Lawless and The Devil of Euston Square Read Online Free PDF Page B

would appreciate an attempt.”
    He checked his pocket watch in irritation and appeared to come to a decision. “In these uncommon circumstances, we may be able to confirm the time of death. Can you spare a quarter hour?”
    Outside the hospital, he hailed a cab. We hurtled through the lamplit byways, past the Brunswick Square constabulary, between the Foundling Hospital and Gardens, all the way to the Free Hospital on the Gray’s Inn Road. He paid the fare without a word, which I was glad to see, as my pockets were bare.
    Strolling in as if he owned the place, Simpson bustled me through tortuous corridors, signally less kempt than the establishment we had just left. He moved rapidly for such a large man, and we arrived in an oppressive dormitory, filled with groaning and moaning. As my eyes grew accustomed to the dark, I made out dreadful shapes, cramped close together in an atmosphere that smacked of the grave.
    “Ah, Bunny,” Simpson greeted the portly matron. “Fetch me the ward book. I want to check a time of death from last week. Beggar’s name escapes me. But I do recall he had a club foot.”
    “That’ll be Shuffler, sir,” the woman nodded obligingly. “The tosher, that good Mr Skelton brought in.”
    “I believe you’re right, Bunny. He certainly smelt like a sewer.”
    As she retreated to a side room, Simpson glanced at his watch again and tutted. He addressed me sharply. “I would place the man’s death last Thursday evening.”
    “You’re convinced it is the same man?”
    “My recollection of your man’s odour may be circumstantial evidence, but the club foot, you will grant, is hard to refute. If he was alive to suffer the accident of which you speak, it was a miracle beyond belief. You see, I visit this ward on Thursday mornings, and I saw your man here, Thursday last. He had already suffered the injuries that killed him. He was quite at death’s door, I tell you, and suffering rather. Even without the present evidence of nascent putrefaction, I would doubt that he lived through that night. Bunny will look up the details. Kindly inform the college hospital whether the Yard will require the body, else they will deal with it as normal.”
    “Doctor, I need to know how the man died. You’re telling me that tonight’s events had nothing to do with it. What am I to think?”

THE SECOND PERIOD
    (1860)
    THE BUGLE – LETTER TO ROXTON COXHILL – THE WILDERNESS
THE THEFT – NOBODY TO BLAME – COVERT INVESTIGATIONS
THE CLERKENWELL CLOCKMAKER – BAD BUSINESS
THE MODERN AGE – THE LIBRARIAN – GIVE IT UP
A MESSAGE
    EUSTON EVENING BUGLE
    30th June, 1860

    ALL IN DANGER OF BEING BURIED ALIVE
    The city’s influence stretches from Suez to Saskatchewan, and from beneath the Thames to the Himalayan heights. Yet these far-flung victories, claims Mr Edwin Chadwick, are outweighed by shameful deteriorations here at home.
    The Bugle accepted Mr Chadwick’s challenge to tour the Empire’s least salubrious frontier – our own East End.
    Cruel irony lurks in Green Street and Pleasant Place. A century back, the names may have been apt, as the last of the Huguenot fugitives reared dahlias in summer houses laced by Virginia creeper. Today this antheap of alleys is lined by ruinous tenements reeking with abominations. The wells of Clerkenwell are poisoned and the only greenness in Bethnal Green is that of putrefaction. One alley sees eighteen families served by a rotten pump, ruined with rusty nails, which functions weakly for twelve minutes a day, save Sundays. The struggle for this tap makes for battles every bit as bitter as Balaclava.
    An Inspector of Nuisances took exception to Mr Chadwick’s report that a shed of sixty cows stands against a shoemaker’s house whose children are dying of putrid fever. Pigs are also kept close by. This Inspector declared vehemently that there are but fifty cows, that the shed is at least eighteen feet from the house, and that it is many moons since pigs were kept