Governing Passion Read online

  “You want me to do the investigation?” Cobb said evenly.

  “That’s what you’ve been assigned to do by the aldermen,” Bagshaw said. “But if the victim turns out to be a Devil’s Acre whore, you can be sure one of her cronies slit her throat for tuppence and will never be found.”

  “Has the coroner been told?”

  “He left here just before you came. Wilkie is waiting at Madame LaFrance’s brick house to show him where the body is. He’ll come back there and wait for you as soon as he can.”

  “Who found the body?”

  “Some young fellow at a nearby gambling den. He sent for a policeman, and Wilkie was nearby, sleeping probably behind St. James.”

  “I’ll go right away, sir.”

  “You do that.”

  “Am I to put on my Sunday suit while I investigate?”

  Bagshaw frowned and scrutinized Cobb for any sign of sarcasm in the remark. “That business is a lot of nonsense. I said so at the Met when they introduced it this past year. Out of your uniform you’ll receive no respect at all. Keep it on. And that’s an order.”

  “Fine with me,” Cobb said, who had not been looking forward to working in the confined clothes of a gentleman. However, he did realize that plainclothes would soon become the badge of the detective, and mark him off as a special member of the force. But his uniform fit nicely, and he had grown to feel at home in it.

  “I expect a written report on my desk by mid-morning,” Bagshaw said, and with that he blew the candle out.

  Cobb was dismissed.

  ***

  Cobb walked north to St. James Cathedral at Church and King. There were half a dozen entrances to Devil’s Acre, he knew, and then nothing but a labyrinth of shanties, hovels and alleyways scattered helter-skelter across several acres of ground just above the cathedral cemetery. Cobb went to the rear of the church building and came to the graveyard. He crossed it and entered a dark, snow-lit alley. The upper half of Madame LaFrance’s two-storey house was outlined in shadow somewhere a few hundred yards ahead of him. Keeping an eye on it, he navigated the maze adroitly enough, seeing only the occasional lamplight from the gambling dens and other places of iniquity and hearing the shouts and sighs of men caught in the vise of their pleasures. A few minutes later he emerged next to the brothel. It was not snowing, but the sky was still cloudy and only the eerie half-light of the snow gave any real illumination. The lights inside the brothel were discreet, like everything else about the establishment.

  There was no sign of Wilkie, so Cobb stood beside the front stoop and waited. Five minutes went by before his fellow constable emerged from the shadows to the west and greeted him.

  “You’ve seen the body?” Cobb said.

  “The doctor’s there now,” Wilkie said. “I didn’t care to look too closely, but there was a lot of blood.”

  “What about the man who found it?”

  “He’s warmin’ his toes at the bootlegger’s he come from earlier. We can fetch him whenever you want.”

  “Take me to the body first, then fetch him, will you?”

  Without further conversation Wilkie turned and led the way westward towards Church Street. After several zigzags they came into an narrow alley between a row of log shacks. Just ahead, kneeling over the body was Dr. Angus Withers.

  “What have we got?” Cobb said, coming up to him.

  Withers looked up. “You doing the investigation?” he said, not unkindly.

  “That’s right. I’m gonna play detective, accordin’ to the Chief.”

  “Well, we’ve got a savage murder on our hands, I’m afraid. This young woman’s had her throat slashed.” He drew back the handkerchief that had been covering her face, and Cobb recoiled.

  “Any idea when the attack took place?”

  “Hard to say. It’s damn cold out here. Everything freezes up and slows down. But no longer than a couple of hours ago, I’d guess.”

  “Any guesses as to how it might have happened?”

  “I’d say someone came up behind her and slit her throat before she could blink.”

  “A very pretty girl,” Cobb observed, trying to focus on her blond curls and keep his gaze away from the gaping wound.

  “If she was respectable, and she’s dressed that way, I wonder what she was doing wandering through Devil’s Acre at night?”

  “Maybe I can learn somethin’ from the fella who found her,” Cobb said.

  “I’ll fetch him,” Wilkie said, and left quickly.

  “We’ve messed up the footprints ourselves,” Cobb sighed, looking back at the rumpled snow where he, Wilkie, the coroner and the man who found her had all walked.

  “Ah,” Withers said, “but the killer did not retreat. He kept on going.” He nodded towards the west end of the alley. Faint from the fresh snowfall but still visible was a single set of footprints.

  “You’re right, doc,” Cobb said and, keeping to one side of the alley, he began following the prints. They were three-quarters drifted in, but their outline was clear enough. And they were huge, surely a size twelve or larger. The killer must be a big man, perhaps six feet tall. Either that or he was the owner of abnormally large feet. At the first turn, where the fresh snow had not penetrated, Cobb was able to discern one, clear, fully outlined print. It revealed a distinctive star-shaped pattern on the sole. Cobb committed it to memory, and would reproduce it in his notebook as soon as he could. It might prove to be an important clue.

  Another two alleys and abrupt turns brought him and the prints to Church Street. Here the trail went cold, for the prints suddenly met the ruckus of the earlier foot-traffic along the busy street. It seemed likely, however, that the killer knew the layout of Devil’s Acre. He had escaped by the shortest route, blending into the normal flow of people and vehicles along Church Street.

  To the south, at the Corner of Church and King, Cobb spotted the night watchman, the last of his breed in the city now that the police patrolled day and night. He walked along and hailed him.

  “What in blazes are you doin’ out at this time of night?” the fellow said. “You’re a day-patroller, ain’t ya?”

  “Hello, Edgar,” Cobb said. “I’m investigatin’ a murder over there in Devil’s Acre.”

  “How can I help?” old Edgar said, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

  “Did you see anyone come out of Devil’s Acre just down there, sometime in the past two hours?” Cobb said, pointing to the spot where he himself had emerged.

  “I don’t see everythin’ on this street, but I know it’s been awful quiet tonight. Didn’t see a soul hereabouts except an elderly laundry woman cartin’ her wares, who I advised to go straight home.”

  “Do you know her?”

  “Not really. Lots of ‘em go by here at all hours, luggin’ their stuff. I may have seen this one before and I may not have.”

  “She could be an important witness if she’d been anywhere near Devil’s Acre.”

  “Well, I’ll rack my brains, such as they are.”

  “Thanks, Edgar.”

  Cobb went back the way he had come. He examined again the spot where the bootprints vanished. The snow was messed up considerably just inside the alley. Had the killer lingered there? Strangely, Cobb had found no star-shaped print on the Church Street sidewalk. It was as if the fellow had disappeared into thin air. Cobb arrived back at the crime scene to find Wilkie standing there with a nervous-looking, respectably dressed man at his side.

  “This is Mr. Gavin Scott,” Wilkie said. “He found the body.”

  “I’ll have the undertaker remove the body to my surgery,” Withers said, pulling his scarf more tightly around his neck. He nodded goodbye to Cobb and left.

  “Now, Mr. Scott, tell me how you came to find the body,” Cobb said.

  “Well, sir, I was at the bootlegger’s at the other end of this alley and was on my way home when I almost stumbled – over her. Then I seen the blood.”

  “This would be about an hour and a half ago?
About ten-thirty?”

  “That’s about right.”

  “Did you check to see if she was dead?”

  “Yes. I felt for her pulse. I didn’t turn her over, like she is now. I just reached down and felt her wrist. There was no sign of life.”

  “Was the blood here still fresh?”

  Scott thought about this. “I believe it was. It looked like it had just dropped into the snow. It wasn’t thickened or frozen or anything.”

  “Then we can be sure she died shortly before you found her. You saw no-one about?”

  “No, I didn’t. I ran back to the bootlegger’s, and they sent a fella out to look for a policeman. He came right away.”

  “I’ll need your address, sir, in case we need to talk to you again.”

  “You don’t think I did it?”

  “Not really. You’d hardly report it, then hang about fer the police, would you?”

  At this point Wilkie let out a gasp. He was standing beside the body, looking down at her face for the first time.

  “What is it, Wilkie?”

  “I know the girl,” he said.

  “You do?”

  “Yeah. It’s the little singer from Madame LaFrance’s place.”

  Oh dear, thought Cobb. A woman of ill repute.

  TWO

  Cobb began walking back towards the brothel. At the end of the alley where Sally Butts had been brutally murdered, Cobb saw something lying in the snow. He picked it up. It was a leather glove, for the right hand. A gentleman’s glove, no doubt. Could it be the killer’s? Dropped here when it was pulled off to allow a better grip on the murder weapon? Cobb put it in his pocket.

  He went up to the door of the brothel and rapped loudly. No-one answered his knock. He rapped again, more loudly this time. Still no answer, though he thought he heard someone shuffling behind the door. Then he realized that the gentleman callers would likely have a coded knock to be let in.

  “It’s the police, Madame LaFrance. Open up!”

  After a brief pause, the door was eased open.

  “Whaddya want?” Esther La France barked.

  “I got some bad news, I’m afraid.”

  “A policeman in a brothel is always bad news,” she said, stepping back to let him into the warm interior.

  “Yer singer, Sally Butts, was just found in an alley near here with her throat slit. She’s dead.”

  Madame flinched. “Oh, my. I did warn her about walking home alone,” she said, her face revealing both shock and anger. “I offered to let Johnny walk with her, but she said she felt safer in Devil’s Acre than she did on King Street.”

  “Well, somebody didn’t like her and wanted her dead.”

  “She wasn’t carrying any money tonight,” Madame said, turning to spot Nell nearby in her kimono, her face white and her lip trembling. “She was sick and left early.”

  “Oh, poor Sally,” Nell cried. “I’d better go and tell the other girls.”

  “Break the news gently,” Madame said.

  “I need to ask you some questions,” Cobb said.

  “There’s nothing to tell. Sally was running a fever. I let her go off about ten o’clock.”

  “You didn’t see anythin’ funny goin’ on here before she left?”

  Madame’s gaze narrowed. “Whaddya mean, funny? I run a respectable house here.”

  “Did any of yer gentlemen do or say anythin’ to her durin’ the evenin’?”

  “They sat and listened to her sing – like a bird – that’s what they did. And behaved themselves, as I insist.”

  “Sally Butts was not one of yer regular girls, I take it?”

  “No, she wasn’t, though she had plenty of offers. She was a good girl who took her pay straight home to her parents.”

  “Did anyone make an offer tonight?”

  ”They did not. We had the usual gentlemen here tonight. They all knew her.”

  “Did any of these gentlemen happen to leave shortly before or after ten o’clock?”

  The gaze narrowed further. “You don’t think a gentleman killed her? Surely it was some cutthroat.”

  “With what motive, ma’am? The girl wasn’t molested. And she had no money, as you said.”

  “Perhaps he didn’t know that.”

  “But we have plenty of robberies in town and seldom does the victim get his throat slashed – from behind. It looks like murder was the motive here, by someone who knew who she was.”

  “Well, now, there were three of my gentlemen who left just a minute or two after poor Sally.”

  Cobb smiled and said, “Odd, don’t you think?”

  “Not odd at all. They had come to hear her sing, and when they knew she was finished for the night, they naturally decided to go home.”

  “Did they usually walk together?”

  “I wouldn’t know that, would I? Though I once saw them split up after they left my stoop.”

  “But you can tell me who they were?”

  Madame heaved a big sigh. “You know perfectly well I can’t do that. My gentlemen have wives.”

  “If you know who they are, you’d better tell me.”

  Madame LaFrance laughed, a coarse caw of a laugh. “You don’t understand, do you? I don’t even know or want to know who these people are. Here we use pseudonyms or pet names. The three gentlemen who left at ten o’clock were called the Cavaliers – Gawain, Lancelot and Galahad.”

  Cobb was taken aback. “Well, that ain’t much help, is it, unless I can find me a Round Table somewheres nearby?”

  “Well, that’s all I can tell you.”

  At this point Nell came back into the room with Sarie and Blanche, all three of them crying.

  “Quit your bawling,” Madame snapped. “You’ll scare away our customers.”

  “You don’t seem too broken up about losin’ Sally Butts,” Cobb observed.

  Madame took umbrage. “Of course I am. Where am I gonna get another singer with a voice like hers?”

  ***

  Cobb spent the first half of the next morning dictating his report to Gussie French, the police clerk. About halfway through, Angus Withers poked his head into the constables’ room that Cobb was using as an office, and announced that he had completed his examination of the body and had sent someone to inform the parents of Sally Butts’s death.

  “What’d you find, doc?”

  “Well, the knife used had a serrated blade,” Withers said. “I’d hazard a guess that it was some kind of skinning knife. The slash was from left to right, so if the killer was right-handed, I’d say he came up behind the victim, grabbed her to hold her steady, and then, quick and vicious, slit her throat.”

  “I found a right-handed glove near the scene,” Cobb said, taking the written report from Withers, “so if the killer removed it to get a firmer grip on the knife, he was certainly right-handed.”

  “There were no bruises or blood or skin under her fingernails, so she didn’t put up any sort of struggle. She didn’t have time, poor thing.”

  “Nothin’ else of interest?”

  “That’s it. I’ve jotted down the details for you in that report.”

  Cobb thanked him, and he left.

  When Cobb was finished making out his own report, he took it next door to the Chief’s office.

  Without looking up from his desk, Cyril Bagshaw said curtly, “Just leave it, Cobb. I’ll call you in when I’ve read it.”

  Cobb gave a small sigh and retreated. It was no skin off his nose if he sat in the anteroom by the pot-bellied stove and wasted his time. He had been relieved of his daily patrol in order to play detective, so detective it would be. Ten minutes later Bagshaw called him back in.

  “Why do you mention these gentlemen at Madame LaFrance’s?” he said, motioning Cobb to a chair opposite him.

  “They left the premises right after Sally Butts did, sir. And they went their separate ways, I was told. So I figure we got three men, who seemed to have an interest in the girl, wanderin’ about Devil’s Acre
in the dark.”

  “Wielding skinning knives?” Bagshaw said with heavy sarcasm.

  “Easily hidden in a coat pocket.”

  “So you think a gentleman is capable of acting like a common cutthroat?”

  “I found a right-hand glove at the entrance to the alley.”

  “I can read, Constable.”

  “It was an expensive glove, a gentleman’s glove. Would you like to see it?”

  “I would not. For God’s sake, Cobb, Devil’s Acre is a den of thieves and scoundrels who’d slit your throat as soon as look at you, and you’re pursuing three nameless gentlemen out for a diverting evening’s entertainment!”

  “And the boots, sir?” Cobb persisted. “I’ve sketched the odd pattern for you there in my report. That star-shape should make them easy to identify.”

  “And you think they’re gentleman’s boots? A giant gentleman at that?”

  “Well, it is a fancy pattern, ain’t it?”

  “You don’t even know if the footprints are the killer’s, do you?”

  “They led away from the body, sir, out to Church Street. And they were snow-filled, meanin’ they’d been made some time before any of us got there.”

  “But you say the footprints leading up to the body were all messed up by others who came after the killer – like the gambler who found her, the coroner, Wilkie and you?”