Farriers' Lane - Anne Perry [80]
The conductor pushed his way down between the seats and crowded passengers and took their money, swaying on his feet as the vehicle stopped and started. A fat man coughed into a red handkerchief and apologized to no one in particular.
Most murders were tragically simple, involving the passions of close relationship—love, jealousy, greed, fear—or the reactions of the thief caught in the act.
The best place to begin was with the crime itself, for the time being ignore motive. Someone had placed opium in Stafford’s flask of whiskey after the time he and Livesey had both drunk from it in Livesey’s chambers. Later he had visited Joshua Fielding, Tamar Macaulay, Devlin O’Neil and Adolphus Pryce, any of whom could have touched the flask before the evening, when he had gone to the theater, drunk from it, and then fallen into a coma and died. The only people with the opportunity were those he had visited and his wife, Juniper Stafford. To consider either the clerks in his office or the servants in his house seemed absurd. No one could suggest the slightest motive for such an act.
The omnibus was stationary again, behind a large brewer’s dray. The traffic was creeping up an incline, horses straining and impatient. A carriage in front somewhere had broken a piece of harness. Footmen were scrambling about, cursing. A costermonger was shouting. Someone was ringing a bell and a carriage dog was barking hysterically. Everyone was cold and short of temper.
“It’s getting worse every day,” the man beside Pitt said angrily. “In another year or two nothing will move at all! London will be one vast jam of carts and carriages without room for a soul to take a step. Half this stuff should be taken away. Made illegal.”
“And where would you put it?” the man opposite demanded, his face creased with anger. “They’ve as much right to travel as you!”
“On the railways,” the first man retorted, straightening his tie with a tweak. “On the canals. What’s wrong with the river? Look at that damned great load there.” He jerked his hand towards the window where a wagon was passing by laden with boxes and bales twenty feet high. “Disgraceful. Send it up the river by barge.”
“Maybe it’s not going anywhere that’s on the river,” the second man suggested.
“Then it should be! Size of it!”
The omnibus moved forward with a jolt and resumed its slow progress, and the conversation was lost. Pitt returned his thoughts to the case. Motive he put aside for the moment Opportunity was obvious. How about means? He had never had occasion to enquire into the availability of opium. Like any other officer, he knew there were opium dens in parts of London, where those addicted to the substance could obtain it and then lie in tiers of narrow cots and smoke themselves into their own brief, private oblivion. And of course he also knew a little about the opium wars with China which had occurred between 1839 and 1842, and then again between 1856 and 1860. They had been begun by the Chinese attempting to take action against British merchants dealing in the opium trade. It was a black page of British history, but Pitt did not know what bearing it had on the present availability of the drug to the ordinary public in London, except that apparently the opium traders, with the mighty naval power of the Empire behind them, had won the day.
Perhaps the best thing would be to try to purchase opium himself and see how he fared. He would put off going to see Judge Livesey until later.