Black Ship

by Carola Dunn

  Hunger overtook him en route, and he popped into an Express Dairy milk bar in Oxford Street for a quick lunch.

  When he reached the British Museum, he showed his warrant card and asked for Dr. Popkin, saying he was expected. A messenger led him at a great rate into the labyrinth of corridors hidden away behind the equally labyrinthine public halls, galleries, and libraries.

  “Do you ever lose visitors in here?” Alec enquired.

  “Hardly ever,” the man replied in a lugubrious tone that suggested he wished the answer was “Frequently.”

  At last they stopped in front of a door labelled DR. N. POPKIN. The guide knocked.

  “Come in!”

  Opening the door, the guide announced, “It’s the police, Dr. Popkin.” Now his tone implied that he expected Dr. Popkin to be hauled off to prison on the instant.

  “Police? Ah, Mr. Fletcher.” The tall, lean man wore a white coat and white gloves. He had the permanently disappointed look of a basset hound.

  “I’m afraid I’m interrupting you, Dr. Popkin,” Alec said, entering and closing the door firmly on his guide. They shook hands.

  “Not at all. After all,” Popkin pointed out, gesturing at a sloping glass table with a bright light underneath and a couple of ancient manuscripts on top, their curling corners held down by broken clay tablets incised with strange markings, “these have been lying around for a millenium or two. A few minutes longer won’t hurt them. I beg your pardon if I seemed unwelcoming. The truth is, I was looking forward to escaping this mausoleum for a visit to Scotland Yard.”

  “I’m sorry to have deprived you of the outing, sir. I hoped to disturb your work as little as possible. Though if we’re telling the truth, my desire to escape from my office was probably as strong as yours.”

  The basset hound grinned disarmingly. “Oh, by all means, let’s have the truth. It’s rare enough here, where practically everything I produce is a matter of inference and interpretation. What have you got for me?”

  Alec handed him the passport. “Water has seeped between the pages, and the name is unreadable. I don’t know if there’s any chance you might be able to suggest what it might be.”

  “No bloodstains,” Dr. Popkin noted, disappointed again. “No bullet hole.”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “Ah well, we must work with what we have.” He opened the booklet. “Odd, I’d have expected India ink in an official document of this nature.”

  “So would we. What do you think?”

  “Oh, I expect I can give you something. This may take a few minutes. Do sit down.”

  “I’d like to watch, if I may.”

  “Certainly, though there won’t be much to see. It’s a matter of training the eye to read shadows. I dare say it’s not unlike police work in some ways, eh?”

  “Very like. Only our shadows tend to come in larger sizes. Man-size, for the most part.”

  Popkin laughed. He took the passport to his glass table, which had brilliant lights above as well as below, and picked up a magnifying glass. He studied the open page closely, first looking straight down, then squinting sideways. Then he set down the magnifying glass, turned off the underneath lights, and stuck a jeweller’s loupe in one eye. Picking up the passport, he examined it at an angle.

  “Easy. They used an inferior pen nib as well as inferior ink. It has scratched the paper. If you wouldn’t mind passing me that notebook on the desk there—”

  “I’ll write it in my own, sir, if you’ll dictate the letters to me.”

  “MICHELE, capital C, ASTE, double L, ANO. Michele Castellano. Italian, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Yes, I would,” Alec said thoughtfully. “Thank you, sir. I never dreamt you’d be able to give me so definite an answer, let alone so quickly.”

  “We aim to please.”

  “Needless to say, the matter is confidential.”

  “Of course,” Popkin agreed cordially. “Dare I hope to learn what it’s all about when you have bagged your villain?”

  “I’d say of course, sir, if it weren’t for the possibility of international ramifications…. Oh, what the hell, after what you did in the War, you know all there is to know about international ramifications! I’ll be glad to send you a report.”

  Popkin beamed. “Thank you, Chief Inspector. I’ll look forward to it.”

  Rather than ring for a messenger, he himself escorted his guest out to the great portico, so not until Alec was descending the steps to Great Russell Street was he able to consider what he had learnt.

  Michele Castellano. Italian American. His mind went back to that evening a couple of months ago, in St. John’s Wood, when the Pearsons had come to dinner and an unexpected American had turned up.

  Pearson had spoken of reading about Irish, Italian, and Jewish bootleggers in America organising into increasingly violent gangs. Scotland Yard were naturally most concerned about the Irish aspect. In spite of the Irish Free State, the Irish were in general anti-British, yet fugitives from the American police were quite likely to have relatives living in Britain.

  Despite a growing number of Italian restaurants in London, the community of Italian expatriates was minuscule in comparison.

  The subject of American gangs had arisen because of Lambert’s advent, and, lo and behold, Lambert had turned out to be a Prohibition agent. The young idiot had babbled about following gangsters to England, but Alec hadn’t paid much attention. In his opinion, Lambert’s superiors had probably sent him across the Atlantic to get him out of their hair.

  What was it he had claimed to be his purpose in England? All Alec could recall was that he had tried to bring a gun into the country—which implied a willingness to use it.

  Lacking the firearm, could he have resorted to other methods with one of the villains he purported to be chasing? Had the apparently ingenuous Lambert hit Michele Castellano over the head and then, with his thumbs, compressed both carotid arteries until the man lay dead? Lambert, who would lose his head if it weren’t firmly attached to his body? He would never have found the right spots to compress.

  Lambert, who was still to be seen out and about in Hampstead, even after leaving the Fletchers’.

  Still, the only reason to connect Lambert with Castellano was that they were both Americans. Except that Castellano had been found murdered in Constable Circle, where Lambert had spent considerable time … What had Daisy said about Lambert and their next-door neighbours, and about the Jessups’ mysterious American visitor?

  Once again, it seemed he ought to have paid more attention to Daisy’s guesswork, or intuition, or whatever it was that made her so often and so infuriatingly right. His sigh was so heartfelt that the woman sitting next to him on the number 24 bus he had unthinkingly boarded gave him a look of sympathy and said, “Never you mind, ducky. The night is darkest before the dawn.”

  He nodded an acknowledgement, but as the bus negotiated Trafalgar Square, with Nelson’s Column in the middle, he found himself dwelling on the admiral’s death in battle. Then the Charing Cross statue of Charles I brought to mind the king’s execution.

  The bus trundled down Whitehall, with all the panoply of government on either side and the Houses of Parliament ahead. Alec reminded himself that Nelson’s fleet had won a glorious victory at Trafalgar, and that Cromwell’s grim rule had ended with the restoration of Charles’s son to the throne in a constitutional monarchy with no claims of “divine right.”

  Alec swung down from the bus at the Cenotaph stop and hurried into the Yard. Things were really not going too badly. He had far more information than when Daisy had broken the news of the body in the garden to him, just a few hours ago. More important, he had a good idea of where to look for more answers. The most frustrating moment in any police investigation came when one didn’t know where to turn next.

  This time, he knew. First, he had to cable Michele Castellano’s name to Washington and New York. And then he needed to talk to Daisy.

  FOURTEEN

&nb
sp; “Daisy?”

  “Darling! You’ve rung just in time. Tom wants to interrogate me.”

  “So do I. Tell him to hold off with the thumbscrews until I arrive.”

  “Right-oh. Are you at the Yard still? I’ll give him a cup of tea in the meantime. And all the others, too, I suppose. Mrs. Dobson’s getting a trifle fed up.”

  “What are they all doing there? No, don’t tell me! Doubtless I shall find out in due course. I’m on my way.”

  Daisy hung up. If he was coming home, surely he wouldn’t then take Tom and Mackinnon back to the Yard, or even to the local station, to give their reports. With any luck at all, she would manage to listen in.

  Instead of trying to guess from Tom’s questions what the Jessups had told him, she would hear it from his own mouth. It wasn’t that she intended to lie on their behalf, but nor would she disclose everything unless she was convinced that the police needed to know. In her experience, they were all too apt to read a sinister significance into the most innocent actions.

  Tom and Ernie had arrived first. When Elsie announced them, Daisy had told her to show them into the dining room. No sooner had she joined them there than Mackinnon and Warren turned up, looking for Tom. Before Tom had made up his mind whether Daisy ought to leave while he and Mackinnon discussed the results of questioning the Jessups and the Bennetts, the telephone rang.

  But Alec’s call had been very brief. Returning to the dining room, Daisy hoped she hadn’t missed anything.

  As she pushed open the door, Ernie Piper was saying in an incredulous voice, “Shopping? The biggest gossip in the neighbourhood, with a murder on her doorstep, and she goes shopping? You’re having us on.”

  Daisy slipped in and sat down as quietly as possible. Tom and Ernie were staring at Mackinnon, Ernie looking quite indignant.

  “Simmer down, lad,” said Tom calmly. “Mr. Bennett told you his sister went shopping, Mr. Mackinnon?”

  “So did the servants.”

  “Ah. Well, that’d be what they were told.”

  “It’s not as odd as it sounds,” Mackinnon protested. “It seems she has a school friend living in the country who comes up to town once a month. The ladies go out to a show and supper, and then, rather than come home late—I gather Bennett objects to being disturbed after midnight—his sister stays at the friend’s hotel. And next day, they go shopping together. Sometimes, if they manage to get tickets for something good, they’ll stay over another night.”

  “Sounds to me like a load of codswallop,” said Warren.

  Though Daisy would have used a less vulgar term, that was exactly what it sounded like to her. Why on earth had the Bennetts—or Mr. Bennett—invented such a farrago? Surely not to give Miss Bennett time to escape the police? It just wasn’t possible that she had murdered the man in the garden. She wasn’t capable of killing anything but reputations.

  “He claims he doesn’t know what hotel she stayed at last night,” Mackinnon went on. “Nor whether she intends to come home today.”

  Tom glanced at Daisy. She should have known her return had not escaped his eagle eye. She shook her head. She’d never heard of Miss Bennett’s monthly outing, or her school friend, come to that, and she hadn’t had time to develop any theories.

  “Tell it to the Chief,” Tom said. “I take it no one in the house saw or heard anything last night?”

  “The servants didn’t. Mr. Bennett was … What would you say, Warren? Evasive, perhaps.”

  “Kept on and on about how they hadn’t thought anything of it at the time and he wouldn’t want to say anything that might get someone into trouble when he wasn’t absolutely sure—”

  “Ha!” escaped Daisy inadvertently.

  They all looked at her. She was afraid they’d stop talking about the Bennetts, though they’d find it difficult to ask her to leave her own dining room.

  However, Tom turned back to Mackinnon, produced an ah laden with meaning, and asked, “Anything else?”

  “It’s what he refused to say that seems to me significant, Mr. Tring,” said Mackinnon. “He refused to tell us anything more until he talks to his sister to see if she remembers the same.”

  “Never heard that one before, Mr. Mackinnon! Now, Mrs. Fletcher knows the Bennetts. What do you think he meant by it, Mrs. Fletcher?”

  “I wouldn’t say I know them. In fact, I’ve gone out of my way to avoid them. But if you ask me, neither of them saw anything and they’re waiting to see which way the wind blows before they invent a story.”

  “Waiting to find out what happened and who’s suspected, you mean?”

  “Exactly. I simply can’t believe she’d go off to a show and a day’s shopping if they had really seen anything. She’s keeping out of the way to give him an excuse to postpone telling what they’ll claim to have seen, so that when she returns, they can concoct a tale to fit the facts.”

  “I bet that’s it,” said Ernie Piper enthusiastically. “I bet you’ve hit the nail on the head, Mrs. Fletcher.”

  “Ah,” said Tom, his eyes twinkling. “We’ll see.”

  “Nae doot the chief inspector will try to persuade Mr. Bennett to tell his tale before he has a chance to learn the facts from servants and neighbours and pass them on to Miss Bennett.”

  “Not much hope of that, Sergeant,” Warren put in with his accustomed gloom. “We’ve talked to every servant in the Circle, and you can bet they’re all comparing notes by now. However careful we’ve been, they’ll have a good idea of what it’s all about.”

  “In any case,” said Daisy, “I should think Alec’s more likely to send you to do it, Tom. He doesn’t like the Bennetts any better than I do, and I expect they know it. Not that he’d let his dislike get in the way of the truth, but if he disbelieves them, they might make a fuss and start spreading nasty rumours about prejudice.”

  “Sounds to me like they’ll do that anyway,” said Warren.

  “Probably, but there’s no point adding fuel to the flames. One thing’s certain: Whatever they claim to have seen will be aimed at making trouble for someone. That’s what they live for. Don’t you think you should have a go at him, Tom?”

  “It’s for the Chief to decide. In the meantime, now that I’ve talked to the Jessup household, I’ve a few questions for you, Mrs. Fletcher, before we go back to the Yard to report to him.”

  “That was Alec I talked to on the phone just now, and he said he’s on his way here.” Daisy sighed. “He wants to ask me questions, too. So, since I’m so popular at the moment, why don’t we just wait till he arrives? We can have a cup of tea while we wait.”

  She was pouring second cups all round when the front doorbell rang again. Elsie ushered in DC Ardmore. He looked somewhat nonplussed at finding himself in the middle of a tea party.

  “Do sit down, Mr. Ardmore,” Daisy invited.

  “Another cup, madam?” asked the parlour maid resignedly.

  “Yes, please, Elsie, and some more hot water.”

  “I telephoned in, Sarge,” Ardmore told Mackinnon, “and they told me the chief inspector left a message to meet him here.”

  “That’s right. Any luck?”

  “Depends how you look at it. No one at the Hampstead station recognised the passport photo. Me and a couple of the uniformed lads covered Well Walk, Flask Walk, and the High Street and we found four people who thought they might have seen him. Only not a one of ’em would swear to it, and they didn’t know anything about him anyway, just seen him about. We went to a couple of hotels and lodging houses, but no luck there. It’ll take more time or more men to check everywhere in the area.”

  “And he could be staying anywhere,” said Tom. “Doesn’t have to be Hampstead. I expect we’ll have to circulate the picture to all stations. Go on.”

  “The other American, your friend Lambert, Mrs. Fletcher—lots of people recognised the description, and the woman at the newsagent’s told me where he lodges. So I went along there and had a chat with the landlady—it’s a widow who lets out
a couple of rooms. Hodge is the name.”

  “He wasn’t there?” Mackinnon asked.

  “No, nor he didn’t come in last night,” Ardmore said with heavy significance.

  “She doesn’t know where he went?”

  “No, but she does say he’s often away for a night or two,” the detective constable conceded, “so she wasn’t worried. She says she doesn’t usually let to foreigners, but he speaks English quite well, and he’s a nice young chap. Keeps his room tidy and very helpful about the place when he’s home.”

  “That sounds like Lambert all right,” said Daisy. “Did he tell Mrs. Hodge why he’s here? In England?”

  “It seems he said he’s in the import business and looking for suppliers.”

  Daisy laughed. “It’s true, in a way.” She didn’t know how much of Lambert’s clandestine mission Alec had entrusted to the others, so she didn’t explain that he was in the business of preventing imports and looking for the suppliers of bootleggers.

  The coincidences really were too much to swallow: A Prohibition agent who was interested in a wine merchant who was visited by a mysterious American who turned up dead a hundred yards from his house. Although Daisy couldn’t see Lambert as a cold-blooded killer, she couldn’t forget the irresponsible way he had waved his gun around at their first meeting, when she and Alec were in the States. Yet if anyone was going to get bumped off, an agent of the law seemed the most likely victim.

  Into the middle of a discussion of which she hadn’t heard a word, Daisy dropped the question: “What if Lambert has been murdered, too?”

  Everyone stared at her in silence.

  Tom was first to recover. “Have you any reason to think he might be?”

  “Alec didn’t tell you why he came to England?”

  “Not just to visit you and see the sights, I take it.”

  “No. Oh dear, if Alec didn’t, I’d better not. I can tell you that Lambert seemed to think it was a dangerous business. He even tried to smuggle a gun into the country. Well, not exactly smuggle, because he apparently didn’t know he wasn’t supposed to have one, and he was quite upset when Customs took it away. Admittedly, he’s given to exaggeration for the sake of excitement, but still, it does seem to me possible that he could be another victim.”