by David Field
‘But we can’t ignore it either,’ Jack insisted. ‘This woman Mary Carmody is the singer in the Home Front Club, and she not only has wild Fenian loyalties of her own, but her songs go down very well with the club members. She’s also a startlingly beautiful lady, and she persuaded Abe Jacobs to desert from his regiment while on active service, an action that could result in him being taken out and shot. He seemed very nervous on the train back to London, when she began to reveal her revolutionary sympathies. She’s also very keen to get me into the Club, no doubt with ambitions to corrupt me as well. She all but guaranteed to get me membership. We can’t pass that up, can we?’
‘I’m not suggesting that we pass it up, Jack,’ Percy replied, ‘I just have a feeling deep down where your aunt’s tea is waging a war that it’s all a little obvious. Real spies and revolutionaries don’t give themselves away so easily — it’s almost as if they’re trying to put us off the scent and divert our attention into the wrong corners.’
‘So we just ignore all this — is that what you’re saying?’
‘Of course not; let’s not fall for it hook, line and sinker, that’s all. We need to keep our eyes open on just about every front, and I’m beginning to suspect that this Home Front Club is a diversionary tactic designed to take our eyes off the ceremony at St Paul’s, where the Queen will be most vulnerable. I also suspect that Markwell’s now kicking himself for letting slip that someone had fed him the proposed itinerary for the Jubilee celebrations. When I asked Parker at Stepney, he confirmed that no general circular had yet been issued to all stations, so how did Markwell know?’
‘Search me,’ Jack replied, somewhat deflated that his latest revelations had not met with more enthusiasm. ‘But surely we need to alert someone to what I’ve discovered?’
‘Of course. I’m meeting with Melville himself on Tuesday — perhaps he can point the way, because it’s all getting a bit murky.’
Chapter Fourteen
Percy stamped his shoes down on the frost-hardened grass of Tower Green, in search of some feeling in his frozen feet, then looked all around him for any sign of the man due to summon him to meet William Melville of Special Branch. Detective Inspector Enright, old fashioned thief-taker and head-kicker, was beginning to tire of all this cloak and dagger stuff, and only the thought that he was merely one small cog in a mighty machine that was preserving the English way of life prevented him from striding off in the direction of the Middle Tower and back out into Lower Thames Street. At least that way he’d get the circulation back in his toes.
A Beefeater strode towards him with a purposeful look, and Percy was about to argue his right to stamp his feet on royal grass when the man smiled.
‘Sorry to keep you waiting. The building behind me — the “Queen’s House”. Superintendent Melville’s expecting you.’
Once inside, Percy was relieved of his heavy topcoat by some functionary or other and shown into a low-ceilinged room in which a large open fire was burning cheerfully in a miasma of pine smoke. Melville was seated to one side of it cradling a balloon of brandy, and as Percy approached the facing chair Melville poured him a generous measure from the decanter on the side table and nodded for him to sit down.
‘You wanted to see me?’ Percy asked.
Melville frowned. ‘I was advised that you wanted to see me. So what’s your problem?’
‘Our problem, I suspect. Have the precise details of the Jubilee celebrations been circulated yet?’
‘Only at the highest levels, not to the divisional police stations. Have they leaked out?’
‘Certainly, the Inspector at Bow Street — a shifty chap called Markwell — seemed to know all about them. It was he who told me that the Queen will be a sitting duck at the foot of the steps up to St Paul’s while the A of C waves his incense bottle over her head, or whatever. Tell me he was talking out of his arse.’
‘No, somebody else’s arse, as it transpires. The tame penguin from Her Majesty’s Household — an army bloke called McNeill — who’s in charge of the Queen’s wishes, or so it would seem, insisted that the old biddy’s so bad with arthritis these days that she’d never make it up the steps, and is graciously disposed to sit it out in her carriage while the Archbishop does his party piece. When it was pointed out to him that it might rain, his response was that the Queen wouldn’t allow it to.’
‘If there’s a problem with the steps of St Paul’s, why not Westminster Abbey?’
‘Seems that she’s getting bored with the place, and in any case would rather be seen among her loyal subjects in the East End.’
‘She might be in for a rude shock,’ Percy chuckled hollowly. ‘Did anyone point out that what was being proposed was a massive security risk?’
‘Naturally. I wasn’t there, of course, but I’m reliably advised that he replied that Her Majesty was so well loved by her subjects that the risk was non-existent.’
‘That’s absolute bollocks!’ Percy protested.
‘Indeed,’ Melville replied with a smile, ‘but unfortunately the man speaks it fluently.’
‘Can we not change his mind?’ Percy asked, but the responding look on Melville’s face rendered the question obsolete.
‘Apart from anything else,’ Melville explained, ‘the details have now been circulated at the highest levels around the Cabinet, and the equerry’s not keen to lose face by having his lunatic scheme amended in any way. However, it’s a bit concerning to learn that the plans have been leaked already. Obviously they would have become public knowledge sooner or later, but the clear inference is that this chappie in Bow Street has a friend in high places. I only found out the details because the Home Secretary took me into his confidence, and I doubt that he’d also have told some bobby in Westminster. Any idea where he could have got it from?’
‘There’s an Assistant Commissioner at the Yard — name of Doyle,’ Percy told him. ‘He tried to get me on his team by promising me a leading role in what he chose to call a “new order” of policing in London in the foreseeable future. He hinted that it might come via some sort of uprising like that being threatened in Russia at present.’
‘And what was his asking price for this?’
‘That I bypass my immediate boss and report all discovered examples of corruption in the Met directly to him.’
‘Hmm,’ Melville replied thoughtfully. ‘That might be in order to keep him fully appraised of how much we know.’
‘He also seemed to know that I was working for Special Branch,’ Percy added.
Melville nodded. ‘I’ll detail someone to dig for the dirt on him. He may only be a starry-eyed idealist, or he’s being blackmailed into it for some indiscretion of his own. We’ll know the answer to that within a couple of days, and while we’re at it we’ll have a closer look at this chappie in Bow Street. What was his name again?’
‘Markwell. Chief Inspector Lionel Markwell.’
‘OK, we’ll add him to the list for special scrutiny. Is that all you have to report at this stage?’
‘By no means,’ Percy insisted. ‘My nephew Jack’s discovered the existence of some subversive club or other in the West End, attended by selected police officers and army types. He’s within an ace of becoming a member of it, if that meets with your approval.’
‘Provided that the information flow’s one way,’ Melville nodded. ‘Do you get the feeling that his being able to identify and infiltrate this club so soon is a bit too convenient? That he’s being worked in both directions?’
‘That was my first thought,’ Percy conceded, ‘but then it’s going to rather a lot of trouble to set up a fake club just to get information out of one person, isn’t it? He’s managed to work up a friendship with an Irish sergeant down in Bow Street — name of Brennan — and it was Brennan who introduced him to the club. Surely he could simply have pumped Jack for information by himself?’
‘Good point. Give Jack the go-ahead. And now we’d better vacate these palatial surroundings, before the royal gho
sts drift in out of the cold.’
‘Beg pardon?’
‘This building was once home to several noble English ladies on their way out of that front door straight onto Tower Green. Anne Boleyn, Lady Jane Grey and Margaret Pole, to name but three. Their ghosts are reported regularly in the narrow corridors upstairs.’
‘I don’t believe in ghosts,’ Percy told him. ‘But I do have more to report. Jack’s wife Esther has a brother, recently returned in dubious circumstances from his stint with the Grenadier Guards out in the Sudan. He claims to be a deserter, which is a bold move on one’s first meeting with a brother-in-law who’s a police officer. As if that weren’t enough to raise the hairs on the back of your head, he’s got a woman in tow who’s a welcome entertainer in this club I mentioned a moment ago and she’s offered to smooth Jack’s application for membership. Either the pair of them are being spectacularly incautious or it’s a ruse to draw Jack out where they can either get information from him, or silence him, or both.’
‘I’ll get the Army Office onto that immediately,’ Melville promised, ‘if you can supply the names today.’
‘He’s Abraham Isaacs. Jewish, with Lithuanian parentage that might link up with those Russian types seeking to overthrow the Tsar. My history tells me that the Lithuanian Jews have a score to settle with the Romanov family.’
‘And the woman?’
‘Name of Mary Carmody. Bog Irish, apparently, and fervently Fenian when she sings songs in that club.’
‘At least she doesn’t take her clothes off in the process, one hopes,’ Melville smirked. ‘But leave it with me for the time being. And now I really have to be off.’
‘I was hoping you could tell us what you want us to do next,’ Percy prompted. ‘We can’t hang around Bow Street for much longer without looking suspicious, and if it’s true that Her Majesty is going to make herself a target for every lunatic in the Northern Hemisphere when she sits taking the sun in an open landau outside St Paul’s, then we need to beef up the security down there. I thought that Jack might be best occupied drawing up a chart showing available police manpower in each station in the East and West Ends, which we can then compare with what we think we’re going to need on the day.’
‘Sounds sensible. And what were you thinking of doing?’
‘No real idea, at this stage.’
‘Well whatever it is, do it inside the Yard, where you can be approached again by this Doyle chappie. And tell your nephew to join that club as soon as. Now, our next meeting — any ideas where we might stage it?’
‘We’ve done Westminster Abbey and the Tower,’ Percy reminded him. ‘At the risk of tempting Fate, how about St. Paul’s?’
‘As good as anywhere, given that we’re likely to be followed anyway. Bring your nephew with you next time. Next Monday, 2 pm.’
Jack sighed as he looked up at the stone lintel above the entrance to Mayfair Police Station, where he could almost guarantee a frosty reception when he informed them of why he was there. It was a bitterly cold Monday morning, and he allowed his mind to drift to Uncle Percy, and the cosy office at the Yard in which he could keep out of this wind that threatened to blast through everything it met, leaving slices of human ice behind in its wake. At least by stepping inside the police station he’d be out of the wind, he reminded himself as he waved his police badge under the nose of the constable behind the charge desk and asked to speak with his Inspector.
Inspector Dalton was guarded at first when Jack announced that he was there to check his manpower roster list but softened somewhat when advised that it might lead to additional men being drafted in from other divisions within the Met in time for the proposed Jubilee celebrations.
‘I was a sergeant here ten years ago when we had the last one, and a lot of my men were drafted down to Buckingham Palace,’ he told Jack. ‘Is the same going to be happening this time? Only we barely had enough men to line the streets with when all the gawpers came traipsing down Regent Street, and the buses couldn’t move for ’em. We were lucky nobody got killed.’
Jack thought carefully before giving his tactful answer. ‘It looks as if the main event this time will be around St Paul’s, although the Queen will be coming in from Windsor the day before. But once that second day dawns, it may be that some of your men will be required in the East End.’
‘A lot of them live out that way anyway,’ Dalton replied, ‘so I don’t suppose there’ll be any strong objections. Just give me plenty of notice, that’s all.’
It was the same in Kensington, where Inspector Grainger was delighted to learn that for his station it would all be over on the first day. However, he was less impressed when the suggestion was put to him that he might be called upon to draft men into Whitechapel or Stepney.
‘You have to understand,’ he warned Jack, ‘that these men didn’t join up in order to belt scum over the head with billy clubs. On the whole they’re a very refined bunch who’re more used to investigating burglaries in the posher houses up near Hyde Park. They’ll be very reluctant to slug it out with work-shy drunks in seedy pubs.’
‘They might learn something to their advantage regarding the true nature of East Enders,’ Jack glowered. ‘I was attached to Whitechapel for my first two years, and basically they’re hard-working and law abiding. The problem is that the relatively cheap housing attracts the wrong sort; but if they’re in the pubs while the Queen’s at St. Pauls, they shouldn’t be a problem for your men, should they?’
‘All the same,’ Inspector Grainger frowned, ‘I’d rather you be the one to tell them that they’re likely to be going slumming for a day.’
Jack opted to leave it at that. He’d have enough to worry about when he showed his face back in Whitechapel.
‘So what are you wasting your time, and our money, on now?’ Assistant Commissioner Doyle demanded as he leaned in through the open doorway of Percy’s office. Percy smiled as warmly as he was inclined as he nodded down at his desk.
‘We’ve been given the detailed route for the Queen’s Jubilee procession next June, and it seems to be centred on a ceremony at St. Paul’s, so I’m conducting a survey of available manpower, in order to determine whether or not we need to draft more men into the East End for the occasion.’
‘Good idea, but don’t strip the West End too thinly. The first day terminates at Buckingham Palace, where there’s to be a State Banquet with all the invited dignitaries.’
So you’ve been slipped the details as well, Percy thought to himself as he shook his head. ‘Obviously I won’t, but it’s going to be a bit of a squeeze. We might have to pull in all the Specials, but it won’t be cheap.’
‘Might be best to use the Specials in the West End, and save the real bobbies for the East,’ Doyle suggested. ‘I take it that’s what that nephew of yours is about, to judge by the anguished enquiries I’m getting from the stations he’s visited already, wanting to know if we’re going to strip them of men. Not much of a diplomat, is he?’
‘He’s a damn good copper, though,’ Percy responded in Jack’s defence.
‘All the same, you might want to keep a closer eye on him while you polish your trouser bottoms in here,’ Doyle replied coldly. ‘He’s getting into bad company in Bow Street.’
‘He’s officially finished with Bow Street,’ Percy objected.
Doyle placed a finger on the side of his nose in a time-honoured gesture that discretion was required as he slid into the office and took a seat. ‘All the same, he seems to still have friends there. Has he said anything to you about a social club that the men down there are in the habit of attending?’
‘No, not really,’ Percy lied, aware of this non-too subtle attempt to find out how much he knew about the Home Front Club.
‘Well, you might want to pump him about it. Can’t have able officers like him being led astray, now can we? Concentrate on the East End anyway, Percy, because that’s obviously where the greatest security threat lies, assuming that the Queen goes ahead with this ins
ane itinerary that one of her hired loonies has dreamed up. And don’t forget what we discussed a little while back — those who show the greatest loyalty to the Met today may well find themselves in positions of considerable influence in the months to come.’
‘I trust that my loyalty’s well above suspicion, sir,’ Percy protested.
Doyle smiled unpleasantly as he rose from the chair and made his way out. He paused in the doorway, looked back and replied, ‘At present your nose’s clean, Percy. Just make sure that it stays that way.’
‘I thought I told you never to come back here!’ Inspector Ingram bellowed as Jack appeared in his doorway on the Thursday morning, having left it until last for no reason other than cowardice.
Jack winced inwardly but smiled. ‘From memory, you told me to bugger off back to the Yard, but I don’t recall you telling me that I couldn’t return when it was in your best interests.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning that Whitechapel will be the police station closest to the action on the second day of the Diamond Jubilee celebrations next June, and you’re almost certainly heavily undermanned.’
‘It doesn’t take more than I’ve got to surround St. Paul’s with blue uniforms,’ Ingram growled, thereby revealing his own privileged knowledge of the second day’s detailed plan. He was also the first Inspector Jack had spoken to during his miserable four-day tour of police stations who seemed not to regard himself as short of men — was he hoping that a depleted force would make it easier for some assassin to strike?
‘And what about the approaches to St. Paul’s?’ Jack said defiantly. ‘The procession will probably be keeping close to the river, so I calculate that we’ll be needing your men from Monument onwards in the east, and Blackfriars to the west, all the way up Cannon Street, Cheapside and as far as the Museum, where Holborn will take over, always assuming that they have enough manpower of their own.’