Inspector of the Dead
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Synopsis
The year is 1855. The Crimean War is raging. The incompetence of British commanders causes the fall of the English government. The Empire teeters. Amid this crisis comes opium-eater Thomas De Quincey, one of the most notorious and brilliant personalities of Victorian England. Along with his irrepressible daughter, Emily, and their Scotland Yard companions, Ryan and Becker, De Quincey finds himself confronted by an adversary who threatens the heart of the nation.
This killer targets members of the upper echelons of British society, leaving with each corpse the name of someone who previously attempted to kill Queen Victoria. The evidence indicates that the ultimate victim will be Victoria herself.
Release date: March 24, 2015
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Print pages: 352
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Inspector of the Dead
David Morrell
CHAPTER ONE
The Killing Zone
London, 1855
Except for excursions to a theater or a gentlemen’s club, most respectable inhabitants of the largest city on earth took care to be at home before the sun finished setting, which on this cold Saturday evening, the third of February, occurred at six minutes to five.
That time—synchronized with the clock at the Royal Greenwich Observatory—was displayed on a silver pocket watch that an expensively dressed, obviously distinguished gentleman examined beneath a hissing gas lamp. As harsh experiences had taught him, appearance meant everything. The vilest thoughts might lurk within someone, but the external semblance of respectability was all that mattered. For fifteen years now, he couldn’t recall a time when rage had not consumed him, but he had never allowed anyone to suspect, enjoying the surprise of those upon whom he unleashed his fury.
Tonight, he stood at Constitution Hill and stared across the street toward the murky walls of Buckingham Palace. Lights glowed faintly behind curtains there. Given that the British government had collapsed four days earlier because of its shocking mismanagement of the Crimean War, Queen Victoria was no doubt engaged in urgent meetings with her Privy Council. A shadow passing at one of the windows might belong to her or perhaps to her husband, Prince Albert. The gentleman wasn’t certain which of them he hated more.
Approaching footsteps made him turn. A constable appeared, his helmet silhouetted against the fog. As the patrolman focused his lantern on the quality of clothing before him, the gentleman made himself look calm. His top hat, overcoat, and trousers were the finest. His beard—a disguise—would have attracted notice years earlier but was now fashionable. Even his black walking stick with its polished silver knob was the height of fashion.
“Good evening, sir. If you don’t mind me saying, don’t linger,” the constable warned. “It doesn’t do to be out alone in the dark, even in this neighborhood.”
“Thank you, constable. I’ll hurry along.”
From his hiding place, the young man at last heard a target approaching. He’d almost given up, knowing that there was little chance that someone of means would venture alone onto this fog-bound street but knowing also that the fog was his only protection from the constable who passed here every twenty minutes.
Deciding that the footsteps didn’t have the heavy, menacing impact that the constable’s did, the young man prepared for the most desperate act of his life. He’d endured typhoons and fevers on three voyages back and forth from England to the Orient on a British East India Company ship, but they were nothing compared to what he now risked, the penalty for which was hanging. As his stomach growled from hunger, he prayed that its sound wouldn’t betray him.
The footsteps came closer, a top hat coming into view. Despite his weakness, the young man stepped from behind a tree in Green Park. He gripped the wrought-iron fence, vaulted it, and landed in front of a gentleman whose dark beard was visible in the shrouded glow from a nearby street lamp.
The young man gestured with a club. “No need to draw you a picture, I presume, mate. Give me your purse, or it’ll go nasty for you.”
The gentleman studied his dirty, torn sailor’s clothes.
“I said, your purse, mate,” the young man ordered, listening for the sounds of the returning constable. “Be quick. I won’t warn you again.”
“The light isn’t the best, but perhaps you can see my eyes. Look at them carefully.”
“What I’ll do is close them for you if you don’t give me your purse.”
“Do you see fear in them?”
“I will after this.”
The young man lunged, swinging his club.
With astonishing speed, the gentleman pivoted sideways and struck with his cane, jolting the young man’s wrist, knocking the club from it. With a second blow, he whacked the side of the young man’s head, dropping him to the ground.
“Stay down unless you wish more of the same,” the gentleman advised.
Suppressing a groan, the young man clutched his throbbing head.
“Before confronting someone, always look in his eyes. Determine if his resolve is greater than yours. Your age, please.”
The polite tone so surprised the young man that he found himself answering, “Eighteen.”
“What is your name?”
The young man hesitated, shivering from the cold.
“Say it. Your first name will be sufficient. It won’t incriminate you.”
“Ronnie.”
“You mean ‘Ronald.’ If you wish to improve yourself, always use your formal name. Say it.”
“Ronald.”
“Despite the pain of my blows, you had the character not to cry out and alert the constable. Character deserves a reward. How long has it been since you’ve eaten, Ronald?”
“Two days.”
“Your fast has now ended.”
The gentleman dropped five coins onto the path. The faint glow from the nearby street lamp made it difficult for Ronald to identify them. Expecting pennies, he felt astonished when he discovered not pennies or even shillings but gold sovereigns. He stared at them in shock. One gold sovereign was more than most people earned in a week of hard labor, and here were five of them.
“Would you like to receive even more sovereigns, Ronald?”
He clawed at the coins. “Yes.”
“Twenty-five Garner Street in Wapping.” The address was in the blighted East End, as far from the majesty of Green Park as could be imagined. “Repeat it.”
“Twenty-five Garner Street in Wapping.”
“Be there at four tomorrow afternoon. Buy warm clothes. Nothing extravagant, nothing to draw attention. You are about to join a great cause, Ronald. But if you tell anyone about Twenty-five Garner Street, to use your expression it’ll go nasty for you. Let’s see if you do indeed have character or if you throw away the greatest opportunity you will ever receive.”
Heavy footsteps approached.
“The constable. Go,” the bearded gentleman warned. “Don’t disappoint me, Ronald.”
His stomach growling more painfully, astonished by his luck, Ronald clutched his five precious sovereigns and raced into the fog.
As the gentleman continued up Constitution Hill, his watch now showed eight minutes past five. The watches of his associates—also synchronized with the Greenwich Royal Observatory—would display the same time. Everything remained on schedule.
At Piccadilly, he turned right toward one of London’s most respectable districts: Mayfair. He had waited what seemed an eternity for what he was about to enjoy. He had suffered unimaginably to prepare for it. Despite his fierce emotions, he kept a measured pace, determined not to blunt his satisfaction by hurrying.
Even in the fog, he had no trouble finding his way. This was a route that he had followed many times in his memory. It was the same route that he had taken fifteen years earlier when, as a desperate boy, he had raced to the right along Piccadilly, then to the left along Half Moon Street, then left again onto Curzon Street, this way and that, begging.
“Please, sir, I need your help!”
“Get away from me, you filthy vermin!”
The echoes of that hateful time reverberated in his memory as he came to the street known as Chesterfield Hill. He paused where a gas lamp showed an iron railing beyond which five stone steps led up to an oak door. The knocker had the shape of a heraldic lion’s head.
The steps were freshly scrubbed. Noting a boot scraper built into the railing, he applied his soles to it so that he wouldn’t leave evidence. He clutched his walking stick, opened the gate, and climbed the steps. The impact of the knocker echoed within the house.
He heard someone on the opposite side of the door. For a moment, his anticipation made it seem that the world outside the fog no longer existed, that he was in a closet of the universe, that time had stopped. As a hand freed a bolt and the door opened, he readied his cane with its silver knob.
A butler looked puzzled. “His Lordship isn’t expecting visitors.”
The gentleman struck with all his might, impacting the man’s head, knocking him onto a marbled floor. Heartbeat thundering with satisfaction, he entered and shut the door. A few quick steps took him into a spacious hall.
A maid paused at the bottom of an ornate staircase, frowning, obviously puzzled about why the butler hadn’t accompanied the visitor. In a rage, the gentleman swung the cane, feeling its knob crack the maid’s skull. With a dying moan, she collapsed to the floor.
Without the disguise of his beard, the gentleman had been to this house on several occasions. He knew its layout and would need little time to eliminate the remaining servants. Then his satisfaction could begin as he devoted his attention to their masters. Clutching his cane, he proceeded with his great work.
Memories needed to be prodded.
Punishment needed to be inflicted.
CHAPTER TWO
The Curtained Pew
St. James’s Church looked almost too humble to occupy the southeastern boundary of wealthy Mayfair. Designed by Sir Christopher Wren, it gave no indication that the great architect was also responsible for the magnificence of St. Paul’s Cathedral, so strong was the contrast. Narrow, only three stories tall, St. James’s was constructed of simple red brick. Its steeple had a clock, a brass ball, and a weather vane. That was the extent of its ornamentation.
As the bells announced the 11 A.M. Sunday service, a stream of carriages delivered the district’s powerful worshippers. Because a special visitor was expected to relieve the war-gloom, St. James’s filled rapidly. The morning’s sunlight gleamed through numerous tall windows and radiated off white walls, illuminating the church’s interior with glory. It was a dazzling effect for which St. James’s was famous.
Among those entering the church, a group of four attracted attention. Not only were they strangers, but two men in the group were exceptionally tall, nearly six feet, noteworthy at a time when most men measured only about five feet seven inches. In contrast, the third man was unusually short: under five feet.
The group’s clothes attracted attention also. The tall men wore shapeless everyday street garments, hardly what one expected among the frock coats in St. James’s. The short man—much older than the other two—had at least made an attempt to dress for the occasion, but his frayed cuffs and shiny elbows indicated that he belonged in another district.
The fourth member of the group, an attractive young woman of perhaps twenty-one… what was the congregation to make of her? Instead of a fashionable, elaborate hooped dress with voluminous satin ruffles, she wore a loosely hanging skirt with female trousers under it, a style that newspapers derisively termed “bloomers.” The outline and movement of her legs were plainly visible, causing heads to turn and whispers to spread throughout the church.
The whispers increased when one of the tall men removed what seemed to be a newsboy’s cap and revealed bright red hair.
“Irish,” several people murmured.
The other tall man had a scar on his chin, suggesting that his background wasn’t much better.
Everyone expected the motley group to remain in the standing area at the back, where servants and other commoners worshipped. Instead, the attractive young woman in the bloomer skirt—her eyes a startling blue, her lustrous, light brown hair hanging in ringlets behind her bonnet—surprised everyone by approaching the chief pew-opener, Agnes Barrett.
Agnes was sixty years old, white-haired and spectacled. Over the decades, she had risen through the ranks of pew-openers until she was now the custodian of the most important keys. It was rumored that the gratuities she received from pew renters had over the years amounted to an impressive three thousand pounds, well deserved because a good pew-opener knew how to be of service, polishing the pew’s oak, dusting its benches, plumping its pillows, and so forth.
Puzzled, Agnes waited for the young woman in the disgraceful bloomer skirt to state her intention. Perhaps the poor thing was lost. Perhaps she intended to ask directions to a more appropriate church.
“Please show us to Lord Palmerston’s pew,” the young woman requested.
Agnes’s mouth hung open. Had this strange creature said “Lord Palmerston’s pew”? Agnes must have misheard. Lord Palmerston was one of the most influential politicians in the land.
“Pardon me?”
“Lord Palmerston’s pew, if you please.” The troubling visitor gave Agnes a note.
Agnes read it with increasing perplexity. Beyond doubt, the familiar handwriting was indeed Lord Palmerston’s, and the message unquestionably gave these four odd-looking strangers permission to use his pew. But why on earth would His Lordship lower himself to do that?
Agnes tried not to seem flustered. She moved her troubled gaze toward the unusually short man whose eyes were as strikingly blue as the young woman’s and whose hair was the same light brown. Father and daughter, Agnes concluded. The tiny man clutched his hands tensely and shifted his balance from one foot to the other, walking in place. On this cold February morning, his forehead glistened with sweat. Could he be sick?
“Follow me,” Agnes reluctantly replied.
She walked along the central aisle, past pews in a configuration known as “boxed.” Instead of rows that stretched from one aisle to another, these pews were divided into square compartments, eight feet by eight feet, with waist-high sides, backs, and fronts. They contained benches sufficient to accommodate a gentleman and his family. Many box pews resembled sitting areas in homes, with cushions on the benches and carpeting on the floor. Some even had tables on which to set top hats, gloves, and folded coats.
Lord Palmerston’s pew was at the front, to the right of the center aisle. For Agnes, the distance to it had never seemed so long. Although she kept her gaze straight ahead, she couldn’t help sensing the attention that she and the astonishing group with her received. Approaching the white marble altar rail, she turned to face the congregation. Conscious of every gaze upon her, she selected a key from a ring she carried and unlocked the entrance to Lord Palmerston’s pew.
“If His Lordship had notified me that he intended to have guests use his pew, I could have prepared it for you,” Agnes explained. “The charcoal brazier hasn’t been lit.”
“Thank you,” the young woman assured her, “but there’s no need to give us heat. This is far more comfortable than we’re accustomed to at our home church in Edinburgh. We can’t afford to rent a pew there. We stand in the back.”
So she’s from Scotland, Agnes thought. And one of the men is Irish. That explains a great deal.
Lord Palmerston’s box had three rows of benches with backs. The two tall men sat on the middle bench while the woman and her father occupied the front one. Even when he was seated, the little man’s feet moved up and down.
With a forced nod of politeness, Agnes jangled her keys and proceeded to the back of the church, where a churchwarden shifted toward her, looking as puzzled as Agnes felt.
“You know who that little man is, don’t you?” the churchwarden whispered, trying to contain his astonishment.
“I haven’t the faintest. All I know is, his clothes need mending,” Agnes replied.
“The Opium-Eater.”
Again, Agnes was certain that she hadn’t heard correctly. “The Opium-Eater? Thomas De Quincey?”
“In December, when all the murders happened, I saw a picture of him in the Illustrated London News. I was so curious that I went to one of the bookshops where the newspaper said he would sign books for anyone who bought them. An undignified way to earn a living, if you ask me.”
“Don’t tell me he was signing the book.” Agnes lowered her voice, referring to the infamous Confessions of an English Opium-Eater.
“If his name was on it and someone was willing to buy it, he was ready to sign it. That scandalously dressed woman is his daughter. At the bookshop, whenever he tried to pull a bottle from his coat, she brought him a cup of tea to distract him.”
“Mercy,” Agnes said. “Do you suppose the bottle contained laudanum?”
“What else? He must have drunk five cups of tea while I watched him. Imagine how much laudanum he would have consumed if his daughter hadn’t been there. I hope I don’t need to emphasize that I didn’t buy any of his books.”
“No need at all. Who would want to read his wretched scribblings, let alone buy them? Thomas De Quincey, the Opium-Eater, in St. James’s Church? Heaven help us.”
“That’s not the whole of it.”
Agnes listened with greater shock.
“Those two men with the Opium-Eater. One of them is a Scotland Yard detective.”
“Surely not.”
“I recognize him from the constitutional I take every morning along Piccadilly. My route leads me past Lord Palmerston’s mansion, where the younger man over there visits each day at nine. I heard a porter refer to him as ‘detective sergeant.’”
“A detective sergeant? My word.”
“I also heard the porter and the detective talk about another detective, who apparently was wounded during the murders in December. That other detective has been convalescing in Lord Palmerston’s mansion. The Opium-Eater and his daughter stay there, also.”
Agnes felt her cheeks turn pale. “What is this world coming to?”
But Agnes couldn’t permit herself to be distracted. The special visitor would soon arrive. Meanwhile, gentlemen gave her impatient looks, waiting for their pews to be unlocked. She clutched her ring of keys and approached the nearest frowning group, but as if the morning hadn’t brought enough surprises, she suddenly saw Death walk through the front door.
The mid-Victorian way of death was severe. A grieving widow, children, and close relatives were expected to seclude themselves at home and wear mourning clothes for months—in the widow’s case for at least a year and a day.
Thus Agnes gaped at what she now encountered. Astonished churchgoers stepped away from a stern, pinch-faced man whose frock coat, waistcoat, and trousers were as black as black could be. Because Queen Victoria and Prince Albert disapproved of men who wore other than black, gray, or dark blue clothing, it was difficult to look more somber than the male attendees at St. James’s, but the stranger made the glumly dressed men in the church look festive by comparison. In addition, he wore the blackest of gloves while he held a top hat with a mourning band and a black cloth hanging down the back.
A man whose clothing announced that extremity of grief was almost never seen in public, except at the funeral for the loved one he so keenly mourned. Dressed that way at a Sunday service, he attracted everyone’s attention.
But he wasn’t alone. He supported a frail woman whose stooped posture suggested that she was elderly. She wore garments intended to show the deepest of sorrow. Her dress was midnight crepe, the wrinkled surface of which could not reflect light. A black veil hung from the woman’s black bonnet. With a black-gloved hand, she dabbed a black handkerchief under the veil.
“Please unlock Lady Cosgrove’s pew,” the solemn man told Agnes.
“Lady Cosgrove?” Agnes suddenly realized who this woman was. “My goodness, what happened?”
“Please,” the man repeated.
“But Lady Cosgrove sent word that she wouldn’t attend this morning’s service. I haven’t readied her pew.”
“Lady Cosgrove has more grievous concerns than whether her pew has been dusted.”
Without waiting for a reply, the man escorted the unsteady woman along the center aisle. Again Agnes heard whispers and sensed that every pair of eyes was focused on her. She reached the front of the church and turned toward the right, passing the Opium-Eater and his strangely dressed companions in Lord Palmerston’s pew. The little man continued to move his feet up and down.
The next pew at the front was Lady Cosgrove’s. Situated along the right wall, it was the most elaborate in the church. Over the centuries, it had acquired a post at each corner and a canopy above them. Curtains were tied to the posts so that in the event of cold drafts, Lady Cosgrove’s family could draw the curtains and be sheltered on three sides while facing the altar. Even on a warm day, the occupants had been known to draw the curtains, supposedly so that they could worship without feeling observed by the other parishioners when in actuality they were probably napping.
As Agnes unlocked the pew, Lady Cosgrove lowered her black handkerchief from beneath her black veil.
“Thank you,” she told the pinch-featured man.
“Anything to be of assistance, Lady Cosgrove. I’m deeply sorry.”
He gave her a black envelope.
Lady Cosgrove nodded gravely, entered the pew, and sank onto the first of three benches.
Hearing a discreet cough, Agnes noticed that the vicar stood in a doorway near the altar, ready to begin the service. At once the church’s organ began playing “The Son of God Goes Forth to War,” the choir’s voices reverberating off the arched ceiling. With a rumble, everyone stood. Followed by the funereal attendant, Agnes made her way to the back of the church, where she turned to ask about Lady Cosgrove’s distress, but to her surprise, whichever way she looked, the somber man was no longer visible.
Where on earth could he possibly have gone? Agnes wondered. What she did see, however, was the scarlet coat of the special visitor who waited in the vestibule, and with so much excitement, Agnes had difficulty calming the rush of her heart.
“The Son of God goes forth to war / A kingly crown to gain.”
Amid the rising chords of the majestic hymn, the Reverend Samuel Hardesty made his way to the altar, bowed to it, and turned toward his congregation.
Proudly, he scanned his domain: the servants and commoners standing at the back, the wealthy and the noble seated in their pews. Any moment, the special visitor would appear. With a smile that he hoped hid his confusion, the vicar noticed four poorly dressed people, obviously not residents of Mayfair, who inexplicably occupied Lord Palmerston’s pew.
To his farther left was Lady Cosgrove’s pew. The vicar was shocked to see her wearing the blackest of bereavement garments. She unsealed a black envelope and read its contents through her veil. In despair, she rose, untied the curtain at the back of her pew, and pulled it across. She drew the other curtains forward.
Her grief now hidden from everyone except the vicar, she knelt at the front of her pew and rested her brow on its partition.
A glimpse of scarlet made the vicar swing his attention toward the back of the church.
The scarlet became larger, brighter. A fair-haired, handsome man emerged from the crowd. He wore an army officer’s uniform, its brass buttons gleaming. While his erect posture conveyed discipline and resolve, his elegant features were pensive, his intelligent eyes pained, suggesting that his resolve came at a price, the most obvious sign of which was his wounded right arm, which he supported in a sling. A beautiful young woman and her parents accompanied him.
This special visitor was Colonel Anthony Trask. All of London was abuzz about his bravery in the Crimean War—how he had single-handedly dispatched thirty of the enemy at the siege of Sevastopol. After emptying his musket, he had used his bayonet to lead a victorious charge up a blood-drenched slope. He had rallied weary troops and repelled a half-dozen enemy attacks, and if that wasn’t extraordinary enough, he had saved the life of the queen’s cousin, the Duke of Cambridge, when the enemy surrounded the duke’s unit.
Upon his return to London, Queen Victoria had knighted Trask. The Times reported that when she addressed him with his new title as “Sir,” the colonel had asked the queen to keep calling him by his military rank “in honor of all the valiant soldiers I fought with and especially those who died in this blasted war.” When the queen blanched at so vulgar a word as “blasted,” Trask had quickly added, “Forgive my language, Your Majesty. It’s a habit from the years I spent building railways.” Trask hadn’t only physically built railways, but he and his father also owned them and made a fortune from them. Rich, handsome, a hero—privately, it was said, young noblemen hated his perfection.
As the hymn reverberated, the group reached the front of the church. After Agnes hurried to unlock the pew, Colonel Trask followed his beautiful companion and her parents inside.
The organ extended the hymn’s final chord. St. James’s fell into a noble silence.
The Reverend Samuel Hardesty smiled broadly. “My deepest welcome to everyone, with a more-than-special welcome to Colonel Trask. His heroism inspires us all.”
Some parishioners raised their hands as if to applaud but then remembered where they were.
The vicar shifted his gaze to the left, toward Lady Cosgrove. “Whenever our burdens become too great, consider the hardships that our brave soldiers endure. If they can be strong, we can also.”
Flanked by curtains, Lady Cosgrove remained kneeling with her forehead against the front of her pew.
“There is no calamity with which God tests us that we cannot bear. When we have the Lord on our side…”
A glimpse of scarlet made the vicar pause. But this time it wasn’t the scarlet of Colonel Trask’s uniform. Instead it was liquid on the floor in front of Lady Cosgrove’s pew.
The vicar’s hesitation caused a few puzzled whispers.
“Indeed, with the Lord on our side…”
The scarlet liquid was spreading. Its source was the bottom of the entrance to Lady Cosgrove’s pew. Had Her Ladyship spilled something? the vicar wondered. Might she have brought a container of medicine that she had accidentally dropped?
Lady Cosgrove shifted, inexplicably moving in two directions.
Her black-veiled face tilted upward while the remainder of her body slid downward.
“My God!” the vicar exclaimed.
Up and back went Lady Cosgrove’s head, and now the vicar saw her mouth, but the mouth became wider and deeper—and great heaven, that wasn’t Lady Cosgrove’s mouth. No mouth was ever that wide and red.
Her throat was gashed from ear to ear,
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