CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

1

Constable took a deep breath, getting mostly mildewed Scotland Yard dust, but there was a different smell in the air, asserting itself even through the layers and crusts of city brick and cobblestones. It was like the week before the monsoons started in India. Autumn was on its way, and rain with it.

It wasn't just the weather that had changed. From the time he'd woken, Constable had felt in his chest the old heaviness and constriction, but it had altered. The stabbing became more consistent and demanding, as if the sensations in his body were inseparable from a gloom descending thickly over him, closing down his vision and movements.

The pain was constant. It came and went in waves that affected his vision. A minute of sickening darkness in the periphery of his sight, with spasms that made him sweat, then five minutes of respite. Then a half hour later, like a faithful clock, the darkness would return.

The heaviness of the air in Scotland Yard did nothing to lessen his brooding. Today a stinking mist from the river spread through the buildings, as bad as anything rising from the Bombay harbor.

Damn McGowan. If Constable had known that anyone would pay the least attention to the murder of a ditch digger, he would have torn Bucks's note into pieces. But Bucks's suggestion to murder Canty had seemed the easiest thing, especially since no one could connect Constable with it. It was Bucks who would carry the guilt, if anyone. Then when Constable thought of the additional plan to keep Snow out of the way for a few days, the plan seemed perfect.

But this infernal inspector had sprung up out of nowhere. McGowan wouldn't let it drop. He had led the chase for this insignificant murder as if it had been a political assassination. Of course Snow was released right away, ruining that part of the plan. Constable was bewildered by the inspector's drive until the man had confided in him.

"My father dug ditches. His whole life, never got the red stain from his skin. I'll see this boy gets justice." And he had rubbed his hands together, as if to take a stain off his own skin, and stared straight ahead.

McGowan would get Bucks. Constable could see it. They'd already had a tip from a pickpocket in Coldbath Fields. Check with his ma, he'd said. Constable already guessed where Bucks would be, but there was no point in hurrying things. And then there was the incredible bad luck of McGowan getting the idea of using Snow's chloroform equipment. There had been a few recent cases of thieves using chloroform to subdue their victims. "Since we've got the chloroform expert right here, let's turn justice around," McGowan had said.

Even now, Constable thought, he could leave. No one knew anything yet. He could simply stand and leave the room like any other man, say that he couldn't spare the time to lead the search after all. He could take a cab to his banker's, or even go on foot, withdraw a large sum, and head for Brussels or Geneva. By the time they caught Bucks, Constable could be drinking coffee on a sunny terrace by Lake Como, listening to a nightingale. Lillian might have softened by then. With a flood of emotion, Constable decided to ask her to go with him. It was perfect. A terraced villa beside Lake Como. She could be reading a novel on the chair next to him, the boy playing Mozart inside.

But he didn't move.

Canty's body was on a slab in a room downstairs. As soon as they had arrived here with Snow, McGowan had corralled the doctor into examining the head wound, herding Constable along with them as if to some sideshow.

"Here we are, Doctor. You have no idea how happy I am to have you here; it looks like the same man did both jobs, doesn't it?"

Snow had touched the smashed skull with detached clinical interest. "Exactly the same kind of impact," he had said, lightly stroking the concave skull. "This time, though, they cut through the superficial temporal artery. That's why there was so much blood."

The body had must been saturated with spilled blood, for the clothes were black and stiff, and Canty's open green eyes, unharmed, peered Out through what looked like a coal miner s grime.

Constable had felt sick and moved away as soon as he could, while Snow and McGowan conferred.

That was an hour ago. Now he looked across at Snow at a writing desk. The doctor hadn't spoken to him since they got into the cab outside Coldbath Fields. Did the man have any idea of the power he held? Constable didn't think so. Snow seemed to be stumbling blindly into his disastrous findings, without making any connections at all. There he huddled, scrawling frantically on a sheet of scrap paper, oblivious to the gloom and to the Scotland Yard stink.

Maybe McGowan's chloroform idea wasn't so bad. By getting Snow into the sewers at least he'd be delayed a day from finding out. Long enough for Constable to think of something, maybe. It was a slim hope.

By now Constable hated Snow, yet at the same time he yearned to talk to him, to tell him how it all had come about, especially about Lillian.  Greeley couldn't have had any insight into such a delicate situation, but perhaps a younger man — "Sir Philip?" The question broke through, sounding impatient, as if it were the third time the clerk had spoken.

"Eh? Yes, are we ready to be off?"

"They've arrived with Dr. Snow's anesthesia kit. And there's a message for you."

They had sent a messenger to Snow's house for the kit and the boy walked in now, handing the heavy box to Snow.

Snow hardly looked up, pen in hand, as if hoping he didn't have to stop writing. "Thank you. Any news of those cholera lists I asked for?"

"No, sir. Not available yet."opened his note. It was from Greeley: "Must see you immediately. Important information." Constable crumpled the note into his pocket; Greeley seemed far away, like something out of his distant past.

"Well," said Snow to Constable, "we can't know anything about the new cholera rates for another twelve hours anyway. I'll just have to wait it out."

"Quite." Constable looked at his watch. "Shall we go, then?" Snow stood, resigned, and stuffed the papers into his jacket. Constable took a step toward the door and felt his heart give another skip with a sharp pulse of pain which ebbed slowly, like flowing oil. Nausea came and left, and a cold sweat soaked through his collar. Snow was still behind him.

"Sir Philip," asked Snow, "are you quite all right? I can offer you some digitalis. It might ease things."

Constable hadn't realized it was so apparent. "No, nothing. It's just a mild weakness I get from time to time. Old age." He tried to laugh it off.

"Whatever you say.

"Let's be off," said McGowan.

2

Nothing ever happened on this street. That was obvious from the crowd of children and dogs that gathered around the police wagon as it pulled up outside the house. Every house in the row looked exactly alike. Five steps to the door, an iron railing, no grass, no tree, no flowers in the windows. Most of the houses had the blinds down tight, as if it wouldn't be respectable to look out at anything on the street.

Bucks's mother's house was no different. It was far from middle class, but not exactly a slum. They knocked at the door and it was two full minutes before a woman in her seventies, dressed in shoddy black silk and cheap American lace, opened it.

"Mathilda Bucks?"

"Yes?" She looked gratified, as if expecting an award or special recognition from the parish council.

Behind them, on the street, half a dozen curious children hovered at the foot of the stairs.

"We need to ask you some questions about your son, Ralph Bucks,"

The expectant look wavered. "Ralph? What's he done?" She touched the corner of her mouth with one finger.

They all went into the house and shut the door.

The edge of the old parlor sofa bristled with broken springs, and Constable squirmed. He almost wished the old lady weren't giving the answers so freely. It was as if she wanted to gain favor with the officers and would gladly do anything, even betray her son.

"Oh, that Ralph. He always said, ‘If they ever are after me, Ma, I'll know where to go,' and I would say, ‘Who? If who are after you?' and he would just wink." She lifted the grubby teapot and offered it once more to the one policeman who had been foolish enough to accept a cup. The others all shook their heads without smiling.

"Where did he say he might go, Mrs. Bucks?" McGowan asked this patiently, as if talking to a child.

Her answering smile made Constable cringe, but McGowan didn't seem to notice it.

"Why, the place he always knew best. That his pa taught him about. We weren't always in these grand digs." She gestured around at the faded flashy wallpaper and the dim windows. "Worked our ways up, you know. Toshers." She giggled. "Not me, that is. I met Joseph after he'd made his big find."

"It was a full tea service in sterling," she went on. "Lying right there in the tunnel." She took a sip of her tea, savoring the memory. "I tell you now ‘cause it was so long ago, and Joseph is passed on. All bashed up it was, but silver is silver, and he got eighty pound for it."

"For God's sake, woman. We haven't much time." Inspector McGowan tapped his feet in impatience. "Tell us where you think he might be."

She set the cup noisily in the saucer and sat up straight. "Well, aren't I tellin' you all along? Down below, in the sewers, That's where a tosher works, finding what he can. My Joe knew them as well as any."

"In the sewers? But where? There are miles of them." McGowan looked dismayed.

She seemed troubled and vague. "I can't tell you exactly. But he knew the entrance by the Queenhithe Docks. That's where they used to work. And there's a man still there, named — what was it? I can't recall. Ask at The Drowning Man. They'll know."

Constable flinched at the name. He'd met Bucks there, once.

McGowan herded them all out the door, back to Snow who had insisted on waiting in the cab, still writing. He didn't even look up when the door opened and only stopped when the wagon was under way.

"Where are we headed now?" Snow asked the inspector, ignoring Constable.

"Under London. The sewers beyond the Queenhithe docks." Snow narrowed his eyes, unbelieving. "But what about the cholera? The water is deadly."

"What," said McGowan, "and let the man go free?" He glared at Snow and Constable, as if accusing them of a crime too.

A younger policeman sat up. "And another thing, sir. There's the tides."

McGowan asked him, impatiently, "What about the tides? What does that matter?"

The young man cleared his throat. "Well, the water level'll go up when the tide comes in, you know? And it won't be just any tide today. Big storm coming."

"What the devil do you know about it?" asked McGowan.

"Is dad ran a ‘erring boat out of Greenwich, sir." "E's right," one of the other men said.

"And high tide today is at four P.M., sir."

Constable looked at his watch. It was noon.