The Thieves' Labyrinth (Albert Newsome 3) (28 page)

‘Hmm. Everything I have seen of the man shows him to be little more than a theatrical performer. The worst he can be suspected of is inserting one of his own playbills into the
victim’s pocket for the sake of publicity. It is bad taste, but nothing more sinister.’

‘Do you think him capable of solving this case before us, George?’

‘Sir – I am no longer certain of what any man is capable.’

Fog lay thick upon the river districts earlier the following day, masking all within its shifting shroud. Buildings became shadows; hulls loomed as leviathans; phantasmal
bridges spanned mere air. Out on the black water, there was little sense of being cradled by the broad metropolis – rather, one peered at amorphous shores and felt adrift off some savage
continent.

The oars clunked in the police galley and Inspector Newsome opened his senses to the
aqua incognita
about them. Cranes and chains sounded from wharfs. The shouts of coal-whippers echoed
flatly from unseen colliers. The disembodied flames of a purlboat’s brazier cast an orange halo and it signalled its presence with a regular bell. Presently, the sky darkened above them:
London-bridge.

In that shadow, Mr Newsome brooded on the previous evening’s meeting with Sir Richard. As expected, the master of the
Aurora
had made a fuss about that pencil illustration of the
dead mate and Sir Richard had delivered the predictable lecture on virtue. Still, nobody yet knew about the tooth, and the other clues in the case were vague enough that he felt he maintained the
advantage. Today was the day he would capitalize on it.

The galley bottom scraped on gravel beneath the massive inner walls of an arch and the mud thereabouts made itself known through a dank, vaporous breath.

‘Here we go, sir,’ said the first constable. ‘I am told that this is where some of the toshers enter the sewers. Low tide is approaching and they congregate at this
time.’

The inspector looked dubiously up the mud bank and into the fog. Something moved there: some limby shape that might have been human or spectral.

‘Ho! You there by the sewer outlet!’ he called to the form. ‘Come down to the water here.’

A person materialized through veils of moisture: a tosher in his eccentric working attire of greasy leather coat, thick canvas trousers and long gutta-percha boots. A policeman’s bullseye
lamp was strapped to his chest and gave out a flickering beam as he picked his way across the detritus with the aid of a tall hoe. Too late, he saw that the caller was a Thames policeman.

‘Fear not, man,’ said Mr Newsome, perceiving the man’s hesitation. ‘It matters not to me that you enter the sewers. Indeed, I would like to ask you about your experiences
there.’

‘Sir – it’s true I’m about to go in,’ said the tosher. ‘There’re but five or six hours when I can do my work before the tide seals the holes . . . Might
you ask me your questions when I return?’

‘No. This is a matter of urgency. How long have you worked in the sewers? Do you know them well?’

‘As well as any man. I’ve laboured there for upwards of seven years and I’ve seen most of what there is to see.’

‘Very good. You are the fellow to suit my needs. I have reason to believe—’

‘Sir – time’s wasting. This is my work, my livelihood . . .’

‘And this is a police matter! I could take you down to Wapping if I chose.’

‘I don’t refuse your questions, sir . . . it’s just that . . . Why don’t you accompany me if you’re so eager? I’ll show you what you seek more readily than I
can tell you about it . . .’

Inspector Newsome weighed the proposition. He looked to his constables in the galley, neither of whom seemed especially perturbed at the idea of their superior venturing into the sewers without
them. His deliberations were rapid.

‘Constables – I will go with this gentleman. If I do not return to this place before the tide covers the bank, you are to see that Sir Richard Mayne himself is notified directly
without delay. Here is my notebook, which you will give to him. It contains information of great value to a case he is engaged upon and is therefore too valuable for me to risk soaking in filth.
See that
nobody
looks at it – and I include both of you – unless I am irretrievably lost to the river. Am I sufficiently clear upon that point?’

‘Yes, sir,’ came the dual response.

His instructions thus given to the increasingly bemused constables, he reached under his seat and took out a bundle wrapped in oilcloth. This he stuffed securely in his coat pocket before
stepping out of the galley onto the bank.

‘Five hours, gentlemen, or when the tide begins to rise,’ was his parting shot. Then he was gone into the fog with the tosher, the pair of them swirling gradually into
invisibility.

The constables waited just two heartbeats before jostling to open the notebook.

‘You’re not dressed for the sewers, sir,’ said the tosher as the two walked towards the outlet. ‘If you can wait until tomorrow, I
could—’

‘No. I have had quite enough of this infernal river. I will tolerate wet feet today if it means one less day in a boat.’

‘As you wish – though I fear wet feet’ll be the least of it, sir. I’ve a spare lamp you may use . . . Here, let me help you into the harness.’

Mr Newsome allowed himself to be fitted with the leather shoulder straps that positioned the metal box at the centre of his chest. Meanwhile, the smell of the sewer insinuated itself into the
fog: a warm exhalation from the city’s innards. It was excremental to be sure, but also bore scents of something else entirely – some ageless accumulation of rotting matter that seemed
to seep from the very strata of London’s history.

‘It’s a good day today,’ said the tosher. ‘The rain’s been light and the flow is meagre, see? It’s all likely to change shortly, of course, on account of
these incessant north-easterlies. Raise the tide something awful they will.’

They stood before the aperture itself, twice as tall as a man but letting forth a modest enough output of grey-brown water over the bank and into the river. It steamed slightly as it emerged and
carried with it items of a more substantial form, which Mr Newsome declined to examine in greater detail.

‘The grey is mostly ash,’ said the tosher, affixing a hat with a long rearward-facing flap and pulling on some long leathern gloves. ‘The brown is—’

‘Thank you – I believe I may know what the brown is.’ Mr Newsome observed the preparations of his guide and attempted to follow suit, folding up the collar of his coat and
rolling cuffs over his gloves. ‘Is it safe inside? Will there be rats?’

‘O yes, there’re plenty of rats, but we’ve an understanding, they and I. We seek different prizes and have no need for conflict. Only remember these few points: step only where
I step, never touch the roof, shout out if you smell gas . . . and never be out of my sight. Are you ready?’

‘I suppose so. Let us proceed.’

Mr Newsome cast a last look towards the river, which was now lost in impenetrable whorls of moisture. Even the bridge itself had been mostly consumed, presenting but a few yards of brickwork
like a ruin from a lost age.

‘Keep to the edge,’ said the tosher as he splashed through a few inches of murky effluvia. ‘There’s a deeper channel down the centre that takes most of the flow. You
don’t want to be up to your thighs in
that
.’

‘Quite. Tell me – what is the extent of these passages?’

‘The extent? Why, I don’t believe any man knows, sir. I myself have gone as far as Holborn and Clerkenwell and glimpsed the city thereabouts through the street’s gulley holes.
There’re passages and chambers from the time of Queen Bess and before.’

‘I mean to ask if there are large spaces under the city where a man might keep animals or . . . or perhaps store materials.’

‘Ha! What curious notions you have, sir! The air and the damp make the sewers a poor place to keep anything except the —— of the populace, pardon my language.’

‘Have you ever encountered any animal larger than a rat down here?’

‘Ah – you’ve been listening to the tales of the mudlarks, have you? I’ve seen no beasts myself but there is one among our number – a fellow called Bates – who
claims to have heard noises in the tunnels about Wapping.’

‘Noises? What noises?’

‘O, he’s old and touched with lunacy is old Bates. Too much gas, I suspect. The sewers have their own noises, see? They channel sound in curious ways, like the tubes and cavities of
our very own ears. Say a manufactory pours a quantity of hot water down the drain in Westminster – in Stepney you might hear thunder as a result. Or say a passage collapses at Cheapside
– here, near the bridge, you would think it above your very head. These are your strange noises. It’s just the sewers.’

‘What of animal prints seen in the mud at low tide? Or rats chewed by a larger predator? Have you never witnessed such things?’

‘Sir – I once saw an eel as thick as a man’s thigh, but it was dead. I’ve seen rats that could pass for cats, but nothing stranger. As for your prints . . . well,
let’s say a normal cat walks upon the mud . . . then the mud shifts and expands according to its nature and the print suddenly appears larger than it was.
These
are the so-called
“mysteries” of the mudlarks. You’ll be disappointed if that is what you have come to find.’

The two men had now passed some few hundred yards into the tunnel, which had narrowed gradually to the comfortable height of a man. What had been a faintly foetid smell by the river, however,
was now increasing in intensity to something that pinched the inspector’s nostrils with its eggy reek. Daylight had faded with every step further into the gloom and the lamps upon their
chests had now become the sole illumination, casting a dim orange light upon the slime-glistening brickwork.

‘Breathe through your mouth if you can,’ said the tosher, taking the right tunnel as they approached a fork. This passage in turn branched off right at a number of intervals and the
sewer-hunter decisively took the third one as they continued deeper under the metropolis. ‘Can you hear it, sir? Can you hear the city?’

They paused their splashing footsteps momentarily and Mr Newsome struggled to disallow the smell from entering his nose. Amid the trickle and drip of the tunnel, a faint rumbling came to them: a
throbbing
basso
note that seemed to emanate from both above and below. Was that the sound of a million souls and their industry: the countless carts and wagons, hooves and feet,
manufactories and railways and markets?

‘When there is silence down here,
that
’
s
when I will worry,’ said the tosher, continuing again towards his goal.

‘Where are we going?’ said Mr Newsome, wiping something viscous from his cheek with a look of disgust.

‘Alas, sir, there are many of us harvesting the sewers. One must explore deeper and deeper to enjoy the spoils. Today, I enter a new branch.’

‘Spoils? What spoils? I have seen nothing more than some scraps of wood amid a bilious soup of filth.’

‘You’ll see, sir. You’ll see.’

‘I certainly hope to. Tell me – I imagine a man accustomed to searching the sewers must eventually become inured to the smell. Is that so?’

‘That’s quite the case, sir. I have made smells at home that have disgusted me more.’

‘I . . . I mean to say that a man may spend time down here and emerge into the city not perhaps realizing how he stinks. He then goes among the crowds quite oblivious to the abhorrence he
evokes.’

‘I’m careful to wash my hands and feet every day, sir, but I dare say there’re some of my kin that are less particular.’

‘I believe I have met one. Do you know a fellow who is rather short and who has the look of a boy about his face? He is . . . well, let us say he is not a talkative fellow.’

‘I can’t recall the man from your description, though there are some boys who do this work. Wait a moment – I must now consult my map . . . shine your lamp at me for a moment,
won’t you?’

Mr Newsome obliged, and the tosher reached into his coat behind the lamp and withdrew a piece of wood about the size and shape of a dinner plate that was strung around his neck on a piece of
leather twine. Etched into its surface with a fine chisel was a bewildering network of lines and branches annotated with letters. He turned the circular board according to their current location
and then counted off some of the apertures visible to them before returning the ‘map’ reverently to its place and proceeding still further into the dark passages.

‘Is that your own guide to the sewers?’ asked Mr Newsome. ‘I would be very interested to make an imprint of it.’

‘You wouldn’t read it, sir, for it is coded. Only I know how to read it, and I would not part with it if you threw me in gaol. Indeed, I would burn it before I would allow another
man to gain possession of it. It has taken me many years to create and is the envy of all shoremen.’

‘I see. Then perhaps you can tell me how extensive it is. Might it extend to Wapping and its environs?’

‘There are indeed sewers thereabouts – old ones, too. But they are often the most treacherous and likely to collapse. Righty-ho, I think we have just about reached our destination .
. .’