Blackstone and the Great Game (The Blackstone Detective Series Book 2)

by Spencer, Sally

  ‘I am dead, unless…!’

  ‘Unless?’ repeated the courtier, abandoning—for the moment—his plan to flee. ‘Unless what, Your Highness?’

  ‘Unless we can advance our own plans a little. We had already intended to seize the throne…’

  But only once the Maharaja was dead,’ the courtier pointed out. ‘Only after Aggarwal had poisoned him.’

  ‘The important point is that I intended to take the throne,’ the prince said. ‘The method by which I planned to accomplish it is of secondary consideration only.’

  ‘Perhaps, but that does not answer the problem of—’

  ‘I cannot have my cousin poisoned, since he is not here. Very well, then, we must choose another way to go about advancing me to my rightful position. Can I rely on the support of the army?’

  ‘Certainly part of it will support you,’ the courtier said cautiously.

  ‘The major part?’

  ‘That is possible. We will not know the full extent of your support until you declare yourself.’

  ‘Then that is what I will do.’

  ‘Are you sure, Your Highness?’

  ‘I have three choices,’ the prince said. ‘The first is stay here, doing nothing, until my cousin decides to murder me. The second is to run away and live the rest of my life in poverty. The third is to stake everything on the success of a sudden revolt. For a man like me—a prince like me—that is really no choice at all. I must make my move while I still have some chance of succeeding.’

  ‘I am sure that is a wise decision, as all your decisions are wise, Your Highness,’ the courtier said, wondering which of the choices he himself was now faced with was the one he should take.

  Forty

  Dawn broke to uncover a sky already filled with heavy, menacing clouds. A tram rattled by the corner of Baker Street and Portland Square, packed with workmen from south of the river, taking them to the areas where they toiled for twelve hours a day but still could not afford to live. Half a dozen hansom cabs clip-clopped past the same spot, their passengers mainly pampered late-night revellers returning to their soft feather beds in style. A little further up the street, a pair of beggars, having crawled out of whatever shelter they had found for the hours of darkness, walked slowly towards a stall selling cheap, foul coffee. The city was awakening, but as yet there was no sign of any movement from the second-floor apartment.

  Blackstone, standing on the pavement below, nodded to a passing police constable of his acquaintance. There was still time to call for reinforcements, he told himself. He did not have to run the risk of dealing with this highly dangerous man alone.

  Looking up again, Blackstone saw the blinds of the second-floor apartment being drawn back, and a round-faced servant girl peering out on to the street.

  Still time, he repeated silently. Still lots of time.

  Yet he knew—as he had known ever since his moment of revelation in the Crown and Anchor—that he would not call for support. Wouldn’t call for it because support would only guarantee him the capture of his man—and what he wanted most in the world was the rescue of the child.

  Ten minutes went by. The front door of the house opened, and Major Walsh stepped out on to the pavement. He could have easily spotted the waiting policeman if he had been looking—but he was not.

  Walsh looked rough, Blackstone thought. Yet it was not the kind of roughness brought on by drinking an excess of alcohol. No, this was entirely different. It was a roughness which came from lying awake, tossing and turning as the questions and doubts raged. It was the roughness of a man who has been forced to wrestle with his own conscience—perhaps, even, with his very soul.

  Walsh turned left and began walking up Baker Street towards Marylebone Road. But he did not go far. The public house which lay closest to his apartment had just opened its doors, and the Major, without a moment’s hesitation, stepped inside.

  Blackstone counted off two minutes in his head, and then followed. Walsh was sitting at a table. He had a large whisky in front of him, and a second glass, now empty, standing next to it. He was not watching the door of the bar, which was what a man in his difficult and dangerous position certainly should have been doing. Instead, he was gazing at a fixed spot on the smoke-stained wall, as if he expected the answer to all his problems to suddenly and miraculously appear there like an image of the Virgin Mary.

  Blackstone sat down opposite him, but even then the Major did not notice until the Inspector coughed loudly.

  ‘Wha…?’ Walsh began.

  ‘I have a pistol in my jacket pocket, and it’s pointing straight at you,’ Blackstone said in a low voice. ‘If you make even the slightest threatening move, I’ll shoot your balls off.’

  ‘You’ve got it all wrong!’ Walsh protested.

  ‘Have I?’ Blackstone asked. ‘Do you deny that you’ve played a part in this kidnapping from the very beginning?’

  ‘No, but—’

  ‘It puzzled me how the gang always seemed to be one step ahead of me,’ Blackstone said. ‘It doesn’t puzzle me any longer.’

  ‘I—’

  ‘Let’s consider the facts. I go to see Colonel Howarth, and come away with the strong suspicion that he’s got something to hide. I tell you of my suspicions—and a few hours later the Colonel is dead. Now how could that have happened? You told me you’d had no contact with him since your time in India, but that was a lie, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, it was.’

  ‘You paid a call on him a few weeks ago. You went in the middle of the night, to make sure no one else would see you. But the butler knew someone had been, because of the smell of cheap cigars. Or should I say, ‘cheroots’? Your cheroots! You didn’t want him to recognize the same smell again. That’s why you pretended to misplace your cheroots when you and I visited Amritsar Lodge together.’

  ‘Quite correct,’ Walsh agreed.

  ‘Then there was the question of the ransom. The kidnappers asked for a hundred thousand pounds, but they knew Aggarwal had told the Maharaja they wanted more. And how can I be so sure that they knew? Because even before Aggarwal delivered the ransom to them, they had that extra twenty thousand earmarked to stir up mischief in Chandrapore. So how did they know? They knew because someone had told them—and that someone could only have been you!’

  ‘It would be foolish of me to deny it,’ Walsh said.

  ‘On top of that, we have General Pugh,’ Blackstone continued. ‘You held his scent under my nose and set me on his trail. That was risky, because once I realized that the scent was false—that he was more a hound than a fox—I began to wonder why you’d laid it.’

  ‘I knew I was taking a chance there,’ Walsh admitted, ‘but I was worried that you were getting too close. I thought that pursuing Pugh might keep you busy for a couple of days—and a couple of days was all we needed.’

  ‘Pugh set me off on a fresh trail, though he didn’t even know he was doing it. After he described his visit to Colonel Howarth, I began to wonder why Howarth should have been so pathetically eager to know if Pugh thought a professional secret service was necessary. And there could be only one answer, couldn’t there? It was because necessity was the only way he could find to justify the kidnappings and murders to himself. The bulk of the money was never intended for Chandrapore, was it? It’s to be used to set up your own private secret service!’

  ‘We’ve needed one for a long time,’ Walsh said. ‘We’ve lost thousands of lives through not having one.’

  ‘So I’d built up a pretty clear picture of what was going on by this point,’ Blackstone continued. ‘But the real clincher, if I’d needed one, was the elephant.’

  ‘The elephant?’

  ‘I wondered where the Maharaja got the idea of bringing the elephant to London. I talked to him late last night, and he said it was as the result of a suggestion made by one of his British advisers. You were that adviser! You claimed that if he wished to make an impact in London—if he wanted to make an impression on the Queen
—then he’d have to use a little showmanship. But it wasn’t his show you were planning to stage, was it? It was your own—because you’d already mapped out the little scene between the elephant and the tiger in your mind.’

  ‘And do you know why we staged it?’ Walsh asked.

  ‘I can guess. You realized that you needed more than just money to run your new secret service. For it to operate successfully, you need some hot-blooded young men who are willing to risk their lives in hostile territory. And what’s the best way to attract that kind of man? Launch your enterprise with something brave and daring—something like the spectacular you arranged on Regent Street! The kidnapping was no more or less than the parade which announced that the circus was coming to town and was looking for recruits.’

  ‘You don’t need to keep pointing that gun at me,’ Walsh said.

  ‘Don’t I?’

  ‘No, you don’t. I want to help you. I was on my way to Scotland Yard when you caught up with me.’

  ‘You were in this pub when I caught up with you’.

  ‘I was only intending to have the one drink.’ Walsh glanced down at the empty glass. ‘These two drinks,’ he corrected himself. ‘I needed to give myself a little courage. But I swear to you that I intended to find you immediately after that.’

  ‘Of course you did,’ Blackstone agreed. ‘And I’m having a secret affair with the Queen.’

  ‘It’s true,’ Walsh told him. ‘I’ve no faith in a private secret service any more. I really believed it could work—but what happened yesterday has proved to me that it won’t.’

  ‘How very convenient for you to have come round to that way of thinking now I’ve got a gun on you.’

  ‘Listen!’ Walsh replied fiercely. ‘Listen and learn. The soldier obeys the orders of his officer, the officer obeys the commander, the commander obeys the Viceroy and the Viceroy obeys the government. Sometimes the wrong decisions are taken, but at least there is consultation—and though the government often restrains the Army, the Army has at least the possibility of restraining the government. But there will be no one to restrain this new service! No one! It might work, if it were run by a man who was both unerringly wise and unquestionably saintly, but in the whole of history I can think of only one such man—and he was crucified.’ The Major paused to light a cheroot with trembling hands. ‘It needs a messiah to run it, and since it will never find one, any good it might do will inevitably be accompanied by a much greater harm.’

  ‘A very pretty speech,’ Blackstone said, unmoved. ‘But in my experience, overnight conversions are a very rare thing. If you’re to convince me that yours is genuine, you’re going to have to come up with a pretty strong reason for it.’

  ‘The original plan was that, once the operation was over, the young prince would be placed in my custody,’ Walsh said.

  ‘And you’d hand him over to the Maharaja?’

  ‘Placed in my custody,’ Walsh repeated, evading the question. ‘Now the plan has been changed. Now they intend to kill the prince. That cannot be allowed to happen. Someone must rescue him. But such an act cannot be accomplished by an army.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Once his captors know they are under siege, they’ll kill the prince.’

  ‘You’re sure of that?’

  ‘They planned to do it anyway. And what have they got to lose? If they are captured, they’ll be hanged for what they’ve already done. That is not a soldier’s way—and whatever else you might think of them, these men are very good soldiers. They will not allow themselves to be taken—they will go down fighting.’

  ‘You have an alternative plan?’

  ‘The only chance of rescuing the prince alive is to take his captors by surprise. Such a feat can only be accomplished if it is left in the hands of two or three determined men. I’ve spent a sleepless night wondering whom I should ask to accompany me—whom I could trust on such a delicate and dangerous mission—and, in the end, yours was the only name I could come up with.’

  ‘So you’re asking me to risk my life?’

  ‘I’m asking you to do your duty—and from what I’ve seen of you, I believe that if you fail in that, your life would have no purpose anyway.’

  ‘Since the moment we met, you’ve done nothing but lie to me and try to divert me from my purpose,’ Blackstone said. ‘Can you give me one good reason why I should start to trust you now?’

  ‘Yes, I believe that I can,’ Walsh replied. ‘I believe I can give you a very good reason. Put your hands on the table.’

  ‘Why should I do that?’

  ‘Because I wish to perform a demonstration, and I cannot complete it unless you do as I ask.’

  He’d be a fool to trust Walsh, Blackstone thought. Yet what alternative did he have? If he arrested the Major now, his superiors would be bound to want to question him. Once they had questioned him, they’d undoubtedly order a storming of the place where the prince was being held. And the little boy would die!

  Blackstone released his grip on his pistol and placed his hands on the table. ‘I’m ready for your demonstration,’ he said. But I’m not big on palm reading, so if that’s what you’re planning, you’re wasting your time.’

  Walsh leant forward slightly, and Blackstone felt something hard suddenly press against his knee.

  ‘That’s a gun, isn’t it?’ the Inspector asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Walsh agreed.

  Blackstone sighed fatalistically. ‘It’s a curse,’ he said.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Allowing myself to sometimes believe the best in people. Thinking that they’re always capable of changing. Falling for a convincing tale. And you do tell a convincing tale, you know.’

  ‘It took me a long time to realize that courage and honour are not enough,’ Walsh said. ‘A long time before I came to understand that deviousness is as much a part of a soldier’s equipment as his trusty sword. Perhaps I’m the lesser man for having learned it, but it has certainly made me more effective.’

  ‘So what happens now?’ Blackstone asked. ‘You’re not going to shoot me where I sit, are you?’

  ‘No. I’m not going to do that.’

  ‘No, of course you’re not. Killing a copper in such a public place would cause too much of a stir at this delicate stage in your operation. So what does happen?’

  ‘When I give the command, you will rise from your seat. You will do so slowly, and with no sudden movements. Then you will walk towards the door. I will be right behind you at all times.’

  ‘And let me guess where you’ll be taking me,’ Blackstone said. ‘We’ll be going to your headquarters—the place where the head of your operation is based, and where you’re holding the prince.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And what will happen when we get there?’

  ‘That,’ said Walsh ominously, ‘will depend entirely on you.’

  Forty-One

  A sentry’s place was out in the open, Brown thought, as he gazed morosely down the hallway at the inside of the front door. Out in the open—ready and willing to face whatever the enemy chose to throw at him. True, he also made himself a target in such a position. But what of that?

  ‘They also serve who only stand and die!’ he said softly to himself.

  The crack of a rifle, the dying scream, the last weak battering on the door—these were all alarm signals for his comrades of an enemy attack, and if a man had to lose his life doing his duty, then there were worse ways to go.

  Yet though his desire was to be on the outside—dressed in the uniform he had so often risked his life for in the past—he more than willingly obeyed the General’s newest order to remain indoors, both because it was an order and because he could see the sense in it. This was no normal operation fought in any normal war, he reminded himself. War had not even been declared, and it was possible that some of the enemy were still unaware that they were involved in it.

  He heard the knock on the front door—two rapid taps, a pause, three slower one
s, another pause, and a final dull thud which reminded him of a nail being hammered into a coffin. He wished he had his rifle—a man’s weapon, a soldier’s weapon—but the General had decreed that on this mission they should all be issued with pistols, and that was what he reached for now.

  Brown stepped closer to the front door. ‘Who’s there?’

  ‘White!’

  White? Major Walsh? Why the bloody hell was he back again?

  ‘I’m not sure I can let you in, sir,’ Brown said.

  ‘You have to let me in. I’ve got a prisoner with me.’

  There shouldn’t be prisoners, Brown thought. Not at this stage.

  ‘I’ll have to get further instructions,’ he said.

  ‘The longer we’re here, the more the danger we’ll be spotted,’ Walsh replied, with an edge of urgency to his voice. ‘Do you want everything to go wrong at this late stage?’

  ‘No, sir, I—’

  ‘Then open the bloody door!’

  Brown slid the catch, then took three steps back, his pistol pointing squarely at any target which might appear in the doorway.

  ‘You can come in now,’ he said.

  The door opened. A tall, thin man entered first. There was a bruise on his cheek which was already turning purple, and specks of dried blood around the corners of his mouth. Following the stranger was Major Walsh, and Brown could tell by the position of his arm that he was holding a gun in his hand.

  Once the two of them were inside the house, Walsh closed the door behind him with the heel of his boot.

  ‘This is Inspector Blackstone of Scotland Yard,’ the Major said. ‘He’s a very dangerous man. I’ve brought him to see Mr Jones. Keep your weapon trained on him at all times.’

  ‘I’m not sure that Mr Jones will want to—’ Brown began.

  ‘Listen to me, my good man,’ Blackstone interrupted. ‘Major Walsh is a criminal, and you could get into serious trouble for assisting him. My advice to you is to tell him to drop his pistol.’

  Brown instinctively squared his shoulders. ‘I don’t take advice from civilians,’ he said contemptuously. He risked a quick glance at Walsh. ‘This way, if you please, sir.’