Farriers' Lane - Anne Perry [127]
Paterson must have been seeing it in his mind’s eye again. His face was sickly and his mouth pulled askew with the effort of his self-control.
“Go on,” Pitt prompted. “Mr. Lambert came, and then the medical examiner, I imagine?”
“Yes sir.”
“Had the farrier’s boy touched anything?”
Paterson’s face would have been comical in any other circumstance. Now it merely added the urgently ludicrous and human to the tragic.
“God no, sir! Poor little devil was out of ’is mind wi’ fear. Fit for Bedlam, ’e was. He wouldn’t ’ave touched that corpse if ’is life ’ad rested on it.”
Pitt smiled. “No, I imagine not. Who took him down?”
Paterson swallowed. He looked so white Pitt was afraid he was going to be sick.
“I did, sir, with the medical examiner. The nails was put in so ’ard it took a crowbar to get ’em out. We borrowed it from the forge. The smithy ’isself were in by then. Looked terrible ill, ’e did, when ’e saw what ’ad appened. ’E sold up and went back to the village wot ’e came from.” He shivered. “Never bin a forge since then. Brickyard now, for all it’s still called Farriers’ Lane. Maybe in a few years it’ll be Brick Lane.”
Pitt hated to bring him back to the subject he would so obviously rather forget, but he had no choice.
“What did the medical examiner tell you then, before he looked at him properly? You must have asked him.”
“Yes sir. ’E said the man, we didn’t know ’is name then, that was before we—we looked in ’is pockets. I know I should ’a done that straightaway, but I couldn’t bring meself to.” He looked at once defiant and savagely apologetic. Pitt could imagine the tumult of emotions inside him. “ ’E said as ’e’d been killed before ’e were nailed up,” Paterson went on. “As ’is ’ands ’adn’t bled much, nor ’is feet. It was the wound in ’is side wot killed ’im.”
“Did he say what he thought caused that?” Pitt interrupted.
“Well, yes, ’e made a guess,” Paterson said reluctantly. “But after ’e said as ’is guess were wrong.”
“Never mind, what was his guess then? What did he say?”
“ ’E said ’e thought it were probably a knife o’ some sort, a very long thin one, like a dagger, the Italian ones wi’ them narrow blades.” Paterson shook his head. “But afterwards, when ’e’d ’ad a proper look, ’e said it was more probably one o’ them farrier’s long nails, like ’e were nailed to the door with.”
“Did he say what time he had died?”
“Midnight or around. ’E’d been dead quite a while. Even though it were cold, ’e could be sure it weren’t in the last two or three hours. It were about ’alf past six by then. ’E said it must ’a bin before two in the morning.” Paterson’s face tightened with impatience. “But we know what time, sir, because o’ the evidence o’ the theater doorman, and the men ’anging around the end o’ Farriers’ Lane what saw Godman come out after ’e’d done it.”
“You didn’t know that then,” Pitt pointed out.
“No.”
“What did you learn from the corpse?”
“ ’E were a gentleman,” Paterson began, his whole body rigid as he recalled the picture to his mind. “That were plain from ’is clothes, ’is ’ands—’e’d never done any ’ard work. ’Is clothes were expensive, and ’e’d been at some sort o’ party because ’e were all dressed up, black tailcoat, frilled shirt, gold studs, silk scarf, all that. And an opera cloak.” He shivered again. “First thing we did was start looking for people who’d been around the area all night Found some beggars and drunks who’d been sleeping on the street at the south end o’ Farriers’ Lane and started askin’ them.” He relaxed a fraction as he moved from the corpse to the circumstances. “They’d been up ’alf the night ’round a bit of a fire in the roadway, chestnut brazier, or something, drinking like as not. They said they’d seen this gent go into Farriers’ Lane about ’alf past midnight, tall gent with a top ’at, fair ’air, as much as they could see of it, but it fell over ’is face a bit. No one followed ’im in. I asked ’em that in partic’lar, and they were quite sure. So ’ooever did that