A Gathering of Saints

by A Gathering of Saints (retail) (epub)

  If Black wasn’t able to resolve the case in the very near future, the special investigative unit would be dissolved and the Scotland Yard detective would find himself in professional limbo, unable to return to his old job for security reasons, yet barred from continuing his investigation of the Queer Jack murders for want of authority and budget.

  Adding depressing insult to an already grievous injury, Black had been confronted by a message from Katherine Copeland when he finally reached his attic office on Kensington Park Gardens. She had some new information about the photograph and wanted to discuss it with him. She would be waiting for him at her flat. If he didn’t show up, she would assume that he wasn’t interested and she would then make public use of the information, presumably in her newspaper. The detective was furious; the message was almost a threat of blackmail.

  The only bright spot in the day had come from Police Constable Swift. At long last he’d managed to track down the only London merchant dealing in Rodolfo Verlicchi nibs – Asprey’s on Old Bond Street. Black grasped at the small, floating shard of information like a drowning man.

  ‘Strewth!’ Swift whispered, eyes widening as they entered the lavish shop. ‘Not half-posh then, is it, sir?’ The man’s usual military aplomb had vanished under the onslaught of Asprey’s decor and contents. The shop, if it could reasonably be called a shop at all, was long and narrow, stretching from Grafton Street halfway down the block towards Stafford Street. The carpeting beneath their feet was a deep, rich green, the walls half-panelled in ancient oak, heavily varnished. The lighting was bright and welcoming, which was necessary since the natural light from the display windows was blocked by a series of heavy wooden shutters.

  Rows of mahogany and glass cabinets marched around the perimeter and down the centre of the main hall, each apparently given over to its own theme. Trinkets in gold and silver, Rolex, Piaget and Patek Philippe wristwatches, antique clocks, travelling clocks, grandfather clocks, clocks in bell jars and clocks chiming everything from Big Ben to the ‘Wedding March.’

  Candlesticks, tea and coffee services, salvers, bowls and table decorations for pheasant and partridge. A veritable menagerie of creatures in crystal, gold, silver and ceramic: lions, tigers, cheetahs, leopards, elephants and giraffes. Birds carved from crystal malachite and amethyst. Kingfishers with ruby eyes hovering over agate ponds with sheet gold lilies.

  Shelves of picnic ware, more shelves of silver-backed hairbrushes, crocodile toilet cases, ostrich-skin wallets, decanters, wineglasses, silver goblets, chessboards made from jade and ebony, gameboards of every kind, bone-handled umbrellas, silver-tipped walking sticks… all of it watched over by slow-stepping gentlemen in morning suits, one of whom approached them seconds after they stepped in through the door.

  He spoke directly to Morris Black. ‘May I be of service?’

  Police Constable Swift, dressed in his usual badly fitted suit, was ignored entirely.

  ‘Pens,’ said Black. The sheer volume of the goods in the shop was giving him a headache. It seemed absurd; butter, cheese and eggs were under ration but at Asprey’s there seemed to be no shortage of cabochon sapphire money clips or solid-gold cigar cutters. It was the sort of place that would have turned Dick Capstick apoplectic with the fury of a long-time Labour Party convert. Black smiled at the thought; given enough time and a few traumatic visits to Asprey’s, Capstick might even become a communist.

  ‘Do you mean writing instruments?’ asked the grey-haired attendant. The man had the look of a mortician and a strained vocabulary that went along with his adopted public-school accent.

  Black nodded. He let himself fall into the flat, classless monotone of the working policeman. After the night he’d had the detective was in no mood for this. ‘That’s it,’ he said bluntly.

  ‘Was there any sort of instrument you were particularly interested in?’

  ‘Ones with Rodolfo Verlicchi nibs.’

  ‘In gold or silver, sir?’ Not so much as an arched eyebrow.

  ‘Gold.’

  ‘Ah.’ The attendant nodded. ‘If you’d be so good as to follow me, sir.’ The man bowed slightly, then turned away, leading Black and Police Constable Swift down to a large display cabinet along the far wall. Black bent over the case. A hundred different fountain pens were laid out on a spotlessly clean field of purple velvet. ‘As you can see,’ said the attendant, ‘we have quite a varied selection: H. A. Smith pearl and abalone, Aiken-Lambert repoussé, Waterman sterling, Crocker, Carey, Montblanc, Cross.’

  ‘Which ones use the Verlicchi nibs?’

  ‘None of them,’ the attendant answered blandly. ‘The Verlicchi nibs are only used in Penna Nettuno.’

  ‘Do you have any in stock?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’ The attendant cleared his throat. ‘Nettuno is an Italian company. Under the present circumstances we are not in a position to offer them for sale.’ He frowned at the effrontery of it; how dare II Duce interfere with Asprey’s sources of supply.

  ‘The nibs?’

  ‘We have some, yes.’

  ‘For previous customers.’

  ‘Quite so.’

  ‘Show them to me.’

  ‘For which Nettuno pen?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘There are several different types. If I knew which pen the nib was for…’

  ‘Let’s cut to the chase shall we?’ Black turned to his assistant. ‘Swift?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘The nib.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Swift reached into the pocket of his suit coat and took out a small glass specimen jar. Inside the packet was the pen nib that had been removed from the Swedish courier’s cerebral cortex. The end of the nib was bent and separated and small pieces of human tissue were still clotted in the narrow slot. Swift gave the bottle to Black, who then placed it carefully on the glass top of the display case.

  ‘Dear me,’ the attendant murmured, staring warily at the bottle. ‘May I ask…?’

  ‘It’s evidence,’ Black explained flatly. ‘In a murder investigation. The murder weapon, as a matter of fact. The grey bits of meat are from the dead man’s brains. Might be a bit of his eyeball floating about in there as well.’

  The attendant’s eyes bulged and his pale cheeks flushed with sudden colour. ‘You’re with the police?’

  ‘That’s right.’ Black took out his warrant card and showed it to the man. The attendant nodded nervously and stared down at the bottle again. Black picked it up, holding the container to the light. ‘Familiar?’

  The attendant swallowed. ‘Penna Nettuno makes several models of the fountain pen. The Nettuno a Serbatoio, an early eyedropper fill, the Nettuno Superba and most recently the Nettuno Docet.’

  ‘Which would this fit?’ asked Black, extending the hand holding the bottle. The attendant took a step backward, almost overturning a display of custom-made golf trophies.

  ‘The Serbatoio used German findings,’ said the frightened man. ‘Nibs, guilloches, clips. And the nibs were retractable.’ He cleared his throat. Black put the bottle down on the counter and the man relaxed visibly. ‘The Docet probably uses a Verlicchi but I can’t be certain. It most probably came from a Superba.’

  ‘How many does Asprey’s sell in a year?’

  ‘I couldn’t say positively. Twenty or so.’

  ‘Pricey are they?’

  ‘They are quite expensive, yes.’

  ‘How many in the last five years?’

  ‘Sixty. Perhaps a hundred.’

  ‘And they would all use Verlicchi nibs like the one in the bottle?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How long does a nib like this last?’

  ‘With normal usage’ – the attendant looked quickly down at the bottle and then back at Black – ‘several years at least.’

  ‘If someone wanted to replace the nib, he’d have to purchase it here, is that correct?’

  ‘Yes.’ The attendant cleared his throat again and looked out over Black’s shoulder, perhaps
vainly searching for some sort of relief from his interrogation. ‘But I can see from your… specimen that part of the barrel has broken off with the nib. The entire pen would have to be replaced.’ Black nodded again and allowed himself a momentary smile. The man’s obvious discomfort was acting like a tonic on his headache. Cruel and childish perhaps but true nonetheless. ‘Do you have a list of customers for the Superba?’ he asked finally.

  ‘Certainly,’ the attendant said proudly. ‘We have an index of all our clients and their requirements.’

  ‘Good. I’d like to see it.’

  ‘I’m afraid that would be impossible.’

  ‘Oh? And why is that?’

  ‘Customer information is strictly confidential.’

  ‘Not in this case.’

  ‘The index is classified by name, not item,’ insisted the attendant weakly. ‘To find out the names of our customers who have purchased a Nettuno Superba would require going through the entire list.’

  ‘A long list, is it?’

  ‘Some two thousand names.’

  ‘Then we’d best get at it then, don’t you think?’ Beside Black, Police Constable Swift let out an expressive sigh of resignation. He knew perfectly well there would be no ‘we’ about going through the list.

  ‘I’ll have to consult Mr Asprey about this,’ the attendant muttered gloomily. Presumably Mr Asprey would not be pleased at the intrusion into his affairs and those of his clientele.

  Black smiled pleasantly. ‘By all means. Consult away.’

  A quarter of an hour later, Swift, the attendant and a score of large, leather-bound ledgers had been installed in a small office on the second floor of Asprey’s and Morris Black was making his way down to the Bond Street underground station on Piccadilly. He’d kept his promise to Liddell; now it was time to turn his attention elsewhere.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Wednesday, November 13, 1940

  7:00 p.m., Greenwich Mean Time

  Timing his arrival to coincide with the evening shift change, The Number made his way along the gloomy length of Little Britain, concentrating on his counted footsteps and the job ahead, ignoring the gritty Italianate and neo-Gothic façades of the buildings close around him, his fingers tightly gripping the satchel-like briefcase. The street was almost empty; work in The City was over for the day and there would be no deliveries to the Smithfield markets until dawn.

  Laggards from Olney-Amsden, the haberdashers, and nurses from the blue-curtained confines of St Mary’s Nursing Home were probably enjoying a pint or two in places like the White Horse at Cross Keys Square, celebrating the surprising lack of raids during the day and wondering if the night would be equally free of them as well.

  In the dying light it could have been the London of Dickens or Conan Doyle: Wren’s soaring spires looking down on the slate roofs and crumbling chimney pots of soot-stained, crowded offices; Tiny Tim hopping on his crutch down winding alleys that dated back to Roman times with Bob Cratchit at his side; Holmes and Watson on this very street, solving the problem of the Red-Headed League, Moriarty’s minions lurking in every shadowed doorway.

  The Number saw none of this, felt nothing of the history.

  To him the narrow byways and broader avenues were the veins and arteries of the beast that had to be vanquished at any price, the filthy pathways leading to the creature’s terrible beating heart, its very soul.

  Reaching the bleak Esterman and Eggington warehouse, he turned onto the broader reaches of King Edward Street. Ahead, a massive shadow in the dusky light, was the dome of St Paul’s, barely visible beyond the imposing Portland-stone cliffs of the General Post Office headquarters. Heart pounding, The Number kept his eyes downcast and continued on.

  He turned in at the main entrance of the GPO and went through the heavy doors. After showing his Standard Telephone and Cables identification to the dozing commissionaire at the receiving desk, he crossed the echoing, marble-floored lobby and made his way through the forest of soaring columns to the service lifts, joining the throngs of postal workers from the lower sorting halls who had just completed their shifts, mingling easily with the new shift coming on.

  He rode down through half a dozen levels, eventually arriving at the maintenance floor above the huge shafts leading down to the platform of the automatic railway. Ignoring the frighteningly small cages of the open shaft elevators, he took the spiral, wrought-iron staircase bolted to the exterior of the auxiliary shaft and clattered even deeper below the ground. Through the sheet-metal walls of the shaft he could hear the thumping sounds of the heavy mailbags tumbling down the delivery chute.

  Finally reaching the bottom of the staircase, he stepped out onto the brightly lit platform. A score of workers dressed in GPO overalls were busy loading bags from the chutes onto a waiting train. The electrified trains, drawn by a small, remotely operated engine standing about five feet high, consisted of two and sometimes three cars, each one carrying four dustbin-like mail containers capable of holding fifteen bags of letter mail or six bags of parcels.

  Waiting in the shadows of the stairway entrance, The Number watched as the train was loaded. When the loading was almost finished, he stepped forward, waved casually at no one in particular and stepped onto a small metal platform at the end of the last car.

  According to postal regulations, workers weren’t supposed to ride the trains but everyone did it and no one paid him any attention. A few seconds later the train jerked and then drew away from the loading platform smoothly, heading into the dark, low-ceilinged tunnel, gradually gathering speed until it was moving through the blackness at almost forty miles per hour.

  The Postal Railway, the only one of its kind in the world, connected London’s main postal stations and carried thirty thousand mailbags on forty of the little trains through more than six miles of tunnels.

  Of the eight ‘stations’ on the miniature line, three were key – King Edward Street, Mount Pleasant and Paddington Station. From the GPO headquarters the subterranean conduit led north under Farringdon Road, split at Mount Pleasant to service Euston Station, St Pancras Station and the Northern District, with a secondary line tunneling south to the West Central District Post Office at High Holborn and Oxford Street and continuing to the South Western District Office at Victoria Station. The tunnels and platforms also provided a routing for the GPO’s system of telephone, teleprinter and telegraph cables, which were carried in thick, paper-wrapped bundles that dangled from the ceiling directly over The Number’s head.

  It took less than five minutes for him to go the distance from King Edward Street to High Holborn. Here he climbed off and made his way into the maze of crossovers, dead-ended ‘stabling tunnels’ for unused cars, repair workshops and tightly curved turnarounds. Once again he was completely ignored; the Standard Telephone and Cables uniform was both a passport and a cloak of invisibility.

  As well as being a stop on the Postal Railway, High Holborn was also the junction of the cable network servicing Whitehall’s Federal, or 333 Exchange, bringing together the telephone, telegraph and teleprinter circuits of every government department, linking them by a single cable conduit to the Faraday International Exchange located in one of the GPO buildings at King Edward Street and St Martin’s-le-Grand.

  The teleprinter cables, all of the new ‘coaxial’ type, were colour-coded: blue for Admiralty, green for War Office, white for the Air Ministry. Secure cables for each of the main ministries were red, with an identifying colour band every few yards along the way.

  ‘Secure’ was a misnomer, the security of the cable coming only from its exclusivity. Most cable lines carried from eighteen to forty signals but the red conduits carried only one signal, protected from potential ‘crosstalk’ by two concentric conductors insulated by layers of acetylated cotton yarn. Theoretically this provided absolute security from either signal interference or eavesdropping.

  There was nothing really secure about the cables at all, of course, since it was a simple enough task to bre
ak into the line at any point and add a secondary outlet in series with the main cable to pirate the signal. This caused a slight drop in current along the line but it was easy enough to disguise by using a compensating resistor on the secondary outlet and adding a small dry-cell battery to boost the current on the output end of the corrupted circuit.

  The Number had done just that. Two weeks before, he had traced the Air Ministry cable leading into the conduit connected to the Faraday Exchange. He’d cut into the line, added his own cable and threaded it into an ordinary bundle of telephone cables using the same narrow passageway then run it back to a small, low-ceilinged storage shed built into a niche along the tunnel wall.

  The shed, secured with a large brass Post Office lock, appeared not to have been used for several years and he assumed that it was a leftover from the construction of the Holborn–Faraday link several years before. He removed the padlock with a hacksaw, replaced it with a lock of his own and began transporting his equipment to the shed over a period of several days.

  Pausing at the entrance to the cable tunnel, he looked back the way he’d come but saw nothing but the receding line of lights strung at intervals from the ceiling. Distantly he could hear the humming whine of the railway engines but there was nothing else; he was alone.

  He ducked low and went down the tunnel, edging between the metal-strapped bundles of cable suspended from the walls. Time was already taking its toll here; damp, calcified stalactites were beginning to form in the curving concrete ceiling overhead, building drop by drop from the beads of mineral-rich moisture squeezing through the tunnel seams and joints. In fifty years the passageway would be impassable.