Inspector of the Dead by David Morrell Read Free Book Online Page B

brick factory. He found it amazing that Lord Palmerston referred to his residence as a house. Perhaps he was so accustomed to wealth that to him it was indeed no more than a house, in which case what would Lord Palmerston envision a mansion to be?
    Normally, Becker would have been distracted by the black-and-white squares of the marble floor or by the intricate design on the bronze of the staircase’s balustrade—a word with which Becker had only recently become familiar. But this was hardly a normal occasion. Becker’s concentration quickly focused on a heap of clothes at the bottom of the stairs. Wary, he took three steps forward, just far enough to determine that the heap of clothes was the body of a female servant, whose head had been similarly shattered and who lay in the dried remnants of her blood.
    His chest cramping, he walked cautiously backward. At the front door, he returned his knife to its scabbard to avoid alarming anyone when he stepped outside. When he squeezed through the gap he had made, the cold breeze outside couldn’t compare to the chill of the house. The clouds were darker.
    The two newspaper writers were trying to persuade the constable to let them through.
    “What did you find?” one of them shouted.
    “Constable, use your clacker!” Becker yelled.
    Thinking that Becker wanted the constable to hit them, the reporters scurried backward.
    The constable gripped the clacker’s handle and swung its blade, the fierce noise gaining volume from the confines of the narrow street.
    Alarmed faces peered from behind curtains across the way. Servants hurried from doorways. What had been deserted thirty seconds earlier suddenly came to life.
    A constable ran along the street. The system of patrol areas was such that policemen were never out of hearing range of one another. Seeming to prove the point, an additional constable ran from the opposite direction.
    Becker told the first one, “I’m Detective Sergeant Becker. Stay here to help keep order.” He instructed the other newcomer, “Run to St. James’s Church. Tell Inspector Ryan that Lady Cosgrove isn’t alone.”
    “She isn’t alone?”
    “The inspector will understand what it means. Tell him to come at once. Bring more constables. As many as possible.”
    As the patrolman raced away, two more arrived.
    “What’s ’appened?” a woman in an apron yelled from the crowd.
    “My master wants to know what’s all the commotion,” a footman in livery demanded.
    “Tell him everything’s under control. All of you, return to your places,” Becker ordered. “There’s nothing to see here.”
    “Bobbies can’t tell us what to do in Mayfair,” the aproned woman shouted.
    Becker was tempted to ask her how she’d enjoy talking about it behind bars at the station house. But how would Ryan handle this? he wondered.
    “Come here,” Becker told her.
    The woman suddenly didn’t look so confident. “Me?”
    “You’re the one I’m pointing at. Come here.”
    She hesitantly obeyed.
    “Do you want to help? This’ll give you something to tell in the kitchen.”
    The idea of bringing gossip back to where she worked made the servant smile.
    “Are there back entrances to these houses?” Becker asked.
    “There’s a mews behind ’em. That’s where they lets us enter—where the groceries and the coal comes.”
    “Show this handsome constable where the back entrance is.”
    “He don’t look ’andsome to me.”
    “Now you hurt his feelings. Show him the back entrance. Constable, nobody goes in. And watch yourself, because somebody with nasty intentions might come rushing out.”
    “Understood, Sergeant.”
    Becker wasn’t used to being called by his new title. For a moment, it seemed that the constable was talking to someone else.
    As the servant led the constable away, three other patrolmen ran from one end of Chesterfield Hill while two more hurried from the other.
    Showing his badge, Becker motioned for them to gather close. He kept his