the street, watching the blaze.
Then, the dark figure of a man appeared from behind the building. He was running and waving his arms as he shouted.
“There’s someone inside!”