Murder in St. Giles

“What did you do with it?” I asked casually. “The box? After Mr. Finch was dead?”

  Oliver stared at me in shock. Then he let out a yell.

  Fists whirled at me and I stepped hastily back, but again Brewster was there to seize the smaller man. Oliver began to fight in earnest, with fierce kicks and punches.

  I came forward to help, but Oliver twisted, bringing his boot up toward Brewster’s groin. Brewster deflected the blow with the ease of long practice, but lost his hold on the lad.

  Instead of running, Oliver came straight at me.

  I raised my fists and walking stick again. In Oliver’s eyes I saw not a young man who’d been given the opportunity to make some money and a name fighting in the ring, but a canny lad of the slums, who was as ruthless as Finch had ever been.

  His hand went to his coat pocket before his fist lashed out. I blocked, but he held a knife between his fingers which slammed into my arm. Pain blossomed before I managed to turn from the blade.

  Brewster grabbed at him. Oliver twisted like a fish and pummeled Brewster several times in the face. Brewster, as hardened as he was, had to give way, allowing Oliver to return to battering me.

  I defended myself as I could, but Oliver, young and superbly trained, slashed at me again and again.

  Then Brewster’s giant fist caught Oliver on the side of the head. He followed that by kicking Oliver’s legs out from under him.

  Oliver flung out his arms to break his fall, and his knife flew wide. It clattered to the cobbles, and I picked it up.

  Brewster grabbed Oliver by the collar and slammed him face-first into the street. I heard a crack, but Oliver screamed, so he was not yet dead.

  I saw in Brewster the grim strength of a man who’d learned to throw aside rules long ago. He hit Oliver squarely between the shoulder blades, until the young man screamed again.

  “Enough,” Oliver croaked. “I’m down.”

  Brewster planted his large foot in Oliver’s back. “I’ll decide when you’re down, lad.”

  The knife I’d retrieved had a plain hilt, wrapped in leather, like the one Hobson claimed had been sticking out of Finch. Perhaps Oliver kept several about his person. A good point to remember.

  I marched over and stepped on one of Oliver’s hands. “Did you kill Finch?”

  “No. I swear to you. It weren’t me. He was dead, with a little pasty bloke standing over him.”

  A little pasty bloke—a good description of Josiah Leeds.

  “Who had a box of banknotes. Where is it, Mr. Oliver?”

  Oliver started to shake his head, but Brewster put his weight on him.

  “Gave it … to … Shaddock,” Oliver gasped out.

  I sent Brewster a nod to haul Oliver up. Brewster did so, twisting the lad’s arm behind his back and keeping a firm hold on his neck. Oliver’s face was red with the fight and now tinged gray with pain. I quickly stepped in and checked Oliver’s coat and boots for hidden knives but found none.

  “It weren’t me,” Oliver said again.

  That might be true. But I’d seen murder in Oliver’s eyes when he’d come at me with the blade. I had the knife now, tucked into my pocket.

  My thoughts circled rapidly. Mr. Leeds was terrified of Finch. Perhaps he’d agreed to meet Finch in this house, which Sir Montague had confirmed he owned, to try to pay him off again, or maybe he’d rushed to make sure his money was safe when he’d heard Finch had returned. He’d found Finch down and seen a quick way out of his problems.

  “Tell me exactly what happened,” I said to Oliver.

  Oliver wet his lips. “I was passing the lane and glimpsed a little fellow what didn’t belong in St. Giles. Dressed like a City gent—wouldn’t keep that suit long, I thought. I was going to see what he was up to, maybe get him out of here safely if he needed it.”

  “For a coin,” Brewster said.

  “Yeah, maybe.” Oliver looked shamefaced. “Then I hear him shout. I came running, found Mr. Finch dead on the ground outside the door. Little bloke standing over him, knife sticking out of Finchie’s chest. Bloke saw me and couldn’t run away fast enough.”

  “He’d have to go past you to get out of the lane,” I pointed out. “Why did you let him?”

  “I was that surprised, and he raced by.” Oliver stopped. “Truth to tell, it didn’t matter, did it? Finchie were dead and couldn’t terrify anyone no more. I dragged Finch back inside the house and locked the door with the key that was in the keyhole.”

  “You didn’t chase the man, because he’d left his box behind,” I stated.

  Oliver shook his head. “I didn’t notice right away. I saw it inside when I dragged Finchie in. I opened it—and couldn’t believe my eyes. Stacks of notes from the Bank of England. I never seen that much money in me life.”

  “You said you happened to see the City gent as you passed. Did you observe him go into the lane? Did you follow him?”

  “No.” Oliver’s eyes flickered. “He was just there.”

  He was lying, I suspected, but why he would about this point, I did not know.

  “And you are certain that a key was already in the door?”

  “Aye,” Oliver said, looking puzzled.

  “On the inside or outside?”

  He had to think. “Inside. I took it out and used it to lock the door when I went.”

  “And where is the key now?”

  “In the river.”

  I did not think so, but it was a minor detail.

  “What about Oro?” I asked. “The dog you know as Demon?”

  Oliver nodded. “He was there. Howling, like. But he’d gone by the time I shut up Finch.”

  Or else he’d not wanted to bother with him. My sympathy for Oliver dipped.

  “What you want to do, guv?” Brewster asked me. “Hunt up your Runners? Maybe be off to the City?”

  Oliver sent me a pleading gaze. Pomeroy would drag Oliver to the lockup for the night, and I had the feeling Mr. Leeds would try to push the murder onto Oliver. Whom would a magistrate believe? A respectable-looking employee of the Bank of England? Or a pugilist from the backstreets?

  I knew Oliver was hiding something, and I longed to know what.

  “Not yet,” I said. “I believe that first, we should retrieve the box.”

  Oliver did not look happy, but Brewster gave him no choice. He produced a length of thin metal chain—no idea where he’d found it—and wrapped it competently around Oliver’s wrists behind his back.

  He dragged Oliver out of St. Giles and to a hackney, me following slowly, and instructed the startled driver to take us to Wapping.

  I pondered things as we went. Oliver sat across from me, looking shaken and ill, held in place by Brewster.

  If Oliver hadn’t lied about simply spying Mr. Leeds at the end of the lane, perhaps Leeds had already been there. I would tell Mr. Quimby to ask him, of course, but I wondered if Leeds had been in the house, fetching his box from the rafters, when Brewster dragged in Finch.

  Brewster had quickly dumped Finch on the floor and left again, locking up with the keys he’d taken from Finch’s pocket. Brewster would have had no reason to look through the rest of the house—he’d gone off to retrieve his money to pay Finch to leave the country again.

  Mr. Leeds would certainly have had a key to his own house. I pictured Leeds descending the stairs, closing up the panel to hide them. He’d enter the front room to find Finch down and groaning. Seeing a chance to flee, he opened the door with his key …

  And here the picture grew dim. Did Finch rise, follow Leeds out, and attack him? And Leeds struck out? When Oliver ran down the lane and discovered the crime, did Leeds panic and run, leaving key and box behind?

  Or did Oliver fight Finch as he’d fought me, swinging with his knife? Perhaps he’d killed Finch and demanded the box of money from Leeds as payment—or else Leeds simply saw his chance and ran.

  Either explanation could fit, or neither.

  I had to wonder why Leeds would abandon the cache of ban
knotes he’d so cleverly built up—that action spoke of leaving Oliver the box to buy his freedom.

  The man Hobson had seen carrying the dead Finch into the house was likely Oliver, not Brewster. The two men did not look alike, but from a distance, Hobson might have mistaken them. Though Oliver did not have all of Brewster’s bulk, both men moved like trained fighters.

  Hobson had waited until everyone was well gone before he’d had the courage to look inside and find Finch dead. I’d guess he’d stolen the knife, which was how he knew so well what it looked like. Oliver had a similar knife, but I’d been correct in my surmise that many men did.

  “Why not report the crime?” I asked Oliver. “If you didn’t kill Finch and figured the other man did, why not run to Bow Street?”

  “Because he wanted to get away with the money,” Brewster said in disgust. “Must have been worrisome for you when Mr. White decided you’d fight in St. Giles so soon after, and we were asking questions about Finchie’s murder.”

  “Or perhaps it was deliberate,” I suggested. “So you could see whether that house held more money. I suspect you still have the key. Was that why you returned the day you saw us there with Mr. Blackmore’s dog?”

  Oliver didn’t answer, only shrank back into his seat.

  “Why’d ye give the box to Shaddock?” Brewster asked him.

  Tears entered Oliver’s voice. “A peace offering. I had the box in my rooms—I was going to split it with Mr. White, but he run off on me that day I fought you. We were supposed to meet after with the takings, but he didn’t turn up.” He looked confused, betrayed. “After you spoke so warmly of Shaddock, I decided to give it to him, ask him to look after me again.”

  “Never trust a bookmaker,” Brewster said with conviction. “To think, Finchie turned out to have more honor than any of you. Even looked after his friend’s dog.”

  “Who certainly didn’t like you,” I said mildly to Oliver. “I was right, Brewster. Oro did witness this murder, after all.”

  It was very late when we reached the small, neat house in Wapping. Mrs. Shaddock opened the door to me in bewilderment, then her eyes rounded when Brewster dragged a frightened Oliver out of the hackney.

  “He’s in bed,” she started to argue, then closed her mouth and silently admitted us.

  We went through, not to the garden room, which was dark and cold, but to a warm kitchen. Bright copper pots gleamed on the mantel and hung from the ceiling, and stools surrounded a work table that was scrubbed clean.

  Mr. Shaddock, wrapped in a woolen shawl, sipped from a mug as he sat by the fire.

  “It’s that captain,” his wife said in a loud voice. “And Tommy.”

  “Eh?” Shaddock raised his head and peered at me with rheumy eyes. “Captain Lacey? What you want this time of night?” He lifted the mug. “Tell Mrs. S to pour you some. Nothing like a good beef tea—and a bit of whiskey—to chase away the cold.”

  “Mr. S., Tommy’s brought—”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Shaddock.”

  At the sound of Oliver’s voice, the mug shattered on the slate floor. Shaddock struggled to stand, his shawl slipping to join the spilled beef tea.

  Brewster said nothing. The two gazed at each other, the large man who’d been a fighter and his mentor, shrunken and aged.

  “He owed me, Tommy,” Shaddock said in a hoarse whisper, fingers plucking at his coat as though he tried to draw the absent shawl across his shoulders. “He owed me for years of bleeding me dry, ruining me.”

  “Ye were always weak-willed,” Brewster stated. “I saw that, long before ye started throwing fights for men like Finch.”

  Some of Shaddock’s strength seeped back into him. “Young Oliver did right to bring the money to me. He’s a good lad, and I should never have run him off. But I’d heard Finchie was coming back, ye see. I didn’t want him to get his clutches on Oliver, like he had with me.”

  “I could have protected ya,” Oliver said.

  Shaddock gave him a sad look. “No, you couldn’t. Not against a man like Finch.”

  “It don’t matter,” Oliver said, impassioned. “He’s dead and gone. All that money is yours by right.”

  “The money belongs to the Bank of England,” I said, voice hardening. “It wasn’t Finch’s at all. A banker’s clerk stole it, and Finch was blackmailing him because of it.”

  Shaddock’s mouth hung open. His wife stepped behind him and gently laid the shawl she’d retrieved across his shoulders.

  “What did you do, boy?” Shaddock demanded. “Ye want to bring the magistrates to my door? I don’t need the bloody money. Take it, Captain. The fact that Finch can’t touch me anymore is enough.”

  Oliver struggled in Brewster’s massive grip. “Ye’d give it up? And leave me with nothing? After all I’ve done for ye?”

  “I didn’t train ye to be a bloody robber and a cheat.” Shaddock drew himself up, and I glimpsed the powerful man he’d once been. “It’s not why we fight. We have honor. Even if we forget that from time to time.” He sagged into the circle of his wife’s arm. “Take it and go. Leave an old man to die in peace.”

  Brewster kept a firm hold on Oliver, who drooped. I saw sorrow in Brewster’s eyes, and shame. Perhaps not for Shaddock’s present broken state, but because he’d deserted the man all those years ago.

  “Where is the box?” I asked into the silence.

  Shaddock and his wife both swiveled eyes to the garden room and its large windows that looked out into darkness.

  I breathed a resigned sigh. “Someone please fetch me a spade.”

  The box was buried in the neat rows of earth at which the birds had industriously pecked. The container was made of polished wood and not very large, perhaps three by two on its sides, and a foot deep.

  Inside were banknotes, crisp and neatly stacked, wrapped in oiled cloth. Their denominations were large, which was why the box could be small. Whatever man cashed in the notes once the bank’s restrictions were lifted would make a fortune.

  I had to dig up the thing myself. Brewster was busy keeping Oliver subdued, and Mr. Shaddock was too feeble. Mrs. Shaddock helped me, and I suspected it was she who’d buried the box in the first place.

  “Thank you,” she said softly as I balanced myself with my cane and tucked the box under my arm. “Blood money, this is.”

  I agreed. “I’ll tell Brewster to visit again.”

  “It don’t matter.” She shook her head. “We make our choices, and we have to live with the consequences.”

  At her haunted look, I halted. Mrs. Shaddock glanced away from me, but not before I’d seen guilt and self-loathing in her eyes.

  I thought about Oliver’s hesitancy when I’d asked him whether he’d followed Mr. Leeds into the lane, and a new and more horrible possibility entered my mind.

  “Mr. Oliver saw you, did he not?” I asked. “That day Finch died?”

  Mrs. Shaddock stood still while rain dripped around us.

  I went on. “It is another reason he brought you and your husband the money,” I said quietly. “To tell you he’d keep your secret safe.”

  She looked up at me, tears joining the rain on her face.

  “I was so afraid Finch would come here and hurt my poor old lad,” she said. “So I went looking for him. I knew his sister lived with Tommy in St. Giles. I didn’t go with murder in my heart, Captain. I just wanted to warn him off. Or pay him—I’m not sure what I meant to do.”

  Unhappiness filled me. She was confessing to a murder. I needed to stop her, or find the nearest magistrate, or take her across the river to Sir Montague and Quimby.

  Instead, I regarded her with compassion. “Did he threaten you? Try to hurt you?”

  “I saw Tommy carrying him along,” she said in a low voice, “and I followed. When Tommy put him into that house and went, I saw my chance. No one was in the lane but an old dog. I walked to the door, but before I could reach it, Finch comes staggering out. He sees me, starts bellowing at me—I don’t even know wh
at he was saying. Filthy language, about Shaddock and how we owed him. He had a knife and raised it at me. But he was slow, hurt, and Mr. S. has taught me a thing or two.”

  “You fought him.” A smaller hand had marked Shaddock’s chest, a woman’s we’d considered. “He was trying to kill you.”

  Mrs. Shaddock regarded me a long time and at last gave me a slow nod. “He were. The knife came at me, and I took it away from him. I couldn’t have if he weren’t already so hurt. He kept coming. The knife went right up into his chest, and he collapsed. Didn’t even bleed much. He fell, and the dog started to howl. I thought someone would come, so I ran.”

  Sobs shook her, but I noted the careful way she’d told me all I needed to know. She’d rehearsed this speech in her head, probably from the moment she’d fled. I’d fed her the correct cues—as was my intention—and she’d responded.

  I didn’t mean to. He was attacking me, and I fought for my life.

  I fitted in the rest of the pieces. Leeds had still been recovering his box upstairs, or hiding there, waiting for Finch to leave. Mrs. Shaddock arrived as Finch recovered himself and wandered outside, unlocking the door with the key Leeds had left when he’d let himself in, or perhaps Finch had a second one—Brewster must not have noticed it in his hurry. Possibly Finch meant to return to Charlotte’s and rest before continuing his quest for money to pay Steadman.

  Finch had encountered Mrs. Shaddock in the lane, and in a rage, went at her, as she’d said. The fight had resulted in his death. Mrs. Shaddock had fled. Mr. Leeds had cautiously descended with his box and found Finch dead.

  His joy was short-lived as Oliver, likely coming to investigate why he’d seen Mrs. Shaddock dash from the lane, discovered him. Leeds, terrified he’d be accused and arrested of murder, ran. Perhaps he’d not had time to pick up his box, or feared to be found with it, or perhaps he had another stash somewhere else. He’d succeeded in embezzling from the bank once, why not twice?

  Oliver, suspecting that Mrs. Shaddock had indeed killed Finch, decided it best to say nothing. He stole the box, and then when White deserted him, carried it to the Shaddocks as both a peace offering and a sign that they could trust him.