“This is Seven Dials,” Brewster pointed out. “None here will admit to seeing anything. They won’t risk standing as witness at the Old Bailey, because too many should be in the dock there themselves. As to where his guards were, I don’t know.” He spread his hands, unhappy.
I tried to picture the scene—Denis, cool and efficient, walking outside with his victim, or meeting him in the street, stepping up to him and thrusting a knife into his chest. Then standing over the man’s body, waiting for Spendlove and his patrollers to surround him and take him to Bow Street.
This was madness.
“Who was he meant to have killed?” I asked.
That should have been my first question, I supposed, but Denis was a complicated man with a complicated past. Perhaps an enemy had come upon him, and he’d had to defend himself. It was the only explanation as to why he’d openly dispatch a man in the street.
I had seen Denis kill before, truth to tell. In that situation, both of us had been in dire danger, and Denis’s nerve had saved us. The villain he’d shot had been doing his very best to murder us, and I’d not tried very hard to prevent the violence. Battle was about survival.
“Bloke called Pickett.” Brewster shook his head. “Never heard of ’im.”
Neither had I. “Did you recognize him? Even if you haven’t heard the name?”
“Didn’t see him, did I?” Brewster said mournfully. “By the time Stout—he’s one who works for His Nibs—found me, they’d already taken Mr. Denis off and carted away the body. I went to Bow Street and told a lad I know to see what was happening, but the magistrate had already sent His Nibs off to Newgate by then. Place I’m not going to darken the door of.”
As a former thief, Brewster stayed well away from prisons and courts of law. “What did you do after that?” I asked.
“Came back here and poked around but found nothing. Gibbons was here, in a right state. I said we should send for you. He didn’t want to but saw the sense in it. Wanted me to stay here and guard the place while he went to fetch you.”
“Guard it? Why?”
“In case there’s evidence lying about to clear him, I suppose. Not that I’ve seen anything one way or the other.”
“And what am I to do?” I asked in perplexity. “Gibbons hardly trusts me, and I’m no solicitor to convince a magistrate there is not enough evidence for a trial. Spendlove has his claws into this and wants his reward.” Which he’d receive if a judge at the Old Bailey convicted Denis of murder. Likely it would be a large amount. “He’s waited years for this.”
Brewster rubbed his upper lip. “Both Gibbons and me have watched you tumble to the right person enough times that even Gibbons thinks you can help. Gibbons is a cold fish, but he knows a thing or two about the law, having run from it all his life. We need to find a witness, or better yet, the real bloke what did it. Then we can have His Nibs snug at home again in no time.”
My dismay at their confidence rose. “You said no one in Seven Dials will admit to seeing anything. How do you propose I find a witness among them?”
Brewster eyed me steadily. “You have your ways. They’re odd sometimes, but you get your result in the end.”
With luck, mostly. A person said a wrong word at the wrong time and gave himself or herself away. I supposed I was good at noticing such things, but I hardly knew where to start.
“Your optimism is flattering,” I said dryly. “You’d better tell me exactly what happened.”
“Wasn’t here, was I?” Brewster sounded angry, as though blaming himself. “I was home with the wife, as you hadn’t been up to anything too dangerous lately. Taking my ease.”
“You could not have anticipated this event,” I said. “You work for me now, in any case, and couldn’t be expected to have prevented the trouble.”
I’d hired Brewster directly after Denis sacked him, as Denis had mostly assigned Brewster to look after me anyway. When Denis had tried to hire him back, Brewster asked to stay in my employ instead. My wife approved, as I tended to land myself into treacherous situations, and she was happy for Brewster to get me out of them.
However, Brewster’s loyalty to Denis was vast. Denis was very good at keeping the men in his pay free from prison, and he also rewarded them well. Brewster, a former pugilist, had found work for his fists with Denis without risking his neck. He’d not been happy when Denis had first tasked him to look after me, but Brewster had been a great help on our many adventures since then.
“His Nibs has done a lot for me,” Brewster said. “I’m that ashamed I wasn’t here to lift him out of this trouble.”
“There was nothing you could have done,” I tried to reassure him. “Spendlove would have arrested you as an accomplice if you’d been anywhere near. This fellow, Stout. I don’t recall him, do I?”
I’d once had to question every single one of Denis’s men, when he’d been looking for a traitor in his midst. They’d on the surface seemed all of a kind—fighters, boxers, hired ruffians—but had proved to be quite complex and individual. I’d learned surprising stories from them.
Stout had not been on the list.
“His Nibs picked him up in Rome.” Brewster scowled. “Bloke had been hanging about there, petty thieving from tourists, trying to save enough for passage back to England. Seems His Nibs took pity on him, or some such.” He rumbled in disapprobation. “He legged it the minute there was trouble, didn’t he?”
“To raise the alarm,” I said, attempting to be fair. “He couldn’t have prevented the arrest either. He was wise to run and fetch you.”
“Suppose.” Brewster lifted his shoulders, not ready to give the man the benefit of the doubt.
