Page 9 of The Journal of a Thousand Years (The Glass Library #6)

CHAPTER 9

I left Cyclops with the unenviable task of questioning the servants about keys and joined Alex and Willie in the Vauxhall Prince Henry. We drove to the house where I’d been held prisoner.

In the early hours of this morning when I’d escaped, the parlor had looked sinister. Brown cheerless curtains covered the windows, the cast-iron fireplace was cold, and there were no cushions or rugs to soften the hard surfaces.

In daylight, with policemen crawling through it looking for clues, it was no less cheerless, but it wasn’t sinister. It was quite ordinary. The sergeant in charge recognized Alex and invited him inside. Willie followed. After taking a few fortifying breaths, I entered behind them.

Pages from the books blanketed much of the parlor. They covered the chairs and table and piled up in corners like drifts of snow. The only visible parts of the floor were where my kidnappers had cowered during the paper tempest, hands over their heads. Some of the pages’ edges bore bloodstains.

I picked one up. How much blood signaled a fatal wound had been inflicted?

In an uncharacteristic show of sympathy, Willie put a hand to my lower back. “You didn’t kill any of ‘em.”

“Are you sure?”

“That ain’t enough blood.”

I blew out a shuddery breath.

“Next time, don’t give up until one of ‘em bleeds out.” She gave my back a hard pat.

The sergeant indicated the papers. “We’re going to tidy this up now. Don’t know what happened in here. Do you, Miss Ashe?”

I tried to look innocent as I shrugged.

Alex cleared his throat. “Have you found any clues as to Thurlow’s or the Hobsons’ whereabouts?”

The sergeant shook his head. “Nothing. The Hobson women haven’t showed up at their home or the factory, and we only have an office address for Thurlow. He wasn’t there. Men have been dispatched to the Epsom Downs racecourse, so that might yield something.”

“Willie and I already went there this morning. It’s the first place we looked. We’ll head back now and see if there’s any news. Sylvia, do you want to look around here a little more?”

“Absolutely not. I never want to see this place again.” I strode out and did not look back.

The Scotland Yard team conducting inquiries at Epsom Downs were conspicuous because they were doing very little compared to everyone else. It was race day, but too early for the public. Most of the horses were still arriving with the trainers’ teams, and officials strode across the course with purpose. More staff came and went from the main members’ pavilion, the grand building with the expansive veranda and the best views over the finish line.

We spoke to the detective in charge who had very little to report. No one knew where Thurlow could be hiding out. “I’ve just come from his office myself, and he wasn’t there. It was locked up, good and tight.”

“That ain’t normal,” Willie said.

Alex checked the time on his watch. “It’s still early.”

“It’s race day. The office would be open by now, taking bets, both good and illegal. Then he’d close up around eleven and make his way down here to oversee the bookmakers operating under his license.” She nodded at the empty betting circle.

Several of the bookmakers who would set up stands there later would owe Thurlow a portion of their takings. Those who tried to cheat him risked his wrath. We knew from personal experience what happened when Thurlow was crossed. We’d been run off the road as a result of trying to trick him. If it hadn’t been for Gabe saving us when time slowed for him, we’d have died.

Gabe.

A pain gripped my chest, as if a hand were squeezing my heart, wringing out every last ounce of strength I had left.

Alex pressed his fingers into his forehead. “All right. We’ll wait a little longer. When Thurlow’s bookmakers show up, we’ll question them.”

“Thoroughly,” Willie ground out through gritted teeth. “I ain’t leaving here without an address for that cur.”

After ten minutes of waiting, I fell into step alongside Alex. Together, we paced along the fence that separated the spectators from the track. The physical exercise alleviated our restlessness but did nothing to increase our levels of patience.

Willie had disappeared, heading in the direction of the stables. I wasn’t sure how she could think about placing a bet at a moment like this, but we all coped in different ways and if checking out the runners in today’s races kept her out of our hair, then I was in favor of it.

Finally, the bookmakers began to arrive. They marked their territory in the betting circle by positioning their chalkboards and the crates they’d stand on to be seen above the crowd. There was a lot of chatter between them today, more so than the other times I’d visited on race days.

“Something’s amiss,” Alex said as he walked off.

I trailed after him, trotting to keep up with his long strides. Willie joined us before we entered the betting circle. Her fists were closed at her sides, and I knew her gun was tucked into the waistband of her trousers, hidden by her jacket. I hoped she wouldn’t need to use it, but for once I was glad she had it.

She thumped Alex’s arm and nodded at a scruffy looking fellow with a droopy left eye. “He’s one of Thurlow’s. We’ll start with him.”

The scruffy bookmaker was talking in earnest to another two men. They stopped when they saw our approach and broke apart. They recognized us.

Always as blunt as a hammer, Willie took the direct approach to questioning. “Where’s Thurlow?”

The bookmaker shrugged. “Don’t know. I ain’t seen him.”

“Don’t try that with me. I ain’t got the patience for it today.”

The bookmaker put up his hands. “I’m telling the truth. He wasn’t at the office. I thought he might come here.”

“Tell us where he’d be if not in his office.”

The bookmaker shrugged again.

Alex addressed one of the others. “Have you seen him?”

“Not today,” the man said. “None of us have. He might turn up here before racing starts.”

“Where could he be? Home? A pub?”

The bookmaker snorted. “Don’t know, and if I did, I wouldn’t tell the pigs.”

Most of the others in the betting circle either chuckled or nodded. One left the betting circle altogether.

I watched him out of the corner of my eye as he headed to the stable block and disappeared around the side.

The others hadn’t noticed. Willie was getting frustrated with the wall of silence. “I’m going to blow your bollocks off if you don’t give us an address for Thurlow.”

That elicited a round of raucous laughter from the bookmakers. The scruffy one looked her up and down. “Not sure I want you blowing mine, but Wally over there’s desperate enough to risk it.”

“I said off ! I’m going to blow ‘em off !” She went to pull back her jacket to reveal her gun, but Alex grasped her arm and marched her away.

“Don’t show that around here,” he growled at her. “The officials will throw us out and I’m not finished yet.”

She wrenched free. “Who’re you going to question next?”

He sighed. “I don’t know. Course officials, perhaps.”

“I have an idea,” I said, walking in the direction the bookmaker had gone. “Come with me.”

We spotted him crossing the paved yard outside the stables. Instead of heading back to the betting circle, he was walking quickly to the members’ pavilion. Beyond that was the exit gate. Willie wanted to accost him immediately, but Alex and I both told her to wait. We watched as he hurried off, his head low, his face covered by his hat.

When he reached the back of the members’ pavilion, Alex said it was time. I picked up my skirts and ran, but my quicker companions reached the bookmaker first. Alex already had him in a headlock by the time I arrived.

“Where is he?” Alex growled. “Where can we find Thurlow?”

The man was aged about thirty, but had the yellowing teeth of someone who rarely cleaned them. He smelled like tobacco and unwashed man. Alex loosened his grip just enough so the bookmaker could tell us he didn’t know where to find Thurlow.

“He wasn’t in his office this morning,” he gasped out.

“So where else might he be?”

“I don’t know.”

“You do, or you wouldn’t be trying to leave now to warn him.”

“I was going to use the privy!”

“It’s back the way you came, unless you planned on using the private one in the members’ pavilion.”

The man tugged on Alex’s arm, but that only made Alex tighten his hold. The man’s face turned a violent shade of red.

Willie withdrew her gun and pointed it at the bookmaker’s temple. “Where. Is. Thurlow?”

The man put up his hands and Alex released him. “I don’t know! I just want to take a piss!”

“There ain’t no privies back here.”

“The tree. I was going to go behind the tree.”

Willie flexed her fingers around the gun handle but kept her gaze on her quarry. Alex and I both glanced toward the tree. It was large enough to shield a man from the prying eyes of anyone wandering past.

Willie pointed the gun at the bookmaker’s crotch. “Tell me where to find Thurlow or I’ll shoot.”

“You wouldn’t,” he sneered.

“Do I look like someone who cares about the bollocks of scum like you?”

The man gulped.

Willie cocked the gun.

“All right! I’ll tell you. The only other place I know him to go is a pub near Borough Market, The Fisherman’s Inn.”

Willie stepped back. “See, that wasn’t so hard.”

The bookmaker glanced around. When he was sure no one was watching and we wouldn’t recapture him, he hurried off, back the way he’d come.

“I thought you were going to take a piss behind the tree,” Willie called out.

“Think I’ll use the privy, after all.”

Willie returned the gun to her waistband. “Do you think he told the truth?”

“Only one way to find out,” Alex said.

I fell into step alongside him. “I truly don’t think Thurlow took Gabe.”

Alex sighed. “Where else do we look?”

“Jakes.”

“If Jakes has Gabe, then his capture was sanctioned by the government, and they won’t return him until they’re ready. Besides, I don’t see Jakes breaking into the house at five in the morning with a thug in tow.”

“What if his activities aren’t sanctioned by Military Intelligence? What if he’s acting outside the scope of his orders?”

Alex eyed me sideways. “You may have a point, but I think we should go to Thurlow’s pub first. If that yields nothing, we’ll look into Jakes.”

Willie must have thought my suggestion had merit, too, because she gave me another pat on the back, this one gentler than the last.

It was impossible to find parking close to Borough Market, so we parked the motorcar a few streets away and walked. Tucked behind Southwark Cathedral and a stone’s throw from London Bridge, the market was dusty, busy and noisy. Stallholders shouted over the top of each other, vying for customers, but they were intermittently drowned out by the trains traveling on the viaducts above. The stalls, selling fresh farm produce, were crammed into any available space, including under the railway arches and on neighboring streets. The loud, thriving center of activity epitomized London in this postwar, post-influenza era of enterprise and energy. I wasn’t sure whether I liked it or loathed it, but I appreciated it nonetheless.

The Fisherman’s Inn was jammed up against one of the massive viaduct supports. A patchwork of posters and flyers were pasted to the support’s brickwork. The old timber pub with its low doorway and mullioned windows looked out of place beside the more modern architecture, but I was pleased to see the railway hadn’t consumed the historic building altogether.

Like most of the pubs in the market’s vicinity, The Fisherman’s Inn opened at six AM to serve beer to thirsty porters who assisted stallholders in the early hours of the morning. Some of them had lingered, chatting quietly at the bar, or napping in a corner booth. Thurlow wasn’t among them.

I let Willie and Alex question the barman and the drinkers. The response from all was the same—no one knew a man named Thurlow, nor did they know of anyone matching his description. It wasn’t obvious if they lied or not, but it was clear we weren’t going to get a different answer. Willie didn’t even attempt to threaten them. Perhaps, like me, she doubted that Thurlow was guilty of capturing Gabe, after all.

Outside, we trudged back the way we’d come. “We’ll call on Jakes,” Alex said.

I looked up at him, but something past his shoulder caught my eye. I stopped and pointed at one of the posters pasted to the viaduct support. “That’s him! That’s the man Sally saw!”

I tore the poster off the wall and studied the sketch. The brutish face with the scraggly hair past the shoulders matched the police artist’s drawing. The figure on the poster was thickset and he stood in a boxer’s stance, fists at the ready. He glared back at me as if daring me to take him on.

Willie took the poster and read. “‘See Mad Dog Mitchell fight for the bare-knuckle championship this Thursday at The Rose and Thorn.’”

Alex slapped the poster with the back of his hand. “That’s where I’ve seen him before: The Rose and Thorn. I went to that fight. It was last year. He lost, then disappeared from the fight scene altogether. He never entered another bout as far as I know.”

“Isn’t bare-knuckle boxing illegal?” I asked.

Alex looked sheepish. “I went from time to time after the war ended. I needed the distraction in those days.”

The brutal sport had been outlawed for good reason. Without gloves and with few rules, fighters received terrible injuries. Clearly his loss hadn’t affected Mad Dog Mitchell physically. He was still capable of abduction.

Willie folded the poster and tucked it into her pocket. “I reckon he’s a hired thug for sure. Who better to carry out illegal activity than a big man who can take care of himself and doesn’t care about laws.”

“Change of plans,” Alex said as we set off again. “We’ll go to The Rose and Thorn. Jakes can wait.”

It was a good plan, since none of us thought we could make Jakes confess anyway. We needed irrefutable evidence of his involvement. Hopefully Mad Dog Mitchell could give it to us. First, we had to find him.

The Rose and Thorn pub was located in a grimy East End slum that time seemed to have forgotten. There were no motorcars in the narrow backstreet, nor electricity wires feeding into the crumbling and rotting tenements. It was quiet considering it was mid-morning. Small children played in the gutter, their parents nowhere to be seen. There weren’t even any housewives on their way to or from the shops. The only adult we saw was a drunkard, sleeping in a recessed doorway.

“The women around here are mostly whores,” Willie told me. “The men are mostly involved in some sort of criminal activity.”

Alex indicated the Rose and Thorn with its faded sign hanging above the door, and peeling paintwork. “The pub is the hub for that activity. The publican spent some time in prison before the war and has been holding underground fights here for years.” He advanced toward the pub, only to stop. “Don’t tell anyone I was once a constable, or that we’re working with Scotland Yard.”

Willie grunted. “’Course we won’t. We ain’t stupid. Mention the pigs around here and they’ll close up tighter than an old spinster’s quim.”

The pub was closed, but we could see someone behind the bar, pouring liquid from one bottle into another through a funnel. When Alex knocked on the window, the man returned the bottle to a shelf under the bar before opening the door to us.

He was entirely bald, with deep folds in his leathery skin and a crooked nose. He was a large man who may have once been capable of beating another man in a fight, but nowadays he looked like he’d be breathless after a few minutes. He shook a bent finger at Alex. “I remember you. Haven’t seen you here for a while.” His tone was friendly enough.

“The fights don’t have the same appeal for me as they used to,” Alex said. “Can we come in?”

“Pub’s closed, but I ain’t going to turn away paying customers.” He stepped aside.”

“These are my friends, Willie and Sylvia. We want to speak to Mad Dog Mitchell.”

The publican had been eyeing Willie and me, getting our measure, but turned sharply to Alex at the mention of the boxer. He indicated the empty taproom. “Well, he ain’t here. You’re welcome to go through to the snug, but he ain’t in there neither.”

“When did you last see him?”

The publican became more guarded. “Couldn’t say. Why do you want to talk to him?”

“Our friend is missing. An eyewitness saw Mad Dog Mitchell and someone else capture him. Mad Dog hires himself out from time to time, doesn’t he? Does he conduct his business in here? Have you seen him with anyone lately?”

The publican sucked air through the space in his top row of teeth where one at the front had been knocked out. The one beside the gap was broken in half. His answer was a shrug of heavy shoulders.

Alex offered him some banknotes. “Will this jog your memory?”

The publican snorted. “Keep your money. I’m no squealer.” He headed to the bar, his rolling gait making him slow.

“Stay here where I can see you,” Alex growled.

“No one tells me what to do in my pub.”

Willie withdrew her gun. “Don’t move or I’ll shoot.”

The publican halted and whipped around, surprisingly fast for a large man. As he did, he picked up a tankard off the bar and threw it at Willie. It missed her but the gun went off.

The bullet hit the bottles lined up on the shelf behind the bar, shattering them. I wasn’t sure if Willie had missed him on purpose or not.

Before I could register the damage, the publican withdrew his own gun from his inside jacket pocket. He aimed it at Willie. She aimed hers at him.

“Get out of my pub,” the publican snarled.

“Nope.” I always knew Willie was brave, or a little mad, but she didn’t show an iota of fear that the publican would shoot her before she could pull the trigger. In fact, her lips curved with a smile. She seemed to be enjoying herself. Definitely mad.

I began to shake uncontrollably.

“We ain’t leaving until you give us answers,” she went on. “What do you reckon, Alex? You reckon Mad Dog Mitchell did meet someone in here and this moron knows who?”

Alex withdrew a gun too. I hadn’t known he’d brought one. I didn’t even know he owned one.

With both guns pointing at him, the publican gave in, swearing under his breath. He put his gun down and put his hands up. “Don’t shoot any more of my supplies. That stuff’s top shelf.” He indicated the smashed bottles and the liquid dripping onto the floor. “Costs me an arm and a leg, it does.” He perched himself on a stool by the bar. “Mad Dog comes in most nights. Folk know to find him here if they need him. He does hire himself out, mostly for jobs that need someone with muscle and experience with his fists. Someone who doesn’t ask questions.”

Alex returned his gun to the waistband at his back. “Did he meet anyone in here last night?”

“Last night, and the night before that, he met the same fellow.”

“Describe him.”

“Tall, about thirty. Red hair. He’s not from around here. I’d never seen him before and he wore good clothes. Not like a toff, but not like the sort that usually come in here.”

Red hair, good clothes… The description rang a bell. A rather large, loud one.

It did for Alex and Willie, too, going by the flicker of excitement to cross their faces. Alex wasn’t ready to leave, however. “Do you have a telephone?”

The publican pointed to a booth near his office. “Who you calling?”

“Scotland Yard.”

“I don’t want the pigs crawling around here! They’re bad for business, and for my health.”

“I’ll tell them to be discreet, and just send two men. One will be a sketch artist. You’re going to give him a description of the redheaded man who spoke to Mad Dog and he’s going to draw his likeness.”

The publican grumbled his irritation over the disruption to his day.

Alex handed him the money he was going to give him earlier. This time the publican took it.

Alex made the phone call, then we waited. Willie ordered a drink, and brought it over to where I sat with Alex, waiting for the sketch artist and his escort to arrive.

Willie thumped Alex’s shoulder. “We got her! After all these years, we finally got her!”

“Her?” I prompted. “Don’t you mean him? Valentine?”

“Nope. His mother, Hope. Lady Bloody Coyle. I knew she was no good the first time I met her years ago. Now she’s gone and done something real stupid and we’re going to put her behind bars. Her and her idiot son, Valentine.” She smirked before she downed her drink.

Alex drummed his fingers on the table. “She might not be involved. Valentine could have acted alone.”

“He can’t plan his way to the mailbox and back. She must be behind it.”

“Why would either of them want to kidnap Gabe?” I asked.

“For his magic,” Willie said. “Just like Thurlow and Jakes.”

Alex glared at the window, as if willing the police to hurry. “We’ll call on them and find out what they have to say for themselves.”

“Are we meeting your father there?” I asked.

“No. He doesn’t know we suspect Valentine. I want to question him myself without my father present.”

Willie let out a whoop . “This could get interesting.” She held up her empty glass. “Another, barkeep!”