Inspector of the Dead

St. James’s Church looked almost too humble to occupy the southeastern boundary of wealthy Mayfair. Designed by Sir Christopher Wren, it gave no indication that the great architect was also responsible for the magnificence of St. Paul’s Cathedral, so strong was the contrast. Narrow, only three stories tall, St. James’s was constructed of simple red brick. Its steeple had a clock, a brass ball, and a weather vane. That was the extent of its ornamentation.

As the bells announced the 11 A.M. Sunday service, a stream of carriages delivered the district’s powerful worshippers. Because a special visitor was expected to relieve the war-gloom, St. James’s filled rapidly. The morning’s sunlight gleamed through numerous tall windows and radiated off white walls, illuminating the church’s interior with glory. It was a dazzling effect for which St. James’s was famous.

Among those entering the church, a group of four attracted attention. Not only were they strangers, but two men in the group were exceptionally tall, nearly six feet, noteworthy at a time when most men measured only about five feet seven inches. In contrast, the third man was unusually short: under five feet.

The group’s clothes attracted attention also. The tall men wore shapeless everyday street garments, hardly what one expected among the frock coats in St. James’s. The short man—much older than the other two—had at least made an attempt to dress for the occasion, but his frayed cuffs and shiny elbows indicated that he belonged in another district.

The fourth member of the group, an attractive young woman of perhaps twenty-one…what was the congregation to make of her? Instead of a fashionable, elaborate hooped dress with voluminous satin ruffles, she wore a loosely hanging skirt with female trousers under it, a style that newspapers derisively termed “bloomers.” The outline and movement of her legs were plainly visible, causing heads to turn and whispers to spread throughout the church.

The whispers increased when one of the tall men removed what seemed to be a newsboy’s cap and revealed bright red hair.

“Irish,” several people murmured.

The other tall man had a scar on his chin, suggesting that his background wasn’t much better.

Everyone expected the motley group to remain in the standing area at the back, where servants and other commoners worshipped. Instead, the attractive young woman in the bloomer skirt—her eyes a startling blue, her lustrous, light brown hair hanging in ringlets behind her bonnet—surprised everyone by approaching the chief pew-opener, Agnes Barrett.

Agnes was sixty years old, white-haired and spectacled. Over the decades, she had risen through the ranks of pew-openers until she was now the custodian of the most important keys. It was rumored that the gratuities she received from pew renters had over the years amounted to an impressive three thousand pounds, well deserved because a good pew-opener knew how to be of service, polishing the pew’s oak, dusting its benches, plumping its pillows, and so forth.

Puzzled, Agnes waited for the young woman in the disgraceful bloomer skirt to state her intention. Perhaps the poor thing was lost. Perhaps she intended to ask directions to a more appropriate church.

“Please show us to Lord Palmerston’s pew,” the young woman requested.

Agnes’s mouth hung open. Had this strange creature said “Lord Palmerston’s pew”? Agnes must have misheard. Lord Palmerston was one of the most influential politicians in the land.

“Pardon me?”

“Lord Palmerston’s pew, if you please.” The troubling visitor gave Agnes a note.

Agnes read it with increasing perplexity. Beyond doubt, the familiar handwriting was indeed Lord Palmerston’s, and the message unquestionably gave these four odd-looking strangers permission to use his pew. But why on earth would His Lordship lower himself to do that?

Agnes tried not to seem flustered. She moved her troubled gaze toward the unusually short man whose eyes were as strikingly blue as the young woman’s and whose hair was the same light brown. Father and daughter, Agnes concluded. The tiny man clutched his hands tensely and shifted his balance from one foot to the other, walking in place. On this cold February morning, his forehead glistened with sweat. Could he be sick?

“Follow me,” Agnes reluctantly replied.

She walked along the central aisle, past pews in a configuration known as “boxed.” Instead of rows that stretched from one aisle to another, these pews were divided into square compartments, eight feet by eight feet, with waist-high sides, backs, and fronts. They contained benches sufficient to accommodate a gentleman and his family. Many box pews resembled sitting areas in homes, with cushions on the benches and carpeting on the floor. Some even had tables on which to set top hats, gloves, and folded coats.

Lord Palmerston’s pew was at the front, to the right of the center aisle. For Agnes, the distance to it had never seemed so long. Although she kept her gaze straight ahead, she couldn’t help sensing the attention that she and the astonishing group with her received. Approaching the white marble altar rail, she turned to face the congregation. Conscious of every gaze upon her, she selected a key from a ring she carried and unlocked the entrance to Lord Palmerston’s pew.

“If His Lordship had notified me that he intended to have guests use his pew, I could have prepared it for you,” Agnes explained. “The charcoal brazier hasn’t been lit.”

“Thank you,” the young woman assured her, “but there’s no need to give us heat. This is far more comfortable than we’re accustomed to at our home church in Edinburgh. We can’t afford to rent a pew there. We stand in the back.”

So she’s from Scotland, Agnes thought. And one of the men is Irish. That explains a great deal.

Lord Palmerston’s box had three rows of benches with backs. The two tall men sat on the middle bench while the woman and her father occupied the front one. Even when he was seated, the little man’s feet moved up and down.

With a forced nod of politeness, Agnes jangled her keys and proceeded to the back of the church, where a churchwarden shifted toward her, looking as puzzled as Agnes felt.

“You know who that little man is, don’t you?” the churchwarden whispered, trying to contain his astonishment.

“I haven’t the faintest. All I know is, his clothes need mending,” Agnes replied.

“The Opium-Eater.”

Again, Agnes was certain that she hadn’t heard correctly. “The Opium-Eater? Thomas De Quincey?”

“In December, when all the murders happened, I saw a picture of him in the Illustrated London News. I was so curious that I went to one of the bookshops where the newspaper said he would sign books for anyone who bought them. An undignified way to earn a living, if you ask me.”

“Don’t tell me he was signing the book.” Agnes lowered her voice, referring to the infamous Confessions of an English Opium-Eater.

“If his name was on it and someone was willing to buy it, he was ready to sign it. That scandalously dressed woman is his daughter. At the bookshop, whenever he tried to pull a bottle from his coat, she brought him a cup of tea to distract him.”

“Mercy,” Agnes said. “Do you suppose the bottle contained laudanum?”

“What else? He must have drunk five cups of tea while I watched him. Imagine how much laudanum he would have consumed if his daughter hadn’t been there. I hope I don’t need to emphasize that I didn’t buy any of his books.”

“No need at all. Who would want to read his wretched scribblings, let alone buy them? Thomas De Quincey, the Opium-Eater, in St. James’s Church? Heaven help us.”

“That’s not the whole of it.”

Agnes listened with greater shock.

“Those two men with the Opium-Eater. One of them is a Scotland Yard detective.”

“Surely not.”

“I recognize him from the constitutional I take every morning along Piccadilly. My route leads me past Lord Palmerston’s mansion, where the younger man over there visits each day at nine. I heard a porter refer to him as ‘detective sergeant.’”

“A detective sergeant? My word.”

“I also heard the porter and the detective talk about another detective, who apparently was wounded during the murders in December. That other detective has been convalescing in Lord Palmerston’s mansion. The Opium-Eater and his daughter stay there, also.”

Agnes felt her cheeks turn pale. “What is this world coming to?”

But Agnes couldn’t permit herself to be distracted. The special visitor would soon arrive. Meanwhile, gentlemen gave her impatient looks, waiting for their pews to be unlocked. She clutched her ring of keys and approached the nearest frowning group, but as if the morning hadn’t brought enough surprises, she suddenly saw Death walk through the front door.

The mid-Victorian way of death was severe. A grieving widow, children, and close relatives were expected to seclude themselves at home and wear mourning clothes for months—in the widow’s case for at least a year and a day.

Thus Agnes gaped at what she now encountered. Astonished churchgoers stepped away from a stern, pinch-faced man whose frock coat, waistcoat, and trousers were as black as black could be. Because Queen Victoria and Prince Albert disapproved of men who wore other than black, gray, or dark blue clothing, it was difficult to look more somber than the male attendees at St. James’s, but the stranger made the glumly dressed men in the church look festive by comparison. In addition, he wore the blackest of gloves while he held a top hat with a mourning band and a black cloth hanging down the back.

A man whose clothing announced that extremity of grief was almost never seen in public, except at the funeral for the loved one he so keenly mourned. Dressed that way at a Sunday service, he attracted everyone’s attention.

But he wasn’t alone. He supported a frail woman whose stooped posture suggested that she was elderly. She wore garments intended to show the deepest of sorrow. Her dress was midnight crepe, the wrinkled surface of which could not reflect light. A black veil hung from the woman’s black bonnet. With a black-gloved hand, she dabbed a black handkerchief under the veil.

“Please unlock Lady Cosgrove’s pew,” the solemn man told Agnes.

“Lady Cosgrove?” Agnes suddenly realized who this woman was. “My goodness, what happened?”

“Please,” the man repeated.

“But Lady Cosgrove sent word that she wouldn’t attend this morning’s service. I haven’t readied her pew.”

“Lady Cosgrove has more grievous concerns than whether her pew has been dusted.”

Without waiting for a reply, the man escorted the unsteady woman along the center aisle. Again Agnes heard whispers and sensed that every pair of eyes was focused on her. She reached the front of the church and turned toward the right, passing the Opium-Eater and his strangely dressed companions in Lord Palmerston’s pew. The little man continued to move his feet up and down.

The next pew at the front was Lady Cosgrove’s. Situated along the right wall, it was the most elaborate in the church. Over the centuries, it had acquired a post at each corner and a canopy above them. Curtains were tied to the posts so that in the event of cold drafts, Lady Cosgrove’s family could draw the curtains and be sheltered on three sides while facing the altar. Even on a warm day, the occupants had been known to draw the curtains, supposedly so that they could worship without feeling observed by the other parishioners when in actuality they were probably napping.

As Agnes unlocked the pew, Lady Cosgrove lowered her black handkerchief from beneath her black veil.

“Thank you,” she told the pinch-featured man.

“Anything to be of assistance, Lady Cosgrove. I’m deeply sorry.”

He gave her a black envelope.

Lady Cosgrove nodded gravely, entered the pew, and sank onto the first of three benches.