‘Yes, sahib,’ he said with a nod, ‘and your usual?’
‘Absolutely.’ Preston raised an admonishing index finger. ‘And no skimping on the gin.’
The barman turned to me. ‘We have a selection of malts, sahib.’ He gestured to a shelf on a mirrored wall. I picked out a bottle of eighteen-year-old Glendronach.
‘A double. Water on the side.’
In another room, the band struck up a reel. The barman placed a tumbler of deep amber whisky in front of me. ‘Cheers,’ I said, adding a few drops of water – enough to bring out the angels’ tears.
I took a sip and marvelled once more at the miracle that changed simple spring water and malted grain into the nectar of the gods. If turning water into wine was an act of the divine, then turning water into whisky was most definitely an act of man, and I knew which I considered to be the more impressive feat.
The saloon was starting to feel stuffy with something of the atmosphere of a class reunion and the artificial camaraderie that went with it. Gobbets of conversation carried on the air: trade, the weather, politics, the usual subjects. A sense of optimism seemed to pervade the room. Gandhi had called off his general strike; the natives had done their damnedest and we were still standing, the whip still in our hand. The vindictive talked the language of retribution, while the doves counselled reconciliation.
It appeared Preston had been conservative in his estimate. There were already more than thirty people in the saloon, and I estimated the same number again dotted about the veranda and the other rooms.
Preston had attached himself to a group of men who, from their conversation of jurisdictional districts and boundary lines, I took to be those Brahmins of bureaucracy, the men of the Indian Civil Service. He rattled through the obligatory introductions: the usual bag of Harrys, Toms, Davids and Dicks. Forgettable men with forgettable names. As usual I fielded the questions a copper is always asked when in new company, then listened politely as the chat returned to issues of administration and regulation, of subdivisional drainage and district deforestation. As soon as seemly, I made my excuses and extricated myself on some flimsy pretext that was accepted by all before the whole sentence had departed my mouth.
‘Absolutely, old man,’ said Preston. He checked his watch. ‘You might want to step outside in a few minutes though. That’s when the fun generally starts.’
I took his advice, made a cursory tour of the reading room and the billiards room, then, through an anteroom, headed out to the veranda. Lighting a cigarette, I leaned against the balustrade and looked out over the valley below. A tinge of disappointment ran through me at not having come across Mrs Carter during my circumnavigation of the club, but before I could dwell on the matter, a car, a black Bentley with its hood up, pulled into the drive. It came to a stop at the foot of the stairs and a turbaned doorman promptly strode over to the rear door. He opened it, and suddenly, like a mirror falling to the floor, my world shattered.
THIRTY-SIX
February 1905
East London
I don’t recall the journey home. I just stepped out of the door and walked, my head still spinning from Tom Drummond’s revelations. Why would Caine want Bessie killed and why would the Spillers help him? Bessie was a smart woman. She knew better than to get on the wrong side of men like that.
I slept on it and woke with a pounding headache and the conviction that I needed to tell Inspector Gooch. But it was Saturday and he’d be at home somewhere in west London. So I went in to the station and told Sergeant Whitelaw instead.
I told him of my sojourn to the Bleeding Hart, of my spotting Tom Drummond there, of my heart-to-heart with him in the early hours of the morning, and his revelation that Jeremiah Caine had been the real killer, abetted by the Spiller brothers.
That was a mistake.
‘You’re mad,’ he said, his face dark as a storm. ‘Will Drummond give a statement to that effect?’
‘Not yet,’ I said, ‘but I think I can convince him.’
‘So right now you’ve got nothing but the late-night rantings of a drunk, and you think that’s enough to pull in Jeremiah Caine and the Spillers?’
‘His story rings true,’ I said.
‘Really?’ said Whitelaw. ‘Why in the name of all that’s holy would Caine want to murder Bessie Drummond?’
‘I think it may be connected to his wife’s death.’
‘You think?’
‘Apparently Bessie was suspicious.’
‘Apparently,’ Whitelaw mimicked. ‘So you can’t even be sure of that.’ He looked at me in despair. ‘Tell you what. Off you go, confirm your motive and find some hard evidence. Then we’ll worry about taking it to Gooch.’
In terms of corroborating the motive, maybe there was one person who could help me. I walked out of Leman Street and headed for Aldgate station, then took the Underground railway to King’s Cross and thence a hackney cab up the Caledonian Road.
The warders were easily impressed. A flash of a warrant card and a newspaper cutting with my name on it were enough to secure five minutes with the condemned man in an empty room.
Led by a guard, Israel Vogel shambled in and was placed on a chair across the table from me. I nodded my thanks and his jailer retreated and took up station at the door. Vogel seemed surprised to see me. The last time we’d spoken directly was the morning after I’d arrested him, back in the cell at Leman Street.
He looked at me expectantly.
‘How are they treating you?’
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Since the trial, the guards are nice to me.’
I could understand that. Whatever his crimes, there was little point in tormenting a man who had only a few weeks left to live.
‘Do you come with news?’
‘Of a sort, but not exactly good news.’
‘I did not do this. I did not kill Bessie.’
‘I believe you,’ I said.
‘Then what can you do? You can free me? You tell them it was not me?’
‘It’s not that simple. They won’t believe me without evidence. And I don’t have any yet.’
Vogel slammed a hand on the table in frustration. The guard moved forward, making to restrain him, until I waved him back.
‘Even with evidence they will not believe you,’ said Vogel. ‘They will say the Jew is guilty. The Jew is always guilty.’
‘This isn’t Russia,’ I said. ‘There are laws here. You have a right of appeal to the Home Secretary.’
But Vogel didn’t seem to hear. He was looking up at the barred window.
‘Sometimes I wish I was born a bird. They are free. No barriers. No walls. They go where they please and no one stops them.’ He sighed, then looked at me. ‘Why you did come here?’
‘I need to ask you some questions. I need to know what Bessie told you: that night you went with her to Grey Eagle Street. Did she say who she was meeting? Or why?’
Vogel threw his arms in the air. ‘She tell me nothing! All she say was follow me in case there is trouble.’
‘What about before that? Did she say anything to you? Anything that was bothering her?’
Vogel closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair.
‘She is complaining about her husband: he is no good, he is all the time taking money from her …’
‘Did you ever see her with Jeremiah Caine?’
Vogel frowned. ‘The landlord?’
‘That’s right.’
He shook his head slowly. ‘I do not think so.’ Then, suddenly, he sat upright. ‘There is one thing though. You know Bessie was his housekeeper? She tell me something about death of her mistress.’
‘Go on.’
‘Bessie is the one who finds woman’s body in the morning. For one, two weeks later she is having bad dreams, waking up in night. She say her mistress have dark marks on her –’ he pointed to his chest – ‘like she is being burned. From then Bessie is different. Maybe scared, even.’
‘Think,’ I said. ‘Did she say anythi
ng else?’
Vogel shrugged.
I tried a different tack. ‘The man you fought with, that night in Grey Eagle Street. Could that have been Caine?’
Vogel looked up at the ceiling in search of inspiration. ‘No. It was dark. I not see him clearly but it was not him. Hard face, nose like crow’s beak. Thin, not like most dock men.’
So it hadn’t been Caine, but it might have been Finlay. Then again, it might have been one of a hundred other men in the area.
‘Did she ever mention Martin or Wesley Spiller?’
‘Time’s up,’ said a rough voice behind him. I looked up to see the guard already walking over.
Vogel leaned across the table and grabbed my arm. ‘You will help me?’
‘I’m going to try,’ I said.
I spent the journey back to Whitechapel trying to piece together what Vogel and Drummond had told me: Drummond thought Bessie had been attacked by Caine and that the Spillers had sent Finlay to clean up the mess; and Vogel’s description of the man he’d fought in Grey Eagle Street sounded a lot like Finlay too. Maybe Caine had asked the Spillers to do his dirty work, and when Finlay had failed, he’d decided to deal with matters himself.
Had Bessie discovered something about Caine’s wife’s death? The maid, Lily, had also mentioned that something in Bessie had changed after that. Was it something Caine would be willing to kill her for? Was she trying to blackmail him?
A picture formed in my head. Bessie finds the body of Mrs Caine, dead in her bed. She realises something about the death that others miss. She tries to blackmail Caine with the information. He agrees to pay her, tells her to meet him, or his representative, in Grey Eagle Street. Instead he contacts the Spillers and orders them to kill her. Archibald Finlay is dispatched to Grey Eagle Street to execute the task, but when he attempts to kill Bessie, Vogel intervenes, holding him off until, alerted to the scene by Bessie’s screams, Whitelaw and I arrive.
Having failed once, Caine realises that Bessie might tell all to the police. It would be impossible to lure her into the open again, so he goes to Fashion Street, under the pretext of collecting the rent, to kill her in her own lodgings and the Spillers send Finlay to tidy up and frame Vogel.
It was already dark by the time I reached Aldgate. Still, I was in good spirits. I had a motive and I had a theory. One that made sense of the circumstances. What I didn’t have was any proof or a sworn statement from Drummond.
I got off the train and headed straight to Fashion Street. The door to number 42 was opened by Mrs Rosen, the woman who occupied a room on the ground floor.
‘I need to see Tom Drummond,’ I said. It was unclear whether she understood, so for good measure, I repeated the name once more with vigour.
She nodded, led me through to the kitchen and asked me to wait.
When the door reopened, it wasn’t Drummond, but Rebecca Kravitz who entered.
‘I’m looking for Tom.’
‘He’s not here,’ she said. ‘He went out this morning and hasn’t come back yet.’
That was frustrating.
‘When you see him, please tell him I need to speak to him, urgently.’
‘Has this anything to do with Israel?’
‘I can’t say. But I have been to see him.’
Her eyes brightened. ‘You spoke to him? How is he?’
‘He’s bearing up. Better than you’d expect.’
‘I can’t understand how they could convict an innocent man,’ she said. ‘Would they have convicted an Englishman on such flimsy evidence?’
It was a good question, and one I couldn’t answer.
‘His case is with the Home Secretary now,’ I said. ‘He’ll decide whether there’s any reason to overturn the verdict or grounds for a commutation of the sentence.’
‘And will they find such grounds?’
I doubted it. Not unless I managed to find some proof of his innocence or scrape a statement from Drummond.
‘It’s possible,’ I said. ‘Don’t give up hope.’
THIRTY-SEVEN
I came back the following morning and woke half the street with my banging on the door. Again it was Mrs Rosen who answered, and again it fell to Rebecca Kravitz to inform me that Drummond hadn’t come home the previous night.
For the first time, a seed of doubt lodged in my mind. Had he done a runner? Was he holed up somewhere like Vogel had been, or was he just lying drunk in a gutter? For now I hoped it was the latter, and anyway, from what I knew of the man, it seemed the likeliest possibility. I thanked Miss Kravitz and asked her to send a message to me at Leman Street, as soon as Drummond turned up.
My next stop was west, this time in search of the records into the death of Helena Caine. Under English law, any death which is sudden, violent or unnatural must be reported to a coroner. Mrs Caine was a reasonably young woman, in good health, and had died in her bed, possibly with marks on her chest. If that didn’t qualify as sudden and unnatural, I didn’t know what did.
She had died at their house in Finsbury Circus which, though less than ten minutes’ walk away, fell not in the Borough of Stepney, one of the poorest places in the country, but in the square mile of the City of London, which was one of the richest.
Even though I was off duty, I’d made sure to wear my uniform. It helped me talk my way into the coroner’s offices despite it being a Sunday. I asked to see the report into Mrs Caine’s death, and after a ten-minute wait, it duly arrived, brought along with a cup of tea by a rather sweet old lady.
I thanked her and opened the file. Inside were a number of documents including the doctor’s report, witness statements, the coroner’s final report and a copy of Mrs Caine’s death certificate.
I started with the coroner’s report, which pronounced a natural death as a result of a sudden cardiac arrest. I moved on to the doctor’s report. Sure enough, it stated the same cause of death, albeit couched in the cold, clinical language of medical men. There was no mention of any marks on Mrs Caine’s chest, nor of anything else untoward. I sighed in frustration. If there was any suspicion that Helena Caine had died of anything other than natural causes, it hadn’t made it to the coroner’s report.
With little else to do, I flipped through the witness statements pinned to the back of the report. Not only did the City of London have a separate coroner’s office, it also had its own police too, distinct from the Metropolitan Police, and the statements had been taken by some City of London copper whose name I didn’t recognise.
The first was a statement from Jeremiah Caine which told me precisely nothing. He’d been woken by the maid, Lily, and had rushed to find his wife dead in her bed. The next was a short statement taken from Lily herself, again adding nothing new. A final page, however, appeared to have been ripped out, and done so in a hurry. I knew because a small torn fragment remained tacked to the pin at the top.
A shiver ran down my spine.
Why had that page been removed and by whom?
I’d probably never find the answers to those questions, but there was possibly one way of discovering what had been on that page.
I left the coroner’s office and headed for Bishopsgate, close to the boundary between the City and Whitechapel. The City might have its own separate police force, but a copper was a copper, no matter which particular crest adorned his helmet. Some of the City boys drank in pubs on our side of the divide, mainly because the beer was cheaper. I’d made friends with a couple, and now I hoped the offer of a pint or two might persuade them to help with my inquiries, because while witness statements are appended to the coroner’s report, there was a good chance that a carbon copy would be kept as a record in the station from which the constable had been dispatched.
It was a gamble of course. Finsbury Circus was almost equidistant between the police station at Bishopsgate and another at Wood Street. It was just as possible that the statement had been taken by an officer from the Wood Street station, but seeing as I had no mates there, Bishopsgate seemed the sensib
le place to start.
I walked in and asked for a constable called Gleeson.
‘He’s out on his beat,’ said a desk sergeant. ‘Should be back in half an hour or so.’
‘Please tell him Wyndham from Leman Street station came looking for him. And tell him there’s a pint waiting for him in the Ten Bells when he comes off shift. I’ll be there for the next hour.’
The Ten Bells public house was an odd place. On Commercial Road, it sat on the edge of the two worlds of the City and the East End, and uniquely was frequented by the denizens of each in equal measure, with top hats and pinstripes vying for service at the bar with flat caps and sack coats. On a Sunday afternoon though, the place was quiet and I was a pint and a half down when Gleeson, all six foot three of him, walked in.
Spotting me, he came over. ‘Wyndham,’ he said. ‘I hear you’re hobnobbing with the top brass these days. To what do I owe the pleasure?’
‘Trying to keep my feet on the ground,’ I said. ‘And what better to remind me of my humble past than having a drink with the lowest in the ranks? So do you want a pint or not?’
He laughed, then slapped me on the back and I felt my teeth rattle.
His drink arrived and we shared a toast.
‘Now,’ he said, wiping his mouth after a long draught, ‘what can I do for you?’
I feigned hurt. ‘I can’t invite a mate for a drink without having some ulterior design?’
‘It’s the middle of a Sunday, Wyndham, and we’re both in uniform. Pull the other one, mate.’
‘Well, if you’re going to be like that, there is one thing you could help me with.’
Gleeson eyed me suspiciously. ‘Go on, spit it out.’
‘I need to see a copy of some witness statements. Details relating to the death of a woman called Helena Caine of Finsbury Circus. She died on the sixth of January.’
At the mention of the name, Gleeson’s expression hardened.
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