Chapter 13

 

In Which John Pickett Claims a Valise

 

Behind the wire-rimmed spectacles perched on his pink and peeling nose, Sully’s light blue eyes wore an expression of almost comic dismay. “Nursing a g-grudge is one thing; committing m-murder is quite another!”

“But someone felt he—or she—had cause,” Pickett said.

“Not n-necessarily,” protested Sully. “Life is cheap along the w-waterfront; a man who’s looking for t-trouble can usually f-find it, w-with or without a reason.”

“Still, it’s curious that Da’s pockets weren’t rifled. His coin purse didn’t contain a fortune, but it surely must have been worth someone’s while to nab. Then, too, his watch would have been good for something, even with its face cracked. If you’re going to go to the trouble of killing a man, you might as well make it worth your while.”

“By God, you’re a cold-blooded f-fellow!” exclaimed Sully, regarding Pickett with something like revulsion.

“I’m only trying to see Da’s murder from his killer’s perspective,” Pickett insisted. “And I can’t imagine any situation in which a random attack makes sense. Which brings us back to the Queen of the Seas.”

Sully conceded the point with a sigh of resignation, and Pickett withdrew the small notebook from his coat pocket, flipping its pages until he came to the list of names.

“I’ve just come from the docks at Rotherhithe, where I talked to the ship’s master and a member of her crew.” Pickett gave his host a mischievous smile. “Tell me, did you get in on any of the penny-pitching?”

Sully’s answering grin was somewhat sheepish. “Oh, I p-pocketed my f-fair share, but I never had anything to equal J-Jack’s skill.”

“So,” Pickett began, once again consulting his notebook, “we’ve got illicit gambling in the cargo hold, and a clandestine love affair in the—wherever they could find a quiet, dark corner, I suppose. What about the Reverend Mr. Edwin Marsh and his wife? What did they think of all these immoral goings-on? Might one of them—or both—have thought to play the part of divine retribution?”

“In f-fairness to the reverend, one c-couldn’t expect him to approve of Jack’s c-conduct on board ship, never m-mind the actions that had g-got him t-transported in the first place,” Sully allowed generously. “Still, he d-did his b-best to t-take people as he f-found them. Pity the same c-can’t be said for his wife, Harriet. Harriet? Harridan, more like, who d-disapproves of everybody and everything. Mind you, I think it was mostly j-jealousy. It was Lady Stapleton who had all the men j-jumping to set a chair for her, or c-catching her shawl when the wind t-tried to take it, or lending her a spyglass so she c-could see the whales—”

Pickett looked up in sudden interest from the notes he was jotting in the margins. “Whales? Were there whales? No, don’t answer that,” he said, wrenching his mind back to the business at hand. “It’ll have to be the valise, then, since the passenger list doesn’t appear to be much help.”

“Oh, right,” Sully said hastily, setting aside his cup and rising to his feet. “We shoved our b-bags under the b-bed, so as not to c-clutter up the room.”

In proof of this statement, he knelt on the rag rug beside the bed, then reached underneath and dragged out a somewhat worn leather valise with brass fittings, including, Pickett noticed with interest, a lock. Sully set the valise on the bed—an act which would no doubt bring Mrs. Huggins’s wrath down upon his head when she saw the counterpane white with dust from beneath the bed—and turned to address Pickett over his shoulder.

“I’m afraid it’s locked,” he said apologetically, “and I d-don’t know what your father d-did with the key.”

Pickett recalled the small brass key that had been amongst the detritus of his father’s life, all wrapped in brown paper and given to him by the coroner, and wondered if this lock was its match. Had his father carried it on his person simply as a matter of principle, or had he wanted to be sure his crony could not rifle through his belongings in his absence? And, if it had been the latter, exactly what was it that his father had not wanted Sullivan Bradley to see or, perhaps, to confiscate?

He looked up from his examination to query Sully. “Have you something long and narrow that I can borrow?”

“Do you mean to say you can d-do that, t-too?”

Sully’s voice was filled with admiration. Too much admiration? Pickett wondered.

“I d-don’t think the lock exists that Jack c-couldn’t get into,” he continued. “He showed me the t-trick of it more than once, b-but I was never able to m-master it.”

Though not for lack of trying, Pickett thought, noting the faint scratches around the keyhole. He chided himself for the thought. If his father had bought the valise at second hand, the scratches might have been there all along. Or his father might have accidentally locked the key inside, and been obliged to pick his own lock in order to retrieve it. He was forced to abandon this theory, however; if Gentleman Jack had picked the lock, there would be no scratches, nor any other indications of clandestine entry.

Of course, these scratches might be the result of those lessons which Sully readily owned had been unsuccessful.

Or Sully might have had a go at it in the hope of discovering something that might prove important the inquest.

Or he might have thought to discover the whereabouts of Jack Pickett’s son, in order to inform him of his father’s death.

Or he might have tried to force the lock out of lurid curiosity.

In any case, no real harm had been done, and lurid curiosity, after all, was no crime.

While Pickett considered these possibilities, Sully pulled open the top drawer of a rickety chest which rocked on its slightly uneven legs, and returned with a somewhat showy cravat pin comprising a large ruby in an ornate setting of gold.

He accepted this offering with assurances to Sully that it would not be damaged, and inserted it into the lock. A moment later, he heard the satisfying click of the lock as it yielded.

What followed was, he was forced to concede, a disappointment. He wasn’t quite sure what he’d expected to find in his father’s valise, but whatever it was, he’d not found it there. In fact, there was nothing in the valise that could not have belonged to a hundred other men: a straight razor and a shaving brush, a cravat, two pairs of stockings, two shirts of dingy white linen, a waistcoat with one of its mother-of-pearl buttons missing, a dark brown double-breasted tailcoat with sleeves rather worn at the elbows, a small glass vial filled with what appeared to be dirt, and a small stack of letters tied with a narrow blue ribbon. Looking over his father’s meager wardrobe, Pickett realized he’d donned his best clothes before seeking out the now-grown son he hadn’t seen in more than a decade, and was oddly touched.

He let the coat fall back into the valise, picked up the letters, and pulled the end of the ribbon until the knot gave. There were three of them, all with wax seals broken, and it was clear that they had not been delivered by the post; they bore no direction at all, only the single word Jack written in a flowing script. Frowning, Pickett raised one of the letters to his nose. The heady scent of jasmine filled his nostrils. He was not quite certain whether he ought to read them or not; he was not at all sure he wanted to know about his father’s shipboard escapades, and yet, if he himself had any obligation to the lady…

One thing, at least, was certain: he had no intention of reading them here, under the curious gaze of a third party. He put the letters and their accompanying ribbon back into the valise and turned his attention to the glass vial. He turned it over in his hand, studying its contents for a long moment, then withdrew the cork plug and shook some of the substance into his hand and touched it to his tongue. Yes, he thought, grimacing. Definitely dirt.

“Is that what it looks like?” asked Sully, peering at it.

“If you think it looks like dirt, then yes, it is,” Pickett said, then added, “although why Da decided to bottle it and bring it halfway ’round the world escapes me. I wouldn’t have thought his memories of Botany Bay were so pleasant as to make him want a permanent reminder.”

I’ve become a man of property… Surely even one of so optimistic a temperament as his father would find it difficult to believe that a small glass bottle filled with dirt could be considered “property,” by any definition of the word. Unless…

“Tell me,” he said aloud, “did you ever hear my father say anything about acquiring property—real estate, I mean?”

Sully’s expression grew guarded. “So he told you about that, did he?”

“He made a few cryptic boasts about becoming a man of property, which I took to mean land, but he never said how he acquired it.” Because I never asked, Pickett silently chided himself. Because I was so certain it was an idle boast that I changed the subject every time he brought it up. And now, for his sins, he was left with the responsibility of discovering exactly what mischief his father had been up to, and making it right. “If he swindled it off some poor sap—”

“No, not a b-bit of it,” Sully assured him hastily. “I should say it was more likely that he was the victim of such a scheme, rather than the perpetrator. I don’t know how familiar you are with that part of the world—”

“Hardly at all,” put in Pickett.

“Nor was J-Jack, else he would have known the land in the interior is p-practically worthless, f-full of wild men and w-weird animals.”

“In fact, the biter bit,” Pickett observed dryly. “What a pity he didn’t live long enough to realize he’d been had! It might have done him a world of good.”

“Now, now, m-mustn’t speak ill of the d-dead, you know,” Sully chided him gently.

“What I don’t understand,” Pickett said, ignoring this caveat, “is how he had the money to buy it in the first place. He never had two farthings to rub together!”

“I b-believe there was s-someone in England who sent him m-money from time to time.”

“It was me!” Pickett said, indignation causing him to lose his grasp of grammar. For almost six years, he’d sent half of his earnings to his father, partly out of some sense of filial duty, and half to assuage a guilty conscience, knowing that they were the fruits of an occupation his father would have deplored, and paid out by the same man who had sentenced him to be transported. And all the while, his father had been throwing it away on land speculation.

“Ah, well,” Sully was saying, shaking his head sadly, “maybe it’s b-best that he never knew he’d been p-played for a f-fool.”

Pickett could not agree, but made no response beyond a skeptical look before saying, “Look here, you and Da are much of a size. Would you like to have any of his things?”

“That’s very generous of you, J-John—may I c-call you John? I realize I’m a c-complete stranger to you, but I f-feel as if I’ve known you for m-many years.” Upon being granted this liberty, Sully continued. “As I said, it’s very generous of you, b-but are you sure you w-won’t wish to k-keep them?”

Pickett nodded. “Yes, quite sure.”

As he recalled from his youth, Jack Pickett had prided himself on being quite nattily dressed, as much as was possible for a man of his uncertain means. Still, no man who had been fitted out by Julia, courtesy of Mr. Meyer of Conduit Street, would find anything in Gentleman Jack’s wardrobe to tempt him.

“Very well, then, if you’re sure you don’t mind,” Sully conceded, then selected one of the two shirts, the cravat, and, after a severe struggle with his conscience, the tailcoat. “Thank you, J-John. And if I can d-do anything to help you sort your f-father’s affairs, please d-don’t hesitate to ask.”

“I might just take you up on that,” Pickett warned him, then snapped the valise shut, hefted it off the bed, and took his leave.