“So you are blaming me for this mess?”
“Well, you were the one who brought those pork pies to the cottage. For all we know, it was you who poisoned them.”
Billings could not believe his ears. He stared back at his boss with an indignant look on his face. “Why on earth would I poison the pies?”
“I don’t know. To sabotage my ambitions to join Special Branch, perhaps?”
“You don’t really mean that. You’re just bitter because all this mess happened on your watch.”
“Careful with what you say, Billings.” Flynt stood up and stared at the detective, daggers shooting from his eyes. “I’m still your boss.” And without exchanging more words, Flynt marched past his colleagues.
The address they were looking for turned out to be a public house. A sign with the name The Happy Nook jutted out above the door. It was nearly lunch time, but a closed sign hung on the door. Black smoke billowed out of the chimney, almost covering up the sun. White ash snowed down onto the detectives.
The three detectives went to the door and urgently banged the knocker against it. They were met a short while later by a bewildered-looking gentleman. His hair was ruffled, his shirt untucked. There were soot stains on his face and collar.
“Yes?” he said, looking at the detectives with a frantic expression on his face.
“Are you Mr Crampin?” Flynt asked.
“Yes,” the man said. He sounded breathless.
“I’m Chief Inspector Flynt from Scotland Yard. I’m looking for Mrs Sylvia Crampin.”
“Me wife?” the man asked. “You’re looking for me wife?” He laughed. A long, bitter laugh. “She’s gone, mate. She’s long gone.”
“May we come in?”
“I’m a bit busy at the moment.”
Flynt looked into the pub. A fire was roaring in the fireplace. Books and papers were scattered all over the floor. “What are you burning?”
“Books, mate. I’m burning books! Look here.” The man showed Flynt the book he was holding in his hands. “The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe. It was me wife’s. She loved all that mystery and romance. I bought it for her.” He pointed at the books scattered on the floor. “All these books, I bought them all for her!” He went towards the fireplace and flung the book into the flames.
“Why are you burning her books?”
“Because they’re the bane of my life! They ruined her. Her father warned me about her. ‘Don’t let her read’, he said. ‘It’ll fill her mind with unrealistic expectations’. Well, it has certainly done that.”
“Where is your wife?”
“I told you. She’s gone. Ran away with that Hebrew Frenchman.”
“Hebrew Frenchman? Do you mean Simeon Hirsch?”
“Yes, that’s exactly who I mean. Mr Simeon Hirsch. Her French teacher. That’s another mistake I made. I want to learn French, she said to me. What you want to learn French for, you daft cow? I said. Ain’t no one here who speaks French. She said she just wanted to learn something. Said she didn’t want to stay ignorant all her life. It’s these books, I tell you! These books have put daft notions into her mind.” He picked another book up off the floor and showed it to Flynt. “Look at this. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen. Sense, my arse! There ain’t no sense in a woman who reads. Show me a woman who reads and I’ll show you someone who is unsatisfied with life. I was a fool to have bought them for her.” He flung another book into the flames.
“Where do you think they’ve gone to?” Flynt asked.
The man shrugged. “I don’t know, and I don’t care. If she thinks she’s too good to be a landlady, if she thinks she’ll be happier with some penniless Yid, then all luck to her. She’ll soon be back here, knocking on the door with her tail between her legs. You’ll see. But I won’t let her back in. Oh no.” He picked up another book, tore the pages out and added them to the fire.
Flynt frowned, irritated by the man’s frenetic behaviour. “Will you stop doing that, Mr Crampin! The fire is about to escape from the fireplace. You’ll burn down the whole building!”
This had the desired effect, and the man finally stopped throwing books into the fire and concentrated on the chief inspector.
“It’s not your wife we’re interested in,” Flynt said. “It’s Mr Hirsch we want. He’s wanted for the murder of four people.”
The man’s jaw dropped. “He’s wanted for what?”
“When did your wife leave this pub?”
“She left last night. Took our phaeton, our horse and left.”
“And where could she have gone to? Is there anyone who would receive them?”
“Perhaps her sister.”
“Her sister?”
“They’re very close. Her sister is as daft as she is. She is married to some boat builder in Barking. They may have gone there.”
Flynt saw an open market cart pass by as they left the pub and immediately stepped in front of it. He waved his arms in the air, forcing the cart to stop. He offered the driver some money to take them to Barking as quickly as possible, which the driver eagerly accepted.
Flynt sat next to the driver, while Billings and Clarkson sat in the back. As soon as they rolled out of the city’s outskirts, the road was deserted. Egged on by Flynt, the driver hollered at his horse and lashed his whip against its back. The cart was soon hurtling down the road, and Billings and Clarkson were forced to cling tightly to the side of the cart at every bend for fear of being tipped out.
On the horizon, the houses, church spires and ship masts of Barking’s boat yards were slowly getting bigger. Ahead of him, Billings spotted a sharp curve and braced himself for another wild ride. But as they approached the bend, something else slipped into view. It looked like a carriage, tumbled sideways into a ditch. One of its large back wheels had come off and lay broken in two pieces in the ditch. The small wheel was still spinning in the wind.
Flynt got up on his feet to get a better view and ordered the driver to slow down. All three detectives turned their heads to gaze at the unfortunate wreck as the market cart rolled past it. It was a phaeton carriage, judging by its oversized wheels, and there were two people still seated on its bench.
Flynt ordered the cart to stop, and, while the driver was still pulling in the reins, the three detectives jumped off and ran towards the wreck.
Billings was the first to arrive. He climbed into the ditch and went to attend to the two passengers, but as soon as he saw their gaunt faces and vacant eyes, he knew that they were dead. One of them was Simeon Hirsch. His long copper beard and black clothes gave him away. Billings concluded that the other, a woman, must have been Sylvia Crampin.
“Is it them?” Flynt asked, looking down from the road.
Billings nodded. “They’re dead.”
“What happened?”
Clarkson joined Flynt on the road. “Must’ve been that dangerous curve,” he suggested. “They must’ve been going too fast and ended up in the ditch.”
“But how would that kill them?”
Clarkson shrugged. “Perhaps their spines snapped in the crash.”
Billings was still standing in the ditch, looking at the bodies. Both Simeon and Sylvia Crampin’s clothes were soaked with blood.
“It wasn’t their spines,” he said, bending over and inspecting a wound by Mrs Crampin’s collarbone. “They were shot.”
“Shot?” Flynt looked confused. “By whom?”
Suddenly Billings saw something tucked inside Mrs Crampin’s blouse. He carefully reached into the collar and pulled out a folded envelope. It was Simeon’s letter. The one he had forgotten to post. The one Enoch said he would post for him. Turning the envelope in his hands, Billings instantly noticed that it didn’t have a postage stamp.
“What’s that?” Flynt asked.
“Nothing.” Billings quickly crunched up the letter and hid it in his pocket. His heart was pounding in his chest. How did the letter get to its destination without a postage stamp? Did Enoch deliver it
by hand? Why would he do that?
“It looks like they’ve been shot,” he said, climbing out of the ditch and joining his colleagues on the road. “We’d better send the driver to fetch the Barking police. We’ll need some help dragging out the bodies.”
Billings trudged back home. It was nine o’clock, and it was already dark. He had spent all day in Barking with Flynt and Clarkson, helping the local police recover the bodies from the ditch and hanging around Barking Police Station, waiting for the coroner’s report.
Two bullets had been retrieved from the bodies, and two .442 Webley cartridges had been found. Neither Flynt nor Clarkson seemed particularly interested in this revelation, but the first thought to enter Billings’ mind upon hearing this news was that that was the same cartridge as the one used by his bulldog revolver.
He had taken the train back to London and was now practically running down the street, eager to get home as quickly as possible.
He hadn’t stopped thinking about Enoch since discovering Mrs Crampin’s hand-delivered letter. Could Enoch somehow be connected with this case? Billings frowned and shook his head. There had to be a rational explanation for this. Perhaps Enoch happened to be in the area, looking for a job, and decided to slip the letter into Mrs Crampin’s letter box himself rather than waste money on a postage stamp.
As Billings turned into Alexandra Avenue, he noticed immediately that Enoch was not sitting on the curb in front of the house. Mrs Appleby would not have let him in, even if it was already dark. So where could he be?
He thought about the name while he rushed towards the house. Enoch McCain. It meant ‘son of Cain’. The Biblical Cain, who killed his brother Abel. Could this have been a pseudonym? And if so, what was Enoch’s real name? He wasn’t Irish, that was clear enough. Could he be French? Could he be Jewish? Suddenly Billings remembered Enoch’s circumcised penis, and the comment he had made about not eating pork. His heart began pounding in his throat.
He unlocked the door and ran upstairs towards his room. He pulled open the top drawer of his dresser and rummaged through his underclothes. The blood rushed out of his head as his worst suspicions were confirmed. Enoch had gone missing. And so had his gun.
19. Disgrace
Billings’ hand was trembling again as he walked into the office. “Where’s Flynt?” he asked Clarkson, clenching his fist and hiding it behind his desk.
Clarkson was sitting at his desk, reading a newspaper as usual. “He’s in the holding cells interviewing Ruben Hirsch. He’s convinced Ruben has something to do with the murders of Simeon and Mrs Crampin.”
Clarkson looked up from his paper and saw Billings standing before him, his face tense and pale. “Are you all right?”
Billings checked whether his trembling fist was still hidden behind his back. “Yes,” he said. “Why do you ask?”
“You look pale. And you’re shivering.”
“I’m fine.” Billings turned his back on Clarkson and headed for the door. “I’m just going down to the holding cells. I need to speak to Flynt.”
“What about?”
“I know who’s been killing the Hirsch brothers.” And without looking back at his colleague’s reaction, he rushed out of the office and down to the basement.
Billings followed Flynt into his office.
“Well, what is it?” Flynt said, sitting at his desk. “This had better be important, Billings. I was in the middle of interrogating Ruben Hirsch.”
Billings took a deep breath and clenched his trembling fist behind his back. “I know who’s been killing the Hirsch brothers. It isn’t Ruben Hirsch.”
Flynt sat up and raised his eyebrows. “You do?”
“He goes by the name of Enoch McCain. That’s not his real name, but that’s what I know him by. He is one of the Hirsch brothers.”
Flynt looked confused.
“He is Jacques Hirsch’s illegitimate son,” Billings explained. “I suppose he thinks he might apply for the inheritance if he kills his stepbrothers.”
“How do you know all this?”
“I’ve known McCain for a while now.”
“You know him?”
“I believed him to be a homeless Irishman. I’ve been helping him to find a job.”
Flynt laughed and shook his head. “Another one of your charity cases, I suppose.”
“If that’s what you want to call it.”
“You never stop being a damned Quaker, do you?”
Billings ignored that comment. “He’s been staying in my landlady’s spare room.”
“Why do you think it’s him?”
“Because of the letter.”
“The letter?”
Billings took the scrunched-up letter out of his pocket and placed it on Flynt’s desk. “This is the letter Simeon Hirsch asked me to post for him. The one with the coded message. I forgot to post it and gave it to McCain to do so for me.”
Flynt looked confused and raised his hand to stop Billings from talking. “Wait. What are you telling me? Are you telling me that you gave secret, confidential information to this Irishman?”
Billings frowned. He realised what he had said sounded bad, but there was so much worse to come. “The letter had no postage stamp,” he continued. “It was delivered by hand. I am sure McCain read it. That’s how he knew where to find them.”
Flynt looked down at his desk and shook his head. “I’m confused, Billings. Why haven’t I heard about McCain before?”
“I only realised it was him last night when I came home. There’s something else you should know.” Billings paused and hesitated. “The gun that was used to shoot Simeon and Mrs Crampin.”
“What about it?”
“It used a .442 Webley cartridge. That’s the same type of cartridge as the one used by the Bulldog revolvers issued by the Metropolitan Police Service.”
“So?”
“I was issued with such a gun when I went undercover to the plot meeting. That gun is now missing from my home. And so is McCain.”
Flynt frowned and shook his head again. “Jesus Christ, Billings! This all sounds very convoluted to me. Are you sure you’re all right? You’re very pale.”
“I’m fine.”
“So where did you meet this McCain?”
“I met him in a pub.”
“Which pub?”
“Just a pub in the city centre.”
“Which pub, Billings?”
“A pub in Sloane Square.”
Flynt frowned. “Am I speaking Chinese? I said, which one!”
Billings hesitated. “The Duke of Avondale.” He frowned. He had tried to come up with a random pub name, but none came to mind, and before he knew it, the actual name escaped his lips.
Flynt thought about the answer. “The Duke of Avondale? Isn’t that…” Suddenly it hit him, and his lower jaw almost hit his desk. “Jesus Christ, Billings!”
“I was there for a few drinks when I came back from trawling the East End with Clarkson. It’s close to the underground station. Right behind the Court Theatre. It’s popular with theatre-goers.”
“Don’t try and pull one over on me, Billings! I know exactly what kind of pub that is! My first case as an inspector was about a gentleman who was being blackmailed by a renter he’d picked up in the Duke of Avondale.”
Billings lowered his head. Damn it, he thought. Flynt was a better policeman than he had given him credit for. The average beat constable would know all of the vice dens in London, but Flynt had never been a uniformed officer.
Flynt was still staring at Billings with an expression of disdain in his eyes. “Jesus Christ, Billings. So you’re a sodomite?”
Billings had anticipated this comment and decided it was best not to react to it. If worst came to worst, Mrs Appleby could confirm that Enoch slept in the spare room. Nobody would be able to prove anything.
“I always knew there was something wrong with you.” Flynt sighed and ran his hands over his hair. “Jesus Christ, Billings! So you pick up
a guy at this sordid pub…”
“I did not pick him up. I was trying to help him.”
“You take him to your home, you give him confidential information, you allow him to steal your gun! Jesus Christ, Billings!”
“I made a mistake, Flynt. I realise that.”
“A mistake? This is a bleeding catastrophe! What will England make of all this!”
“But at least we have a way of catching him now. McCain will go after Ruben next. He won’t get the inheritance so long as Ruben is still alive. We can use Ruben to bait him.”
“But how are we to explain all this to England? This’ll have implications for both our careers.”
“I don’t see why it should.”
“Oh, come on! A sodomite in the police service.”
“I didn’t admit to being a sodomite.”
“But you didn’t deny it, either.”
“The point is that we now have the chance to catch the culprit.”
Flynt slammed his fist on the table. “The point, Billings, is that the person we’ve been looking for all this time has been sleeping under your roof! In your bed! With his cock up your fucking arse!”
Billings frowned at the coarseness of that remark.
Flynt took a few deep breaths. “This is what we’ll do. We won’t tell England anything about your sordid private life. We’ll just tell him you know about McCain through an informer.”
“An informer?”
“We have to make something up, Billings. We can’t tell England how things really stand. We have messed this case up enough already.” He got up from his desk and headed for the door. “We’re going to see England now, so you’d better come up with a story quickly. We have no time to lose if this plan of yours is going to work.”
England was sitting at his desk, looking at Billings standing in front of him, listening intently to what he had to say. His legs were crossed, his elbows leaning on the table top, the fingers of his hands interlocked. He looked like he was praying.
“I propose we contact the newspapers,” Billings said. He was trying very hard to control the trembling in his voice. Flynt was standing next to him, nervously spinning his thumbs behind his back. “Now that the Foreign Secretary has agreed to France’s extradition request, we can tell the press that Scotland Yard will be escorting Ruben Hirsch to Dover, and then on to Calais. McCain is sure to follow us to Dover, where a team of undercover police officers will be waiting to catch him.”
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