A Thief in the Night

by Stephen Wade

  They nodded.

  ‘Therefore, the question arises: what should be done?’

  Eddie looked up to see Williamson doing some very energetic beard-stroking. ‘Well, he’s going to be at the Grand at seven, and we’ll have an army waiting for him Guv!’

  ‘Or we hold my retirement somewhere else entirely, and still have an army at the Grand. Of course, such has been the vigour of our search that the chances are he knows we’re after him and he’s left for Siberia,’ Williamson muttered. ‘I shall inform my staff to switch to the Hotel Metropole on Northumberland Avenue … they do the finest mutton cutlets in London. Eddie, in the event that our man is of low brain capacity and still insists on turning up with a pistol at the Grand, we’ll have him. Maitland, would you issue a sketch of Pelriak across the stations and to all of Eddie’s men? The Grand is huge. He must know that the event would be in the great central dining hall – broad enough to house a regiment for a meal! You’ll have to take the whole of E Division to surround the hall.’

  ‘Me?’ said Eddie, surprised. ‘I’m to miss your last dinner, Guv?’

  ‘Last dinner? You seem to think I am bound to leave this vale of tears permanently!’

  ‘Dolly, there is one point,’ said Maitland. ‘Does Pelriak know what you look like? Would he have seen a picture of you?’

  ‘Excellent question, Maitland. To my knowledge there has been no newspaper picture of me for the last five years. I never talk to those scribblers from Fleet Street. They write nothing but dirt.’

  ‘Then in that case, there will be a man receiving a retirement gift and presentation tonight at the Grand – myself!’ declared Eddie, rapping the table with a sense of triumph. ‘We’ll trap the rat.’

  Everything was in place at both hotels that night. At the Metropole, Williamson gathered with dozens of his old partners, sergeants, office workers and retired constables. The dinner was prepared for sixty guests, and at nine thirty, awash with his favourite red wine, Adolphus spoke, mixing reminiscences with some pleasantries, becoming increasingly the man they knew as ‘Dolly’ rather than the Chief Constable.

  ‘We live in changing times … and I leave the force in the good hands of Commissioner Monro … James … stand up and take a bow. My friends, there are all kinds of new ideas and new people at the Yard, but I have to speak as a beat bobby, a war-horse of these London streets, and I know that policing is, at heart, about working to fashion good relations with the public,’ he paused for the applause and shouts of agreement.

  In the massive dining hall of the magnificent Grand Hotel on Trafalgar Square, tables had been set up beneath the massive ornate pillars reaching to the glass ceiling, and the attendants sitting at the tables, pretending to dine, were all armed police. As they chattered their colleagues were in the shadows, firearms at the ready. If the assassin was coming, they would be ready.

  ‘Changing times, yes, but exciting times too,’ said the Chief Constable, now in full flow. ‘I have this sensation of leaving at exactly the time when matters are hurtling towards a distinctly international arena. My old friends, be ready to take on threats from across the oceans, that’s what I feel in my bones … and I know you all always trusted that very unscientific aspect of my sleuthing … but I thank you all for coming, and for giving me this wonderful and very heavy golden cup, with such a thoughtful inscription: “To the Chief, Adolphus Williamson” – only my wife calls me that, and that’s when I’m in trouble!’ Dolly paused to allow some laughter at that. The audience at the Metropole was having a memorable time.

  The Grand Hotel had a huge, sweeping staircase, but clearly that was not the route that Pelriak would take. Eddie had surveyed the place, and found two other pathways through the building which would lead to the dining hall. ‘He will almost certainly come this way … through the service area where the trolleys come out,’ Eddie instructed his three sergeants, as they made ready for their visitor.

  It was Harry Lacey who had the revelation. He was reading the latest edition of Punch at the Septimus Club and was feeling quite relaxed, in spite of his Rossiter restraint corset, with its steel band and whalebone supports. The little half-column he had alighted on was headed, ‘Parfitt’s Political Refusals’ and it was an account of his fondness for Socialist philosophy in his youth, and his love of church ritual. One phrase struck him: ‘The possible next Foreign Secretary, we learn, is a quiet Russophile, and last night he told the assembled students at the Guildhall that our political structures must change or die.’

  It was at first a mere inkling, a foreboding, like the shadow of a cloud across a lawn on a sunny day. But then it clarified, and he sprang up, launching the magazine into space, and cried out, ‘Sir David Parfitt!’

  The aged Earl of Clannmore grumbled in disapproval at having his snooze disturbed at this outburst, but Harry was already out of the club like a greyhound and calling for a cab.

  In the Metropole Williamson’s speech was complete and the guests were gradually dispersing, with firm handshakes and promises to stay in touch. The Chief was now left with just one old friend, James Munro. He was growing a little weary of the man’s anecdotes, but remained patient, as they had been new bobbies on the beat together, decades ago.

  ‘Yes, James, we had a lot to learn then, old man. You’ve come a long way, and, of course, it’s your turn next to stand up here and give a farewell speech!’

  No one recognised Sir David Parfitt as he entered the Metropole, as he was wrapped in a grey double-breasted wool frockcoat, the collar up and covering the lower half of his face. He walked through the throng of police officers, on their way to catch trains, cabs, or simply walk home through the city streets. There was heavy rain outside now, and all were swathed in coats and hats, scarves and gloves. No one noticed the man in the grey frockcoat, tightly clutching a knife in one of the deep pockets.

  Dolly was strolling out of the dining room, still chatting with his sergeant, when the man approached and shouted, ‘Chief Williamson!’ Then, as the knife blade glinted in the air, another voice cried out, ‘Sir David … it’s you!’

  Parfitt turned and came face-to-face with Harry Lacey. ‘It’s you … I know it’s you … say farewell to life!’ He swung around and plunged the knife into Harry’s midriff before the professor could pull out the pistol he always carried in his inside pocket. Harry clutched his stomach, before slumping to the marble floor.

  As Parfitt spun back towards the Chief Constable, Williamson struck him on the temple with his newly acquired golden presentation cup.

  As Parfitt fell to the floor, unconscious, Harry struggled to his feet.

  ‘By God, man … you’re all right!’ exclaimed Dolly.

  ‘Yes … I have the Rossiter Manform Retainer to thank for that … the damned blade struck the steel band!’

  The policemen had no idea what the professor was talking about.

  ‘I expect Dmitri Pelriak is on the way to some bug-infested den out towards Essex, feeling like a hunted fox, but here’s the DP who was their killer.’

  ‘Whose killer?’ asked Dolly, perplexed. ‘This is Sir David Parfitt.’

  ‘I think you’ll find he led a double life, Sir. He was a link in the chain of The Brothers of Rebirth.’

  ‘Well I’m amazed that they would want to top me, a man of no importance now!’ Dolly managed to chuckle at his own words.

  ‘Ah, it was a gesture … an ignoble gesture, Sir!’ said Harry, before leaving to find Eddie and share a well-earned drink with the Detective Inspector.

  ADVENTURE SIX

  The Honourable Man

  London, the great hub of the Empire, was at its zenith in 1890, and the men who oiled the wheels of the great machine that was Britain earned their respect through hard work, dedicated study and focused concentration on how they might rise. To rise in society was the aim: to rise through merit was arguably a much rarer phenomenon than stepping up the hierarchy by questionable means. Yet there was nothing questionable about Sir John Tardow. At the
opening of that momentous decade, the Forth Bridge may have been a new wonder of the world, but it was not the only topic of conversation at dinner and concert intervals. For the first six months of the year the name on everyone’s lips was Tardow. The future of the country was safe in the hands of men such as he, said The Times, so it was to be a valued estimation.

  Tardow was the son of an elementary school teacher, and by the age of thirty he had a business of his own. He had seen the potential of waste products in an Industrial Revolution and he had found uses for trash, refuse and any number of throwaway substances and created markets for them.

  However, his reputation did not end with the effluents of society. He also created great, national commercial organisations and lobbied Parliament for the promotion of radical schemes to alter the face of the land. Then, in 1881, when still a young man of only forty-three, he invested in railways, and soon found himself to be one of the richest men in the land. It seemed that the man who was born in the year of Victoria’s coronation was destined to epitomize the age of prosperity, an era which produced The Great Exhibition and subdued the Indian Mutiny; constructed a steel industry and built locomotive tracks across continents.

  In the autumn of 1891 Tardow was on the verge of joining Parliament, as a Gladstonian Liberal, with the elections looming the following year.

  And he was happy, until, one cold morning in January 1890, when his servant brought the post to the breakfast table. His wife, Floriana, was still in bed, suffering with a headache. He opened the first letter – a handwritten note – and read:

  Rich Man Sir,

  Time the world of London knew about Flo don’t you think?

  Who she was, and her former (oldest) profession. She knows me.

  Ask her about Theo Sachs. Ready money would keep your secret.

  Flo knows where I am.

  Tardow was a man who prided himself on his self-control and discipline; he let memories of Paris seduce him away from his mounting anger. He saw her face, heard her laugh, felt her kiss as if it were happening again. His Floriana, named after the German composer, Robert Schumann’s imaginary character, Florestan. It had been a courtship of dances, parties, and long evenings when too much drink was taken but in which poems, songs and laughter filled the air. He had been twenty-two then, and love had found a place in his life for the first time.

  She had arrived in his life with a chuckle of amusement, as he sat alone in a café, scribbling in his diary. She had asked what he was writing. He had been affronted at this breach of good manners, but then remembered he was in Paris, and asked her to sit with him. He ordered coffee. By that evening they were holding hands and he was on the verge of making promises.

  The dream dissolved as she came into the room and said good morning. He rose to kiss her cheek and asked if she was feeling better. Inside, a thousand questions were bubbling up.

  ‘Oh ma chere, when I see you I am well!’ She helped herself to eggs and mushrooms from the sideboard, and sat down opposite him. Her grey eyes and auburn hair had brought spring, he thought, into January. The servant brought her tea.

  ‘Flora, my love, may I ask you a question? Do you know a man called Theo Sachs?’

  He could see by her face that she did. She dropped the fork she had just picked up with a clatter onto her plate. Tardow picked up the letter and passed it across to her.

  ‘I’ve … I’ve given him money, John! He knows all about me.’ He could see tears welling up in her eyes and she dabbed at them with her handkerchief. ‘I should have told you … but … but …’

  ‘You thought he would go away.’

  ‘I gave him fifty pounds, and then another fifty pounds. He promised he would leave me alone after that. I hate him!’ She spoke the last words with venom and slammed her hand down on the edge of the table.

  John tried to comfort her, reassuring her that everything would be all right. But they both knew that the past had blown into their contented lives like a chill wind on a summer’s day. When finally they sat down to talk, away from the servants, Flora, kneeling on the carpet at the side of Tardow’s armchair, held his hands and looked up into his face with teary eyes.

  ‘John, the Floriana Daria you met all those years ago … I was always honest with you … I told you all about my life, yes? You know my other name … my professional name?’

  ‘Of course my dear. I feel confident that I know all about you. We neither of us has secrets.’

  ‘This man, Sachs, he will say the most terrible things about me. He will tell the press that I am … was … a harlot.’

  ‘My love, he will never be believed,’ soothed Tardow.

  His wife suppressed a sob. ‘John, the papers will call me a courtesan. Everyone will know that I have a past … a past that any woman would feel ashamed of.’

  ‘We’ll talk no more of this today. I shall walk to the office, as usual. You must meet your friends for the lunch you planned. I promise you that I will end this!’

  They tried, with a supreme effort, to pretend that there was no problem, that nothing was capable of shaking the balance and order of their world together. But two days later a second letter came.

  Mr Tardow,

  Further to my letter the other day, you know that your dear wife knows where to find me, and I expect £200 to be delivered to that address within the next 48 hours. Should this not happen, I will be pleased to tell the newspapers all about little Meg Caley of Spitalfields, and how she was so skilled in entertaining Gentlemen.

  More than a mere threat hangs over you. I have made a statutory declaration with a magistrate. Therefore any rash action from you will lead to a confirmation of your infamy and indeed of your living a life of deceit and hypocrisy.

  Mr Theo Sachs, solicitor.

  Tardow decided to pay the man a call, soon finding his address now that he knew he was a solicitor. The office was what he expected: a dingy, neglected box of a place a few streets behind Covent Garden.

  When Sachs saw the loping gait of a tall man dressed with the same elegance as a lord of the realm, he sensed that the man he expected was here at last. Tardow did not even knock at the door. He strode in, eyes fixed on Sachs, who was sitting behind a desk heaped with paper. Tardow’s imposing figure cast a shadow over the desk, and the short, round-bellied man sitting behind it flicked back a coif of oily hair and instinctively straightened up.

  ‘How good of you to come Mr Tardow.’

  ‘I ought to throttle you here and now, you snake!’

  ‘Albert!’ Sachs called out, inclining his head back towards what appeared to be no more than a cupboard. Behind him a door creaked open and a child of perhaps thirteen peeped out. ‘Yes Mr Sachs?’

  ‘You are able to hear everything we say in here?’

  ‘Course Mr Sachs. I ain’t deaf!’

  ‘Good, now carry on with that copying.’

  Tardow slammed his cane against the man’s desk, making him start.

  ‘Easily frightened, Mr Sachs? Well, that is not the case with me. I have brought no money, and references in your note to a statutory declaration mean not a jot to me. I suggest you crawl back into the noxious hole you crawled out of and forget your dreams of milking me or my wife for any more money. It will not happen!’

  Sachs leaned back and licked his lips. ‘Delicious woman, that girl. I knew her once; what was she called, now what was it … oh yes, Meg Caley … lived in Spitalfields, daughter of a poor weaver on hard times. She was, shall we say, extending favours, to save dear Pa from the workhouse. I did appreciate those favours, Mr Tardow.’ He gave a soft sigh and pursed his lips. In a second, Tardow’s cane had swung out and rapped him sharply across the face. There was a scream of pain and Sachs fell from his chair, clutching his cheek. From the door Albert was craning his neck to look into the office. ‘You saw that assault?’ Sachs screeched at the boy. ‘You saw him strike me?’

  ‘Goodbye Mr Sachs. You will not hear from me again. But should you approach me – or my wife – one more t
ime, you can expect more of the same.’

  Tardow felt sure that fear would rid him of the nuisance. But he was wrong.

  ‘Here it is in the bleedin’ paper,’ he said to himself, taking another swig from the whisky bottle. ‘This is my man.’ He put the page of newsprint to his lips and kissed it. Then he staggered to his feet, checked his face in the cracked mirror by the sink and laughed. ‘Private Garvey, Sir, reporting for duty,’ he said with a salute. Looking back at him was a shaggy mop of black hair flecked with grey, a ruddy face, swollen eyes and a stubbled chin.

  He took a few steps, grabbed a bayonet case from the sideboard, and sat down again, drawing the blade out and running his finger over it. ‘Jack Garvey, still removing scum from this piss-pot of a world. It ain’t no Christian place like my Pa said … no, no, no. It’s a fallen world … fallen. There’s devils out there needin’ to bleedin’ die.’

  He let his head sag backwards onto the back of the armchair and let a memory in. He was ahead of his escort. It was 1882 and they were in a Kashmir valley in Gilgit. Accompanied by some Ghurkas and Pathans, he ordered all but his guide, the Khazi from Dir, to walk ahead and survey the next bend in the valley. He was about to speak when he heard movement behind, turned, and saw the Khazi throwing his breech-loader away, about to take his sword. He did this in seconds and ran at Jack, ready to thrust the blade into him. He floored the man with his fist, and as the Khazi tried to run off, he tackled him and held him down flat. Then his Ghurkas came to help. It was a close-run thing.

  Coming round again, he thought of the next assignment. ‘Ah Sergeant Bayonet, you will earn the corn, settle the Lord’s dues,’ and he allowed the deep guttural rattle of a drunken laugh to engulf him.