Blackstone and the New World isb-1

by Sally Spencer

‘And this Joe Pulitzer bloke started out with nothing,’ Blackstone said thoughtfully.

  ‘And he started out with nothing,’ Johnson confirmed.

  ‘So it would seem that this really is the land of opportunity.’

  ‘It is, sir. We pride ourselves on the fact.’

  The ship had docked, and no sooner had the gangplank been lowered than a stream of people poured down it. There were men, women and children, all poorly dressed (though not a great deal more poorly than Blackstone himself), and they carried their possessions in a variety of carpet bags, sacks and small steamer trunks. The dockside police had been waiting for them, and shepherded them towards a number of moored barges.

  ‘Where are they going?’ Blackstone asked.

  ‘Ellis Island,’ Hiram Johnson told him. ‘It’s out in the bay. It’s where they’ll be processed.’

  ‘And will you and I be going out to this Ellis Island, too?’ Blackstone wondered aloud.

  ‘No, sir, we will not. It’s only the steerage passengers who are taken to the island. We’ll be processed on board the ship.’

  ‘So despite this being the land of opportunity, there’s still one law for the rich and another for the poor?’

  Johnson chuckled. ‘Now you’re catching on,’ he said. ‘The preamble to our Declaration of Independence says, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” However, if you read between the lines, it also says, “But if you think the rich will get the same treatment as the poor, you must be crazy”.’

  He paused, as if suddenly concerned that having held his country up as a shining example, he had now said something which might tarnish it in Blackstone’s eyes.

  ‘Of course, with the numbers involved, we’ve no choice in the matter,’ he continued hastily. ‘Why, last year alone, a million and a half people passed through Ellis Island. There simply wouldn’t be the space to process that many people anywhere else.’

  ‘You’re probably right,’ Blackstone agreed non-committally.

  A new thought came into Johnson’s mind. It had been his mission to find out more about the other man, and in that he had failed miserably. Where he should have been asking shrewd questions, he had fallen into the trap of instead boosting his home country. Where he should have been analysing responses, he had instead provided responses to be analysed.

  Well, there were still a few minutes left, and he was determined to make the best of them.

  ‘So, tell me, Mr Blackstone, what brings you to the United States of America?’ he asked. ‘Business?’

  ‘I suppose you could say it was business, in a way,’ the other man replied enigmatically.

  ‘You’re a salesman perhaps?’ Johnson suggested, though Blackstone’s shabby suit seemed to argue against that possibility. ‘That’s my own particular line of work, you know.’

  ‘I’d never have guessed that,’ Blackstone said, and once again the American was not sure whether he was joking or not.

  ‘Yes, I represent Buffalo Pharmaceuticals,’ Johnson continued. ‘We started out small, but we’re growing bigger every day, and now we even have a European office, which is why I happen to be. .’ He paused, conscious of the fact that he had allowed himself to drift away from his intended aim again. ‘So are you a salesman?’ he asked, getting back on course.

  ‘No,’ Blackstone said, ‘I’m not.’

  ‘Then perhaps you’re an engineer of some kind?’ Johnson said doggedly. ‘A railway engineer? We’re very big on railways in America.’

  ‘No, not that, either,’ Blackstone replied. For a moment he said no more, then — perhaps deciding it would be rude to supply no details at all — he added, ‘I’m here to pick up a man, and escort him back to England.’

  ‘Then you’re kinda like the Pinkertons?’ Johnson exclaimed.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘They’re a big detective agency, but most of their work doesn’t involve detecting at all. Their main business comes from providing protection. I suppose you’d call them bodyguards.’

  ‘Ah!’ Blackstone said.

  If that was Blackstone’s line of work, it would certainly explain his innate hardness and aloofness, Hiram Johnson thought. It would even explain why he felt under no compulsion to be more smartly kitted out. Because if you were willing to entrust your life to a man — and he was good at his job — you wouldn’t give a damn how he dressed.

  Blackstone had still neither denied nor confirmed that this was his line of work.

  ‘So you’re a bodyguard of some sort?’ Johnson repeated.

  ‘In a way, I suppose I am,’ Blackstone conceded, smiling again, but very thinly this time. ‘It is my job to see that nothing untoward happens to the man who I’m picking up until he’s safely back in London.’

  What a very strange way to phrase it, Johnson thought.

  ‘And will something “untoward” happen to him once he is back in London?’ he asked jovially.

  ‘That would depend on your point of view,’ Blackstone said. ‘I wouldn’t regard it as untoward at all. In fact, I would see it as a very satisfactory conclusion to the whole affair. But I suspect the man I’m escorting won’t see it in quite the same way.’

  ‘Why? What will happen to him?’ Johnson asked, with an eagerness to know which almost made his question a demand.

  ‘Once back in London, his accommodation will be provided for him. So will his food, and though, for the most part it will be pretty plain fare, he will be allowed to order whatever he wishes on his last night in that accommodation.’

  ‘Oh,’ Johnson said, disappointed at the mundane nature of the answer. And then something in the back of his brain picked up on the last few words and decided they were important.

  ‘On his last night there?’ he repeated.

  ‘Before he goes on his short journey,’ Blackstone explained.

  But that was no explanation at all, Johnson thought.

  ‘The man will be going on a short journey, will he?’ he asked.

  ‘A very short one,’ Blackstone agreed. ‘It can’t be more than twelve yards from the condemned cell to the gallows.’

  TWO

  The first-class passengers, whose carriages were already waiting in attendance on the dockside, were the first to disembark. They did so at a slow, stately pace (as suited their exalted position), and were seemingly unaware of the inconvenience this caused the second-class passengers who, once they had finally disembarked themselves, would be forced to rush towards the cab rank in order to secure one of the waiting vehicles.

  Blackstone did not mind the delay. He had spent six days at sea, in a cabin which, while it would no doubt have horrified the people who were used to plush staterooms, had seemed perfectly adequate to him. He had enjoyed his food and the sea air, and — even more importantly — he had enjoyed the leisure.

  Six days of doing nothing! He couldn’t remember when he had last spent six whole days doing nothing, because he was too good a copper to rest while crimes were being committed — and crimes were always being committed.

  He had, he now admitted to himself, even been half-expecting that there would be a murder on the ship in the mid-Atlantic, because it somehow didn’t seem quite right that he should be allowed this treat. But there had been no murder, and now he felt more rested and relaxed than he had in years.

  He chuckled softly to himself, as his mind drifted back to that morning, only a week earlier, when Sir Roderick Todd had summarily called him to his office.

  It had been some time since Blackstone had been commanded to appear before Todd, and he hadn’t minded that one iota.

  He didn’t like the man. Todd was both a complete idiot and an opium addict, though the inspector was not sure which of those had come first. He was, moreover, a terrible snob, who would almost rather have had cases go unsolved than have the solution come from an ex-army sergeant who had been brought up in an orphanage — and who clearly did not think, as he was supposed to, that the sun shone out o
f the assistant commissioner’s backside.

  ‘Do you remember a villain called James Duffy?’ Todd demanded, by way of greeting.

  Blackstone grimaced at Todd’s use of the word ‘villain’. The AC had used it to show that he was a hard-nosed copper who lived and breathed the London underworld, whereas the truth was that the closest he got to it was the occasional view from his carriage window.

  ‘Yes, I remember him, sir,’ Blackstone said. ‘Ran a brothel in the East End, and just to keep his girls in line, he’d cut off one of their heads now and again. I arrested him, and he was sentenced to hang, but then some silly bugger in Pentonville slipped up, and he managed to escape.’

  ‘I have long believed that he fled to America, and now I appear to have been proved right,’ Todd said.

  Long believed, Blackstone repeated silently to himself.

  Proved right!

  The assistant commissioner, Blackstone suspected, had never even heard Duffy’s name until that morning, and now he was trying to create the impression that if the man had been tracked down, it was entirely due to his own efforts.

  ‘Yes, it appears the police department in New York City has detained a man who might well be Duffy,’ Todd continued. ‘But there is a problem.’

  How he liked to pad it out, Blackstone thought. How much the assistant commissioner loved the sound of his own voice.

  ‘A problem, sir?’ he said.

  ‘That is correct. They are not prepared to extradite the man until they’re sure he really is Duffy.’

  ‘Then we should send them a set of his fingerprints, sir.’

  ‘We’re talking about colonials, here,’ Todd said, a sneer entering his voice. ‘We’re talking of people who speak English — just about — but are otherwise completely backward.’

  It was clear that Todd had never read Mark Twain, Nathaniel Hawthorne or Herman Melville, Blackstone told himself.

  ‘Is that right, sir?’ he asked. ‘Backward?’

  ‘Indeed. And a prime example of this is that the American so-called police forces don’t use fingerprinting.’

  ‘In that case, sir, I don’t see how we’ll ever be able to prove whether it’s Duffy or not.’

  ‘Of course you don’t,’ Todd agreed. ‘But, you see, I do. I know how to use my brain, Inspector — which is why I’m sitting behind this desk and you’re standing in front of it.’

  ‘I knew there had to be some reason for it, sir,’ Blackstone said. ‘Thank you for explaining it to me.’

  Todd looked at him suspiciously. ‘Are you being insolent, Inspector? Or, perhaps, in the interest of strictest accuracy, I should say, are you being insolent again?’

  ‘Of course not, sir,’ Blackstone assured him.

  ‘Good,’ Todd said. ‘Would you now like to hear how I’ve solved this problem to which you see no solution?’

  ‘If you wouldn’t mind, sir.’

  ‘The New York Police have agreed that if one Scotland Yard officer can personally identify the man as Duffy, that will be sufficient cause to extradite him. And that officer, Inspector Blackstone, will be you.’

  ‘You want me to go to America, sir?’

  ‘Good Lord, but you do catch on quickly,’ Todd said sarcastically. ‘You sail from Liverpool the day after tomorrow.’

  ‘First class, I take it,’ Blackstone said, before he could stop himself.

  Todd glared at him. ‘You’ll be travelling second class,’ he said. ‘And you can thank your lucky stars you’re even doing that, because, if it wasn’t for the need to uphold the dignity of Scotland Yard in the eyes of the travelling public, I’d have booked you into steerage, with the rest of the riff-raff.’ He glanced up at the clock on the wall. ‘I assume you have no questions.’

  ‘Well, sir, I was wondering-’

  ‘Good, because I’m a busy man, and I’ve already spent more than enough time on this minor matter. You can go, Inspector.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ Blackstone said.

  He had almost reached the door when he heard Todd say, ‘Actually, there’s one question I’d like to ask you.’

  Blackstone turned around again. ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘Are you a good sailor, Inspector?’ the assistant commissioner asked.

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ Blackstone replied. ‘I think I must have been at the back of the queue when they were handing out sea legs.’

  Todd permitted himself one of his rare smiles. ‘Excellent,’ he said.

  Blackstone had lied about the sea legs, of course, but it had been a lie with a purpose. Because if Todd had even suspected that he would enjoy the trip, the assistant commissioner would have done his damnedest to make sure somebody else — anybody else — was sent instead.

  It was as Blackstone was walking down the gangplank that he first noticed the man standing directly in his path. He was a young man, not more than twenty-five or twenty-six. He had a straw boater on his head and was dressed in a white linen suit, which matched his white bow tie. In his hands, he held a large piece of cardboard, on which he had written — in impeccable script — the words ‘Inspector Blackstone, New Scotland Yard’.

  The last three words seemed a little unnecessary to Blackstone, but since this was clearly his reception committee of one, he walked over to the young man and said, ‘I’m Blackstone.’

  His words had an instantaneous effect. The young man immediately let the card fall, and before it had even had time to reach the ground, he was already holding out his hand.

  ‘Gosh, this is a real honour, sir,’ he said, as he pumped Blackstone’s hand up and down.

  ‘Is it always this hot here?’ Blackstone asked, loosening his tie with his free hand.

  ‘Hot?’ the young man repeated, as if, in his bubbling enthusiasm, he had not even noticed the temperature. ‘Oh, hot! Yeah, this is New York City in July, and it is always hot.’ He continued pumping away at Blackstone’s hand. ‘I have to tell you, sir, you have absolutely no idea how long I’ve been waiting to finally meet a real police detective.’

  ‘Oh?’ Blackstone replied, mystified. ‘I shouldn’t have thought it would have been difficult to meet one in a city this size. The police force must have hundreds of detectives on its strength.’

  ‘It does, and I’m one of them,’ the young man said, finally releasing his grip. ‘I’m Detective Sergeant Alexander Meade.’

  ‘Then I don’t see what you meant,’ Blackstone confessed. ‘If you’re a police detective. .’

  ‘I said a real police detective, sir,’ Meade said. ‘Not just a man who carries a badge, but one who solves real crimes.’

  ‘But don’t the-?’

  ‘Oh, things are a little better since the Lexow Committee completed its investigation,’ Meade interrupted, ‘but not that much better. The problem is Tammany Hall, you see. Always was. And until we can get rid of it, there’ll never be a major improvement.’

  ‘Is that right?’ Blackstone asked, and he was thinking that while they were undoubtedly talking the same language, the young sergeant might as well have been speaking Hindustani for all the sense he was making.

  Blackstone had always thought the traffic on London’s streets was bad enough. But compared to Manhattan, those streets were country lanes. Carriage fought against carriage to gain the advantage. Long, single-decker horse-drawn buses — which Meade informed him were called ‘streetcars’ in New York — moved at a ponderous pace most of the time, yet seemed to put on a malicious burst of speed when they saw the opportunity of blocking the progress of other vehicles. Electric taxi cabs hooted their horns in frustration as the drivers fretted that their batteries would be drained before they reached their destination. And, overhead, the elevated railway — the ‘El’, Meade called it — thundered along, pushing clouds of smoke into the sky and filling the air beneath it with small, glowing cinders.

  ‘You have an underground railway in London, don’t you?’ Meade asked, across the carriage which was taking the two of them to the Mulberry Street poli
ce headquarters.

  ‘Yes, we do,’ Blackstone agreed.

  ‘A well-established underground railway.’

  ‘It’s certainly been around for quite some time.’

  ‘We could have had one for “quite some time”, too,’ Meade said gloomily. ‘The mayor was talking about building one twelve years ago. But Tammany Hall didn’t like the idea, you see, because most of the guys who work for Tammany have got shares in the streetcars and the El.’

  ‘That’s the second time you’ve mentioned Tammany Hall,’ Blackstone pointed out. ‘What exactly is it?’

  ‘It’s complicated,’ Meade said, in a tone which suggested that he really didn’t want to talk about it. ‘And, hell, I didn’t volunteer for this assignment in order to tell you about New York’s problems. I want to hear what it’s like to work in the famous Scotland Yard, so give me some of the juice.’

  It was complicated to talk about the workings of the Metropolitan Police, too, but Blackstone did his best, and all the time he was speaking, Meade listened with rapt attention.

  ‘It’s like I always imagined,’ Meade said, almost dreamily, when Blackstone had finished. ‘You don’t rely almost entirely on the words of crooked informers to make your cases. You don’t beat a confession out of the nearest available suspect. You conduct investigations. You follow clues.’

  ‘Well, yes, I suppose we do,’ Blackstone admitted. ‘But then, don’t all police forces-?’

  ‘Gee, I’d love to work with you,’ Meade interrupted him. ‘I’d learn so much from the experience.’

  Was Meade doing no more than serving up a dish of gently warmed flattery seasoned with faux-admiration? Blackstone wondered.

  Or was it merely that he hated his own job so much that he simply refused to see any of the virtues of the New York Police Department?

  Whichever it was, the young man’s attitude was making him feel distinctly uncomfortable.

  ‘I’m sure your own police department is, in its own way, just as good, and just as bad, as the Met,’ he said.

  Meade’s face darkened, and, as it did, the expression of youthful enthusiasm it had been displaying quite melted away.