Chapter 10

 

Which Concerns the Contents of the Dead Man’s Pockets

 

The jury was not long in reaching a verdict, for if ever there was a clear case of intentional murder by person or persons unknown, this was it. Pickett squeezed his way through the motley crowd, eager to catch up with any one of the three persons whom he had judged the most likely to have made the voyage back to England with his father.

If he were to offer to buy the woman a glass of sherry, he wondered, would she think him some sort of pervert? Very likely, he thought, abandoning this promising lead with some reluctance. What’s more, Julia wouldn’t be enthusiastic about the idea, either.

No, the pink-nosed clerk was probably his best source of information regarding his father’s time on board ship. In any case, any questions he were to ask would be less open to misinterpretation.

Even the seaman (if seaman he was) might be a useful source of information. After all, Gentleman Jack was not the sort of man who went unnoticed, by persons of either sex—although men’s impressions of him were generally less favorable than were their female counterparts’.

Alas, he was thwarted in his objective. Having worked closely with Mr. Colquhoun for six years, he was resigned yet unsurprised to hear himself hailed in a familiar Scots brogue.

“Ach, here he is! Mr. Pickett, come and let me introduce you to my colleague. Mr. Tomlinson, this is Mr. Pickett, a principal officer at Bow Street until quite recently, when he left us to become an independent agent. Mr. Pickett, Mr. Isaiah Tomlinson, the magistrate for the district of Limehouse, who will oversee the investigation.”

“How do you do, Mr. Tomlinson?” Pickett took the proffered hand of a short, stout man with kind blue eyes behind wire-rimmed spectacles.

“Mr. Pickett.” Mr. Colquhoun’s fellow magistrate shook him warmly by the hand. “I can assure you that no effort will be spared in bringing your father’s killer to justice. Can’t have my department looking no-account to a Bow Street man, you know,” he added with as jovial a tone as was permissible at so solemn an occasion.

“That’s very good of you, sir,” Pickett said. “I’m sure—”

At that moment the coroner approached, carrying a small bundle wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. “Your father’s effects,” he explained, placing the bundle in Pickett’s arms. “Everything he had on him at the time of his death, excepting, of course, the clothes he was wearing, which may be needed as evidence should the case come to trial. Now that the inquest is concluded, I’m releasing the body for burial, so you may go ahead and notify the woman who is to lay him out.”

Burial? Laying out? It occurred to Pickett that, although he had seen dozens of recently-deceased bodies over the course of a six-year career at Bow Street, he hadn’t the slightest notion of how to arrange for his father’s interment. He supposed Julia must have some idea, having gone through a similar procedure after the murder of her first husband less than two years earlier, but he suspected the obsequies due a viscount were quite different to those appropriate for a convicted felon newly returned to the land of his birth after a decade in a penal colony.

“Yes—er—thank you—I—um—”

“I’ll see to it,” Mr. Colquhoun put in, earning a grateful look from his former principal officer.

By the time Pickett said all that was proper to the magistrate, the coroner, the physician, and the three members of the jury he discovered in the tap room rewarding themselves with foaming pints for having performed their civic duty, he was not surprised to find that most of the crowd had dispersed, and the three people he had hoped to interview were nowhere in sight. Great, therefore, was his surprise when he stepped out of the Chalk and Cheese and into the street only to find the pink-nosed clerk (Pickett’s brain refused to think of him in any other way) clearly lying in wait for him.

“I—I s-say,” the man stammered, plucking at Pickett’s sleeve. “You’re J-Jack’s son, aren’t you? Of c-course you are; they said so at the trial, didn’t they?” he added, answering his own question with a nervous giggle.

It had been an inquest, not a trial, but this seemed a minor point at the moment. “Yes, I’m Jack’s son,” Pickett said. “What can I do for you?”

“Oh, n-nothing, nothing! It’s just that—I’ve got your father’s things, y’see.” His gaze fell on the paper-wrapped bundle in Pickett’s hands, and he made a hasty correction. “His valise, I mean. The one he brought with him on the ship.”

Enlightenment dawned. “You’re Sully.”

“That’s it.” He grinned broadly, exposed a mouth full of teeth. One top tooth was markedly crooked, but this imperfection had the curious effect of making his smile all the more engaging. “Sullivan Bradley’s the name, but most p-people call me Sully. I would’ve b-brought the bag to the inquest today, excepting that I didn’t know you’d b-be there, or if I’d recognize you even if you were.”

“Look here,” Pickett said impulsively, “can I buy you a drink? I should like to hear more about my father’s time abroad, if you please.”

“Buy me a drink?” Sully’s face turned even pinker. “But you d-don’t even know me!”

“No, but my father considered you a friend,” Pickett said. “That’s good enough for me.”

Sully yielded with a good grace, but observed, quite accurately, that his friend’s son had probably had enough of the Chalk and Cheese to last him for some time to come. Pickett might have told him that the Grapes held even less appeal. But as he had no desire to conjure horrors, he said nothing beyond agreeing to the other man’s suggestion that they look in at a pub called the Bell and Anchor.

As its name implied, this establishment catered to the men who made their living on the river. It was an ancient building whose plastered ceiling was so low that both Pickett and his companion were obliged to duck their heads every time they passed beneath one of the thick black beams that supported it. Still, the fire in its inglenook was warm and welcoming, and the pub had the further advantage of being completely unconnected, so far as he knew, with anything having to do with his father’s death.

Once they were settled inside, however, it became clear that there was one point on which his companion was determined to have his way. Not only did Sully flatly refuse to allow Pickett to pay for the two pints of ale, he even insisted upon paying for them himself, claiming it as his privilege to perform what he called a last act of kindness for his old friend. Pickett, knowing quite well that he himself could have stood drinks for everyone in the house without making so much as a dent in his own household’s income, was forced, albeit reluctantly, to let the man have his way, but he was more than a little embarrassed, and not for the first time, by the prosperity that had come to him upon his marriage.

“So, how did you know my father?” he asked, accepting one of the two foaming tankards. “Did you meet on board ship, or had you known him before?”

“I’d known him for s-seven years by the time we b-boarded the ship back to England.” Answering the question Pickett had not quite known how to ask, he added, “I’d b-been a b-bank clerk. Ac-c-cused of having my hand in the t-till.”

Accused of, Pickett thought, noting that Sully had neither admitted his guilt or protested his innocence. Which one was it? Of course, to hear the convicts themselves tell it, Botany Bay was awash with innocent men. His best bet, he decided, was to be sympathetic without expressing either skepticism nor belief.

“I was employed for a time as a counting-house clerk,” he said, his voice carefully neutral. “It can be tedious work—easy enough to make a mistake now and again.”

“Aye, that it is. They don’t s-see it that way, though.”

Pickett wondered fleetingly if “they” referred to the bank’s governing board, or the judge and jury who had convicted and sentenced him, and decided that, for his purposes, at least, it didn’t really matter. “So you would have been transported in ’02.”

“That’s it.” Sully paused and took a long pull from his tankard. “When I arrived at B-Botany Bay, your d-da had already been there for three years. He helped me settle in—showed me the r-ropes, you m-might say.”

“He spoke well of you, too.” Even as he spoke the words, Pickett realized they weren’t entirely true. His father had said that he and Sully had taken a room together at a boardinghouse, but he’d said nothing about the man’s character at all. Still, it was unlikely that he would have been willing to live even temporarily with a man he distrusted, so this was a safe enough assumption that Pickett felt no qualms in making the claim.

Sully, at least, saw nothing in it to cavil at. “And d-don’t you worry about anything that d-doctor might say! I never knew a fellow less likely to wish himself d-dead than Gentleman Jack Pickett!”

“He seemed to be in prime twig when I saw him,” Pickett observed.

Sully chuckled. “He was, at that. Always had s-some new scheme afoot, most of ’em ‘guaranteed’ to m-make us b-both rich.” His smile faded, and he gazed unseeing at the tankard in his hands. “When he set out yesterday morning to look you up, I never d-dreamed that I’d never see him alive again.”

“Then he never made it back to the boardinghouse at all.” And yet his father had still been alive when Bob and Ned had come across him hours later. What had he been doing in the interim?

Sully shook his head. “I’m afraid not. When he hadn’t come b-back by midnight, I reckoned he was spending the night at your place, so I went to b-bed. And all the time, only a few yards away, he was—he was—” Overcome with emotion, Sully sought recourse to his tankard.

“He told me he was going to the boardinghouse to get his things and then come back,” Pickett said haltingly. “I’d—I’d told him he could stay at my place for a few days, until he could make more permanent arrangements.”

Saying it out loud brought home to him just how ungracious he must have sounded. And if it hadn’t been for Julia’s insistence, he wouldn’t have been willing to offer even this grudging hospitality.

“Look here,” he burst out impatiently, “what was he doing in Gin Alley in the first place? He made a joking reference to an assignation with a lady, but even if he’d meant it, he wouldn’t have had any reason to go down that passage, certainly not alone and in the middle of the night!”

Sully’s narrow shoulders rose and fell in a shrug that communicated his complete ignorance. “I wish I could t-tell you.” He sighed. “Truth to tell, I d-don’t like to think of Jack that way. I’d rather remember him as I knew him b-back in B-Botany Bay.”

Pickett could not argue with this sentiment, but knew he hadn’t the luxury of being similarly selective. Still, Kit might like to know something of his father’s life, assuming Sully’s anecdotes were suitable for a child’s ears, and so he encouraged the clerk to share his recollections.

Sully didn’t have to be asked twice. He launched into a long and amusing account of Gentleman Jack’s time in Botany Bay, and Pickett noted that as he became caught up in his tale, his stammer grew much less pronounced. According to Sully, felons in the penal colony were given a good deal more freedom than their counterparts in Newgate (after all, even if they escaped, where could they go?), and it appeared his father had taken full advantage of his opportunities. To hear Sully tell it, Jack’s life there had been a series of adventures—some financial, some romantic, and some a combination of the two.

And I’d imagined him poverty-stricken and starving, Pickett thought, hardly sure whether to be amused or indignant at the thought of all the money he’d sent his father over the last five years. They must have made an odd pair, his smooth-talking father and this bashful and stammering clerk with the oddly engaging smile.

“I know you’ve a lot to d-do in the coming d-days, what with b-burying your father,” Sully said in a more serious vein, having exhausted his supply of stories, “but whenever you want to stop and fetch your d-da’s valise, it’ll be there waiting for you. Did J-Jack give you the d-direction of the b-boardinghouse? No? It’s in Narrow Street, just a few d-doors down from the Grapes. Just ask for M-Mrs. Huggins.”

Pickett promised to do so, relieved that the man hadn’t suggested he return to the boardinghouse and fetch the valise then and there. Of course, it would mean another trip to a part of London that was quite out of his way, but no matter; it had been a full and, in many ways, a difficult day, and at the moment he wanted nothing more but to go back home to his wife.

* * *

Nor did she disappoint. As soon as he opened his own front door, Julia emerged from the drawing room to meet him.

“I’m glad you’re home,” she said, putting her arms around him and drawing him close. “Was it too dreadful, darling?”

“Murder by person or persons unknown, which was no surprise.” He returned her embrace, but asked with mock severity, “Are you out of bed again?”

“I’m afraid so,” she confessed. “I had a caller who couldn’t be put off.”

His gaze shifted over her head to what could be seen of the drawing room from his vantage point in the foyer. Everything looked in order there, with the exception of a crystal decanter of amber-colored liquid and an almost-empty tumbler, both positioned on a small table within easy reach of anyone seated on the sofa. Clearly, the caller, whoever it was, had been male.

“Not my father again, obviously,” Pickett said.

“No, not your father.” Seeing him at a loss, she said, “Your grandfather.”

If she had hoped to surprise him, she succeeded. “Lord Melrose?”

“If you have another grandfather, I’m not aware of him.”

“As far as I know, I’ve only the one—and in my opinion, he’s one too many. What the devil did he want?”

“I think he wants me to try and talk sense into you,” she said, determined to make light of the subject for his sake. “I’m sorry to say, he never did tell me how much he’d intended to pay to buy me off. But never mind him! What do you have there?”

He glanced down at the package, which he’d tucked under his arm in order to embrace her and all but forgotten. “My father’s personal effects. The coroner said this is everything Da had on him when he died. I’ve no idea what’s in it.”

“Perhaps you’d best examine the contents in privacy,” she suggested. “If your father’s life was even half so colorful as you say, there may be things Kit ought not to see.”

Pickett saw nothing to dispute in this proposal, adding only the proviso that she should join him in this grim task—a condition to which she readily agreed.

“And speaking of Kit,” he said as they slowly climbed the stairs, his arm steadying her, “Do you think I should allow him to follow the coffin along with me?”

“It can surely be no worse than allowing him to attend a public hanging, and you had no qualms about letting him do that,” she said, grimacing at the memory. “You said at the time that children of the rookery haven’t the luxury of being spared the realities of death. Besides, it might please him to be treated like his father’s son, just as you are.”

Pickett nodded. There it was again, the one big difference between the two brothers, of far more significance than the fifteen years that separated them, and of which Kit would certainly become aware as he grew older. It was perhaps fortunate that their father had never had two pennies to rub together, for it rendered the question of inheritance a moot point: Half of nothing was, after all, still nothing. There was no point in creating unnecessary distinctions between the two Pickett sons.

As far as any physical distress the boy might suffer from attending the funeral, Pickett thought it unlikely. The lid of the coffin would be nailed down long before the cortège set out for the burial ground, and even if it wasn’t, the mortal blow had been struck in his father’s back. Either way, Kit shouldn’t see anything to upset him.

Pickett nodded. “All right, then, I’ll talk to him in a little while. Let’s take a look at this first, shall we? With any luck, there’ll be something in here”—he indicated the parcel in his hand—“to shed some light on the last few hours of his life.”

“John, if you would prefer to do this in privacy—”

“I’d rather have you with me,” he insisted. “You might catch something I miss.”

Which was true, of course, so far as it went. But there was more to it than that. He had not seen his father in more than a decade, during which he had gained a wise and compassionate mentor, a wife he loved deeply and who loved him in return, an engaging half-brother, and, soon, a son or daughter of his own. And yet, seeing his father’s lifeless body stretched out on a table in the back room of the Grapes, and then hearing his death discussed so dispassionately at the inquest, had left him feeling as utterly abandoned as he had at fourteen, watching his father led off to the convict ship bound for Plymouth and thence halfway ’round the world to Botany Bay. Even Da’s last, dying thoughts had not been for the son with whom he had just been reunited after a ten-year separation, or even for the second, unexpected child he had only just met. No, his last words had been for the young wife he had lost twenty years earlier.

It was absurd to be jealous of his own mother, but there it was. Perhaps Kit was not the only one to cherish long-buried dreams. Whatever the reason, he found he could not face the prospect of sorting through his father’s belongings alone. And Julia must have understood his dilemma, for she did not press the issue.

Having reached the bedchamber and closed the door against the bright eyes of a curious ten-year-old, Pickett placed the package on the bed, then untied the string and spread open the paper wrappings. Within the creased folds lay a coin purse, a small brass key, a handkerchief, a penknife in need of trimming, a small scrap of paper and a somewhat larger one folded in half, and the watch with its engraved initials, the same watch he had taken away from Kit. The glass that covered its face was now cracked, and no ticking sound emanated from it. Pickett, noting its hands stood at some seven or eight minutes until twelve, wondered if it simply needed winding, or if it was a silent testimony to the exact time at which his father had died. Either way, his father’s body could not have been lying there for long, else the watch, the coin purse, and anything else of value would have been stripped—which, now that he thought of it, would appear to eliminate robbery as a motive for the murder.

He tried winding the watch, but the shaft spun loosely beneath his fingers; the thing was well and truly broken. He resolved to have it repaired for Kit as soon as possible. Had it really been only twenty-four hours earlier that he had snatched it out of the boy’s hand? It seemed a lifetime ago. It was, a voice in his head chided him. Your father’s life, to be exact.

Pushing aside the thought, he tugged open the purse’s drawstring, then dumped out and counted the contents. They amounted to one half-crown piece, two shillings, and four pence—just under five shillings, all told.

“ A ‘man of property,’ ” Pickett echoed bitterly, surveying the meager collection. “Four and ten. It’s not much, is it, to show for more than forty years of life?”

“He left a valise, too, back in his room at the boardinghouse,” Julia reminded him, unaware that he had recently spent half an hour in a tête-à-tête with the bag’s temporary custodian. Before he could inform her of this new development, however, she added firmly, “Although I must dispute the idea that he left little to show for his life. No one who produced you—yes, and Kit, too—can be said to have lived in vain.”

He acknowledged this with a little smile, but his mind was on the piece of paper, on which were scrawled the words 91 Chancery Lane in a firm hand. Wordlessly, he held the paper out to her.

“ ‘91 Chancery Lane,’ ” she read aloud. “Who, or what, lives there?”

“I don’t know, but it shouldn’t be difficult to—”

As Julia examined the small scrap of paper, Pickett had picked up the larger one and unfolded it, and now stared down at it in dismay.

“What have you found?” Julia asked, leaning toward him to see for herself.

“It’s confirmation of Da’s passage. He sailed on the Queen of the Seas.”

Julia regarded him in bewilderment. “But that’s good, isn’t it? You’ll know exactly where to go to look for a list of passengers.”

He gave a humorless laugh. “Oh, I know exactly where to go, all right.”

“Well, then—”

“The Queen of the Seas,” he explained bleakly, “belongs to the firm of Ludlow & Ludlow, Importers.”

* * *

A return to the poorly-lit and insufficiently-heated office where he had endured almost a month of misery as a counting-house clerk was not a prospect Pickett could regard with anything other than dread. As he recalled, Mr. Ludlow’s last words to him had been something along the lines of “—and don’t come back.” He had been more than willing to obey this stricture at the time, since it had been prompted by Julia’s coming to fetch him home to meet with his first real client as an independent investigator.

In any case, he did not expect a warm welcome from his former employer, which was no doubt a good thing, since it meant he was not disappointed when Mr. Ludlow greeted him with, “So it’s you again, is it? I believe I told you that if you walked out the door, you need not bother walking back in. You had your chance and you threw it away, so you’re wasting your time, coming here pleading for your old position back—”

Why is it, Pickett wondered, that suddenly every man I meet expects me to come back to him begging for a favor?

Aloud, he merely said, “I haven’t come seeking a position.” He darted a quick, sympathetic glance at the nervous-looking young man seated at the desk that had once been his, then began to explain the reason for his return to a place in which he’d never wanted to set foot again. “A murder took place in Limehouse recently—”

“Only one?” retorted Mr. Ludlow in mock surprise. “Must’ve been a slow night in the East End.”

“—concerning a man who had only just arrived in England,” Pickett continued, as if he had not spoken. “I have been engaged to discover who killed him, and to bring the killer to justice.” He saw no reason to divulge the fact that his client was only ten years old, nor that the victim was his own as well as his “client”’s father.

“What this can possibly have to do with me, I cannot imagine,” his former employer said in a voice that dared Pickett to contradict him.

“The victim of the crime,” explained Pickett, unfazed, “had disembarked from your own ship Queen of the Seas less than twenty-four hours earlier. I should like to see the ship’s manifest, if you will be so kind.”

“Why the devil should I?” demanded Mr. Ludlow. “You are well aware, or should be, that the Queen of the Seas is a merchant ship. She takes only a handful of passengers as space permits, and once those passengers disembark, this firm assumes no further responsibility for them. However tragic the fate of this unfortunate man, it can have nothing to do with me.”

Having anticipated this response, Pickett heaved a sigh of regret. “I understand, sir.”

“Good,” said Mr. Ludlow, although his expression grew wary, as if he mistrusted Pickett’s ready capitulation.

“I had hoped,” confessed Pickett, his downcast eyes communicating the depth of his disappointment, “that you might be amenable to cooperating with an independent agent who promises his clients discretion, but I’m sure you know your own business best. You need not trouble yourself, sir. I’ll wait until Bow Street serves you with a search warrant, and then get the information I need directly from them.”

He bade Mr. Ludlow a meek “good day,” then turned and retraced his steps to the door, counting under his breath. One…two…three…

“Wait!"

Ten minutes later, he quitted the premises with a neatly transcribed passenger list in his coat pocket and a rather smug smile on his face.