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

One learned, of course, after time and whether one wanted to or not, to read the river: the slim difference at one hundred yards between a Dutch eel boat and a Hastings smack; the ochre sail of
a distant barge compared to the startling salt-starched white of the returning whaler; the loaded boats low in the water and the unloaded waiting for their ballast; the leaning yards and looped
canvas of the ship long in port, or the oakum scent of the vessel heading outwards newly supplied with rope. In that sense, and to an ex-beat policeman, it held at least some similarity with the
streets. It was a vast, singular street to belittle all others – the oldest, the busiest and the most dangerous in London.

For their part, the constables of the Thames Police did not dare ask why this eminent detective had so recently and inexplicably adopted the uniform once more to come among their number –
particularly as he did so with such obvious reluctance. True, they gossiped as constables will about an alleged scandal, about a criminal’s death in custody or an altercation between
Inspector Newsome and the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Richard Mayne – but none could agree on the truth.

In fact, if we were to follow the inspector’s history back a number of months, we would have found him in Sir Richard’s office at Scotland Yard, facing once again the stern glare of
the commissioner’s intelligent eyes over the top of that broad desk.

‘So, Inspector – what punishment are you to face?’

‘Sir Richard – I feel I must deny all knowledge of this ledger that you say you found in my office.’

‘I do not
say
I found it. I found it. And I will have no more of that insolent tone. I would be quite justified in ejecting you from the force in ignominy for what you have
done.’

‘Sir – if, for the sake of discussion, I
had
compiled a secret catalogue of the vices of London’s eminent people . . .’

‘Dispense with your conditional clause, Inspector. Your grammar cannot exculpate you.’

‘Justice was the sole spur to my action, sir. I sought neither personal advantage nor salacious entertainment.’

‘That may be, but you have disgraced the Force with your actions. It is not just the ledger, but also your handling of this recent case. You have let others get the better of you. If your
behaviour were known outside this office, you would now be on the street: a common citizen. As it is, you are a senior policeman with an illustrious – if tarnished – record dating back
to our very beginnings.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘Nevertheless, you must not escape punishment. As of this moment, you are no longer a member of the Detective Force—’

‘Sir! I must protes—’

‘I say you are not a detective! Tomorrow you take up a position with the same rank in the Thames Police. You will supervise two constables in a galley in the Upper Pool and you will work
with your new colleagues to limit petty smuggling and river infractions wherever you may see them.’

‘I believe I would rather be a citizen.’

‘Enough of your petulance. It is that sort of attitude to authority that has brought you to this. I expected gratefulness for your unimpaired rank, but I see I am entirely correct in my
course of action. Do you have anything further to add?’

‘No . . . Yes, I do. Under what circumstances could I earn again my position in the Detective Force?’

‘Finally, a question worthy of your character. I will say only this: your position remains open. When you have demonstrated to me once more that you are the man to fill it – when you
show me the virtues of a righteous and true investigator – then you will return. And only then. I believe there will be ample opportunities on the river. Now – make yourself known at
the Wapping Police Office tomorrow at six o’clock. They are expecting you.’

‘Righteous and true . . .’ mumbled Mr Newsome with a scowl, his eyes unfocused upon the water.

‘Sorry, sir?’ said the first constable. ‘Were you speaking to us?’

‘Nothing. It was nothing. Are you watching the river?’

‘Yes, sir. But I have seen only the things that do not interest you.’

‘That is enough impertinence, Constable. Do you not read
the Times
?’

‘I occasionally look at the sporting intelligence, sir . . .’

‘Well, if you were a little more literate you might have looked at the correspondence. In recent days, there have been a number of letters concerning improprieties in just this stretch of
the river: alleged corruption among the Custom House officials. That is the kind of thing we should be looking for.’

‘Yes, sir. Alas, I have seen noth—
Wait!
Do you see over there by the collier being unloaded?’

‘Where?’ Mr Newsome stood in the galley for a better view. ‘Which one? Point it out. There are dozens of the infernal things.’

‘There . . . just short of Tooley-stairs,’ said the constable, directing his finger into a thicket of hulls. ‘Something in the water. I saw something rise above the surface . .
.’

Mr Newsome stared where directed but saw only sooty timbers lapped by the greasy swell. ‘What was it? What did you see, Constable?’

‘I would not like to say for sure, but it might have been a body. I cannot see it now. Perhaps I was mistaken . . . some piece of debris . . . a wool bag.’

The three of them scanned the water for any sign.

And then there it was: a dark hump rising from the depths. It might have been a garment buoyed with air or a half-floating bale . . . were it not for the pale skin and the hair.

‘Row, boys!’ shouted Mr Newsome. ‘Put your backs into it and row!’

The tether was unhooked, the oars splashed and they were off with a jerk, the inspector standing now with a kind of practised harpooner ease and his eyes fixed unblinkingly on the body.

The bobbing thing was now clearly visible at the surface. Others had seen it also and a clamour arose upon the collier, where coal-blackened lumpers leaned overboard to point. A boathook was
handed from man to man to extract the object, but Inspector Newsome shouted to them:

‘No! Do not hook it! You may damage evidence!’

The galley pulled rapidly alongside the collier with a bump. The first constable tossed a rope up to the coal-lumpers and the two vessels nestled against each other.

Close to, the corpse wallowed face down in water stained black by coal dust. It wore a dark pea coat, and the white flesh of the forehead was revealed briefly as it bobbed amid the waves.

‘Hand me that hook now,’ called Mr Newsome to the lumpers above.

The boathook was passed down into his outstretched palm and he manoeuvred its end carefully under the arm of the body, straining to turn it over in the water. A face appeared, revealing dead
eyes and a flap of bloodless skin hanging loose from the left cheekbone.

‘Take the arms, boys,’ he said. ‘Careful now, he is d—— heavy.’

Together, and with the shouted accompaniment of the lumpers, they struggled to heave him into the galley, which pitched alarmingly under their exertions. Finally, and with much muttering from
the constables, the legs flopped over the gunwale, dragging about two feet of rattling iron chain after them.

‘Well – what do you make of that?’ said the inspector, examining the chain about the ankles. ‘It looks like our swimmer was not meant to surface.’

The dead man lay sprawled in the bottom of the galley, his saturated clothes creating a pool of dirty water about him. If there was any wound, the blood had long since passed into the river.

‘What do you think, sir?’ asked the first constable, squeezing water from his own jacket cuffs.

‘I think I would like to get this man back to the station at Wapping and see what he can tell us about why someone would wrap his legs in chain.’

‘Do you think it is murder, sir?’

‘Closer investigation will tell us more, Constable. But I most definitely hope so. To your oars!’

Among the manifold thieves in London, perhaps none is more notorious than the pickpocket. The cracksman may take greater risks as he ascends buildings, and the embezzler may
make more money for his troubles, but it is the pickpocket whose name lives in infamy among visiters to the city. In France, in Germany, in Holland and, indeed, across the world, they speak of his
skills in tones of half-admiring outrage.

For there is nothing to the pickpocket so ignoble as mere
theft
. The ‘lift’, as he terms it, is both a science and an art, learned through many years of apprenticeship during
which he who reaches maturity without being transported earns the respect of his fellows and may call himself a master. As such, he has his own closely guarded techniques to prey upon the gullible
and innocent.

Observe him, for example, on Oxford-street, where he is accustomed to working with an accomplice. They loiter together before jewellers’ windows, smoking cigars and casting surreptitious
glances inside to see in which pockets the customers deposit their purchases. The cigars, of course, are no coincidence. When the ill-fated customer eventually exits, it is into a great puff of
finest Havanah, which causes him or her to blink and blindly accept the sincerest apologies from the courteous smoker who has so thoughtlessly breathed upon them. No matter that the other
rapscallion has extracted the necklace in the velvet box from their jacket pocket and made off down a side alley without so much as being seen by his victim.

Or see the pickpocket lounging in the restaurants of the finest hotels with just a porcelain cup of tea and that day’s
Times
before him. He could very well be one of the guests
himself with his fine linen and new boots, but he is watching the others with far greater attention than he gives to his newspaper. He notes, for instance, how the elderly gent with the top hat
pays for his drink and slips his pocketbook into a right trouser pocket. Or he notes how the Belgian tourist constantly pats his breast pocket to see if his daily allowance has been lifted by the
unscrupulous men of whom he has been warned. These two will soon be visiting the Tower, or Parliament, or St Paul’s, and the observant tea-drinker will be there close by them in the pressing
throngs.

Indeed, there is only one man that strikes fear into the heart of the master pickpocket: the person who knows his techniques and who watches him as closely as he watches his victims – the
detective.

Were one to visit the Sol’s Arms public house on Wych-street, or the Brown Bear opposite Bow-street Magistrate’s Court, one might hear these light-fingered fellows discussing the
figure of the detective. And one might be surprised to hear the commingled dislike and respect they reserve for their sole predator.

In fact, let us eavesdrop on just such a conversation in one of the smoky rooms of the Sol’s Arms on the evening of the day that had begun with the Waterloo-bridge incident.

‘Did you hear about Jacobs?’ says a thief with a clay pipe in the corner of his mouth. ‘He was pinched at Ascot last week with a pocket full of watches. He’s got
transportation – seven years.’

‘I heard,’ replies a Haymarket loiterer. ‘A sorry business, that. Who got him? Was it Sergeant Jenkins?’

‘No – Jenkins is working on a murder at Chelsea.’

‘Was it Newsome then? I heard the inspector was after Jacobs for ages.’

‘No, not Newsome, the ———. He seems to have vanished of late.’

‘And good riddance. He is the worst of them.’

‘Someone said he is working on the smugglers at Wapping,’ observed a corpulent omnibus pickpocket.

‘Is that right? I must tell the boys down there to watch out,’ says a Custom House-wharf thief.

‘A year ago, gents, I would have said for certain that it was Sergeant Williamson who got Jacobs,’ opines the pipe-smoker with a knowing glance around his colleagues.

Silence follows the utterance of that particular name. The gathered criminals nod to themselves or exchange looks, each reflecting on their experiences of Sergeant George Williamson.

‘Aye, he was the best of them,’ says the Custom House-wharf thief.

‘And the worst,’ says the omnibus thief. ‘The man had eyes in his back, I swear.’

‘Well, he may no longer be a detective, but he is still our foe,’ says the pipe-smoker, smirking at his privileged information.

‘What? I heard he is now working at the Mendicity Society,’ says Haymarket. ‘We’re no fakement writers to worry about his interest.’

‘Your information is old, and you would be advantaged to know what I know: Williamson has been engaged by the manager of the Queen’s Theatre on this very street. If I remain
contentedly by the fire with my pipe tonight, it is because he is on duty at this moment, keeping his hawkish eye out for our kin . . .’

At this intelligence, half a dozen people left the bar with some rapidity, bound, no doubt, for the theatre further down Wych-street so that they might sound the alarm among any fellows planning
to work the crowds:
Beware! Williamson is on duty!

There was one, however, who showed no such concern. He sat alone at a corner table, spurning contact with the others. One might have said he was Italian from his sallow skin, the gold ring in
his ear and his long, oiled hair, but he did not speak to reveal his origins. Rather, he finished his brandy with a jerk of the wrist and turned out of the house, guided towards the theatre by the
sound of the crowds and the false dawn of gas flares flickering about the house
façades
.