Death by Silver (27 page)

Inspector Hatton’s note the next day asking if Ned could see him about the Nevett case wasn’t unexpected, but being asked to come to Scotland Yard for the meeting was. Ned threaded his way through the maze of buildings and hallways, trying to repress the feeling that Hatton must know all about the poisoned burglar. Most likely he didn’t, and wouldn’t, unless Ned let himself look visibly guilty. He’d learned that lesson long ago, and reminded himself of it firmly.

Hatton’s office was little more than a closet, even smaller than Ned’s own. “I appreciate you coming by,” he said, rising to shake Ned’s hand cheerfully enough. “I can’t get away today, and I’ve something for you to look into, if you will.”

“Whatever would help.” Ned stepped inside,careful not to dislodge any of the files crammed into pigeonholes and stacked on top of a clearly inadequate set of flat drawers. “They don’t give you much room, do they?”

“Nobody’s got much room,” Hatton said. “At least I’m not in the stables. They keep saying they’re going to get us a new building, but you know how that goes.” He waved Ned into the visitor’s chair, which wobbled precariously as Ned sat. “I wanted to ask if you knew of any metaphysician Mrs Edgar Nevett might have used.”

“Not at the Commons, at least not recently,” Ned said. “I’ve made inquiries about that already. Of course it’s possible she went unnoticed, but it’s unusual for us to get female clients, especially ones who come to us alone. I don’t think the pageboys would forget Mrs Nevett that easily.”

“In my experience, boys forget all kinds of things when they’re paid to,” Hatton said. “But it wouldn’t have been recently. I’m wondering if there’s someone she’s used for years.”

“I don’t know that they had a family metaphysician before me,” Ned said. “Of course I’m not privy to their finances, but I’m getting the impression that they’ve come up in the world since Mr Edgar Nevett was young.”

“He’s the one that made the money, you’re right about that,” Hatton said. “He was living off his investments in recent years, but he was in business as a younger man. Mr Reginald Nevett has told us his father felt working for one’s own living built character.”

“By which I take it he wasn’t willing to give Reggie much of an allowance.”

“He doesn’t seem to have been a generous man,” Hatton said. “But it wouldn’t be his metaphysician she’d have used.”

“What have you found out?”

“Maybe nothing. But there’s an old rumor that Edgar only married Louisa in the first place because she used enchantment on him.”

“That’s said often enough, and rarely true,” Ned said. It was easy enough for romantic rivals or disapproving family to blame a misalliance on enchantment, but more often than not, it was merely a case of plain bad judgment.

“I’d say the same, but I’ve heard it more than once,” Hatton said. “There’s more than one old friend of Edgar’s convinced she enchanted him, and apparently the rumor went round the way things do, decades ago, but Edgar finally managed to hush it up.” He shrugged. “First of all, can it even be done, or is the whole business made up to sell sensational papers?”

“You’re talking about a true love charm, not just one meant to make you look more beautiful? There are glamors for beauty that work, I understand, but their requirements…well, it’s all a bit ridiculous. The young ladies I knew at Oxford said it wasn’t worth the chances of fainting halfway through dinner.”

“That much I know. What about the other kind?”

“It can be done,” Ned said reluctantly. “I’ve never seen it myself, but I’ve read about several cases. It’s a tricky kind of enchantment, and it has to be consumed by the target in some way, generally written out and washed into some drink. And it fades quickly. A one-time glamor might inspire a hesitant suitor to propose, or a shy girl to accept, but carrying it on long enough to actually marry is a harder prospect.”

“But it could be done?”

“It could be done, yes. It’s been done before. I suppose if I were setting out to do it myself, I’d try to bribe one of the…” He stumbled over the words for a moment, not wanting to risk making his hypothetical beloved a gentleman, even if he’d only been putting himself in Louisa’s place. “One of the lady’s servants, to administer it in her meals every day.”

“You wouldn’t have to be there?”

“Not if the enchantment were connected to me in some way. Written out in my blood, say, or in ink mixed with my blood. It’s still a risk, because if she missed even a day, the lady might realize something’s wrong. But if not…” Ned shook his head. “The papers are right enough about one thing. It’s worse than seduction. No reputable practitioner would do it.”

“It seems seduction would be easier than getting all the way to the wedding day. If a man induced a young woman to do things she ought not…”

“So that she’d have to marry him or be ruined? I expect it happens. Metaphysics isn’t safe, Hatton. There are any number of dreadful things that can be done with it.”

“You mean like bashing men’s heads in with candlesticks? I know. And men do all manner of things to entice decent young women to marry them, some that would curl your hair if I told you about them, which I won’t. But it’s a lady we’re talking about doing the enchantment, in this case.”

“She might have induced the gentleman to take indecent liberties, and then insisted he salvage her honor by marrying her,” Ned said, feeling increasingly unsettled by the entire topic. He supposed that was what it was to be a policeman, though, to have to think about such things on a daily basis. “Or if she were clever enough, she might be able to keep up the enchantment until the wedding, I suppose.”

“I’m inclined to think she must have,” Hatton said. “Because bewitching him to have his way with her would have been considerably more trouble than just claiming he’d done it. And I wouldn’t put it past Edgar to have said either way that he hadn’t done anything of the sort, and that she couldn’t prove he had, and that she could ruin her own reputation if she wanted to claim it.”

“Her father might have threatened to shoot him.”

“Her father might have done any number of things, but he’s been dead ten years, so we can’t ask him. And there may be nothing to any of this but jealousy in any event. But I’d like you to look into it. There must be practitioners who would do this kind of thing. If not at the Commons, then unlicensed men.”

“I expect there are,” Ned said. It was against the law in modern times to style yourself a metaphysician without a degree from a reputable university, but there were still a few elderly men who’d learned their trade in a time when all that was necessary was a sharp mind and a gift for salesman’s patter, and who carried it on without a degree. There were younger ones, as well, who had picked up a bit out of books or as unlicensed apprentices, and who made their living selling dubious cures and household enchantments in back-alley shops.

“There’s supposed to be an initiative one of these days to expose some of the unlicensed men, sending in undercover officers and all that. I expect that’ll happen about the time we get the new building. Most of them know better than to call themselves metaphysicians, anyway. If someone puts up a sign that says ‘rat-catching, knife-sharpening, and odd jobs done,’ that’s not unlawful, however he catches the rats or sharpens the knives.”

“I’ll see what I can find out,” Ned said. “We do clean up a fair bit of work that’s been done by amateurs messing about. This couldn’t be a rank amateur, though, even if it’s someone without a license to practice. The magic’s a tricky piece of work, not something that a novice could draw out of a book.”

Hatton drummed his fingers on his desk speculatively. “If she did bewitch him, and something went wrong with it after all these years –”

“It’s not the kind of thing that could be carried on for years, though,” Ned said. “That does strain credibility. Most spells that work to dominate the will lose their potency over time. It might work for a few months, maybe a year at best.”

“Long enough to be married.”

“If they were quick about it. But it would have worn off decades ago, not recently.”

Hatton shrugged. “So maybe I’m wrong. But it’s worth looking into. We’ve got few enough good leads.”

“I’ll let you know whatever I find out,” Ned said. He very much wanted to add
by the way, I had a look at a dead man who seems to have been murdered,
as he suspected he might currently technically be an accessory to a crime. Instead he shook hands with Hatton again and went out, wondering exactly how law-abiding a man would have to be not to find leaving the Yard to be a considerable relief.

More so than himself, he concluded, and headed back to his chambers, hoping he might get through the morning without committing any further crimes.

Julian bent over the notes Ned had given him on the structure of the enchantment that had rendered the poison inert. He had to acknowledge that it was a neat piece of work, prepared by someone with solid metaphysical training at either Oxford or Cambridge – or someone whose teachers had been to one of those universities – but beyond that, there wasn’t much to work with. It was simply written, the grammar terse but correct, and it had clearly been entirely effective. If he had to make a guess, he would have said the author was a Cambridge man, based on the placement of the limiting tag before the temporal statement, but it was hardly conclusive. The overall composition of the enchantment made it somewhat more logical to place it there rather than after.

He pushed the paper aside, scowling, and dug his hand into his hair. Why the Devil had Shanley had to come creeping about just at the moment they’d discovered Makins had been poisoned? Because he’d been keeping an eye on them for Mrs Makins: the answer was obvious, and he scowled again at his own carelessness. At least Bolster would be able to reassure her, once Bolster answered his letter.

Bolster’s response didn’t come until eleven, and then it was only a terse note, telling him that Bolster would see him at half past twelve, and naming another public house further into Limehouse. That was meant to intimidate, Julian knew; he acknowledged the note and went to change into his third-best suit, frowning thoughtfully.

The Pillars of Hercules was a sagging two-story building off Ming Street, close enough to the West India Docks that the smell of mud and tar hung in the air, and Julian was glad he’d carried his weighted cane. He ducked into the badly lit public room, and to his relief saw Bolster already seated at a table in the far corner. The place was busy, the customers mostly watermen and workers from the docks, and Julian did his best to remain unobtrusive as he worked his way through he crowd. Even in his worst suit, he was conspicuous, though at least he could pass for an engineer or a marine architect, but he was glad to fetch up at last at Bolster’s table.

“Mr Bolster.”

“Mr Lynes.” Bolster looked at him unsmiling. “Hell’s teeth, what were you doing, to frighten Annie like that?”

“I had no intention of frightening her. “ Julian knew better than to sit without being asked, but he could at least defend himself. “And in fact there’s no cause. Her husband was poisoned, right enough, but I can prove she had no hand in it. I would have told her so myself, if I’d been able to find her.”

Bolster stared at him for a long moment, then kicked a chair away from the table. Julian took that as an invitation and seated himself.

“What’s Shanley to her?” he asked, and the corner of Bolster’s mouth twitched in something like a smile.

“Tom Shanley courted her before she married Joe, that’s true, and he’d like to try again now he’s dead. And before you ask me, yes, he’s the assistant sexton there at St. Mary’s, and made the arrangements for her.”

Julian nodded, seeing the connections form a tidy pattern, very close to his expectations, and Bolster lifted a hand for the waiter. They each ordered a pint, and Bolster leaned his elbows on the table.

“But that doesn’t change the fact that you frightened her badly, Mr Lynes.”

“I didn’t frighten her,” Julian said. “Shanley did that.”

“Poison’s a woman’s weapon,” Bolster said “You had to think she’d run.”

“Joe Makins died of prussic acid,” Julian said. “Had she access to it?”

“Of course she did,” Bolster answered, and Julian swore.

“Murtaugh’s shop. Metal polish or electroplating?”

“Both, I’m told.”

“But that still doesn’t change the important thing,” Julian said. “The poison was enchanted, held inert until the enchantment wound down, and only then did it take effect. Not only does that mean the poison wasn’t in Makins’s dinner, it makes it very unlikely that Mrs Makins could have administered it.”

“And how long did it take you to find that out?” Bolster leaned back as the waiter slammed their pint pots onto the table.

“A good hour and more, though we knew from the start there was something wrong about it.”

“And who’s ‘we’?” Bolster’s eyes narrowed over the rim of his pot.

“I called in a colleague of mine,” Julian said. “A friend, Edward Mathey. He’s a metaphysician, and a damn good one. I trust him implicitly – and, what’s more, I told Mrs Makins I was bringing him in.”