A Coldblooded Scoundrel Read online

  Devlin buried his chin in his hands, dimly aware that the hard surface of his desk was exerting an uncomfortable pressure on his elbows. "Damn!" He passed the telegram across to Freddie, who read it laboriously, his lips moving, then affected a frown that would not have looked out of place on an inmate of Madame Tussaud's.

  "It's the law of averages," Devlin remarked ruefully, once the initial shock had passed. We've only four bodies currently in the morgue to work with - "

  " - two were from the Goulding family - that big fire over in Cheapside," Freddie supplied helpfully.

  Devlin wilted him with a look. "And the other two from bodies discovered in SoHo, their previous owners having died under mysterious circumstances." He gnawed on his bottom lip. "Four bodies to work with - a bloody small sample, to be sure."

  "They can only keep 'em for so long, sir - they end up stinking after a day or two."

  Devlin wondered if he could strangle Freddie silently and toss him out the window. It would be a criminal waste, he decided, if Freddie turned out to have been the great love of his life, but the constable's increasingly inane comments were beginning to grate on Devlin's nerves.

  "Sir - " Lewis looked decidedly embarrassed, and Devlin wondered what moronic offence the constable wanted to confess. "I've been wondering if...well, some evening after work...see, there's this club - "

  The door of Devlin's office banged back so hard that the knob nearly stuck in the wall. Framed in the entrance was the orange-haired constable with the blizzard of freckles, complete with apologetic expression. Once again, he begged Devlin's pardon before barging in and handing Devlin a slip of paper. He stepped back while Devlin read it, and gazed at Freddie Lewis awhile, while Freddie gazed at a stubborn hangnail on his thumb and wondered if he could get his fingers into his mouth without the guv'nor noticing.

  "Constable Lewis - " Devlin's dark eyes seemed to burn through Freddie's guilty conscience. He nodded at the disingenuous moppet in the doorway, dismissing him. Freddie suspected something of import was about to transpire, and so screwed his eyes shut momentarily and stroked his neat moustache once or twice for luck.

  Devlin got up and shut the door. "Before Barnicott, just now - "

  Freddie's eyes squinted at Devlin as if he'd only then discovered his existence. "Who?"

  "Barnicott!" Devlin barked, "The bloody messenger!"

  "Bit of an odd name - " But he accurately divined the import of Devlin's expression and let it die a natural death.

  "This club you mentioned," Devlin began, getting up from his desk. "What sort of a club is it?" He positioned himself in front of the addled constable, and fixed upon him the piercing look he normally reserved for hardened malefactors.

  "A club, sir." Underneath his neat moustache, Freddie's upper lip was sweating. He hoped Devlin didn't notice.

  Devlin held the paper up in front of Freddie's face. "There's been another murder," he said.

  He was into his Donegal and halfway down the stairs before Freddie thought to follow.

  Five

  The body was lying in a narrow lane behind a shop, partly screened from traffic by a stack of empty barrels. A young male in his mid-twenties, stylishly dressed, with perhaps an unnecessarily flashy aspect to his tiepin, and several jewelled rings upon his fingers. Nothing had been stolen: his watch was still intact, and his billfold still in his pocket, containing a large number of fresh bank notes.

  "What do you think, Lewis?" Devlin bent low over the corpse, his sharp eyes taking in every pertinent detail.

  "Oh, I think he's dead, sir."

  Devlin wondered if he had been perhaps over-hasty in letting Freddie live: surely a body tossed out the window of a Scotland Yard office wouldn't cause that much of a stir?

  "And he's a pouf."

  Now it was Devlin's turn to blink. "How the Devil d'you know that?"

  Freddie Lewis gazed at Devlin with guileless eyes. "I recognise him, sir. From the club - the Peacock Club. His name is Dennis Dalziel."

  If Devlin were perfectly honest with himself, he would have to admit to particular aspects of this case which were already well within his ken. The note upon his desk was not wholly unexpected; he knew that if Whittaker were back in London it would only be a matter of time before he made contact with Devlin.

  He turned the paper over in his fingers, but he knew there was nothing to be seen that he hadn't seen already. The only fingerprints upon the letter were his own; the handwriting was deliberately scrawled and

  childish, written with a rather dull pencil that had been unevenly and carelessly sharpened. The contents, too, were no more than Devlin had been expecting: various vague threats and allusions to the past, 'secrets better kept between ourselves.' He knew what that meant. And he knew why the queer from Freddie's molly house was killed. The irony of it, the choice of Whittaker's latest victim, was not lost on Devlin. And there would be a reckoning, he knew, and unless he got to Whittaker before he struck again, there would be no telling...no telling what chaos might be wrought.

  It would be so easy for Whittaker to upset the balance of a lifetime.

  Devlin glanced up as Freddie Lewis slipped into the office, already in his overcoat and carrying his gloves. "If you're not needing me anymore tonight, sir, I thought I'd dodge along."

  Devlin was halfway through an absentminded greeting when he suddenly sat bolt upright and shrieked loud enough that he was heard in the cleaner's closet in the basement. Three largish sewer rats and a prostitute by the name of Boompin' Nelly appropriately scattered, thinking that the ungodly scream had been uttered at the instant of the Final Judgement.

  Devlin caught up with Freddie on the pavement just outside the door, and seized on him with both hands. "This club," he panted. "Are you going there tonight? Are you going to the molly house?"

  Two aged sisters returning from an afternoon's perusal of the merchantware in Covent Garden wheeled an extreme berth around Devlin, and drew their shawls protectively around them.

  "Keep your voice down!" Freddie hissed. "Are you telling everyone that I'm - "

  Devlin clapped a hand over the taller man's mouth. "Are... you... going... to... the... club?" He spoke with the exaggerated slowness usually directed at lunatics and the hard of hearing.

  Freddie, his speech constrained by Devlin's hand, nodded vigorously.

  "Any one of them could be a target." Devlin was musing aloud now, his quick mind skipping rapidly over possible scenarios, alternately choosing and rejecting strategies as quickly as his brain disgorged them. "I want to go there and have a look around, question some of the, er, patrons. Someone might have seen something, heard Whittaker talking. Maybe he's luring victims like the Ripper did - "

  Freddie disengaged Devlin's hand from his lips. "Maybe he's playing at being a toff!"

  Devlin levelled a glance at the young constable. "John Whittaker doesn't have to play at being a toff. He's well able to climb the social ladder with the ton."

  Devlin was as uncomfortable as ever in his life, even though the circumstances of his current situation contained no overt goads to his morality, no pricks to his conscience. Devlin found himself frowning, thought that perhaps 'prick' was an unfortunate choice of word, considering the venue.

  For half an hour he'd sat beside Constable Lewis at a lavishly appointed banquette; for twenty-nine and a half minutes Constable Lewis had had his hand on Devlin's thigh. It was, Devlin thought, playing it a bit too close to the bone. The entertainment consisted of a rather vapid floor show, wherein young men dressed in frocks mounted - here Devlin chided himself severely for the paucity of his personal lexicon - a low stage and crooned the collected works of Mr. Gilbert and Mr. Sullivan, not necessarily in that order. The real entertainment, Devlin thought, was in the club itself, which presented the same overall sentiment as a knacker yard the day after a particularly bad showing at the Ascot.

  He saw men openly engage each other for assignations, all within his earshot, and couples ascending the stairs into
some shadowy region high above, their arms around each other, their faces close together. Devlin wondered what on earth could possibly be upstairs, but he was willing to bet it had something to do with lust and secrets, things better undertaken in the dark.

  His collar was suddenly too tight. And his imagination, he thought sourly, was becoming far too florid. He ought to check himself before it went too far, and undertake some form of chastisement that would effectively curtail such fantastic musings.

  A tall form loomed over Devlin, and a smiling blond figure leaned down and caressed his cheek with one elegantly manicured finger. "Hit me," the figure whispered.

  "I beg your pardon?!"

  The figure offered Devlin the handle of a whip: a quirt or riding crop, a strip of stinging leather. Devlin was suddenly and unpleasantly reminded of the headmaster of his schooldays, who liked to put boys over his bended knees and administer a caning. Perhaps, Devlin mused, his old headmaster was here.

  "Oh, come on...give us a few whacks, guv'nor."

  Devlin felt faint. He pushed out from underneath Lewis's clutching hand. "Lavatory," he whispered.

  This seemed to inflame the whip-bearing gorgon to entirely new heights. "Like it in the lavvies, do ya, guv'nor?"

  Devlin plunged through the crowd of men with a kind of maniacal desperation. He felt as though he were trapped in a particularly devious nightmare, and all he could see in front of him were the backs of men and the faces of men, smiling mouths leering wetly under waxed moustaches. He gained the relative safety of the lavatory and leaned against the door, trying to calm his racing heart. Behind his closed eyelids he could see the lurid glances of the stage performers, whinnying their songs to a somewhat less than rapt audience. It was all too sordid.

  "Inspector Devlin!" The familiar summons gripped him with a flare of panic; he opened his eyes cautiously, uncertain of what he might find.

  Harker had never looked better: the dark suit he wore set off his strange green eyes with a particular inevitability, as if some malicious destiny had decreed that he meet Devlin here in the toilets. "Mr. Harker."

  "Ah, Devlin..." Harker smiled gently. "I am sorry that your post mortem efforts on behalf of your charred bodies did not yield more promising results. Donnelly tried his best."

  Devlin could well imagine what Donnelly's 'best' entailed. "I appreciate your help, Mr. Harker." What the devil was Harker doing here, Devlin wondered, and more to the point, did his naturally inquisitive mind lead him to make suppositions about Devlin that would prove to be of a devastating truth?

  "Are you here alone?" Harker was leaning on the door in what could only be construed as a proprietary manner. His gaze flickered on Devlin's face, travelled to Devlin's throat, his practised eye entirely appreciative of Devlin's appearance.

  "Freddie." Devlin couldn't seem to make his vocal cords work; he was mesmerised by the glint in Harker's eyes, the warmth in his expression as he moved, catlike, to cover Devlin's body with his own.

  "You have always made much of the distances between us, Devlin..." Harker cupped the inspector's face between his palms, his mouth inches from Devlin's own. "And yet, I see that we are truly not so different...."

  It was, Devlin thought, like sucking on one of those new electric wires, with a current that ran from his groin to his brain and back again, in a never-ending loop. He was held back against the door as Harker plundered his mouth with ruthless accuracy, his agile tongue coaxing Devlin's lips apart, devouring him. When Harker finally released him, Devlin found that he had lost his voice completely.

  "You know, Devlin..." Harker straightened his tie with a certain aplomb that Devlin had always envied and never been able to achieve. "I have wanted to do that for a very, very long time."

  He swept out of the room, leaving Devlin alone.

  Devlin, of course, knew why Dennis Dalziel had been killed. It didn't take a genius or someone with the dubious connections of a Mr. Reginald Harker to understand the reasoning behind such a carefully calculated act, and Devlin knew the mechanics of terror, of intimidation. He'd used them himself, in the past, during particularly trying interrogations or when trying to wring information out of suspects he'd taken in for questioning. He knew that Whittaker had chosen Dalziel for one reason, and one reason only - to send a message to Devlin.

  Devlin always prided himself on being at least outwardly circumspect, on keeping his 'proclivities' - if they could be considered such - strictly to himself. Even after all these years, it would be hard to pick a man out of the general community who would point at him and immediately declare him deviant. He had become singularly adept at hiding his true nature, even to the point of not revealing his real name to those men with whom he had pursued liaisons. Even Harker and Donnelly knew that their secret was safe with him.

  Strictly speaking, Devlin ought to have arrested both of them years ago, under the aegis of the Act, and pursued it as he would any other criminal matter. As it stood he was putting the entire Metropolitan Police Force in jeopardy of ridicule, by turning a wilfully blind eye to what went on at 12 and a half Fowler Street. It was a strange sort of dance that he was doing, Devlin mused, wondering whom to trust and when to keep his mouth shut. Harker probably knew, if anyone did, the extent of Devlin's inclinations, especially after seeing Devlin in the Peacock Club with Freddie Lewis. It was interesting how Freddie knew it would be safe to bring Devlin there, to invite him there as if his inclinations were entirely above whatever board currently denoted public morality. Perhaps Freddie wasn't as stupid as Devlin might think - or else the young constable had the kind of keen instincts that would betray such truths...and yet Devlin knew he wasn't particularly swish. Not like some patrons of the Peacock - not like the one with the whip.

  He got up from his desk, went to look at himself in the mirror: a slender man of early middle age, thin face, eyes probably larger and more naïve than was strictly necessary for a man of his profession. As a younger man, he had been perhaps too lean and sharp in the face - no, Devlin realised, he was still too lean, and his expression often tended, without his knowing it, toward cunning. Those of the Yard whom he counted among his friends - and they were precious few - were inclined to overlook his rather hungry-looking eagerness. His enemies called him weasel-faced. He wasn't weasel-faced, or even anything like it - just chronically insomniac, with far more worries than many other men of thirty-five. He wasn't devastatingly handsome, or elegant like Harker, or even dimpled and endearing and terribly capable like Donnelly. He had not the bearing of the gorgeous monster John Whittaker, who even now was stalking about the streets of London like Devlin's personal ghost come home to roost. "Whatever did you see in me...?" He whispered to the mirror, lost for a moment in his memories.

  "What did you say, sir?" Freddie Lewis appeared in the doorway. "Were you talking to me?"

  "Nothing, Constable. Just musing to myself." Devlin crossed to his desk and gazed pointedly into his empty mug. "Cup of tea wouldn't go astray."

  "Right you are, guv. Oh, by the bye, there's a couple ladies here to see you."

  Devlin experienced a flash of panic - perhaps someone had discovered him, and had come to lodge a complaint of public lewdness. Someone had seen Freddie Lewis in the Peacock Club, with his hand on Devlin's thigh, and wanted to set things right with the law. Or some blabbermouthed old biddy had spied on him in the lavatory, being soundly kissed by Reginald Harker...the one with the whip, Devlin thought, in a sudden fever. "Who are they, Constable?" He fought to make his voice sound normal.

  "One of 'em is all got up in gentleman's togs and smoking a cigar - " Evidently Freddie found nothing odd in this, " - and the other one is Miss Phoebe Alcock."

  "Phoebe Alcock?" Devlin checked his watch. "At this hour?"

  She appeared in a cloud of costly perfume, decked out in what seemed to Devlin to be some sort of split skirt - a bicycling costume. Slightly behind her there came a tall young redhead, dressed like Lord Byron. "Miss Violet Pearson." Phoebe introduced her to Devlin a
nd Freddie. "My most intimate friend." Miss Pearson stepped forward as if submitting herself to a duel, and shook Devlin's hand with a certain manly vigour. Just as quickly as Devlin had made this paragon's acquaintance, Phoebe was dismissing her: "Run along now, Violet, and play with Constable Lewis. I need to chat with this gorgeous boy - alone."

  Freddie grudgingly offered Miss Pearson his arm, clearly resentful of being left out of the proceedings. "I'll give you a tour of the station," Freddie said, and darted a sharp look at Devlin, an expression of mingled hurt and contempt.

  "Only approved areas, Constable. Stay out of the morgue." Devlin knew that Freddie's current level of pique might seduce him into showing their visitor rather more than was acceptable.

  "Can I see your darbies?" Violet Pearson's voice floated up the stairwell, disappeared. Devlin waited until he was absolutely sure they had gone.

  "Your intimate friend?"

  Phoebe smiled, reached over and took a cigarette from the box on Devlin's desk. "The Queen herself has declared that such acts do not occur between women."