The Eloquence of the Dead

by Conor Brady

  The senior Scotland Yard man was a detective sergeant called Montgomery. He introduced his colleague as Detective Constable Bright. Bright had a soft, regional English accent that Swallow could not place.

  Teddy had gone for Mallon’s deal, but with conditions. He wanted a pound in cash so he could drink at the bar on the packet from Kingstown to Holyhead. And while he accepted that he would be handcuffed to Swallow for the train journey to London, he wanted the handcuffs off at sea.

  ‘I mean, Mr Swallow, wha’ would be the point of me tryin’ to escape out on the fackin ’igh seas? What am I goin’ to do? Jump in the fackin’ briney? An’ I’m not goin’ to be a threat, what with you ’avin’ that bloody big shooter. An’ if the facking ship ’its a rock an’ sinks, a man’s got to ’ave a chance to swim for it, ain’t ’e?’

  Teddy drank steadily across the Irish Sea. Pints of brown ale, alternating with whiskies. Swallow handcuffed Teddy’s wrist to his own as the mail packet started to dock at the Admiralty Pier at Holyhead. It was hardly necessary since his prisoner was semi-comatose with alcohol. He stayed that way for nearly all of the seven hour train journey to London.

  The arrangements for Teddy’s accommodation at the Tower of London were far from intolerable. A senior warder with two fox terriers at his heels showed them to a spacious room in St Thomas’s Tower. It was fitted with a bed, a table and two chairs. A small coal fire burned in a grate.

  ‘Gets a bit damp if we don’t keep up the fire. But there’s a nice view of Father Thames in the mornin’ there,’ the warder quipped. The salty, sulphurous smell of the river was strong, seeping through the thick stone walls.

  With Teddy installed in St Thomas’s Tower, the Yard men took Swallow to the lodgings they had chosen for him off Farringdon Road. A sign proclaimed it as Frost’s Hotel, but it was a boarding house. While the detectives waited in the hallway, the eponymous proprietor-cum-manageress, Mrs Frost, showed him to his room. It was a good deal smaller than Teddy Shaftoe’s in the Tower, but it was comfortable, warm and clean.

  ‘And we ’ave a bathroom, Mr Swallow,’ Mrs Frost told him proudly. ‘Just put in this year. Very modern, I am. If you want to use it, let me know and the maids will fill the ’ot water for you from downstairs. Lots of p’lice lads stay ’ere when they ’ave official business in London,’ Mrs Frost said. ‘But you’re the first we’ve seen from Dublin. My mother was from Belfast, as a matter o’ fact.’

  Swallow surmised that Mrs Frost was probably a police widow. A photograph on the landing, showing a platoon of helmeted constables in front of a station somewhere, reinforced his assumption.

  The Yard men took him to a nearby public house. It reminded him a little of Grant’s, only noisier. They found an empty booth.

  Montgomery ordered whiskies. Irish for himself and Swallow and a House of Commons Scotch for Bright.

  ‘God speed the plough, as we say in Donegal.’ Montgomery raised his glass.

  ‘Donegal?’ Swallow said. ‘You don’t sound like a man from Donegal.’

  ‘Two generations out of it. My grandfather came to London, took up policing and never went back.’ He grinned. ‘But it sounds more interesting than saying I’m from Hackney.’ He sipped at his whiskey. ‘Then my old man became a copper too. Lots of Irish in the job.’

  Swallow understood. Men who would shun the police in the land of their birth were often happy to wear the Queen’s blue serge on the streets of England or Scotland. Bright shook his head. He looked confused.

  ‘But that’s a bloody English sayin’, Sarge – this “God speed the plough.” We ’ad it in Devon when I were a lad growin’ up.’

  Montgomery sighed. ‘It means the same thing wherever it’s from. It means good luck for the job in hand.’

  Swallow felt that Bright did not seem to get the point.

  ‘Now, here’s the ground rules, as I’ve been briefed by Sir Edward Jenkinson, our guv’nor,’ Montgomery said. ‘You’ve got access to Shaftoe at the Tower any time you like, night or day. You can question him all you want. If he’s cheeky and needs a clip on the ear, that’s a matter for yourself. But he’s not to be marked. Am I clear?’

  Swallow nodded.

  ‘As I understand it,’ Montgomery resumed, ‘you’ve a deal with Shaftoe. He’s got the name of someone engaged in some sort of fiddle over the land transfers in Ireland. Once you’re satisfied that you’ve got what you need from him, we turn him loose. Is that right?’

  ‘Yes. And if he feeds me bullshit, I’ve a warrant to bring him back to Dublin to face half a dozen charges that’ll put him out of circulation for a long time.’

  ‘That could easily tempt me,’ Montgomery said. ‘Shaftoe’s one of the worst. He’d as soon knife you as buy you a drink. The lads in the H-Division down at the East End will tell you that.’

  He raised a hand.

  ‘Don’t worry. I know you’re playing for higher stakes here. If the price of that is to see Teddy Shaftoe on the streets again, then so be it. It won’t be too long before CID will have him in again anyway. When will you start with him?’

  ‘Tomorrow morning. I’d plan to be at the Tower by 9 o’clock.’

  ‘Fine. I’ll be at Frost’s at 8.30. We can take the underground railway to Mark Lane. It’s close to the Tower. I gather you’re going down to Dymchurch to take a statement from Lady Gessel as well?’

  ‘I think that’ll be after I’ve made some progress with Shaftoe. We’ll need a statement from her if we bring charges.’

  ‘I know she’s connected to Sir Richard Gessel. He’s one of the big men at Downing Street. Very close to the PM, I understand.’

  ‘They’re distantly related. But I don’t think he’s got anything to tell us about this business. They share a name going back a few generations. That’s all.’

  Montgomery grimaced. ‘That’s a relief. The less a copper has to do with the political types the better. Anyway, if you’re going to Dymchurch one of us will travel down with you. It’s about an hour by train out of Victoria.’

  Bright signalled to the barman for a fresh round of whiskies.

  When the drinks had been served, Montgomery raised an index finger.

  ‘The one thing Sir Edward insists upon is that we know everything you hear from Shaftoe. So Jack here, or myself, will be there when you question him. He won’t see us or hear us. There’s a listening hole up in the wall in his cell.’

  He laughed. ‘It’s probably there since old King Henry was locking up his wives. But it works so that a man in the room above can hear every word.’

  ‘That’s fine with me,’ Swallow said. ‘We’d do the same if you were in Dublin.’

  ‘And,’ Montgomery added, ‘any police action as a result of information you get will be taken by us. It’s our patch.’

  ‘I can’t see that anything else would be practical,’ Swallow said. ‘But I’ll need to be on the inside track. It’s no good to me if you simply run off with the investigation, leaving me no wiser.’

  ‘I’d be sympathetic to that,’ Montgomery said. ‘But I can’t give a promise on it. At the end of the day, our guv’nor is the Home Secretary; yours is the Chief Secretary for Ireland. If they disagree on something, we’ve got to do what our man tells us.’

  The argument was unwinnable, Swallow knew. And it was probably unnecessary.

  It was his round.

  FORTY-FIVE

  The effectiveness of Robert Peel’s Irish policing system derived from three organisational imperatives: strong central control, a rigid chain of command and uniformity in procedures and processes.

  These very strengths, however, also sponsored the system’s significant weaknesses. While information and instructions could move efficiently, if slowly, up and down the chain, they did not travel laterally. Thus, information gleaned by a policeman in one sub-district might take several days before it reached his colleagues in adjoining sub-districts, even though their barracks might be within marching distance of each other.

  Im
portant intelligence went up and down the full length of the command chain, through the offices at district and county level and thence to headquarters in the Lower Yard at Dublin Castle. Then it would be notified downward along a similar chain until it reached the men in the small barracks and posts around the country.

  If the intelligence was destined for transmission between the Constabulary and the Metropolitan Police, the process was even more tortuous.

  Once received at Constabulary Headquarters in the Lower Castle Yard, and considered at the appropriate level of authority, it would be conveyed manually to the headquarters of the DMP across the Yard.

  In normal office hours, it might go directly to the office of the Commissioner. Outside of office hours or, in the case of ‘special’ intelligence relating to subversive crime, it might go to the office of the Chief Superintendent of G-Division.

  Sergeant Devenney’s information on the possible location of the Clinton family was transmitted from the Trim Post Office late on Friday morning. Then, after dinner hour, it moved through the offices of both the District Inspector and the County Inspector at Navan.

  In the County Inspector’s office, a clerk decided to leave the telegram for transmission to Dublin until the late afternoon. Then he would take it to the Post Office along with the rest of the official mail. Thus, when the telegram reached Constabulary Headquarters in Dublin, the clerical staff in the DMP Commissioner’s offices across the Yard had finished their day’s work and were gone.

  The duty officer at the Constabulary Office knew that, in these circumstances, intelligence should go the office of the Chief Superintendent of G-Division or, indeed, to his house in the Lower Yard. But because of a temporary shortage of the special blue file covers that carried correspondence relating to intelligence, the duty officer had placed the telegram in a buff-coloured file of the type used to carry routine administrative information.

  The messenger deposited it in the letter-box on the door of Commissioner’s clerk.

  There it remained overnight, setting at naught the urgency with which the diligent Sergeant Devenney had pursued his investigations and transmitted his valuable information.

  SATURDAY OCTOBER 8TH, 1887

  FORTY-SIX

  Teddy Shaftoe was anxious to be co-operative after just one night in the Tower.

  ‘He was as big as a fackin’ rabbit, Mr Swallow. Wiv a tail about a foot long. An’ that was just the first of the fackers. Got ’im wiv my boot, didn’ I? But then all of ’is facking brothers an’ sisters comes in after ’im.’

  A pile of four or five dead rats in the corner of the cell corroborated Teddy’s tale of voracious rodents who were masters of the night in St Thomas’s Tower. Swallow understood why the warder the previous evening had insisted on being accompanied by his two terrier dogs.

  Montgomery and Bright had been at Frost’s, as promised, at 8.30. But the hotel’s breakfast of thin porridge, toast and watery marmalade was an unsatisfactory start to the day.

  The Yard men led the way to the underground railway station on Clerkenwell Road. Swallow was looking forward to the experience of the travelling under the earth.

  In the five-minute walk from Frost’s Hotel to the station, he saw why London’s engineers and builders had embarked upon this radical transportation plan.

  He had never walked in streets so noisily congested, or with such foul air. Dublin had the gentle pace of a market town by comparison. Carriages and cars contested for space between delivery wagons, huge drays and lines of steam-driven omnibuses. Drivers and porters manoeuvred for advantage, shouting for room and cursing their rivals.

  The sheer number of people was overwhelming. In Dublin, a walk on a city street was a pleasure. Here, phalanxes of pedestrians crushed and jostled against each other, grim-faced and without salutation.

  The underground railway was a novelty, but not a pleasant one.

  Swallow had read descriptions of the miniature carriages, plunging through the dark, earthen channels under the city. What he was not prepared for was the belching steam and smoke from the engine, funnelling backward towards the passengers, driven by the vehicle’s own subterranean velocity. He was grateful to gulp fresh air, briney from the river, when they emerged at Mark Lane.

  At St Thomas’s Tower, the warder secreted Montgomery and Bright in the listening hole above Teddy Shaftoe’s cell. When Swallow entered, he found Shaftoe sitting on his bunk, feet tucked under him. A heavy boot in his right hand was in readiness as a missile in the event of a daylight appearance by the rodents.

  ‘The quicker you tell me what I need to know, and the quicker I can verify it, the quicker you’ll be out of here, Shaftoe.’ Swallow had no desire to spend any longer than necessary himself in the dampness of the Tower.

  He drew a chair and sat at the table, notebook ready.

  ‘So, what’s the name of the fellow who contracted you and where do I find him?’

  Shaftoe cautiously left his bed, crossed the cell and took the chair opposite.

  ‘I didn’t ever exactly say I knew ’is name, Mr Swallow. I know wot ’e looks like and I know where ’e works, or where ’e says ’e works. An’ I know where ’e drinks. Or at least I know where ’e drinks when ’e wants to meet me.’

  Swallow’s temper rose.

  ‘This is bullshit. I set up this deal on the basis that you’d lead me to the fellow who sent you to do the job in Dublin. You’d better do that, no fucking about and you’d better do it now.’ He brought his fist down on the table. ‘Or I’m off to Bow Street with my warrant and you’ll be back on the boat to Dublin with me tonight. And you won’t be drinking the Queen’s money in the bar either.’

  Shaftoe raised a hand defensively.

  ‘I said I’d do that, Mr Swallow. An’ so I shall. So I shall. It’s just not as straightforward as that. I’ll ’ave to send this geezer a message that I wants to see ’im, won’t I? Then, when ’e shows, you can ’ave ’im.’

  Swallow bottled his anger.

  ‘Right,’ he said reasonably, ‘how do you send him the message?’

  ‘I drops the word into the public ’ouse. Someone passes it on. I goes back and I gets a time from the guv’nor when to come back. Then my man shows up. Sometimes I ’ave to wait around for a couple hours. But that’s no ’ardship in a decent ’ouse, is it?’

  ‘What’s the public house? You know that much, I’ll warrant.’

  ‘Yeh, it’s The Mitre, innit? Right there in Ely Court, off ’Atton Garden.’

  Swallow knew of Hatton Garden, as did every police detective in the Kingdom.

  Lying between Gray’s Inn Road and Farringdon Road, it was emerging as the centre of London’s burgeoning trade in jewellery and precious metals. The vast majority of its business was legitimate and above board, but inevitably, among its scores of workshops and trade houses there were some that offered opportunities to those with stolen gold, silver or diamonds to dispose of.

  ‘Right, we’re going for a visit, Teddy. You’ll bring me down to the Mitre and you’ll leave a message to meet this fellow. I’ll be watching you at every moment. Try to bolt and I’ll plug you.’ Swallow tapped the Bulldog Webley in its shoulder-holster. ‘And you know from what happened at Greenberg’s that I don’t miss.’

  When Swallow met the Scotland Yard men an hour later, Montgomery was unhappy with what he had overheard from his listening post above Teddy Shaftoe’s cell.

  ‘I don’t have authority to let him out at this stage, even into your custody,’ he told Swallow. ‘And if he’s to deliver a message in The Mitre without arousing suspicion, he’ll have to be uncuffed and unaccompanied.’

  ‘We can manage that, I think,’ Swallow said.

  Montgomery looked doubtful.

  ‘I don’t like this any more than you do,’ Swallow conceded. ‘But I’ve got to follow this trail down to the end. I’ll take responsibility if anything goes wrong.’

  ‘We can cover the place,’ Bright said. ‘It’s in an alley called Ely C
ourt. Just two exits. One onto Hatton Garden; the other into Ely Place.’

  In spite of Montgomery’s reservations, an hour later saw Teddy Shaftoe step through the door of The Mitre close to the Holborn Circus end of Hatton Garden. Swallow placed himself against the railings of the shop next to the entrance to Ely Court, pretending to read a newspaper. Directly opposite, Montgomery peered in a shop window, apparently examining trays of rings, but with a perfect mirror view across the street. Jack Bright had taken up position at the other end of the laneway at Ely Place.

  ‘You’ve got to give me some time in there, Mr Swallow,’ Shaftoe pleaded. ‘I’ve to deal with the guv’nor. It could be when I goes in that ’e’s dealin’ wiv a customer. I may ’ave to wait until ’e can talk to me.’

  Shaftoe went into Ely Court, and Swallow watched him go through the front door of the public house. A moment later, Swallow heard his own name being called. It was a woman’s voice.

  ‘Mr Swallow … Joe. What are you doing here?’

  Katherine Greenberg was standing on the pavement not a yard away. Swallow fumbled with the newspaper. The last thing he needed or expected was to be recognised.

  ‘What a coincidence,’ Katherine laughed. ‘Are you gone into the jewellery trade?’

  ‘I’m on duty,’ he pitched his voice low. ‘Pretend you don’t know me. Just go about your business.’

  She understood. Her expression became serious.

  ‘Of course,’ she too dropped her voice.

  ‘It’s just so … amazing. I come here regularly.’ She looked past him to the shop front. ‘I have business in here. I hope you’ll excuse me.’

  She stepped to the shop door and then turned back to him.

  ‘I don’t know how long you will be in London, but I’m here until Monday. I’m at the Grosvenor, beside Victoria, if you are free to call.’

  He had no time to answer. Teddy Shaftoe stepped out into the street from the alley. He did not as much as glance at Katherine, but the alarm in her face told Swallow that she recognised him. She looked away quickly.