‘It’s still not too late to tell me the truth,’ Blackstone said. ‘And if you do, I promise that I’ll rescue you from all this.’
‘I want to go home,’ Nancy repeated.
‘Then I’ll escort you to your door.’
‘There’s no need.’
‘I think there is,’ Blackstone said. ‘You’ve had a shock, and that can do funny things to people.’
And besides that, he added silently to himself, I need to know where you live.
TWENTY-THREE
There were three policemen standing on the sidewalk outside Mrs de Courcey’s establishment. Two of them were patrolmen in uniform — and they were looking very bored. The third was wearing a straw boater and white bow tie — and he was looking exhausted.
Blackstone walked over to the policeman who looked exhausted.
‘You urgently need a couple of hours sleep, Alex,’ he said.
‘Can’t leave now,’ Meade said, slightly slurring his words. ‘Don’t trust that bastard O’Shaugnessy. If I go, he’ll renege on the deal.’
‘I’ll take your place,’ Blackstone told him.
‘That’d. . that’d be a waste of your time,’ Meade replied, clearly having trouble keeping track of his argument. ‘You’re the senior detective. . the experienced detective. You have more important things to do than keep watch on a brothel.’
But was that true? Blackstone wondered.
Did he really have more important things to do? And if he did, what were they?
He found himself starting to think about his conversation with Nancy, though perhaps ‘starting to think’ were the wrong words to use, because ever since he’d left her at the door of her hovel in Five Points, he’d been continually going over that conversation in his head.
This thinking process had brought him mixed results. Sometimes, when he’d worked his way through to the end of it, he was convinced that he had drawn a complete blank. But there were other times when he was almost convinced that (though she hadn’t meant to) Nancy had told him almost everything he needed to know — and that all that was necessary to produce a solution was to look at what she’d said in just the right way.
Those words of hers kept bouncing around — echoing around — his now-tired brain.
‘I’d never have asked Jenny to do anything that might make her lose her job, and even if I had, she’d never have agreed.’
That sounded so plausible, because Nancy clearly had cared for Jenny, and Jenny, from what he’d seen of her, had been a good girl.
And yet hadn’t Jenny herself admitted to him on her deathbed that she’d betrayed O’Brien?
‘It was suicide, wasn’t it?’
There were so many other ways that Jenny could have died. She could have contracted a virulent and fatal disease. She could have been run over by a streetcar. She could have been struck by a bolt of lightning, shot in crossfire between the police and a gang of bank robbers, or eaten a poisoned mussel.
Yet the first thing Nancy had asked was if it was suicide.
Why?
‘I didn’t push her enough. I should have tried harder to make her see. .’
It was all so confusing. All so bloody confusing!
‘Make her see what, for God’s sake?’ Blackstone said aloud — and rather loudly.
‘Make who see what?’ asked the puzzled Meade, who was still standing by his side, but seemed as if he might fall over at any moment.
‘You need some rest, Alex,’ Blackstone said. ‘And don’t worry about it being a waste of my time to take your place, because even a “brilliant” investigator like me needs to become involved in the routine work once in a while. It gives my “powerful” brain the opportunity it needs to sort the case out.’
‘Quite right,’ Meade said, so exhausted that he readily took what Blackstone had just said entirely at face value. ‘But I’m still not sure that you should. .’
‘You’ll feel a completely new man after two hours’ sleep, Alex,’ Blackstone said firmly.
Less than half an hour passed before the front door of the brothel opened and the doorman stepped out on to the sidewalk.
He looked worried, Blackstone thought. No, more than worried, he looked distressed.
The bouncer walked over to him.
‘This ain’t right, Mr Blackstone,’ he said, in a strange melange of his native cockney and his mock Hungarian. ‘It ain’t fair at all. Mrs de Courcey’s worked very hard to build up this business, an’ you’re destroyin’ it overnight.’
‘It’s not my fault, Freddie,’ Blackstone replied.
‘It’s Imre, Mr Blackstone,’ the doorman said. ‘Please!’
‘It’s not my fault, Imre. If Mrs de Courcey wants the police to go away, she knows what she has to do.’
‘Don’t just think of her,’ Imre pleaded. ‘Think of the girls. She looks after them. She treats them better than their own mothers did.’
‘Except for Trixie, of course,’ Blackstone pointed out. ‘She was given a working over.’
‘But only a gentle one,’ Imre said.
‘Gentle?’
The bouncer shrugged. ‘She could walk the next day, couldn’t she? And she wouldn’t have had to have been touched at all if you an’ that Sergeant Meade hadn’t gone stickin’ your oars in where they weren’t wanted.’
‘What’s the message?’ Blackstone asked.
‘Message?’
‘You’re not here for a pleasant chat. You’re here because the whore you work for sent you here.’
Imre stiffened, and the muscles under his jacket bulged alarmingly. ‘There’s no need to go talkin’ about Mrs de Courcey like that,’ he said angrily.
‘The message,’ Blackstone repeated.
‘If it’s at all convenient, Mrs de Courcey would very much like to see you.’
‘It’s convenient,’ Blackstone told him.
Imre led Blackstone into the main salon, where Mrs de Courcey, wearing a highly respectable — almost modest — tea gown, was waiting.
‘Inspector Blackstone, Madam,’ Imre said, casting off the role of panderer’s bouncer in favour of a new one as a gentlewoman’s butler.
Mrs de Courcey smiled warmly at him. ‘Thank you, Imre. That will be all for now.’
‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like me to stay with you, Ell. . Madam?’ Imre asked.
Her smile widened, and grew even warmer. ‘It was very thoughtful of you to ask, but I think I can manage.’
Well, well, well, Blackstone thought.
Once Imre had left, the woman turned her attention to her visitor. There was still a smile on her face, but now it had lost most of its intensity and, even so, was only being held in place by an effort of will.
‘I really must apologize for losing my temper the last time we met,’ Mrs de Courcey said. ‘I’m afraid we both said some things that we must have later regretted, didn’t we?’
‘Not that I can recall,’ Blackstone said, determined not to give the madam an inch.
Mrs de Courcey’s smile widened again, at just about the same rate as her eyes hardened.
‘Well, that’s all in the past,’ she said. ‘What I wanted to talk to you about was the situation I find myself in now.’
‘Oh?’ Blackstone said, non-committally.
‘Because of those policemen you’ve posted outside, we have not had a single gentleman visit us all day.’
‘And who knows where those gentlemen are now?’ Blackstone pondered. ‘Who knows if, having sampled the pleasures of other brothels, they’ll ever come back to you?’
‘You’re ruining my business,’ Mrs de Courcey said plaintively. ‘A business I’ve worked so hard to build up.’
‘Well, you know what to do about it, don’t you?’ Blackstone asked. ‘Just give me the same address as you gave to Inspector O’Brien, and I’ll call the patrolmen off immediately.’
‘I was thinking of an alternative solution to the problem,’ Mrs de Courcey said.
‘Were
you?’
‘Yes. I was thinking of donating some money to your favourite charity, though, of course, while I would provide the money, you would make the actual donation.’
‘Nice try,’ Blackstone said, ‘but I don’t take bribes — not even in New York, where it seems almost bad manners to turn them down.’
‘It would be quite a substantial donation I’d be offering,’ Mrs de Courcey persisted.
‘Why are you so concerned about giving me the address?’ Blackstone asked. ‘Is it because, by doing so, you’ll actually be handing me evidence which would tie you in with some kind of criminal activity?’
‘Of course not,’ Mrs de Courcey replied.
But her eyes said, yes, that’s exactly it.
‘Because you need have no worries on that score,’ Blackstone assured her. ‘I have no interest at all in seeing you behind bars. The only thing I care about is catching a murderer, and whatever nasty little scheme you’ve been involved in, I promise you you’ll hear no more about it from me.’
‘I can’t help you,’ Mrs de Courcey said.
‘And yet, after talking to Inspector O’Brien — in this very room — for only a few minutes, you were perfectly willing to hand the address over to him,’ Blackstone said exasperatedly. ‘Why was that? Because you were quite prepared to take his word that he’d grant you immunity from any prosecution, but you’re not prepared to take mine?’
‘It’s not that simple,’ Mrs de Courcey said. ‘I knew it would be safe to give the address to Inspector O’Brien.’
‘Safe? It what way?’
‘I’m afraid I can’t say.’
If she could hold out for two more days, it would be all over, Blackstone thought. And Mrs de Courcey showed every indication of doing just that — whatever it cost her.
But he still had one more card to play — a card he hadn’t even known had existed until a few minutes earlier.
‘Do you know what one of the most pathetic sights in the whole world is?’ he asked — deliberately harsh, deliberately cruel. ‘It’s the sight of a clapped-out old whore mooning about over a younger man like a lovesick virgin.’
‘You bastard!’ Mrs de Courcey said, with feeling.
‘His name’s not Imre, you know,’ Blackstone said. ‘And he’s not a Hungarian count. He’s really called Horace Grubb, and he hails from some of the worst slums of Whitechapel.’
‘Do you think I don’t know that?’ Mrs de Courcey asked. ‘Do you think I even care about that?’
‘If I can’t arrest Inspector O’Brien’s murderer, I’ll arrest our Horace instead,’ Blackstone said. ‘I’ll take him back to England with me, and you’ll never see him again.’
‘You. . you wouldn’t do that,’ Mrs de Courcey gasped. ‘You. . you just couldn’t do that!’
‘Just watch me!’ Blackstone told her.
For a moment, it looked as if Mrs de Courcey would crumple and faint quite away. But fainting away was not her style. She was a fighter, who had worked her way up from the gutter, and she did not give in so easily.
Blackstone watched, fascinated, as she pulled herself together again, and knew exactly what was going on in her mind.
She accepted defeat when it was inevitable, as it was inevitable here. But she was searching for a way to avoid it being a total defeat — looking around for what might be one minor victory of her own.
And, as a new smile — a vindictive one, this time — came to her face, he knew that she had found what she was searching for.
‘You stand there in your shabby suit, thinking that you’re so smart, when nothing could be further from the truth,’ Mrs de Courcey said in a voice filled with the deepest contempt. ‘You call yourself a detective, but you can detect nothing. In short, you really have no idea what is going on at all, and I truly despise you for that ignorance.’
‘But you’ll give me the address anyway, won’t you?’ Blackstone said, unmoved.
‘But I’ll give you the address anyway,’ Mrs de Courcey agreed.
She crossed to the escritoire, took out a sheet of paper, and wrote something on it.
‘What are you expecting me to give you, Mr Detective?’ she taunted, as she walked back across the room towards him. ‘The address of a corruptible congressman, perhaps?’
Yes, possibly something like that, Blackstone thought.
‘Or maybe you think the address will lead you to the home of a rich and powerful businessman? Is that what you think?’
‘Just hand it over,’ Blackstone said wearily, and when she did, he looked down at what she had written and said, ‘Dr Muller? A medical man?’
‘No, not a medical man,’ Mrs de Courcey said, savouring the small victory that his surprise had brought her. ‘Not a medical man at all.’
‘But this says. .’
‘Dr Muller is a medical woman.’
TWENTY-FOUR
Alex Meade looked much better for his short sleep, and as he and Blackstone climbed the stairs of the slightly seedy building in the very heart of Kleindeutschland, the inspector noticed that there was a distinct spring in the sergeant’s step.
They reached the second floor, and came to a halt in front of a door which had a notice on it — in both English and German — stating that surgery hours were from 9 to 12 and 4 to 8.
‘This is it,’ Meade said, his enthusiasm once more bubbling over. ‘Would you mind if I handled the interview?’
‘Not at all,’ Blackstone replied. ‘After all that standing about outside Mrs de Courcey’s, you deserve a bit of a treat.’
Meade grinned. ‘And a treat is what it will be. We’re on the brink of solving the case, Sam. I can feel it.’
Maybe we are, Blackstone thought. Or maybe this will be just one more dead end.
Meade’s first knock on the door was no more than a gentle inquiring tap with his knuckles. Then, remembering who he was — and why he was there — he made a fist and hammered so forcefully that the door frame shook.
A woman opened the door. She had a large, bony frame — although her hands, Blackstone noted, were surprisingly small and delicate. Her hair had been cut in a very masculine manner, and her eyes showed the natural concern of someone who was answering such an imperious summoning.
Meade held up his shield. ‘Dr Helga Muller?’
‘Yes,’ the doctor replied.
And Blackstone saw that the look of concern in her eyes had developed into something akin to real fear.
‘Do you mind if we come in?’ Meade asked, before brushing past her and entering the office.
The office contained a desk, a filing cabinet, two chairs for visitors, and an examination table. Meade sat down on one of the visitors’ chairs without waiting for an invitation, and gestured to Blackstone that he should sit in the other one. The doctor, meanwhile, hovered uncertainly by the still-open door.
‘Close the door, can you?’ Meade said casually, as if he were talking to a servant.
The doctor did close the door, but showed no signs of wanting to move any further away from it herself.
‘So, why don’t you tell us about this nice little practice of yours, doctor?’ Meade suggested.
The fear was still there in her eyes, Blackstone thought. Muller was doing her best to hide it, but it was definitely still there.
‘Why should you want to know about my practice?’ the doctor asked, in a heavy accent.
Meade frowned. ‘I don’t know how things work over in Germany,’ he said, ‘but here in America, it’s normally considered wise to answer a police officer when he asks you a question.’
‘I practise general medicine,’ the doctor said. ‘Most of my patients are recent immigrants. The majority of them come from Germany.’
‘Do they now?’ Meade mused. ‘And how’s business, doc? Are you making a good living?’
‘I do well enough,’ Dr Muller replied stonily.
‘Really?’ Meade said, sounding surprised. He looked around the office. ‘Well, if you “do well enough
”, there’s certainly not much evidence of it in this place. To tell you the truth, it looks like a real dump to me.’
‘If you are going to be rude about my office, then you can-’ Dr Muller began.
‘If I’m going to be rude about your office, then I can what?’ Meade interrupted.
‘I. .’
‘And before you answer that question, please remember that your naturalization papers are still being processed, and that it only requires one black mark against your name for them to be rejected.’ Meade paused for a second. ‘Now remind me, doctor, what were you going to do if I was rude?’
‘Nothing,’ Dr Muller said.
‘That’s good,’ Meade told her. ‘That’s very good.’ He stood up and walked around the cramped room, stopping in front of a framed medical certificate. ‘The University of Berne,’ he said, admiringly. ‘My, but ain’t you a real powerhouse, though?’
‘It is an excellent school of medicine,’ Doctor Muller said.
‘I’m sure it is,’ Meade agreed. ‘Do you know what I would do if I was in your place, doctor?’
The silence which followed lasted for perhaps twenty seconds, and then Dr Muller reluctantly said, ‘No. What would you do?
‘I’d get myself a better practice in a classier neighbourhood. I mean, why should a woman with a medical degree from the University of Berne work in a hole like this?’
‘Why?’ the doctor responded angrily. ‘I will tell you why. It is because this is not the land of the free. It is not the land of opportunity. It is the land of money. And so it does not matter how good a doctor you are — it matters only that you can afford to buy yourself a nice office.’
Meade nodded. ‘Very interesting,’ he said. ‘Well, it seems to me, Dr Muller, that one way out of the trap that you’ve found yourself in would be to work for some richer clients who, for one reason or another, can’t take their problems to their regular doctor.’
‘What do you mean?’ Muller asked.
But Meade already seemed bored with the topic, and was now focusing his attention on another certificate hanging on the wall.
‘I see you did additional studies in something called obstetrics,’ he said. ‘What does that mean, exactly?’
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