Carver's Truth

by Nick Rennison

  ‘Nothing more than a drop of the ruby,’ Quint said. ‘No ’arm done.’

  ‘You would not be so blasé if the ruby in question was yours and not mine.’

  ‘Anyways, you’re finished now.’

  Adam stood up, continuing to dab at his chin with the towel, and began to walk about the room. Quint took away the bowl of water and then returned to perch on the arm of a chair. He lit a cigarette and began to scatter ash on the floor.

  ‘You found cigarettes, I see,’ Adam remarked, still examining his face in the mirror. It seemed to have stopped bleeding. ‘You were complaining of running low.’

  ‘German ones,’ Quint said, waving his hand in the air and depositing more ash on the plush carpet of the hotel room. ‘Ain’t much of a smoke. Three draws and a spit and they’re done.’

  There was silence in the room as Adam began to tie a white cravat around his neck and his manservant continued to smoke.

  ‘This bint in the ’ospital,’ Quint said eventually.

  ‘Dolly,’ Adam said.

  ‘This bint, Dolly. She took the name of the other bint, right?’

  ‘That is correct.’

  Quint stubbed out his cigarette and immediately lit another. He looked thoughtful.

  ‘And this dead cully, Harry Vernon. He was doing the four-legged frolic with Dolly.’

  ‘He and Dolly were lovers, yes.’

  ‘And he come here to Berlin to flog something ’e’d stole.’

  ‘Correct again.’

  ‘But ’e ain’t the one whose idea it was to filch whatever it is ’e filched. Which you ain’t about to tell me.’

  ‘No, I do not believe that he is the mastermind behind the plot.’

  ‘So ’oo is?’

  ‘The answer to that question lies in London. We have done all we can here in Berlin. Dolly will be cared for in the Charité. When she is well enough to travel, Etherege has promised to arrange her journey home. It is time for us to return to Doughty Street.’

  ‘Owf weeder sin to the Prusskies, then.’

  ‘Precisely. I could not have expressed it better myself, Quint.’

  PART FIVE

  LONDON

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  ‘So, poor Harry is no more.’ Adam and the Honourable Richard Sunman were walking together in St James’s Park. The man from the Foreign Office sounded genuinely distressed when he spoke of Vernon. ‘We received news from Etherege, of course. He had been informed by the authorities in Berlin that Harry died in a shooting accident near the Grünewald hunting lodge. Had we not had his more private report and your eyewitness story, we would have not known the exact circumstances leading to his death.’

  ‘Can nothing now be done to hold the people responsible for his murder to account?’

  Sunman waved his hand impatiently. ‘Not a thing,’ he said. ‘Unfortunately, we must accept what they have told us. Ravelstein is too close to Bismarck. We cannot afford to make waves.’

  ‘That is precisely what Etherege said.’

  ‘He was correct.’

  The two men stopped. Adam glanced at his companion, who was prodding his silver-topped cane into the gravel of the path on which they were standing.

  ‘Poor Harry has been laid to rest in the Protestant cemetery in Berlin,’ Sunman said. ‘Half of his mother’s family are already there, it seems.’

  ‘And this sorry saga will be laid to rest with him?’

  ‘Of course it will not,’ Sunman snapped.

  ‘I thought as much.’

  ‘How can it be when one outstanding question remains, the most important question of all. The submarine plans. What has happened to them? Ravelstein cannot be in possession of them. They were not in Harry’s room at the Deutscher Hof when Etherege’s men searched it. Nor in the hotel safe.’

  ‘Perhaps Vernon did not take them abroad at all.’

  ‘Perhaps not. But I shall not sleep soundly in my bed until their whereabouts are ascertained.’

  ‘Actually, I think that I can hazard a guess as to where they are.’

  Sunman looked sharply at Adam. ‘This is not a time for idle jests.’

  ‘I am not jesting.’

  ‘My God, Adam,’ the young aristocrat said, swinging his stick like a rustic scything corn, ‘if you know anything more about these damn plans, you must tell me.’

  ‘Bear with me, old man,’ Adam said, taking a step back. There was no doubt about it: he was once again rather enjoying Sunman’s discomfiture. ‘All in good time. I have some further enquiries to make before I can be certain.’

  ‘You must tell me immediately if you learn any more about the blueprints.’ Sunman was in a state of nervous agitation now, shifting his cane from one hand to the other as they walked. ‘It is impossible to overemphasize the importance of recovering them.’

  For the country, Adam wondered, or for the future of your career at the Foreign Office? Both perhaps, he concluded, trying to be as charitable to his friend as he could be. The two men continued to walk, now in silence, along a path that ran parallel to the Mall.

  ‘Etherege seemed to think that Harry will be remembered in the FO as a hero rather than a villain,’ Adam said eventually.

  Sunman shrugged. What did it matter, his attitude seemed to say, how Vernon was remembered? ‘For most people, he will have been the victim of a tragic shooting accident abroad. There is no reason for us to say more. There are, however, small numbers of people within the FO who cannot be fobbed off with such a story.’

  ‘So you will fob them off with another?’

  Sunman ignored Adam’s facetiousness. ‘We will tell them that he travelled to Berlin in order deliberately to mislead the Germans,’ he said, ‘and that he was killed when his subterfuge was discovered. The fact that he absconded to the Continent with the intention of betraying his queen and country will be conveniently ignored.’

  ‘And all the alarums and excursions of the last few weeks will be forgotten.’

  ‘If you can do as you say and locate the plans,’ Sunman said pointedly.

  ‘Oh, I think I can do that.’

  ‘I pray to God that your confidence is justified.’

  There was another silence. Adam could see the roof of Buckingham Palace in the distance and a flag fluttering on its pole.

  ‘It is fitting, I suppose,’ he said.

  ‘What is fitting?’ Sunman was sounding increasingly exasperated.

  ‘That the end of Vernon’s life should be the subject of such invention. It seems appropriate.’

  ‘I do not follow you, Adam. Why should this fable that I have been obliged to construct to explain Harry’s death be in any way appropriate?’

  ‘Do you not see, old chap? Harry’s whole story has been an illusion, a theatrical effect.’ Adam took his friend’s arm as they turned towards the lake. ‘Have you heard of Pepper’s Ghost?’

  ‘I cannot say that I have.’ The young aristocrat’s mouth was pursed in disapproval. ‘I am no great habitué of the theatres.’

  ‘Professor Pepper is a lecturer at the Royal Polytechnic Institution in Regent Street. He has used a clever arrangement of mirrors to make audiences believe that they see things which are not there. What they believe is in front of their eyes is nothing more than a reflection.’

  ‘I am sure the good professor is a very ingenious man, Adam, but I cannot see the relevance of his ingenuity to the matter in hand.’

  ‘You still do not understand, Sunman, do you?’ Adam unhooked his arm from that of his friend. ‘You have been deceived from beginning to end of this matter. So have I. Poor Harry Vernon and his love affair, the search for Dolly Delaney, Vernon’s flight to Germany – they have all been like Pepper’s Ghost. They have
been shadows designed to keep our attention occupied while the real business takes place behind the scenes.’

  ‘Designed? Designed by whom?’

  Adam had already turned to walk away. ‘When I am certain of the answer to that question,’ he called over his shoulder as he strode towards Horseguards Parade, ‘you will be the first person to know.’

  * * * * *

  ‘Do they never clean their drinking vessels here?’ Adam wondered aloud. The Three Pigs seemed no less filthy a den on his second visit to it than it had on his first. He inspected his gin and water more closely. ‘I swear I can see the fingermarks of the last ten people to use it on this glass.’

  ‘Fingermarks ain’t going to be the worst of it, guv,’ Quint said, nodding in the direction of the bar. ‘’Ere comes trouble.’

  The squat figure of Jem Baines was making his way towards them, pushing his way through the crowd of drinkers. He was wearing a shabby blue jacket and what had once been, long ago, white duck trousers but were now an unappetizing shade of brown. Together with a rolling gait, they gave him a distinctly nautical air. His arm was clamped around the waist of the red-haired woman named Kate who had been his companion before.

  ‘Look at our old pal Quintus, Kate,’ Baines sneered. ‘Sitting there with his dandy chum. ’E’s so flash these days, it’s a wonder ’e knows ’isself in a mirror.’

  Quint made to rise from his seat. ‘You’ll be findin’ your bleedin’ eye in a sling,’ he said, ‘if you ain’t careful, Jem Baines.’

  ‘Gentlemen, gentlemen, let us have no more vituperation.’ Adam held out his hands soothingly. ‘We have not come here to quarrel, Mr Baines. We have come here to reach a mutually beneficial agreement.’

  ‘I ain’t got the first bleedin’ idea what you’re talkin’ about, fancy boy,’ Baines said. ‘You and your five-guinea words.’

  ‘Ah, well, I shall endeavour to use less complicated language. Will you not join us, Mr Baines?’ Adam gestured to an empty chair at their table. ‘We have much to discuss.’

  Baines looked at Adam, and then at the chair, as if he suspected that either or both might suddenly attack him. ‘I ain’t got no call to join you,’ he said.

  ‘No matter. If you wish to stand, you are free to do so.’

  ‘’Course I am. I can do what I wants ’ere.’

  ‘But not everywhere else in London.’

  ‘What the bleedin’ ’ell d’you mean?’

  ‘There are some things you have been doing – away from the confines of this delightful hostelry – in which the police might well take an interest.’

  ‘You can fry in your own grease, fancy boy. I ain’t done nothing to catch a bluebottle’s eye.’ Baines sounded defiant but his confidence was slightly dented. He pulled back the chair and sat in it. ‘But whyn’t you tell me what I’m supposed to have done?’

  ‘By all means, Mr Baines.’ Adam relaxed back in his chair. ‘I will relate a little story, to provide some background detail. It begins with a gentleman named Job Benskin. You know him, do you not?’

  ‘’Course I do. He was ’ere the first night you and Quint come visitin’.’

  ‘He was here at your suggestion, I think. You and Benskin were in alliance. He had told you about me and his previous acquaintance with me. He had told you of his plans to extort money out of me. Why not, you said, invite him to the Three Pigs? So you both asked the landlord if you could make use of the room at the back’ – Adam nodded in the direction of the door through which he had exited in a fury some weeks earlier – ‘and he agreed.’

  ‘Ain’t no harm in that,’ Baines said belligerently.

  ‘None whatsoever.’

  ‘Using a room in a pub.’ The pickpocket laughed derisively. ‘The blues ain’t likely to be after me for that.’

  ‘No, they are not. However, our friends in the police might be more interested in your activities in Doughty Street.’

  ‘Doughty Street? Is that round this neck of the woods, then? Ain’t ever ’eard of it in Whitechapel. What about you, Kate?’ He turned to his tipsy doxy, who tried her best to focus her eyes on him. ‘You ever ’eard of a Doughty Street in these parts?’

  ‘It’s odd that you should forget your visit there, Mr Baines, because you left a little memento of it behind you.’

  ‘Memento? What’s a bleedin’ memento?’

  ‘An item belonging to you. An item of clothing.’ Adam gestured to Quint, who reached inside a carpet bag they had brought with them and extracted something from it.

  Baines glanced at the battered article, reached towards it and then stopped himself.

  ‘That’s right,’ Adam said. ‘Your hat fell off during our fracas at my rooms. And you never came back to claim it.’

  ‘Ain’t my hat, cully.’

  ‘Are you certain of that, Mr Baines? It has your initials in it. Much though I have my doubts about Mr Job Benskin, I don’t think they are his. Take a closer look at it.’

  ‘Ain’t my hat, I tell you.’

  ‘Oh, I think it is.’

  ‘And if it is – which it ain’t – what the ’ell’s it prove? It’s jest a bleedin’ ’at.’

  ‘It proves you were in my rooms. And there’s more. There’s the porter, Mr Knibbs. A fine fellow, Mr Knibbs, a decorated veteran of the war in the Crimea, just the kind of witness a jury likes. He’ll swear that it was you he saw going in through the gate at Doughty Street, claiming to be a friend of mine.’

  Baines looked at Adam doubtfully. For a moment he was disconcerted, but he recovered his bounce almost immediately. ‘Get out of ’ere,’ he said, ‘afore I gets someone to throw you out. A black billy­cock ’at no diff’rent to thousands of others and an old so’jer who prob’ly doesn’t know whether ’e’s coming or going? You’re joking with me. That ain’t going to stand up in court.’

  ‘You think not? Inspector Pulverbatch seemed to think differently.’

  Baines, who had been about to stand up, sat down again immediately.

  ‘Did I not mention I was a friend of Inspector Pulverbatch?’ Adam asked sweetly. ‘He was delighted when I told him about my rencontre with you, Mr Baines. It seems he’s an old friend of yours as well.’

  ‘That devil Pulverbatch. If I don’t see ’im til ’ell freezes over, it’ll still be too soon.’

  ‘Yes, Inspector Pulverbatch was delighted to hear how you and I had made acquaintance with one another. It seems that the police have been interested in you for some time, Mr Baines, but they can only ever indict you for dipping your hand into other people’s pockets. They would greatly relish seeing you in court on some more serious charge. Breaking and entering, for instance, or assault and battery. Inspector Pulverbatch seemed as certain as he could be that he would be able to make a successful prosecution in this case. I think it’s fair to say that his eyes positively lit up when your name was mentioned.’

  Baines took several deep breaths. He rested his hands on his thighs and examined his knuckles. He looked around the room as if searching for a means of escape and then stared downwards again. A minute passed.

  ‘It wasn’t my idea to rook you with the yarn about your old man,’ he said eventually. ‘It wasn’t Benskin’s neither.’ The man’s self-confidence had almost entirely disappeared. His only concern now seemed to be to avoid any meeting with Pulverbatch. ‘It was a toff like yourself. ’E come in the Pigs one night and spoke to me and Benskin both. Give us two quid apiece to set you up with the story. Later, ’e give me another sov for doing over your rooms.’

  Adam wondered how much Baines had been given to attack him with a knife. He was certain that his assailant in the muffler had, on both occasions, been the ruffian in front of him, but he could see little purpose in raising the question. Baines was saying enough as it was. ‘And what wa
s the name of this “toff” who employed you?’ he asked.

  ‘You think he provides us with a moniker and asks us to sign a contract?’ Baines gave a short and bitter laugh. ‘I ain’t got the first bleedin’ clue what ’is name is.’

  ‘But you would know him again.’

  ‘Of course I would.’

  ‘Is this the gentleman of whom we have been talking?’ Adam held out a cabinet card. Baines took it in his grubby hand and peered at it. ‘That’s the cove, right enough,’ he said. ‘I’d know ’im anywhere.’

  ‘And, tell me, Quint.’ Adam turned to his manservant and showed him the photograph. ‘Do you recognize this same gentleman?’

  Quint made a great show of turning the cabinet card this way and that as he looked at it. ‘It’s ’im, all right,’ he said eventually. ‘It’s the bloke Benskin met in Regent Street.’

  ‘In which case, I think it is time I went to speak to the gentleman in question.’ Adam stood and moved towards the door of the pub.

  Quint, tucking the carpet bag under his arm and throwing a look of infinite disdain in Baines’s direction, followed him.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  ‘When I am certain,’ he had said to Sunman. Well, now he was. As Adam sat in a cab taking him to the Albany, he was as certain of the answers to his friend’s question as he could be. There was only one man who could have masterminded the plot to steal the blueprints. It was the man whose photograph he had shown to Baines and Quint. It was the man whose rooms in Albany he was about to visit. He touched the pistol in the pocket of his jacket to reassure himself it was still there.

  Adam had asked the cabman to drop him in Piccadilly and now he walked along the narrow passage that led to the exclusive block of flats. Once inside, he climbed the stairs to the first floor where he knew, from his enquiries, that his quarry lived. He found the entrance to the rooms and knocked. Hearing footsteps approaching the door, he stepped back as it opened. A tall, gaunt figure was framed in the doorway.