Free Lawless and The Devil of Euston Square by William Sutton Page B

them off. But I was tired, and I couldn’t seem to let it lie. “Begging your pardon, sir–”
    “You want to be the hero of a thrupenny novel, son. Natural enough. But don’t make work where there is none. There’s nothing to show it wasn’t an accident. Nobody was hurt–”
    “The man was dead, sir.”
    “Don’t give me that look, Watchman. Simpson said the tramp was dead beforehand.”
    I stared. So he at least had read my report.
    Wardle sighed. “Let’s assume that Simpson was right. Someone was playing a joke. Who?”
    I cast about for the most convincing theories I had come up with in the wilderness. This was a test, and if I had to show off how much research I had done, where was the harm in that? “I thought maybe the builders’ union.”
    He nodded warily. “Go on.”
    “Or the Chartists. All that business about Drains not Trains.”
    “Not the Fenians? Or the Luddites? The Anti-War League, the Anti-Poor Lobby?” He was teasing me. “Look, Watchman, something irregular was afoot, I grant you.”
    “Wilful sabotage, it seemed like.”
    “Maybe. If it was political, they’d tell someone. Otherwise why bother? I’ve seen so many syndicates and unions in my time, I take it with a pinch of salt. People don’t think they’re alive unless they’re complaining. Why give them anything? As soon as they get it they take it for granted, complain it’s not as good as it used to be, or could be, or ought to be.” He scratched his head. “Like as not, it’s something much simpler.”
    “Yes, sir?”
    “I’d wager that it was a kind of message from one criminal gang to another. A message we’re not meant to understand. No reason to suspect it’ll happen again.”
    “I see.” Would we leave it at that? Abandon a case that I had an uncanny instinct to pursue? Otherwise, could I disobey my new master, like a mischievous schoolboy doing exactly what his teacher has told him not to? “Is there nothing to be done, sir?”
    “Stop worrying,” he said with a penetrating look, “and get some sleep.”
    Perhaps he was not teasing after all. Behind his bluster, he seemed not just amused by my anxiety, but somehow pleased by my insistence.
    “Before the clockmaker, though,” he went on, “what about that ward book?”
    “Sir?”
    “Matron might have known something.”
    I looked at him eagerly. Was he giving me the go-ahead after all? “Yes, sir, she did. She recognised the dead man.”
    “So?”
    I hesitated. “That’s all I know.”
    “How much did you give her?”
    “Sir?”
    “Tends to loosen the tongue, the jangle of silver. Can be expensive, investigating. Find yourself short, you know where to come.”
    I looked at him in surprise. “Thank you, sir.”
    “Unless it’s for a girl, mind.” He stood up, thrusting his hands into his pockets. “There are two ways to get on in the police. One is to be brilliant. The other is do what you’re told. If you can’t do the former, best keep to the latter.” He narrowed his eyes. “Get some rest over the weekend, son. If you have got yourself a girl, that’s your business. Only don’t come to work and expect to catch up on your beauty sleep.”
    “No, sir. I mean to say– That is, I haven’t …”
    “I don’t want to know. Let’s skip lunch and go home, eh? And Watchman, write your bloody reports quicker.”
    COVERT INVESTIGATIONS
    I took this to mean that, provided I kept up with the filing work, my free time was my own look-out. After all, as Darlington told it, Wardle had been catapulted to fame through a resourcefully solved case back in the Forties. Why shouldn’t I do the same? Moving Wardle’s suggestion to the top of my list, I started my investigations that afternoon.
    Without the doctor to open doors, I had trouble convincing the woman at the hospital front desk that I was bona fide. When I told her I was a sergeant of the Yard, she pointed me off down a dark corridor with a smirk. When I came back to her, lost, for