Murder As A Fine Art Part 44

One of Brookline's companions raised his lantern. The edge of its illumination stretched faintly toward the roof, where a face appeared-Ryan's. He had hidden on top of the stacks of opium bricks.

Doors opened, the force of the wind crashing them against the outside walls.

Constables rushed in. Holding truncheons, they aimed their bull's-eye lanterns at Brookline and his companions.

Squinting from the painful glare, Brookline lit the fuse.

"No!" Ryan shouted.

The flame streamed sparks and smoke as it proceeded along the fuse, most of which was hidden under the opium bricks.

Ryan slid down a stack, his boots sc.r.a.ping against the burlap.

The moment he landed on the echoing wooden floor, he lunged to grab the fuse.

He never reached it. With eye-blinking speed, Brookline drew a knife and sliced Ryan's arm.

Crying out, Ryan clutched his arm and darted back.

"How many constables do you have here?" Brookline asked him.

One of Brookline's companions provided the answer. "Looks to be about a dozen."

"And a half dozen over there," Brookline's second companion added, pointing toward a group of patrolmen who entered through a farther door.

Bleeding, Ryan made another grab for the fuse, only to dodge back as Brookline swung the knife again.

"You didn't bring enough help," Brookline said.

His three companions now had knives in their hands.

The constables converged on them. But what Brookline most cared about was making certain that the fuse, sparking and smoking, disappeared into the opium stacks.

"Now," Brookline ordered.

Their movements were startlingly rapid. Before the constables could react, Brookline and his companions attacked with the skill and discipline that came from twenty years of combat in India and China. Acts that ordinary people would have been sickened to imagine didn't merit a second thought for them, so accustomed were they to violence. The apex of the British military, they were the reason the Union Jack flew over a quarter of the world.

Truncheons fell. Helmets dropped. Lanterns crashed. Cloth and skin shredded from the whistle of razor-sharp blades. Knives whipped faster than eyes could follow, a back-and-forth relentless blur. In a matter of seconds, bodies lay everywhere, men groaning, some breathing their last.

Flames rose from lamps that had fallen and broken, their coal oil mixing with blood.

"The stupid b.a.s.t.a.r.ds believed they were equal to us," Brookline said.

"The gate will be blocked," one of his companions warned.

"We'll go over the wall and make our way by foot to the hea.r.s.es," another said. "Nothing's changed. The plan will work. Compared to India, this is cake."

"It was an honor to serve with you," Brookline told them.

"And to you, Colonel. I hope you get your revolution."

The roar of a shot filled the warehouse.

Brookline's three companions, who'd been hurrying toward a rear door, spun in surprise, seeing Brookline drop to his knees.

DRIPPING BLOOD, Ryan c.o.c.ked the Colt navy revolver a second time and fired, killing one of the men dressed as constables. While the remaining two tried to recover from their surprise, Ryan managed to fire a third time, the large pistol kicking in his hands. The muzzle flashed, smoke rising. His bullet missed, but the blasts were so deafening that they couldn't fail to be heard from a distance. More guards would soon rush into the building.

Amid the smoke, the two uninjured men suddenly raced away, their boots thumping across the warehouse. A far door banged open, the men vanishing into the night.

Ryan watched Brookline topple from his knees and sprawl on his stomach.

"I'm told that this type of revolver is what your man used to pretend to try to a.s.sa.s.sinate Lord Palmerston," Ryan said.

Wincing from the knife wound in his arm, he approached Brookline on the floor.

"A calculated overload of gunpowder made the pistol explode without harming your man. By stopping what appeared to be an a.s.sa.s.sination attempt, you gained Palmerston's greater confidence. Meanwhile, the apparent attack on a cabinet member helped spread the panic. No misfires with this weapon, though. The armorer who lent this to me made sure that the powder, the bullets, and the wadding were perfectly loaded into the cylinders."

Ryan stood over Brookline's body.

"Please, don't die from the gunshot. I want to see you hang."

Abruptly Ryan felt breathless. Wincing, he stumbled backward. Brookline's sudden upward slash had been astonishingly quick.

Ryan groaned, clutched his abdomen, and lurched away, striking the opium stacks. His knees bent. He sank to a sitting position on the floor.

Brookline groped painfully to his feet, mustered strength, and walked toward him. As he drew back his knife, preparing to thrust at Ryan, shouts approached.

Ryan raised the large, heavy revolver, managed to hold it with both hands, c.o.c.ked it, and again pulled the trigger.

The deafening shot missed Brookline. He stared toward the door beyond which the angry voices were louder. He watched Ryan fumble to rec.o.c.k the revolver.

Amid the gathering smoke, he ran.

Guards rushed into the warehouse. Shock paralyzed them as the rising flames revealed the bodies.

"Brookline and two men dressed as constables ran out that door." Ryan groaned. "They're heading toward the wall around the docks. Brookline's been wounded."

The pistol dropped from Ryan's hand, thumping on his outstretched legs.

Some of the guards raced toward the door. Others stomped on the flames.

Men rushed in with pails from the docks, throwing water on the fires.

"Gunpowder," Ryan moaned to them. "Under the opium."

"Gunpowder?"

Ryan tried to raise his voice. "The fuse is lit."

Amid smoke, Ryan gripped the stack behind him and struggled to stand. It seemed to take him forever to get on his feet. His pants felt wet, as if he had urinated on them, and perhaps he had-but he knew that they were mostly wet from his blood.

"We need"-he coughed from the smoke-"to pull the opium bricks out and find the fuse."

"Did you say 'gunpowder'?"

Ryan yanked a burlap-wrapped package of opium from a stack, throwing it on the floor.

"And a lit fuse?" someone else asked.

Wincing, Ryan pulled another burlap package from a stack.

"Let's get the h.e.l.l out of here!" a man shouted.

"The wind will"-Ryan groaned-"carry the flames to the city."

He tugged more burlap packages from the stacks. "Found it."

Dizzy, he strained to focus his vision on the sparks. "Too many. Dear G.o.d, it spread to three other fuses."

Men rushed to join him. Packages of opium bricks flew through the air.

"I got one!" a guard yelled, cutting the tip off a burning fuse.

"Two others went into these stacks!"

Coughing, the guards hurled opium packages into aisles.

"Here!"

"This one spread to more fuses!"

"Hurry!"

"Found one!"

"Another!"

The guards raced from stack to stack, frantically pulling away packages.

Ryan found another fuse and cut off its tip. His legs wavered.

"The last one went under this stack!" someone yelled. "We'll never get to it in time!"

"Run!"

As the men charged past Ryan, someone grabbed him, shoving him toward the door. The explosion lifted him and threw him outside. He landed hard on gravel, rolling from the force of the blast. Walls disintegrated, wood and burlap and opium bricks erupting, the force flipping him, so stunning him that he barely realized he was falling off the edge of a dock.

BROOKLINE FORCED HIMSELF to ignore the pain in his chest. Working his strong legs, climbing a slope toward the base of a wall, he told himself that the wound couldn't be serious. Otherwise, he wouldn't be able to run as fast as he was. The bullet had struck the right side of his chest. He was wearing a heavy overcoat, a business coat, and a waistcoat. They had absorbed some of the force. The bullet hadn't penetrated deeply. He was certain of it.

With the wind chasing the usual fog, the light from stars and a half moon guided him. He reached the bottom of the wall and found a ladder on the dirt. The British East India Company guards used it to peer over the wall and throw rocks if they had information about thieves ma.s.sing out there.

His ribs hurt when he raised the ladder and clambered up, but his breathing was deep, and he told himself that the pain came from bruises. The tops of the poles that formed the wall had been sharpened, with broken gla.s.s wedged between the points. Hearing loud voices behind him, men chasing him, he gripped two of the sharpened posts and raised a boot to step on the broken gla.s.s. A point snagged on his trouser leg, tearing the cloth. As he shifted to the other side, he pushed the ladder away and heard it crash on the ground.

"What's that?" someone yelled.

He dangled from the outside of the wall. Here the distance to the ground was greater, a trench having been dug.

Something popped in his chest. He literally heard a popping sound, and at once agony surged through him. He released his hands and dropped. Although he was prepared for the shock of landing, he nonetheless gasped when his knees bent and he lost his balance, toppling sideways.

The angry voices reached the opposite side of the wall. With effort, Brookline came to his feet, ran across the ditch, and squirmed up its slope. Pain gripped his right knee when he climbed over a rail fence and reached East India Dock Road.

From his high perspective, he saw the warehouse and the ship basin. Flames showed through an open warehouse door.

Straight ahead was the vague outline of the city. He broke into an awkward run, adjusting his balance and speed to compensate for the pain in his knee.

And the pain in his chest. After something had popped in it, the pain was now deep.

The explosion knocked him to the ground. Flames and debris erupted from the warehouse, fire and smoke shooting up. His ears, which had been ringing from the numerous shots in the enclosed s.p.a.ce of the warehouse, now rang more severely.

Only one explosion.

There should have been ten. The force of the multiple blasts should have been strong enough to level not only the warehouse, which it hadn't, but also other buildings in the area. It should have thrown so many burning chunks of wood into the air that a rain of fire would now be falling around him. The wind should have carried a fury of sparks into the city. On the northern side of East India Dock Road, buildings should be starting to burn. Ahead, roofs should be smoldering.

In pain, he saw lanterns wavering as men raced up from the docks. He reached an intersection in which five roads led to many directions. He went south, reasoning that his pursuers would not expect him to go back toward the river. A signpost told him that this was Church Street. Close by, he had killed his mother and the former soldier, then set fire to their riverfront shack.

He pa.s.sed the church where he'd learned to read. A pa.s.sage he'd been taught from The Book of Common Prayer flashed through his mind.

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

Wrong, Brookline thought. I have no sin.

Opium is the sin.

England is the sin.

The Opium-Eater is the sin.

My father is the sin.

Stumbling more than running, he reached the southern end of Church Street. Again, five streets formed an intersection, leading to various parts of the compa.s.s. Police clackers sounded alarms, but they were distant, to the north, probably on East India Dock Road. His tactic was confusing his pursuers, and this five-street intersection would confuse them even more.

He chose west, struggling along a street that he recognized from his youth: Broad Street. As the flames from the warehouse threw sparks into the wind, his heart swelled with hope that the great fire would happen.

He reached another intersection, another place to confuse his pursuers. Now Broad Street changed its name, and even without a signpost, he couldn't possibly have failed to recognize it. It was the one place in London that he knew better than any other, better than the Opium-Eater knew Oxford Street.

With a shock of recognition, he looked to his left, and even in shadows, he realized that he limped past New Gravel Lane. There, at number 81, amid pathetic shops that sold to sailors, had stood the King's Arms tavern, where his father had committed his second set of murders, cracking the heads and slitting the throats of John Williamson, his wife, and their servant.

John Williams.