Pyke knew that Villums was an early riser and found him in his office on the corner of St John and Compton Streets. He hadn’t been there before but it was as bare as he’d expected: a wainscoted partition, a shelf or two, a large oak desk, a couple of stools, a clock on the mantelpiece above the fire and a map of London on the wall. Villums had never been one to draw attention to his wealth.
Perhaps ten years older than Pyke, Villums was slow and heavy on his feet, with a poor complexion and a hatchet-like profile. In his torn velveteen coat and corduroy trousers, he still dressed like a tavern landlord rather than a man who, when Pyke had last asked him, earned fifty thousand a year. They greeted each other warmly and Villums invited him to take one of the stools while he uncorked a bottle of whisky and poured out two generous measures. For a few minutes they talked about the old days and the people they’d once known who were now either dead or in prison.
‘I suppose you’re wondering why I left a message for you,’ Villums said, pouring them another drink.
Pyke nodded.
‘Would I be right in thinking that you’ve got yourself mixed up with the likes of Harold Field and Jemmy Crane?’
‘How did you hear that?’
‘What I’m going to tell you goes no farther than these four walls.’ Pyke gave him a hard stare. ‘Of course.’
‘All right. Good. So, a few months ago, I had a visit from Crane. He wanted to know whether I’d be interested in fencing a large quantity of gold.’
‘What did you tell him?’
‘I asked him to tell me more about the gold.’
‘And?’
‘He talked about bars, plenty of them. His references were quite specific. I told him I needed some time to think about it. I looked into the matter, then went back and told Crane I wasn’t interested.’
‘What did you find out?’
‘That the gold bars are, even as we speak, being held in the bullion vault at the Bank of England.’
Pyke exhaled loudly.
‘Exactly my point,’ Villums said, taking another drink of whisky. ‘After I told Crane I wasn’t interested, I gave him my word I wouldn’t tell a soul about it.’
Pyke saw the concern in his old friend’s eyes. ‘So what happened?’
‘I also owed Harold Field a favour. Don’t ask me how I got into the man’s debt. It’s a long story and I don’t want to bore you with the details.’
‘I see. So you told Field about Crane and the gold.’ It was starting to make sense now. Pyke thought about Field’s attempts to infiltrate Crane’s organisation.
‘With hindsight it wasn’t the most intelligent thing to do.’ Villums shrugged. ‘Crane finds out Field knows about the gold, who’s he likely to blame?’
‘So you went back to seek certain reassurances from Field and he told you about my involvement in the matter?’
Villums nodded. ‘That’s right. Look, you have my word that nothing we say here will go beyond these four walls.’ He paused. ‘But does Crane actually know about Field’s interest in him?’
‘He knows Field has been sniffing around him but, as far as I know, he doesn’t believe that Field knows about the gold.’
Pyke watched Villums take another sip of whisky; he’d never seen the man this anxious before. It was testament to Field’s reputation that even someone like Ned Villums was afraid of him. ‘You’ll tell me if the situation changes, won’t you?’ Villums asked.
‘I’m as keen as you are to leave the whole mess behind.’
‘Course you are.’ Villums tried to smile but his eyes lacked any trace of warmth. ‘If the Peelers nab you with gold bars taken from the Bank of England, they may as well lead you straight to the gallows.’
Pyke contemplated the idea. ‘Are you quite sure Crane’s target is the Bank of England?’
‘Seems unlikely, doesn’t it? I mean, how do you break into the bullion vault for a start, and then make off with five hundred gold bars?’
‘That many, eh?’
Villums nodded. ‘No way could you try going over the wall, you’d be dead within minutes. The bank has its own garrison.’
‘What are you suggesting?’
‘I don’t know. I’m at a complete loss.’ He scratched his face. ‘But I don’t want to know, either.’
‘Perhaps Crane has connections inside the bank?’
Villums didn’t seem convinced. ‘What can one man do? Like I said, the bank’s vaults are guarded by a regiment sent there each night from the Tower.’
Pyke took his glass and stared down at the last drops of the amber-coloured liquid.
The offices of the Vice Society were a short walk from Villums’ building but when Pyke presented himself to a clerk at the front desk and asked to speak with Samuel Ticknor, he was told that Ticknor had been called away on a family matter and wouldn’t be back for a few days.
‘I’m looking for information about Lucy Luckins,’ Pyke said. ‘One of the women you helped to find work.’
The young clerk gave him a bored look. ‘Was Mr Ticknor the agent responsible for this particular woman?’ It was the name Pyke had been given by Alefounder in Jamaica.
‘I think so.’
‘Then I’m afraid you’ll have to wait until he returns.’ He offered an apologetic smile. ‘We don’t keep records of such matters.’
‘How long did you say he would be away?’
‘A few days. A week at most.’
Pyke spent the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon looking for the blind mudlark on the Ratcliff Highway and along the northern bank of the river. It was a warm day and the dry weather meant the bank had become encrusted with pools of slime and raw faeces. The stink was almost unbearable and, on a few occasions, he had to take refuge near street vendors who were cooking food on hot coals to give his nostrils temporary relief.
‘I know ’im,’ a bone collector said. He was dressed in rags and was wearing a crushed billycock hat. ‘Least, I talked to ’im from time to time.’
As it transpired, he hadn’t seen or spoken with the man he called ‘Filthy’ for more than three months.
‘What can you tell me about him?’
‘Filthy? I didn’t know ’im well but he seemed like a nice man, gentle. I’d say he ’ad a good heart.’
Pyke thought about his suspicions regarding Filthy and Phillip — that they were the same person and had somehow been involved in the mutilation of Mary Edgar’s corpse. In light of this description, it didn’t seem likely or even possible that Phillip was the murderer. More to the point, whether he knew it not, Mary was his daughter. But at the same time, the similarities between the manner of his blinding at the hands of his brother, Silas Malvern, and the facial mutilations suffered by Mary Edgar and Lucy Luckins were impossible to ignore.
‘You talk about anything in particular?’
‘He liked his women dark, if you know what I mean.’
‘Dark as in black skinned?’
‘We ’ad a conversation in a tavern, that’s all. He told me what he liked and I told ’im what I liked. As far as it went.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Was a demon at catching rats, so he was. Preferred the sewer ones, he told me. Meaner, they were. Reckoned the landlord at the Duke of York in Saffron Hill would pay ’im threepence a rat.’
Later in the afternoon, Pyke asked for the landlord of the Duke of York at the brass-topped counter in the taproom. A few moments later, a squat, ugly man with no neck and square shoulders appeared behind the counter. He said his name was Johnny Flack. Pyke explained why he was there.