Black Ship

by Carola Dunn

  Greaves raised his eyebrows. “A police matter, is it? You’d better come back into the office.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Wetherby,” Alec said to the porter, and followed the manager through the door.

  An electric fire, occupying a stingy Victorian grate, made the office considerably cosier than the lobby outside. There was a utilitarian desk, a safe, and a filing cabinet, but two armchairs flanked the fireplace and the fragrance of coffee filled the air. A pot steamed gently over a spirit lamp on a small table.

  “Take a seat. Coffee?”

  “That would be very welcome. It’s been a long day.”

  As he poured, Greaves said, “The man who was taken ill was a Jessup. The man who arrived with you was a Jessup. I hope the family hasn’t called in Scotland Yard because of any suspicion of skulduggery in this hotel having caused Mr. Jessup’s collapse.”

  “Scotland Yard is not so easily called in, I assure you. Does your recollection of his arrival agree with the porter’s?”

  “I didn’t hear everything he said, but I’d be surprised if it differed by much. As you can imagine, there’s been a good deal of talk among the staff.”

  “Well, then, tell me how you saw it.”

  Greaves shrugged. “I’m always at the desk at that time, as when you arrived, because of the express from London. Mostly businessmen take that train. It’s not unknown for one or two to arrive slightly squiffy, and I can tell you, it’s a delicate balancing act whether to give them a room or not. We’ve the reputation of the hotel to consider, both the reputation for hospitality and as being a quiet, respectable place. If they’re not at a noisy stage of inebriation, and if they’ve booked in advance, we let ’em stay, especially if we know them.”

  “You know Aidan Jessup?”

  “He’s stayed here for a few days every autumn since I’ve worked here. Nice gentleman, sober and steady as they come, I’d’ve said, but …”

  “But last night?”

  “Last night, he couldn’t walk or talk straight, seemed sort of dazed, looked alarmingly as if he might be sick at any moment. You know that greenish look? He complained of a splitting headache. I did ask if he was ill, but he denied it. Said he just needed a few hours in bed. He had a hired car and driver organised for nine the next—that’s this morning. That’s as far as my personal knowledge goes.”

  “Thank you. You’ll be asked to sign a statement later. Now, off the record, will you tell me what you were told about subsequent events when you came to work this evening? As far as we’re concerned, this is hearsay, which cannot be used in evidence, but it may help me decide whom else I need to interview.”

  “Can’t you tell me what this is all about? If the hotel is going to be mentioned in the papers in the context of a police enquiry, I’ll probably be blamed for letting him stay, and jobs are few and far between. Forewarned is forearmed.”

  Alec wondered if the poor devil, intelligent and well-spoken as he was, had trouble finding jobs because of his diminutive stature. “It’s highly unlikely the hotel will play much of a part, if any,” he assured him. “It’s a London affair I’m investigating. I can’t tell you more, I’m afraid. Go on, please.”

  “There’s not much to tell. I gather the motor-car and chauffeur turned up as expected. Mr. Jessup had got himself down to the lobby somehow and was sitting huddled up in a chair in his coat and hat, still looking deathly ill. The driver took one look at him and said he wouldn’t be responsible. He was afraid he’d find himself out in the country somewhere with a corpse in the backseat. And the poor gentleman wasn’t even well enough to sit up straight and argue. So Mr. Hatcher, the day manager, called a doctor and Mr. Jessup was whisked off to hospital, a hotel being no place to care for a sick man.”

  “You didn’t hear what the doctor said was wrong with him?”

  “No. Oh, I believe he had a bandaged head. A sticking plaster or some such. No one had seen him without his hat before the doctor examined him.”

  Though Alec was no medical man, he’d dealt with the aftermath of enough assault and batteries and grievous bodily harms to know that the worst effects of a blow to the head are often delayed. The symptoms sounded appropriate. But what on earth had happened the previous afternoon in Constable Circle? Castellano and Aidan Jessup had hit each other over the head with one or more blunt instruments? It sounded ridiculous.

  Had Aidan, at the time, remained sufficiently compos mentis to murder his assailant? Or had he been knocked out, leaving vengeance to his brother?

  There was still the remote possibility that Aidan had been injured after leaving home, or, even less likely, after reaching Manchester. Tracing him among the hordes at St. Pancras was a long shot, but Manchester’s London Road Station after midnight was a brighter prospect. Aidan’s railway porter must be found and questioned, Alec decided. Sipping his coffee, he wished it could be postponed till the morning, but the night staff would go off duty and memories would fade.

  He swallowed the last drop of coffee, regretfully declined another cup, thanked Greaves, and went to see if the hotel porter happened to know the name of the railway porter.

  “Fred Banks,” said Wetherby promptly. “We was in the Manchester Regiment together.”

  Alec trudged back into the station. Knowing the name, finding the porter was easy, and he was as willing to talk as his regimental mate.

  “Course I remember the gent,” he said, his Manchester accent thick as the industrial city’s soot-laden air. “When the train pulled in, I seen him standing at a door. Waved me over and pointed out his luggage.”

  “Was he talking normally?”

  “Yes, sir, normal as any Londoner do. Didn’t seem nowt the matter with him, barring he looked tired, which all the passengers do comin’ orf that train. He stepped down to the platform as I went over to him, and he missed his footing seemingly. He didn’t fall acos I caught him, but he landed on his feet with a bit of a jar. He were a mite shook-up, like, that’s all. It’s only a few inches. Then when I come down with his bags, he were leaning against my barrow, looking sick as a dog.”

  “Did you suspect he might be drunk?”

  “No, sir, acos he were all right before. I did wonder was it shell shock. It takes some people funny, and a jar like that might bring it on. Any road, I arst was he all right, and he said, sort of slurred, like, yes, he just wanted to get on to the hotel. So I took him, and I can tell you, I didn’t think he’d make it, for all it’s hardly a step. But I got him there and turned him over to Jim Wetherby, as is porter at the hotel. He give me half a crown. A nice gent, and I’m sure I hope he’ll be all right. It’s a funny thing, shell shock.”

  Alec did not need another complication such as shell shock. He wondered what Aidan had done during the War. He’d have to find out, but he didn’t seriously consider the porter’s theory. A jarring of the spine such as he had described would be quite enough to set off the aftereffects of a concussion.

  That, however, brought him no nearer to understanding the crime.

  After scarcely three hours’ sleep, Alec was picked up at the hotel by the police car and the detective constable he had requested. In a wet, grey dawn, they drove to the Royal Infirmary.

  The hospital smelt of disinfectant. Alec supposed it was better than the other smells it undoubtedly disguised. He tried to breathe shallowly.

  A long wait ensued before Alec was at last permitted to speak to a doctor. The young man who then appeared looked as somnolent as Alec felt, and nowhere near old enough to have earned his white coat and stethoscope. Dr. Gibson was old enough and awake enough, however, to be adamant that on no account was Aidan Jessup to be disturbed.

  “Not even by the police.”

  “His brother?”

  “No one will be allowed to visit him.” After many hours of two eminent consultants disagreeing as to whether the patient needed an operation to relieve pressure on the brain, he had at last fallen into natural sleep. “Left to sleep until he rouses naturally, he has an exc
ellent chance of waking as his normal self. He’s even been given a private room to reduce the risk of premature awakening. And,” said Dr. Gibson with a tired grimace, “his clothes and his hotel suggested he’d be able to pay for it.”

  “He can. Excellent,” said Alec. “I’ll be able to leave DC Peters in his room without exciting undue interest or inviting questions.”

  “Can he sit still and silent for as long as need be?” the doctor asked sceptically.

  From the corner of his eye, Alec saw Peters about to burst a blood vessel. Smoothly, he forestalled an outburst that would have seriously undermined their credibility. “It’s a skill every detective has to master. He can sit outside the door if you insist, but you must see that people will wonder what’s going on.”

  Not to mention that he wanted Aidan’s very first words captured, and wanted to be informed at once when he came round. He hated to badger a sick man, but it would be best to catch him before he had time to come up with an explanation of his plight, and, with luck, before Patrick tried to see him. The story the brothers had agreed upon had very likely been wiped out by Aidan’s concussion, always supposing he had taken it in in the first place.

  Dr. Gibson capitulated. “Oh, very well.”

  DC Peters had already been given his instructions. He melted away unobtrusively to take up his post.

  “Thank you. I have one more question. Is it possible to tell when the patient received the injury to his head?”

  “You’ll have to ask the consultant.”

  “You didn’t hear him offer an opinion? I’m not asking you to give evidence, just to give me an indication.”

  “I wasn’t on duty yesterday morning. According to the patient’s chart, at the time when Mr. Jessup was brought in, Dr. Penstone considered the degree of healing of the external injury suggested that twelve to eighteen hours had passed since it was inflicted. Now, if you can possibly spare me, I do have other patients to take care of.”

  Alec thanked him absently. Here was unwelcome, though anticipated, confirmation of his guess. Aidan Jessup had been injured the very evening that Castellano had died; another strand in the rope that might hang his next-door neighbour’s son.

  He went to find a telephone. No doubt he ought to report to Superintendent Crane, but three hours’ sleep was not sufficient to enable him to tackle his irascible superior. Whatever the Home Secretary’s complaint involved, he’d rather not know.

  He asked the operator for Whitehall 1212 all the same. It was still early and Tom Tring might have gone in to the Yard before setting about the various enquiries left for him—the Bennetts’ tale, Lambert’s whereabouts, Whitcomb’s evidence. One might suppose that Whitcomb would have come forward already if he had seen anything. In Alec’s experience, however, businessmen were prone to negligence in matters where no profit was to be made. At the very least, finding out the time he had walked through the garden might be helpful.

  The connection to London took forever, and when at last Alec got through to the Yard, he was told DS Tring had not come in. Quickly, before the operator lost the London connection, he asked for his own home number. Daisy might have news of Tom. If not, there was a good chance she would see him at some point during the day, and she could pass on the doctor’s report on Aidan Jessup. Besides, as always when he was out of town, he just wanted to hear her voice.

  Elsie answered the phone. “Oh dear, sir, I’m ever so sorry. She’s already gone.”

  “Gone where?”

  “To Lincolnshire, sir. Mr. Irwin picked her up in a motorcar. I think they went to see Mrs. Aidan.”

  So he just wanted to hear her voice, did he? Now he realised that what he had really wanted was to make sure she wasn’t meddling in the investigation.

  And he didn’t like the answer.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  By the time they left the Great North Road at Norman Cross, Daisy was heartily wishing she hadn’t come. A couple of hours confined with Mr. Irwin, even in the luxurious comfort of a chauffeured Lanchester, was enough to convince her that her first impressions, gained when he showed her around Alec’s great-uncle Walsall’s house, were accurate. He was a fussbox, and an incredibly boring one.

  After she had assured him four or five times that she was perfectly comfortable and quite warm enough, he started fretting about the unfortunate state of affairs that was taking them to Lincolnshire. His concern was natural. Daisy had no quarrel with that. But she felt he should be more worried about his daughter and grandchildren than about the effect on his standing with the Law Society of having a son-in-law arrested for murder.

  Nor did she see why she should be forced to listen to a lengthy diatribe on his advice to Maurice Jessup not to engage in shipping alcoholic beverages to America. He went into great detail about the laws and treaties involved, all of which passed over Daisy’s head.

  She had been trying for some time to shut out his droning voice when it dawned on her that his words were addressed not to her but to Alec, through her. Though she was accustomed to people giving her information they wanted to convey to the police without actually having to speak to the police, she considered it most improper in a lawyer.

  He didn’t even have the excuse of being a suspect. She listened with increasing indignation as he explained how he couldn’t possibly be held to blame for the consequences if his clients chose to disregard his advice.

  “I’m sorry, I must have missed something,” she said. “Are you saying you advised the Jessups not to bump off Castellano? Because if so, surely it was your duty, not just as a lawyer but as a citizen, to warn the police that they were contemplating murder?”

  Irwin stared at her aghast. “Oh, no, no, no!” He took out a linen handkerchief and mopped his forehead. “Oh no, my dear Mrs. Fletcher, you misunderstand me entirely! I knew nothing of their plans in advance, I assure you.”

  “They didn’t tell you till afterwards?”

  “No, no, they never breathed a word to me, neither before nor after.”

  “Then why do you think you could be held responsible?”

  “Well, I did know about the … er … the ‘bootlegging,’ and since that led to the murder—”

  “So you believe they did it, do you? Aidan or Patrick, or the two together?”

  “Not Aidan! No!” he said violently. “Aidan is a very steady and responsible young man, or I should never have let Audrey marry him. But who knows what sort of criminals Patrick consorted with in America? The … victim was American, I gather.”

  “Did you know Patrick had gone to America?”

  “I was not told. I guessed. Had I been consulted, I should have advised very strongly against it, and with reason. Look what has come of it!”

  Mr. Irwin had clearly persuaded himself that Patrick was guilty. Daisy could only be glad he was not her solicitor.

  Did he have a reason for that belief, beyond his determination not to suspect Aidan? Did he know something Daisy did not? And if Patrick was the murderer, why had Aidan fled?

  As an afterthought, what had happened to Lambert?

  Beyond Peterborough, the land was dead flat, crisscrossed by ditches draining the fens. There were pastures dotted with cattle, but much of it was rich arable land. Here and there, a windmill loomed, great sails slowly turning. Daisy’s thoughts turned to Audrey’s sister’s farm.

  Audrey had talked about her sister occasionally, saying Vivien had married a farmer. Daisy had no idea what to expect—it could be anything from a cottage to a mansion. The inhabitant of either might be described as a farmer, from a cowman to a gentleman who never went nearer the fields than his bailiff’s office. On the other hand, she couldn’t imagine Mr. Irwin permitting a daughter of his to meet a cowman, let alone marry one; and if she had married into the aristocracy, or even the gentry, the family wouldn’t refer to him as a farmer.

  No doubt he was something in between. Daisy realised she didn’t know his name, either, but she decided not to ask Mr. Irwin, who had mercifully fallen
silent at last. She didn’t want to incite another peroration. Sooner or later, she would find out.

  The driver stopped in Boston to ask the way to Butterwick, and in Butterwick to ask the way to West Dyke Farm. The end of the long trek was in sight.

  Farm turned out to be a modest term for a substantial house. Architecture was not Daisy’s strong point, but she thought the original brick farmhouse must have been enlarged as long ago as the eighteenth century to make a pleasant manor. The green-and-brown-striped fields extended right up to the gardens, with no extravagant park intervening. Perhaps a park had been ploughed under during the War. Or perhaps the family—what was their name?—that continued to call their home “Farm” when it might have aspired to a grander title, had seen no sense in wasting valuable cropland.

  As the chauffeur pulled up the Lanchester in front of the house, Daisy realised that for all his talk, Irwin had said nothing constructive about the purpose of their trip.

  “Are you going to tell Audrey about Aidan privately?” she asked him. “I mean, are you going to try to keep it from her sister?”

  “I?” he exclaimed. “But that’s what you came for, Mrs. Fletcher, to break the news to Audrey.”

  “No, I most certainly did not,” Daisy said crossly. “I came to support her, to hold her hand, and to accompany her to Manchester if she decides to go.”

  “But I can’t tell her. She’ll very likely cry!”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me. That’s why I’ll be there to hold her hand and make soothing noises.”

  “You know much more than I do about what’s happened. You’ll be far better able to reassure her.”

  “Nothing I know is in the least likely to be reassuring,” said Daisy, her tone uncompromising.

  “Oh dear! I thought I’d keep Vivien occupied while you—”

  “So you don’t want her and her husband to be told?”

  “That is entirely up to Audrey,” Irwin said with some dignity. “But even if she’s willing for her sister to hear the whole, she may well not want Bessemer in the picture.”