Mary laughed. ‘This is ludicrous,’ she said. ‘Why should I have been in a rage with my husband?’
‘We’d like you to confess now,’ Meade said quietly. ‘It will make things much easier all round.’
‘I won’t confess to something I didn’t do,’ Mary said. ‘You can arrest me, if you like. You can even put me on trial — ’ her eyes blazed with anger and defiance — ‘but I’ll have the jury eating out of my hand before the trial’s half over, and they’ll never convict me.’
‘That’s probably true,’ Meade agreed. ‘That’s why I said we need you to confess.’
‘Why should I?’ Mary asked.
‘Because you’re a mother,’ Blackstone told her. ‘Because it’s your job to protect your brood. And you take that job seriously — or we wouldn’t even be here now.’
‘What in God’s name are you talking about?’
‘However much you might like to pretend that Jenny was your husband’s first young girl, we all know she wasn’t,’ Blackstone said. ‘There have been a succession of maids who have found their way into his bed, and, if necessary, we’ll track them all down. I suspect you knew what was going on almost from the start, and that you were prepared to tolerate it, because you loved and admired your husband — and you wanted to keep him. And, when all’s said and done, what did it matter if a few low-class girls — a few orphans — were made to suffer, as long as he stayed with you?’
‘So I loved him so much that I was prepared to stand by while he did disgusting things to young girls?’ Mary asked.
‘Yes,’ Blackstone agreed.
‘But despite my love for him, I gunned him down as if he were no more than a mad dog?’
‘By that stage, you’d decided that he deserved to be gunned down as if he were no more than a mad dog.’
‘You’re hateful!’ Mary said. ‘You’re hateful and spiteful and mean, and I hope you burn in hell for all eternity.’
‘If I do, I won’t burn alone,’ Blackstone countered. ‘But to return to your husband — the problem was that when they reached a certain age, the girls ceased to be attractive to him, and they had to go. And even if she hadn’t got pregnant, Jenny was reaching that age, wasn’t she?’
‘Enough!’ Mary said.
‘Are you prepared to confess now?’ Blackstone asked.
‘Of course not!’
‘Then it’s nowhere near enough. Do you know what Jenny said to me as she lay dying?’
Mary O’Brien clasped her hands over her ears. ‘No, and I don’t want to know.’
‘She said, “He’s dead because of me. He’s dead because I betrayed him.” I didn’t understand that at all. How had she betrayed him? I wondered. By revealing some guilty secret, perhaps? And then there were other questions. Why had she betrayed him? And who had she betrayed him to? We know the answers to all those questions now, don’t we?’
‘I’m not listening!’ Mary screamed.
But she was. She couldn’t help herself.
‘Jenny betrayed him to you, didn’t she? And she did it because of jealousy — because he was moving on from her to his new love.’
‘Please!’ Mary O’Brien begged.
‘I watched your children at his funeral,’ Blackstone ploughed on relentlessly. ‘Your son behaved with great dignity. Your younger daughter was in a daze, and hardly knew where she was. But your eldest daughter, Isobel — who is just thirteen — couldn’t even look down at the coffin.’
‘If there’s a trial, we’ll have to put Isobel on the witness stand,’ Meade said, ‘If there’s a trial, she’ll have to tell the whole world what her father did to her — and that will damage her even more than she’s already been damaged. That’s why you have to confess.’
Mary lowered her hands and bowed her head, defeated.
‘Yes,’ she agreed, in a flat, lifeless voice. ‘That is why I have to confess.’
TWENTY-SEVEN
There was no sign of any paperwork on Captain O’Shaugnessy’s desk, but then, Blackstone remembered, O’Shaugnessy had not got where he was by filling in forms but by wielding his nightstick. Besides, paperwork would only have prevented the desk from fulfilling its proper function.
It was fulfilling that function now. O’Shaugnessy had his feet planted firmly in the middle of the desk and his hands locked behind his head. Add to that general demeanour the amused eyes and slightly sadistic curl of the mouth, and all-in-all the captain had the appearance of a man who had been looking forward to this meeting, and was determined to extract the maximum amount of pleasure out of it.
‘Take a seat, Inspector Blackstone,’ he said jovially. ‘Would you like a cigar? ’Cos if you do, they’re right there on the corner of the desk.’
Blackstone sat — but ignored the cigars.
‘Well, ain’t you a hero?’ O’Shaugnessy said. ‘Only in New York for a few days, and you’ve already gone an’ caught yourself a murderer.’
‘It was Sergeant Meade’s case,’ Blackstone said. ‘I was no more than his assistant.’
But he was thinking, why did O’Shaugnessy ask to see me? And why is he looking so pleased with himself?
‘Course, havin’ set your heart on the killer bein’ either a dirty cop or a high muckety-muck politician, it must have been a disappointment to you that it turned out to be St Patrick’s widow,’ the captain said.
‘It’s never a disappointment to catch the real criminal. You should try it yourself sometime,’ Blackstone replied.
‘Maybe I will at that,’ O’Shaugnessy agreed, his good humour unabated. He unclasped his hands, reached for one his cigars, and lit it. ‘I hate to rain on your parade,’ he continued, blowing smoke out of his mouth, ‘but I’m afraid to say I’ve got some bad news for you.’
He didn’t look afraid to say it at all, Blackstone thought. In fact, he looked positively delighted at the prospect.
‘What kind of bad news?’ the inspector asked.
‘You remember that prisoner you came over here for? Now, what the hell was his name?’
‘James Duffy.’
‘That’s right, James Duffy. Well, Inspector, it would appear that he’s escaped.’
‘How in God’s name did that happen?’
‘He was bein’ transferred from Mulberry Street to my precinct, an’ he seems to have gone missin’ along the way.’ O’Shaugnessy smiled. ‘Which, when you think about it, is all your fault.’
‘All my fault!’ Blackstone exploded.
‘Well, not all your fault — your little friend Sergeant Alex Meade’s gotta take some of the blame as well.’
‘How could it possibly be our fault?’ Blackstone wondered.
‘Ain’t it obvious,’ O’Shaugnessy said. ‘Duffy was safe as houses in Mulberry Street. It was only when he was bein’ moved he got the chance to escape.’
‘But we had nothing to do with him being moved.’
‘See, that’s where you’re wrong. Remember that poster — the one with Inspector O’Brien’s face on it — that you had plastered all over the Lower East Side?’
‘Yes?’
‘Well, that brought a crowd of bums floodin’ into Mulberry Street, didn’t it? An’ where did the desk sergeant put ’em?’
‘In the cells,’ Blackstone said, with a sinking feeling.
‘In the cells,’ O’Shaugnessy agreed. ‘Which was the only place he could put ’em. Which meant that Duffy had to be moved someplace else. Which gave him his opportunity to run. So if you’d never put them posters up, Duffy would still be in custody. That’s the simple truth, an’ that’s what I said in my long telegram to your boss in Scotland Yard.’
‘Did he really escape?’ Blackstone asked.
O’Shaugnessy made a great show of looking around him. ‘Well, he sure ain’t here.’
‘When I spoke to Duffy, he offered me a large bribe to pretend he wasn’t the man I was looking for,’ Blackstone said. ‘I didn’t take it. Did you?’
‘Well, see here, I had thi
s accountin’ problem,’ O’Shaugnessy said. ‘An’ the reason I had the problem was ’cos of what you talked me into doin’ to that nice Mrs de Courcey. Remember you said that it would be good for discipline to starve her out for a few days?’
‘Yes?’
‘Turns out you were wrong. Didn’t work out that way at all. From what I’ve heard, there’s some gentlemen that go to her for discipline, an’ she’s quite happy to administer it, if the money’s right. But she ain’t too keen on bein’ on the receivin’ end herself.’
‘Get to the point!’ Blackstone said.
But O’Shaugnessy was enjoying himself too much to rush things.
‘So she started to think about how she could get back at me, an’ she come with a jim-dandy of an idea. See, when you’ve been in the game as long as she has, you’ve had half the politicians in this city ruttin’ away between your legs. An’ she decided to give a few of them politicians a call, and ask if they’d do her a little favour for old times’ sake.’
‘And that favour she wanted was for them to serve her your head on a platter?’ Blackstone asked.
‘More like my balls on a platter,’ O’Shaugnessy said. ‘So I went to see the lady, an’ asked if there was anythin’ I could do to make it up to her. An’ sure enough, there was. She said that if I didn’t ask her for any money for a whole year, we’d go back to bein’ the same good friends we’d always been.’
‘And you said yes?’
‘Didn’t see I had any choice in the matter. But see, that left me with what the bookkeepers call an imbalance in my accounts. An’ I got expenses to meet every month, same as everybody else.’
‘So Duffy seemed like manna from heaven,’ Blackstone said. ‘But he didn’t escape en route to this precinct, did he? You let him go once he was in your custody — and after you’d seen the colour of his money.’
‘The records show he escaped on the way here, so that must be what happened,’ O’Shaugnessy said, not even trying to sound convincing. ‘Cheer up, Inspector,’ he continued. ‘It’s only like he’s out on bail.’
‘Is that right?’
‘Sure. Guys like Duffy are too stupid to put themselves out of harm’s way for long. He’ll stay in the city, an’ sooner or later we’ll pick him up again. An’ next time, he won’t escape.’
‘No?’
‘No! Because to escape, he’ll need money — and as of today, the man’s flat broke.’
Blackstone had suddenly had enough of the New York Police Department in general, and of Captain O’Shaugnessy in particular.
‘Oh, to hell with you,’ he said, standing up. ‘And to hell with Duffy, as well. Re-capture him or don’t recapture him. It’s not my problem.’
‘Ain’t it?’
‘No, it isn’t — because in a few days I’ll be back in England.’
‘Is that right?’ O’Shaugnessy asked. ‘Remember I cabled your boss to tell him how Duffy escaped?’
‘Or rather, how Duffy was supposed to have escaped,’ Blackstone corrected him.
‘Exactly. Well, this Sir Todd guy sent two cables back, one for me, an’ one for you. An’ this is yours.’
O’Shaugnessy took a telegram envelope out of his jacket pocket and handed it to Blackstone.
‘You’ve opened it,’ Blackstone said.
‘Sure,’ O’Shaugnessy agreed easily. ‘See, I wanted to know if I was right in my suspicions about what he was gonna say. An’ guess what — I was spot on the money.’ He paused. ‘You gonna read it now?’
‘Why should you care when I read it, if you already know what it says?’ Blackstone asked.
‘I just want to see the look on your face when you do read it,’ O’Shaugnessy said.
Well, why not? Blackstone asked himself.
And then he took the telegram out of the envelope, read it, and realized why O’Shaugnessy had been so amused.
+++Completely+incompetent+as+usual+stop+Do+not+dare+return+England+without+prisoner+stop+Todd+stop+++
It could be weeks before they catch Duffy again,’ Blackstone said morosely, after taking a deep swig of the beer that Meade had just bought him. ‘Bloody hell, it could be months!’
‘Cheer up, Sam, it ain’t that bad,’ Alex Meade replied. ‘The commissioner’s agreed to pay your wages for as long as you’re here on American soil — and being here a while longer will give you a chance to see New York.’
‘I’ve already seen New York,’ Blackstone told him.
‘You’ve seen the Lower East Side, Central Park and Fifth Avenue,’ Meade pointed out.
‘That’s what I said.’
‘Why, that’s only scratching the surface of a place like New York City. What about the wonders of Chinatown and Harlem?’
‘What about them?’
‘And have you ever met even a single Dodger?’ Meade asked. ‘I don’t think so!’
‘A Dodger?’ Blackstone repeated.
‘It’s what we’ve been calling the folks from Brooklyn ever since all their streetcars went electric.’
‘Go on,’ Blackstone said, knowing he shouldn’t.
‘A horsecar can go at maybe six miles an hour, but an electric car can reach up to thirty miles an hour. Problem is, you see, that though the electric cars have got the weight and power of a locomotive, they’ve still got the braking system of the old horsecar.’
‘So they find it hard to stop in an emergency?’
‘They find it impossible to stop in an emergency. In 1895 there were a hundred and five people killed and four hundred and seven maimed in streetcar accidents. And that’s when the folks across the river started to wise up. That’s when they got to develop the habit of always keeping one eye open for approaching streetcars, so they could jump out of the way if they had to. And that’s when we got to calling them-’
‘Brooklyn Dodgers,’ Blackstone interrupted. ‘Have you got any more fascinating stories about New York City, Alex?’
Alex Meade grinned. ‘Well, yes, Sam, now you mention it, I think I must have hundreds of them.’
Blackstone nodded gravely. ‘That’s what I was afraid of,’ he said.
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Blackstone and the New World isb-1 Page 24
