Doktor Glass (16 page)

“She’s one of our regulars,” Nurse Milne said, smiling. “She’s down here three, four times a week. Considering how hard she works at the Infirmary every day, I don’t know how she does it. The people here swear by her.”

Langton hesitated, then took a gamble. “I suppose the Infirmary doctors are much too busy to help…I mean, people like Professor Caldwell Chivers couldn’t involve themselves with something like the camp, could they?”

“You’d think so.” Nurse Milne’s smile widened, and she looked behind her as though checking for eavesdroppers. “I shouldn’t tell you this—the Infirmary Board wouldn’t like it—but the Professor has been known to take on a case or two. Only the most serious, mind you. I think he does it as a favor to Sister Wright.”

With this, she took Langton’s hands in her own and held them up to the light. “Just about dry. We’ll soon have you on your way.”

As she wound clean cotton bandages around his hands, Langton wondered how her news fitted in with the other facts. So Sister Wright and the Professor helped out at the camp; it was not a crime. Quite the opposite.

“There you are, Inspector. All done.” Nurse Milne smiled again, rumpling her pale, tired features. She brushed escaping blond hair back beneath her cap, then reached out her thumb and pulled down the skin under Langton’s eyes. “You should eat more, Inspector. And sleep. I’ve seen healthier people here in the camp.”

“I’ve been a little…busy, lately.”

“That’s no excuse,” she said, but she still smiled. “You must take care of yourself. We have a duty to God.”

What could he tell her? That his life meant nothing? That each day’s struggle seemed harder than the day before? Instead, he returned her smile. “Thank you. I appreciate the advice.”

As he reached for the door, he asked, “Have you ever seen anyone in the camp with small burns under each ear?”

Nurse Milne thought for a moment. “I can’t remember exactly when, but I’m sure I have. Small, square burns about this big?”

“That’s it. Can you remember what happened to them? Did you treat them?”

“Well, no, I wouldn’t have. By the time I reached them, a young girl and a boy, I think, it was already too late.”

*  *  *

O
UTSIDE
,
ON THE
main street, Langton found Lloyd leaning under an eave and smoking a long-stemmed clay pipe. “Nurse sorted you out all right?”

“She did.” Langton held up his bandaged hands as proof.

Lloyd nodded. “She’s a good sort. Come on, I’ll walk you back to the gate.”

“Where’s Mr. Dowden?”

“Had to go back to the Corpy.”

An uneven layer of white hail hid the muddy street, although the grey clouds overhead had started to rip apart, exposing blue sky between ragged edges. Langton’s footsteps crunched. He buried his tingling hands in his pockets and said, “I need to ask a favor, Mr. Lloyd: Will you and your men keep an eye out for Durham?”

“Your man in the tunnel? I don’t know.” Lloyd hawked and spat on the cold ground. “I don’t like murder, but I don’t much like helping the coppers neither. Nothing personal, mind; you don’t seem like the worst of them.”

Langton smiled.

As they stopped where the main street met the entrance gate, Langton said, “I don’t know if Durham killed Kepler and cut off his face, but if he didn’t, he knows who did. I’m sure of it. Just as I’m sure there’s more to the deaths than mere coincidence.”

Lloyd glanced at the watching guards. “I’d be surprised if he comes out of them tunnels. A rats’ warren, they are; nobody knows where they lead. He’s probably lying at the bottom of some shaft or sluice. Or under the river.”

“Maybe so. But if he has killed—perhaps more than once—there’s a chance that the people inside this camp might be in danger.”

Lloyd nodded. “We’ll watch out for him.”

Langton stuck out his hand; after a moment’s hesitation, Lloyd shook it. As he walked back along the front of the Pier Head, past the incomplete Liver Guaranty Building, Langton wondered if Durham still struggled along tunnels somewhere below those very same cobbles. Dark, cold, slimy, silent save for the scurrying of rats and cockroaches. Langton shuddered.

Perhaps he should save his sympathy. If Durham had nothing to do with Kepler’s murder, why did he flee? Langton didn’t like the phrase
No smoke without fire
, but surely there must be some guilt or blame behind Durham’s repeated escapes?

He could have another motive: fear. Fear of the same fate from the same murderer.

The deep thunder of an electric train made Langton look up at the elevated railway overhead, the dockers’ umbrella. From where he stood, close to the Captain’s Cabin tobacconist kiosk that seemed to grow out of a support pillar, he could also see the Span. How far the engineers had come; how quickly life changed. Then, as the train faded, the music of a military band drifted from the south.

“That’ll be the Brigade of Guards over at the Span offices. Saw them marching up this morning.”

Langton turned and saw the proprietor of the kiosk leaning from
the hatchway framed by cigars, cigarettes, pipes, and glass jars of dark tobacco.

The old woman drew her shawl tighter and continued, “Going to be a fine sight and no mistake, all them fine uniforms, the horses with their leathers and brass shined up. Been serving more soldiers and officers in the past two days than I have all year. Demons for tobacco, they are. They’ll look a treat for Her Majesty.”

“I’m sure they will,” Langton said, smiling and turning to go. Then he froze.

“Get you something, sir?”

In front of Langton, on the wall of the kiosk, stood an advertisement for Capstan Full Strength cigarettes. The salt air had eaten away some of the etched mirror background, but enough remained to show Langton the reflected view behind him. Hadn’t he seen that man before? Squat, stocky, with black laborers’ jacket and cloth cap pulled down tight. He stood at the iron stairs leading up to the railway ticket office, seemingly studying the posted timetable.

“Sir?”

“A pack of…Capstan, please.”

“Caps it is, sir. One and six.”

Langton fumbled in his pockets for money and dropped coins onto the counter. The woman saw his bandaged hands and glanced up at him, but didn’t say anything other than, “And sixpence change, sir.”

Sliding the unwanted pack of cigarettes into his pocket, Langton crossed the road to Water Street. He fought the urge to look back. Water Street led to bustling Dale Street, where shop windows offered fragments of reflections, pedestrians’ faces reduced to shards. Langton pushed through the tide of people and stared at the windows’ images.

There, in the angled bow window of a confectioner’s shop, the reflection of the man in black coat and grey cloth cap. Langton stopped and looked at the cakes and sweets in the window; the man slowed,
then merged with the press of bodies waiting at the tram stop. He seemed to disappear like a lizard slinking between rocks in the hot Transvaal sun.

Ahead lay the junction of Dale Street and Sir Thomas Street, then Victoria Street. Langton turned the corner and stepped back into a side door. With one hand on the Webley revolver, he waited. He watched the pedestrians streaming past. Was he overreacting? Plenty of men dressed like his supposed pursuer—it was almost a uniform—but Langton could have sworn he’d seen the man standing at the tram stop outside the camp gatehouse.

Five minutes became ten. Fifteen. Langton stepped out of the doorway. As he climbed the steps of headquarters, he wondered who might want him followed. Lloyd? Doktor Glass? Or had fatigue finally brought paranoia?

“Was Bert any help, Inspector?”

Langton looked around the lobby and saw the desk sergeant peering over the shoulders of constables gathered around the counter. “Bert? You mean Mr. Dowden. Yes, a great help, thank you.”

Langton made for the stairs, then remembered his conversation with Dowden just before he’d left the Bull and Run. He’d spoken of people disappearing, of gangs coming for them in the night. “Sergeant, when next you see Mr. Dowden, will you tell him I’d like to speak to him again?”

Back in his office, Langton eased off his coat and slumped down in his seat. His hands throbbed. He tried adding the day’s events to Kepler’s case file, but the bandages made him clumsy. He gave up and slumped back in his chair, staring at the ceiling. His eyes closed.

He woke up at a knock on the door. “Come in.”

Harry, the office boy, glanced at Langton’s hands and said, “Chief would like to see you, sir. Been asking.”

Using the closet’s water basin and jug, Langton dabbed a wet flannel on his face. Again, he thought of the Benzedrine tablets. “Harry, fetch me a jug of coffee, would you?”

“Anything to eat, sir?”

Langton started to say no, then remembered Nurse Milne’s advice. “Something light, Harry.”

Upstairs, the secretary waved Langton through to the Chief Inspector’s room, where Purcell sat at the wide desk. Major Fallows stood at the window, looking down on the Victoria Street traffic; his cigar sent writhing trails of blue smoke up to the ceiling to join the strata already waiting there.

“We need news, Langton,” Purcell said. “The clock is ticking and you seem to be out of your office every time I visit.”

With difficulty, Langton bit back the first comment that came to mind. Instead he gave Purcell and Fallows a brief résumé of recent events, from the murder of Redfers to the dead burglar at Mrs. Grizedale’s house. When he related Durham’s escape, he saw Fallows turn from the window.

“You let him escape a second time?” Fallows said.

“Not out of choice, Major.”

“Surely this proves that Durham murdered this man Kepler?” Purcell said.

Langton hesitated. “Perhaps, sir.”

“He flees every time you try to apprehend him. What more do you need?”

Proof,
Langton said to himself. And aloud: “The motive troubles me. I cannot yet see why Durham would kill his partner, mutilate the body to guarantee publicity, then calmly return to work on the docks. Then there’s the money we found at their lodgings, and the many telegrams they sent. They were part of something much larger.”

The florid coloring left Purcell’s face. “A Boer conspiracy?”

Before Langton could reply, Fallows said, “I wonder whether Inspector Langton is allowing himself to be distracted.”

Langton waited. He longed to itch the burning palms of his hands.

Fallows continued, “Bearing in mind what I found in the case file, I can see that you actually have two separate cases here: Kepler with
Stoker Olsen, and now this Doctor Redfers. Where the dead burglar in Everton fits in is another issue, and probably incidental at that.”

“I don’t think it’s quite that straightforward, Major,” Langton said. “I believe they may be linked.”

“How?” Purcell asked.

“They have certain characteristics in common.” Langton really did not want to bring up the connection.

Fallows did it for him. “You mean the Jar Boys, Langton?”

Purcell straightened in his seat. “What have they to do with this?”

Now, Langton had no choice but to explain. “Certain marks were found on Kepler and Redfers. Expert opinion suggests these were made by an electrical procedure just before death.”

“You make it sound almost scientific,” Fallows said. “This is mere superstition from desperate families.”

How could Langton argue? He’d seen the paraphernalia in Redfers’s house, the transmitter, and the room that had recently held jars; he’d spoken with Forbes Paterson, with Mrs. Grizedale, with Professor Caldwell Chivers, and with Doctor Fry. “Superstition or not, Major, I believe there is a connection. That is why I’d like to send search teams down after Durham.”

Purcell stared at him. “Have you any idea of what you’re asking for? The cost alone would make me think twice, but with every man needed for the Queen’s visit, there is no way—”

“Arrange it, Chief Inspector,” Fallows said. When both Purcell and Langton looked at him, he continued, “This man Durham may pose a threat to Her Majesty. We must find him.”

Purcell said, “But…the cost, Major.”

Fallows waved that away. “Can you put a price on Her Majesty’s life? Exactly. As for the manpower, you can use one of the underground search teams you put at my disposal. This is more important than checking the Span’s foundations.”

Purcell looked at Fallows, then Langton. “Very well. I’ll arrange it
myself. Mark my words, Langton: I will not have you wasting valuable police time.”

The color had returned to Purcell’s face as he spoke. “The Queen herself arrives in three days and you chase phantoms like some backward peasant just off the boat. You are to concentrate on Kepler and Durham—do you understand? No more ghosts or specters. This case owes nothing to the supernatural. Nothing, Langton. Remember that.”

As Langton reached for the door, about to leave, Purcell added, “I thought you were ready to return to duty. Don’t prove me wrong, or I might have to assign another inspector to this case. At the very least.”

Langton strode past the secretary and down to his office. He paused at the landing and took deep breaths. Slowly his hands uncurled. He forced himself to look at the case from Purcell’s perspective. The Jar Boys
did
sound ridiculous. Superstition. Fireside ghost stories. He couldn’t really blame Purcell for being skeptical, even if the man’s anger did seem an overreaction. Then again, the Queen’s visit offered Purcell the greatest opportunity to advance his career. And also the opportunity for the most embarrassment.

“Inspector.”

Langton looked up the staircase and saw Major Fallows descending.

“Inspector, I wanted to say…” Fallows waited until two clerks had walked past them. “I’m sorry to hear of your loss. Don’t give my words the wrong meaning; when I talked of mere superstition—”

“I know, Major.” Langton raised one bandaged hand. “You’ve no need to explain. I agree; it does look like superstition. Or madness. And perhaps I am allowing Sarah’s…allowing what happened to influence me. Maybe Purcell should replace me.”

Fallows shook his head. “I know of your record, and not just in the police force. I doubt that Purcell could find a more dedicated officer. Her Majesty’s visit must take precedence. It will be difficult, but try to concentrate on finding Durham, for the sooner this man is captured, the better. Whether by your constables or my men is unimportant.”