‘I might have,’ Patterson said cautiously. ‘I believe the tiger’s dead, but I don’t think it died how, or where, the Colonel claims it did.’
‘Go on,’ Blackstone encouraged.
‘The tiger must have cost a small fortune, but according to Tebbitt, the Colonel never called the vet in to have a look at it.’
‘Some men do make foolish economies. You’d be surprised how many are prepared to spoil the ship for a ha’porth of tar.’
‘All right, then consider this. When the tiger supposedly died, the Colonel told Tebbitt to bury it. And Tebbitt says he did. He even showed us the grave. But how did he manage it, all by himself? You saw the size of that dead tiger on Regent Street. It took four big men to shift, and even then they were struggling.’
‘Tebbitt probably hitched horses to the corpse, and had it dragged to where he buried it.’
‘Horses don’t like tigers. That’s another thing we learned from what happened on Regent Street.’
‘The Regent Street tiger was alive,’ Blackstone pointed out. ‘If we’re to believe Howarth, his tiger was dead.’
‘Alive or dead, it would still smell like a tiger,’ Patterson said, wondering again about the unpleasant stink which seemed to be permeating the carriage. ‘Alive or dead, it would still be difficult to get a team of horses to go near to it.’
‘But not impossible.’
‘But not impossible,’ the sergeant conceded. ‘But if I had no other argument to make my case, there’s still the fur.’
‘What about the fur?’
‘I spoke to the vet from London Zoo when he came to collect the tiger. He liked tigers. In fact, I’d say that he much preferred tigers to people. But as fond of them as he was, he was going to skin that one. And why? Because tiger skins are very valuable. Do you see where I’m leading with this, sir?’
‘Maybe,’ Blackstone said. ‘But you’re the one who’s mounted the horse. Let’s see you ride it all the way to the finishing post.’
‘Colonel Howarth’s sitting room is full of souvenirs of India—stuffed heads, tables, rugs. A tiger skin would only have enhanced the look the place. Yet the moment the tiger dies, Colonel Howarth tells Tebbitt to bury it. I can’t see that.’
‘So Tebbitt knows what actually happened?’
‘Yes, Colonel Howarth had no choice but to take him into his confidence. Someone had to look after the tiger while it was there, and tell the other servants—after it was gone—that it had died.’
‘After it was gone?’
‘We both know what really happened to the tiger, don’t we?’ Patterson asked.
‘Do we?’
‘The kidnappers took it away—probably in one of the Black Marias they used on Regent Street.’
‘And when did this happen?’
‘Two or three nights ago. The kidnappers wouldn’t have wanted to run the risk of having the tiger in their possession for longer than that.’
‘But the Colonel said the tiger died last week.’
‘He did that to protect himself. If he’d said it had died the day before the attack on Regent Street, it would have looked more suspicious.’
‘Yet how could he have got away with saying the tiger was dead when it was still very much alive?’
‘Easy. The orchard’s a long way from the main house, and the servants were probably instructed never to go near it. Even if they did get close, they’d never see over the walls.’
‘What if the tiger roared? Wouldn’t they have heard it?’
‘What would it have had to roar at? Besides, we know it was drugged when it was let out of the Black Maria—perhaps they’d been keeping it drugged for a week or more.’
‘You do realize, of course, that this is all pure conjecture!’ Blackstone told his sergeant.
‘Are you saying I’m wrong, sir?’
‘No, I’m not saying that at all. I’m just saying that you can’t prove it. But fortunately, I can. Do you remember me falling over in the tiger’s cage?’
‘Of course I do.’
‘Rather clumsy of me, wasn’t it?’
‘It certainly seemed to be.’
‘I could just have bent down, I suppose. But Tebbitt would have seen me doing it, and wondered why. And I didn’t want him wondering at that particular moment.’
‘So you’re saying you deliberately fell over?’
‘That’s right. Did you happen to notice anything in my hand at the time?’
‘Your handkerchief.’
Blackstone beamed with pleasure. ‘Good lad!’ he said.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the handkerchief. Patterson could not help but notice that the smell which had been bothering him earlier was even stronger now.
‘What have you got in there, sir?’ the sergeant asked.
Blackstone opened the handkerchief, and held out its contents for Patterson to inspect. ‘What does it look like to you?’
‘It looks like a lump of shit,’ Patterson said, holding his nose.
‘That’s exactly what it is,’ Blackstone agreed. ‘My guess is its tiger shit. And since it still pongs, I’d be willing to wager that it’s not more than thirty-six hours old.’
Twenty-Two
There were people enough in the Admiral Nelson when Lou Gammage entered it, but very few who had the price of another drink on them. Gammage jingled the coins in his pocket, and looked around contemptuously at them all—at the dockers who had not been taken on for work that morning; at the costermongers who had pawned their barrows to pay the fines the magistrates had imposed on them for fighting; at the crippled ex-soldiers who made their living by begging; at the flower girls and prostitutes.
‘Oo fancies a drink, then?’ he asked in a loud voice.
The air of quiet desperation which had hung over the bar disappeared as if by magic.
Hands went up, people shouted out their requests. Gammage grinned, and slapped a guinea down on the counter. ‘Give them whatever they want,’ he told the man behind the bar.
As the landlord struggled to meet the sudden wave of orders, a new man entered the pub. He was dressed in the same kind of second-hand clothes as the rest of the customers. But he did not seem to be at all at ease in them. The rough shirt he was wearing looked as if it were making him itch. His expression showed disdain over the fact that his trousers lacked a sharp crease. Had anyone deigned to notice him, he would have stuck out like a sore thumb immediately—but with the offer of free drinks on hand, nobody did.
The man walked over to the bar. When the landlord told him that there was no need to pay because the ‘gentl’ man there’ was buying all the drinks, he merely nodded and asked for a glass of the house’s best whisky. He sniffed at his glass when the landlord slid it across the counter to him. It plainly did not come up to his expectations of what a good whisky should be, but he made no comment. Instead, he walked over to a corner table, and quietly took a seat.
Lou Gammage had already knocked back enough gin on an empty stomach to make himself quite drunk. ‘You see before you a man of some means,’ he announced to the bar in general. ‘An’ not just means today, but means tomorrer as well, because I ‘ave found the money river, an’ whenever I’m broke I’ll just drop a bucket into it an’ pull some more out.’
‘Where is this money river?’ one of the other customers asked, doing his best to mask his greed with a veneer of indifference.
Gammage wagged his finger drunkenly at the man. ‘You’ll not find it,’ he slurred. ‘The money river’s only for the Quality an’ for them as knows them. An’ I know them.’
‘Oo are they?’ the other man asked.
‘You’d like me to tell you, wouldn’t you?’ Gammage asked. ‘An’ maybe I will—when I’ve ‘ad another drink.’
***
It would never have occurred to Blackstone to choose the dust-heap in the County Council depot as a rendezvous point, but that was where his contact had told him to go, and so that was where the Inspector w
ent.
It was the first time Blackstone had been to such a place, and he was not enjoying the experience. The rubbish was piled high, though—with due deference paid to the laws of gravity—it was not stacked vertically but rose to its peak by means of a steady slope.
It was like a small mountain chain, Blackstone thought, remembering his days in the Hindu Kush—a particularly hellish, unnatural mountain chain.
Even more depressing than the rubbish itself were the people around it—the trash mountaineers. Most were women—though there were a few men—and all of them carried cheap wicker baskets.
Some stuck close to the foothills of the pile. Others, more adventurous souls, were closer to the summit, up to their ankles in refuse.
Standing watching them was a man in a greasy bowler hat and a canary yellow waistcoat. It was only two days since Blackstone had gone down to the Wellington Arms to talk to Tommy Keogh about the kidnapping, but already it felt like a lifetime ago.
Blackstone walked up to the other man. ‘This doesn’t look like the kind of work you’d be thinking of going into,’ he said.
Tommy Keogh chuckled. ‘Just checkin’ on me investments, Mr Blackstone,’ he said.
‘All these people work for you?’
‘No, Mr Blackstone. This country of ours is driven by the spirit of enterprise. They work for themselves. But when they’ve finished their task, they take what they’ve ‘arvested to some of my lads.’
‘And what do they ‘harvest’? Bottles?’
Tommy Keogh chuckled again. ‘Bottles?’ he repeated. ‘You really are a card, Mr Blackstone. Bottles is too valuable to ‘ave got this far along in the chain. Any bottles will ‘ave been ‘ad away a long time ago.’
‘So what do they hope to find?’
‘Bits of metal. Old hats. Rags. Odd boots that somebody might be glad to wear as part of an odd pair.’
‘It doesn’t seem like much of a living.’
‘It’s ‘ardly any livin’ at all,’ Keogh said. ‘But a crust of stale bread beats starvin’ to death, any day of the week.’
‘And how much of their pittance do you steal from them?’ Blackstone asked, feeling an anger—which he already knew he was unwise to allow—starting to rise up inside him.
‘I don’t steal nuffink,’ Tommy Keogh said, taking no offence. ‘I provide a service, I do.’
‘A service?’
‘Certainly. You don’t fink these are the only people who want to pick through the rubbish, do you’? If they wasn’t under my protection, they’d soon be kicked off by some bunch ‘oo had anuvver gentleman givin’ them ‘is support. An’ he’d probably take a damn sight more off ‘is lot than I want from mine.’
‘You’re a saint, Tommy,’ Blackstone said.
‘No, I ain’t,’ Keogh replied. ‘I’m just a bloke what takes the world as ‘e finds it an’ tries to make the best out of it. But my little businesses ain’t what we’re ‘ere to talk about, are they?’
‘No,’ Blackstone agreed. ‘They’re not.’
‘So let’s get down to the subject in ‘and. It shook me rigid what ‘appened on Regent Street. Honest, it did. There’s never been nuffink like it that I can remember.’
‘Who did it, Tommy?’ Blackstone asked bluntly.
‘It beats me,’ Keogh confessed.
‘Remember what I said last time we met?’ Blackstone asked. ‘If you don’t want an army of coppers swarming over your territory, you’d better tell me what you know.’
‘That ain’t a bad threat, as threats go,’ Keogh admitted. ‘But it still don’t make no difference. I won’t help yer ‘cos I can’t help yer. An’ I can’t help yer ‘cos, as far as I know, there isn’t a gang in London ‘oo could ‘ave pulled that snatch off.’
‘You must have something for me, or you’d never have taken the time to meet me,’ Blackstone pointed out.
Keogh hesitated. ‘I might be able to give yer a hint that’ll set yer off on the right lines. But before I do that, yer’ve got to promise that yer’ll never tell anybody that yer heard it from me.’
Blackstone took a closer look at the other man, and saw Keogh’s right eye seemed to have developed a twitch. ‘You’re scared, aren’t you?’ he said, incredulous.
‘I’m bloody terrified,’ Keogh replied.
‘You don’t look like a man who’s frightened of death.’
‘Nor am I,’ Keogh said. ‘I’d never ‘ave got where I am if I ‘ad been. But there’s fings worse than death. There’s losin’ yer position in society. There’s findin’ out that yer not the man yer took yerself to be.’
‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’ Blackstone said wonderingly.
‘There’s people around the docks that ‘old me in more fear an’ respect than they ‘old the Queen ‘erself, you know,’ Keogh said. ‘I’m a big man on the river, an’ I tell meself that I could take on these new blokes easy, if I ‘ad to. But I don’t want to put it to the test. That’s why I’m not goin’ to do nuffink to draw undue attention to meself.’
‘Understood,’ Blackstone said. ‘So what have you got for me?’
What Keogh had was the tale of an Indian in an expensive suit who had been ferried out to a barge in the middle of the Thames.
‘Do you know who owns the barge?’ Blackstone asked.
‘Course I know. It’s on my river, ain’t it? The bloke ‘oo owns it is a Dutchman, but I’ve already checked an’ he don’t know anyfink about anybody else usin’ it for a meetin’.’
‘Are the Indian and whoever he was meeting still on the barge?’ Blackstone asked hopefully.
‘Nah. Both of ‘em’s long gone—the Indian in a rowin’ boat, the other bloke—’ooever ‘e was—in a launch. But yer’ve still got Lou Gammage, ain’t you?’
‘Assuming he knows something,’ Blackstone said.
‘E knows somefink, all right. ‘E’s got a pocket full of money, an’didn’t earn that from just rowin’ people across the river.’
‘And where will I find him?’
‘My lads tracked ‘im down to the Admiral Nelson in Rother’ithe. ‘E should be there till ‘e falls over.’
‘Then I’d better have him picked up while he still makes sense,’ Blackstone said.
But remember—don’t mention my name,’ Tommy Keogh said. He paused. ‘Whenever I walk into a pub,’ he continued, his voice thick with sadness, ‘I see all the little toe-rags already there start to develop the shakes. I’ve often wondered what it’d feel like to be one of them. Now I know.’
***
There were any number of Indian seamen in London. They were easily identifiable by the light cotton jackets and trousers—which they wore whatever the weather—and by their turbans and their oiled hair. Yet they were rarely seen, except around one of the special hostels which had been established for them, so their arrival in the bar of the Admiral Nelson caused quite a stir among the drinkers.
‘We don’t serve niggers in here,’ the landlord said, though not unkindly.
The Lascars paid him no attention. Instead, they looked across at the man in the corner, who nodded towards Lou Gammage.
‘Did you ‘ear me?’ the landlord asked, his tone not quite as friendly now.
The Lascars walked over to the bar, where Lou Gammage—now so drunk that he was using the counter for support—was standing.
‘You come wiv we,’ one of the Lascars said, in broken English.
‘Sod off, you heathen bugger,’ Gammage said.
The Indians took an arm each, and began to hustle the waterman towards the door.
‘Ere, you can’t do that!’ shouted one of the dockers, who had no wish to see the source of his free drinks dragged away.
‘Elp!’ Lou Gammage cried, as drunk as ever but now aware of his predicament. ‘Save me from these niggers.’
The docker and two of his drinking companions stood up and blocked the doorway. The Lascars seemed unconcerned. While keeping a firm grip on Gammage, each reached into the waistband of hi
s trousers with his free hand, and produced a wicked-looking knife.
The docker and his pals weighed up their options. It didn’t feel right that a couple of heathens should treat a white man like this—especially a white man who still had money in his pocket. On the other hand, the Lascars were bloody big blokes and looked as if they really knew how to use those knives. After scarcely a moment’s contemplation, the three men returned to their seats, abandoning Gammage to his fate.
The Lascars bundled their captive through the door and into a cab which was waiting outside. Once the cab had pulled away, the man in the corner stood up and left as quietly as he had entered.
Twenty-Three
The assistant manager of Claridge’s escorted Blackstone from the foyer of the hotel, to the head of the stairs which opened on to the second floor, then came to an abrupt halt.
‘This is as far as I’m allowed to go,’ he said apologetically. ‘The Maharaja’s bodyguards have prohibited any of the hotel staff from passing beyond this point.’
But you’re the assistant manager!’ Blackstone pointed out.
The other man shrugged. ‘That doesn’t make any difference. Even the manager himself isn’t allowed up here.’
‘So how do the other guests on this floor feel about the fact that they can’t call for a porter, or have a meal delivered to their rooms?’
‘There are no other guests. The Maharaja has engaged the whole floor.’
Blackstone whistled softly. ‘Jesus! What’s that costing him?’
‘More than you would ever wish to imagine,’ the assistant manager said. ‘Good luck.’
Then he turned, and began to descend the stairs.
Blackstone looked in both directions down the long, empty corridor, and found himself wondering just how easy it would be for an assassin to get at the Maharaja.
One step—so that his left foot actually made contact with the corridor itself—and he had his answer. From out of nowhere, the Maharaja’s bodyguard appeared. The last time Blackstone had seen them, they’d been carrying elaborate ceremonial muskets, but now they were all toting the latest Winchester repeating rifle—and all these rifles were pointing at him.
Blackstone and the Great Game (The Blackstone Detective Series Book 2) Page 12
