A carriage was drawn up in front of the Pier Hotel on the Hard when Killigrew emerged from the dockyard gates. It had been there ever since the commander had arrived on board Excellent, although the horses had to be changed regularly so they could get some exercise. He crossed to it now, peering through the window: the two constables inside, dressed in plain clothes, were fast asleep, wrapped against the cold, with the debris of their supper – greasy, crumpled sheets of newspaper – strewn around their hobnailed boots. With so many bluejackets and marines stationed off Portsmouth to create havoc in the city’s taverns and brothels each night, it amazed Killigrew that the Hampshire constabulary could spare two men to keep a permanent watch on him. But barroom brawls were the stuff of routine in Portsmouth; it was not every day they got a Society murder.
He declined to disturb their slumbers, making his way through Portsmouth’s narrow and crooked cobbled streets to the railway station, where he caught a train to Waterloo and took a hansom from the rank in front of the station. It took him across Waterloo Bridge, turning right at Somerset House on the north bank of the Thames and dropping him off at Temple Bar. Bewigged barristers clutched their briefs as they strode through the Inner Temple, trying to look purposeful. Being slightly less fond of lawyers than he was of man-eating sharks, Killigrew did not know his way around the Inns of Court, and had to ask one of the barristers for directions. He made his way to King’s Bench Walk, where he found the building he sought. There were a number of brass plaques on the wall, and casting his eyes over them he found the one he was looking for: ‘Mr James Tabard, QC’.
He entered and made his way up the stairs to knock on the door of Tabard’s chambers.
‘Come in!’ a rich, plummy voice called from the other side. Had Killigrew received that reply while knocking on the door of a Chinese flower boat, he would have been in no doubt that the speaker was a barrister.
He opened the door and went in. Tabard’s chambers were comfortable and well appointed rather than grandiose and elegant, but Killigrew suspected that only reflected the personality of their owner. Mr Tabard himself looked very much at home in one of the plush leather easy chairs, a portly man with a fringe of greying hair around a bald pate and the beaming, rubicund face of a Mr Pickwick. Nevertheless, Killigrew was surprised by how tall he was when he stood up to greet him, and it was easy to imagine him leaning over the gentlemen of a jury to dominate them.
‘Mr Tabard?’ asked Killigrew, in little doubt as to the answer.
‘I am he, Mr…?’
‘Killigrew. Commander Christopher Killigrew, of Her Majesty’s Navy.’
‘Goodness gracious! Not the chap who killed the polar bear?’
Killigrew suppressed a grimace: he was never going to hear the end of that. ‘I am he,’ he replied, faintly mocking the barrister’s use of that phrase.
‘A pleasure to make your acquaintance, sir.’ The two of them shook hands. Tabard’s grip was a little too firm for Killigrew’s liking, as if he felt he could prove something by it, which to the commander’s mind indicated that he felt he had something to prove. ‘Do take a seat.’ Tabard gestured to the chair across from his own on the other side of the fireplace where a log fire crackled in the hearth. ‘And how may I be of service to you, Mr Killigrew? I’m afraid I can only give you half an hour in the present instance, as I’m due in court this afternoon.’
Killigrew smiled. ‘In a professional or personal capacity?’
Tabard laughed. ‘You have a singular wit, sir. Can I offer you a libation?’
‘A little early in the day for me,’ said Killigrew.
The barrister shrugged and crossed to the drinks cabinet, pouring himself a glass of claret from one of the crystal decanters. ‘I am aware, of course, of your… shall we say, alleged involvement? …in the murder of the Honourable Miss Araminta Maltravers, naturally. I don’t know how familiar you are with the workings of the law, but if you need a barrister to defend you in court, it is customary to go through a solicitor…’
‘The police have not yet brought charges.’
‘Then you are to be congratulated, sir. A sure sign that the Crown’s case is a weak one.’
‘I was merely after some legal advice. Your name was given to me by one of the sailors on board my last ship: Petty Officer Wes Molineaux.’
Tabard frowned. ‘I cannot say I know the name.’
‘You surprise me. I would have thought a man in your line of work would get to know a great many criminals.’
Tabard grinned. ‘One does indeed. But still, the name Molineaux…?’
‘Alias Wesley Henson, alias Cowcumber Henson? But then, he was never charged by the police, either, so he never had need of the services of a man such as yourself. But to get down to brass tacks: it’s in my own interests to clear my name before the police charge me with murder. You won’t have read in the papers that a letter of an intimate tone was found in Miss Maltravers’ hand purporting to have been written by me to a Miss Sophronia Ponsonby.’
‘You claim you never wrote the letter?’
‘I never heard of a Miss Sophronia Ponsonby. The letter was forged, and if I can find the man who forged it, that would clear my name, would it not?’
‘It would indeed! Am I to understand you know the identity of this man, then?’
‘Let’s just say I’m very close to him.’
‘Indeed?’ The smile did not flicker on Tabard’s face, but now it was frozen in place and the laughter in his twinkling eyes had died. ‘Do you have a name for this felon?’
Killigrew nodded. ‘It was given to me by Petty Officer Molineaux.’
Tabard suddenly pushed himself to his feet. ‘Would you have any objection to our repairing to my library? This reminds me of the case of Cobleigh versus Regina, and I think at this juncture it would be useful to consult a precedent.’
‘By all means.’ Killigrew followed Tabard through into the next room. Shelves laden with arcane tomes of law covered three out of four walls. The barrister sat down behind his desk; Killigrew perched on the edge of its inlaid leather surface. Tabard looked put out at this lack of formality, but did not say anything.
‘Wouldn’t you like to know the name of this forger?’ Killigrew asked him.
‘Would it mean anything to me?’
‘As you yourself admitted, a man in your line of work gets to know a great many criminals.’
‘Very well, what is his name?’
‘Jem the Penman.’
Tabard stared at Killigrew for a moment, and then threw back his head and laughed heartily.
‘Have I said something to amuse you?’
‘Forgive me, Mr Killigrew.’ Tabard produced a silk handkerchief and dabbed tears of mirth from his cheeks. ‘Have you ever had an ague, Mr Killigrew? A medical friend of mine tells me that whenever a patient has a fever of some description, without sufficient symptoms to make a more accurate diagnosis, then a physician will merely diagnose it as an ague. There are so many ailments about which medical science remains ignorant even in this day and age… in the medical profession, saying a patient has the ague is merely a form of shorthand for saying, “I don’t know what ails this fellow”.
‘So it is with this Jem the Penman. Like physicians, the police detectives of Scotland Yard cannot bring themselves to admit of any ignorance, so whenever they come across a case of forgery they ascribe it to this “Jem the Penman”. He’s a bogeyman, Mr Killigrew. He is Scotch mist, he is a white elephant, he is a chimaera, he is the cat’s mother.’
‘He is sitting right in front of me.’
‘I’m not sure I follow you, Mr Killigrew. But if you’ll permit me, there’s something I’d like to show you which I think will illustrate my point…’ Tabard opened one of the drawers of his desk and reached inside it.
Killigrew swivelled on the desk, swinging his legs over it to kick the drawer shut with a heel, slamming it on Tabard’s hand. As the barrister screamed, Killigrew slammed the heel of his other boot into his
face, sending his chair shooting back on its castors to crash against the bookshelves behind him. The shelves collapsed, and dozens of thick tomes cascaded down on his head. He cried out as his chair went over backwards.
‘Don’t look so surprised, Jem,’ Killigrew told him. ‘Surely you must have known that sooner or later you’d feel the full weight of English law bearing down on you?’
He opened the drawer and took out the pistol Tabard had been reaching for: an ancient flintlock piece with little evidence of oil on its workings. Tabard used the criminal associates he made working as a barrister to help him by breaking safes or picking pockets to get him blank cheques and copies of signatures so he could forge cheques for huge sums, always using an unwitting dupe to cash the cheques in a way that they could never be traced back to him. As deplorable as it was, at least it was not a crime of violence; Tabard had the soft look of a man who did not care for violence, and for a moment Killigrew felt ashamed at having used force against him. Until he remembered the stench of Araminta’s flesh burning and the sight of her garrotted corpse, lying in a pool of her own bodily waste on his bed.
He jumped down from the desk and grabbed Tabard by the cravat, hauling him to his feet and slamming him back against what was left of the shelves behind him.
‘You… you maniac!’ stammered Tabard. ‘I’ve had some ruffians in here in my time, but you’re the worst of them!’
Killigrew rammed the muzzle of the pistol against Tabard’s right nostril. ‘I’m so glad we understand one another.’
‘Even if what you say is true… you haven’t a shred of proof.’
‘Proof? Proof is for someone who wants a conviction.’ Killigrew thumbed back the hammer of the flintlock. ‘I’m more interested in revenge.’
‘Kill me, and you’ll never prove your innocence!’
‘Are you willing to write out a confession?’
In spite of his bruised face, Tabard managed a triumphant smile. ‘Do you take me for a fool?’
‘You’d better, because without it I’m a dead man anyhow – in which case I’ve nothing to lose by taking you with me. As well to be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. I’d advise you to say a prayer, Mr Tabard, but I wouldn’t want you to waste your breath: there’s a sign on the Pearly Gates that says “No lawyers”!’
‘Merciful heavens! All I did was forge a couple of notes in your handwriting. I had no conception it would lead to Miss Maltravers’ death, I swear it!’
‘Sorry, Tabard. Save your rhetoric for Satan.’
‘Wait, wait, wait! You say you want revenge… wouldn’t you rather be avenged against the man who ordered Miss Maltravers’ death, and the man who performed the deed? I can give you their names.’
‘I already know their names. And since they’re in Russia, and I’m here, and thanks to your penmanship I’m not likely to live until the war’s over, they’re out of my reach. So I’ll just have to make do with you.’
‘They’re not in Russia! They’re still here in London!’
Killigrew’s heart almost leaped, but he caught himself: Tabard would say anything to save his own skin now. ‘Where?’
‘I can’t tell you…’
With the muzzle of the pistol, Killigrew squished Tabard’s strawberry nose against his face. ‘Try,’ he suggested.
‘I mean, I don’t know! They always contacted me.’
‘Then how do you know they’re still in London? When did they last get in touch with you?’
‘Two days ago.’
‘More than enough time for them to have left the country. You’ll have to try harder than that.’
‘They wanted me to make them a Prussian passport.’
‘And you agreed?’
Tabard shook his head. ‘I may have forged the odd cheque in my time, Mr Killigrew; but to falsify a passport from another country…? Even my skill has its limits.’
‘But I’ll wager you know someone who could!’
The barrister nodded. ‘I was able to recommend the services of a former client of mine, a Hebrew gentleman who owns a printing shop on Bedford Street: a Mr Emmanuel Leventhal.’
‘I think I shall have to pay a call on this Mr Leventhal,’ Killigrew mused out loud. ‘And if I find out you’ve lied to me, I shall be coming back.’
Leaving Tabard to chew on that, Killigrew left the Inner Temple and made his way back to the Temple Bar. It was a little over half a mile to Covent Garden, so he decided to spare himself the expense of a hansom and to get some exercise into the bargain by joining the crowds that bustled along the Strand. It was past noon, so he stopped at Simpson’s Divan and Tavern for a mutton dinner washed down with a glass of claret. After enjoying a post-prandial cheroot to give the rich food a chance to settle, he resumed his journey, turning right on to Bedford Street a little after one. The thoroughfare was crowded with shoppers bustling between Covent Garden and the Strand, and a large, discordant barrel organ belting out ‘Turkey in the Straw’ scarcely blotted out the cries of the costermongers.
Leventhal & Son, Printers was on the west side of the street, wedged, aptly enough, between a publishing house and a bookshop. There were samples in the bay window: letterheads, calling cards and invitations to balls, faded by sunlight; given how little sunlight must have reached the window even at noon, it seemed reasonable to assume they had been there a long time.
A bell jangled as Killigrew pushed the door open, and the smell of printer’s ink wafted from the workshop at the back. He closed the door behind him, muffling the cacophony of the barrel organ.
A podgy-looking fellow with greasy blond hair and the lugubrious expression of an overweight bloodhound emerged from the back of the shop, his fingers and apron black with ink. ‘Good afternoon, sir. And how may I be of service?’
‘Mr Leventhal?’
‘Yes, that’s right,’
‘Mr Emmanuel Leventhal?’
‘Manny to my friends, sir. Forgive me if I don’t proffer my hand.’
‘Are you Leventhal or Son?’
‘Son, sir. My dear departed father was carried off by the cholera last summer. I keep the sign to honour his memory. How may I be of service?’
‘I need a printing job done.’
‘Well, you’ve come to the right place. What was it? Calling cards? Invitations? Letterheads? We offer a variety of typefaces and different shades of paper and matching cards, all the best quality at very reasonable rates.’
‘How about passports?’
Leventhal coloured. ‘I think you need to apply to the Home Office for one of those.’
‘Jem the Penman sent me.’
The printer looked about shiftily and leaned across the counter, lowering his voice to a hiss. ‘Well, you can go right back to him and tell him not to send anyone else, because I’m clean now, d’you hear? I don’t do that no more!’
‘And what about the two gentlemen Mr Tabard sent to you two days ago?’
This time Leventhal coloured such a dark shade of crimson that Killigrew was willing to believe him when he said he was trying to go ‘straight’: the man was such a terrible liar that if a policeman came in to order some letterheads, the printer would probably end up confessing to every crime he could think of. ‘Don’t know what you’re talking about, mister.’
‘Do you read the papers, Mr Leventhal?’
‘On occasion.’
‘Perhaps you’ve read about the Paddington Strangling?’
‘I don’t know anything about that,’ Leventhal said firmly.
‘The two men Mr Tabard sent do. They’re the ones who did it.’
The colour drained from Leventhal’s face as swiftly as it had suffused it only seconds earlier. But then he seemed to brighten. ‘Ha!’ he said. ‘I knew it!’
‘You knew they were the ones who murdered Miss Maltravers?’
‘No, I mean, I knew Commander Killigrew couldn’t’ve done it.’
That took Killigrew aback. ‘What makes you say that?’
‘Commander Kil
ligrew? The cove what led the Venturers out of the Arctic? A murderer?’ Leventhal snorted derisively. ‘If you’ll believe that, you’ll believe anything.’
‘I can only hope the jury shares your scepticism if it ever comes to trial, Mr Leventhal.’
‘Why? What’s it to you?’
‘I’m Commander Killigrew.’
The printer snorted again. ‘Oh yur? And I’m the King of Rooshia!’
‘No, really. Why else do you think I’d be so interested in tracking down these men?’ Killigrew took out his pocket book and extracted a pasteboard calling card. ‘My card.’
Leventhal took it from him, his eyes flickering from the commander’s face to his card and back to his face again. An expression of awe appeared on his features and he giggled nervously. ‘Well, I’ll be jiggered! You really are him, in’tcher? Commander Killigrew… it’s a great honour, sir… I’d consider it a special honour if you would permit me to shake you by the hand…’ He proffered his own hand, then remembered how inky it was and hurriedly withdrew it, wiping it on the front of his apron. ‘Begging your pardon, sir, but this ’ere card – it ain’t exackly the best quality. Now, I can see how a gentleman like yourself could be taken in, but if you’ll permit me to say, this pasteboard ain’t the best. See how easily it creases? And if you look closely at the print, you can see how ragged it is around the edges, not a quality printing job at all. Now, I would consider it an especial honour if you would permit me to print you a hundred cards on the very finest laid, free of charge…’
‘That’s far too generous of you, Mr Leventhal, but I really couldn’t—’
Leventhal held up a commanding hand for silence. ‘No, sir, I absolutely insist. Do you know what an honour it would be for me to be able to list you as one of my customers?’
Killigrew smiled. ‘A man under suspicion of murder?’
The printer snorted yet again. ‘Murderer, my eye! I hardly think that the man who marched across eight thousand miles of Arctic wilderness is going to let a little thing like a murder charge hamper him.’
Killigrew and the Sea Devil Page 10