The Last Days of Newgate - Andrew Pepper [16]
Vines had long suspected some of Pyke’s actions erred on the side of illegality but had been consistently unable to prove his complicity in any wrongdoing.
‘You mean the type whose physical exertions involve inevitable risks and whose intimate knowledge of the city’s less salubrious environs garners results?’
‘What rot,’ Vines said, turning away. ‘You should hear what this Flynn character has been saying about Pyke. We can’t shut the Paddy up. The man’s clearly—’
‘A stinking liar,’ Pyke interrupted.
‘He’s a receiver. Swears Pyke here paid him a fee for looking after items that had been stolen . . .’
‘Enough,’ Fox barked. ‘For the time being we have more pressing matters.’ He glared at Pyke and then at Vines from under his greying eyebrows. ‘Tell us what you saw in that room and speculate on what it might mean.’
Pyke told Fox he would try but was not sure that he had very much more to offer. Vines snorted. Pyke held in the urge to strike him and took a deep breath.
He described how he had discovered the bodies and briefly sketched out the circumstances that had led him to the building in the first place. He did not mention Lord Edmonton’s name or anything about the robberies he’d agreed to investigate. Fox chose not to push for the information but Pyke knew he would want to know about such things eventually. He explained that once reinforcements had arrived, he’d taken their lamps and re-entered the room in order to see what he might have missed. He had also given the victims’ possessions a cursory examination and found little of note: a necklace and ring, a pocket handkerchief, some letters and two Bibles.
As for the adult victims, their hands had been tied behind their backs with strips torn from their bed sheets. Although he could not be certain, it seemed probable that whoever had killed them had also bound them up. Both victims had suffered heavy blows to their heads and Pyke speculated that their attacker might have entered the room, knocked them unconscious and then tied them up; in that order. He did not know why this had happened. The door had a basic locking device but it had not been forced, which suggested either that the lock had not been used or that one or both of the victims had invited their attacker into the room. This did not prove that they knew him but it didn’t disprove it, either.
Describing how the strips of material had also been used as gags, Pyke noted that the two adults had not been blindfolded. He said he didn’t know what this meant. He had inspected the mouth and hand bindings and detected on them the unmistakable scent of urine. He had detected the same scent in the metal pail where the dead baby had been discarded but on closer inspection had found no urine in it. It was pure speculation, he went on, but what if the murderer had beaten the victims unconscious and, for some reason, had wanted to bring them around? Might he have looked around for water and, if no water was immediately at hand, might he have not used what was immediately at hand to do so? Might he have not taken the pail filled with urine and thrown it into their faces?
Pyke underlined the fact that this was only a guess and heard Vines mutter something under his breath.
The extent and depth of the cuts indicated that whoever had administered them was a powerful man. A razor blade had probably been used, and since no such weapon had been found in the room, it seemed likely that the killer had taken it with him. Indeed, on reflection, the scene itself seemed quite orderly. Whoever had done this was not a madman. The neatness of the scene suggested the murderer’s actions were premeditated.
Both victims had bled to death; Pyke explained that he had found two pools of fresh blood surrounding both corpses. In addition, their bodies had begun to stiffen. Therefore, he proposed that the killings had taken place during the previous