Blackstone and the New World isb-1

by Sally Spencer

  Blackstone waited patiently for the lady to muster the strength to face his repulsive self again, and finally she did.

  ‘When my butler informed me that an English inspector of police wished to speak to me, I was most certainly not expecting that someone dressed in the manner in which you are dressed would be appearing before me,’ said Mrs van Horne, her voice sounding slightly choked.

  She speaks almost as elegantly as she moves, Blackstone thought. And this happens to be my best suit, lady. You should just see my other one!

  ‘You’re quite sure you are an inspector of police, are you?’ Mrs van Horne asked sceptically.

  ‘Ah, it’s the clothes that have got you confused!’ Blackstone said, as if enlightenment had just dawned on him.

  ‘Confused?’ Mrs van Horne repeated, confusedly.

  ‘I should perhaps have mentioned earlier that I’m in disguise,’ Blackstone explained.

  ‘Disguise?’ the lady echoed. ‘And what, pray, are you supposed to be disguised as?’

  ‘As one of the common people,’ Blackstone said. And then, on the principle of in-for-a-penny-in-for-a-pound, he added, ‘You see, it would never do to move among the criminal classes dressed in my ermine, would it?’

  ‘Your ermine?’

  ‘My robes of state,’ Blackstone amplified. ‘Didn’t I mention that I was Lord Blackstone of Chucklebuttie?’

  ‘No, you didn’t. So you are a lord?’

  ‘We prefer the term “peer of the realm”,’ Blackstone said, sounding slightly disappointed that the woman had not known that.

  ‘Yet you still find the need to work for a living?’

  ‘So it would seem, or I wouldn’t be here.’

  ‘Are you poor?’ Mrs van Horne asked, putting the same emphasis on the last word as she might have put on leper.

  Blackstone laughed. ‘Of course I’m not poor. I follow the profession of police officer out of a strong sense of duty. It’s what we peers of the realm call noblesse oblige.’

  ‘What an extraordinary breed of people you English seem to be,’ the lady said.

  But the look of disdain had quite vanished from her face, and now she seemed to be regarding him almost as an equal.

  ‘I assume that your butler told you of the reason for my visit, Mrs van Horne,’ Blackstone said.

  ‘Indeed. You wish to question one of my servants — a Norma Something-or-other.’

  ‘Nancy,’ Blackstone corrected her. ‘Nancy Greene.’

  ‘Just so. But I’m afraid that will not be possible, as Boone has just informed me that the girl is no longer in my employ.’

  ‘Why did she leave? Was she dismissed?’

  Mrs van Horne wafted her hand through the air in a way which suggested that it was an extraordinary question for him to have asked.

  ‘I have absolutely no idea, though given the lack of respect that the working class are allowed to display towards their betters these days, it would not surprise me if she had been ungrateful enough to have simply removed herself from my service without so much as a by-your-leave.’

  Blackstone was finally catching on. ‘You have no idea who she is, have you?’

  ‘Indeed I do not,’ the lady said haughtily. ‘I have so many servants in my household, you see, that I could not possibly keep track of them all, even if I were inclined to.’

  Blackstone was growing bored with the game — and even more bored with the woman’s pompous vulgarity.

  ‘Could I speak to the servants now?’ he asked.

  Mrs van Horne nodded graciously. ‘I must admit that my first thought, as you entered the room, was to refuse you permission to see them, since you did not seem at all like the right kind of policeman.’ She paused. ‘All four of the police commissioners for New York City have dined at this house, you know. And on more than one occasion!’

  Then it must have been the food that brought them back for second helpings, Blackstone — because it certainly couldn’t have been the company.

  ‘But you changed your mind,’ he said aloud.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Your first thought was to deny me permission.’

  ‘Ah, yes, but having spoken to you more fully, I have decided it would be wrong to go by initial appearances.’

  Mrs van Horne tugged gently on the silk bell pull, and the butler appeared instantly in the doorway.

  ‘Lord Blackstone would like to interview the servants, Boone,’ Mrs van Horne said. ‘See to it.’

  ‘Certainly, madam,’ the butler said. He turned, and bowed slightly in Blackstone’s general direction. ‘If you would like to follow me, my lord, I will see to it that all you require is effected.’

  Then he raised his head again, looked Blackstone squarely in the eye — and gave him a broad wink.

  They were sitting at the breakfast table in the butler’s parlour. They had taken off their jackets and were both savouring the taste of the vintage port which Boone had had sent up from the wine cellar.

  ‘What happened upstairs was better than I’d ever hoped it would be,’ the butler said. ‘I was nearly in hysterics when you said you were a peer of the realm, and that fat sow actually believed you.’

  ‘So you were listening at the door,’ Blackstone said.

  ‘Naturally I was listening at the door. We all have to take our amusement where we can find it.’ Boone took a sip of his port. ‘Of course, you wouldn’t fool anyone with real class for a minute,’ he continued, matter-of-factly. ‘Even with a coronet on your head, a page boy walking behind you holding your train, and a company of heralds trumpeting your arrival, the Quality would have had you marked down as a fake the moment they saw you.’

  ‘I fooled your mistress,’ Blackstone said.

  ‘That just proves my point,’ Boone replied. ‘You have to be born into class. However much you might want to, you can’t buy it and you can’t acquire it through marriage. Which is why the master would still be a gentleman even if he lost everything and ended up living on the street. And why the mistress will never be anything but a tea merchant’s daughter if she lives to be a hundred.’

  ‘You’re a snob,’ Blackstone said.

  ‘Damned right I am,’ Boone agreed.

  Blackstone took another sip of the ruby port. It really was an excellent vintage.

  ‘Tell me about Nancy Greene,’ he said.

  Boone hesitated before speaking. ‘If I’m going to do that, I’d first like to know why you’re interested in her.’

  For a moment Blackstone considered telling the butler a convenient lie, then he looked into Boone’s sharp eyes and quickly realized that lying would never work with this man.

  ‘I believe she has some information about the murder of Inspector Patrick O’Brien,’ he said.

  ‘You’re not suggesting she was involved in it?’

  ‘Not directly, no.’

  ‘So she’s indirectly involved?’

  ‘We think so.’

  ‘And if you find her, will she be punished for that indirect involvement?’ Boone asked, and though he tried to give the impression it didn’t matter to him one way or the other, he failed badly.

  ‘No, I don’t think she will be punished,’ Blackstone said.

  And he meant it, for while she was certainly guiltier than Jenny had been, her guilt weighed less than a feather when compared to that of the man who had murdered O’Brien, and the man who had ordered his murder.

  Boone nodded, apparently satisfied by the answer. ‘There are positions in this household that some people would almost kill for,’ the butler said. ‘Footmen, coachmen, valet, lady’s maid and the like. But there are also jobs, and some of them are so vile that even a starving immigrant, straight off the boat, would think twice about taking them. That’s why we sometimes fill some of those jobs with young girls from the orphanage.’

  ‘Because they have no choice?’ Blackstone asked.

  ‘Because they have no choice,’ Boone confirmed.

  ‘And Nancy Gre
ene had one of those jobs?’

  ‘Yes, she did. She was a scullery maid, which is just about the lowest of the low. The scullery maid is the first one up in the morning, lighting the kitchen boilers, and she’s the last one to bed, after she’s finished cleaning up after everybody. She doesn’t eat with the rest of the servants. What she gets given is the rest of the staff’s leftovers. Now you might say that isn’t fair — and I’d agree with you — but that’s the way things have always been run, and it will take a better man than me to change them.’

  ‘She must have hated it,’ Blackstone said.

  ‘She probably did,’ Boone agreed. ‘But if she did, she was too smart to show it.’

  ‘Smart?’

  ‘Resentful scullery maids remain scullery maids for ever. But the ones who cheerfully tackle whatever task they’re given are the ones who get chosen for promotion — and Nancy had understood that within a couple of days of arriving here. She was ambitious, you see, and I did all I could to fuel that ambition.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘In all kinds of little ways. I’d compliment her on any work she’d done particularly well. I’d slip her the odd fifty cents once in a while. But most importantly, I made quite sure that when she was entitled to see her friend Jenny, she did see her friend Jenny.’

  ‘I’m not sure I follow you,’ Blackstone admitted.

  ‘All servants are allowed half a day off once a week, but only if they can be spared without it affecting the smooth running of the household. And because Nancy was such a good little worker, Cook was always finding reasons she couldn’t be spared, so that in the end, I had to put my foot down.’

  ‘And you did that so she could see Jenny?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because Jenny had landed herself a cushy little job. It wasn’t in a grand house like this is, but she was comfortable enough. And I wanted her to be an example for Nancy — a reminder of what she could become if she stuck at it.’

  Blackstone laughed. ‘So much for the stern and unyielding butler,’ he said. ‘You’re nothing but a pussycat in disguise.’

  ‘Oh, I can be stern and unyielding when I need to be,’ Boone said seriously. ‘If you don’t believe me, just ask the staff. But when you see a kid like Nancy, you just want to help her.’

  ‘So what went wrong?’ Blackstone asked.

  Boone sighed. ‘I went down to the kitchen one morning about three weeks ago, and she’d simply disappeared.’

  ‘And why do you think that was?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Boone admitted. ‘But if I had to guess, I’d say that one day, when she was out walking with Jenny, she met a man — and that eventually this man persuaded her to run away with him. It happens from time to time — and it nearly always ends badly.’

  ‘Do you think it’s possible that any of the servants know more than you do?’ Blackstone asked.

  ‘It’s possible,’ Boone said. ‘Though if they do know, they won’t tell me.’ He took another sip of his port. ‘But I suppose there’s a chance they might open up to you, an outsider, as long as I promise them that whatever they tell you will never get back to me.’

  ‘And would you do that?’ Blackstone asked.

  ‘Why not?’ Boone replied. ‘I can’t get Nancy out of whatever trouble she’s landed herself in, but you might just be able to. And from the impression I’ve formed of you, I think that if it’s humanly possible for you to help her, you will. Am I wrong about that?’

  ‘No,’ Blackstone said. ‘You’re not wrong.’

  TWENTY

  The girl’s name was Florence. She had a sallow complexion, thin, pinched features, and narrow, distrustful eyes. She was a scullery maid, as Nancy had been. But it did not take Blackstone long, as he sat across the table from her, to work out that she was the other kind of scullery maid that Boone had talked about — the sort who would never get on.

  ‘Cook told me that you were a friend of Nancy Greene’s, Florence,’ Blackstone said. ‘Is that right?’

  The girl sniffed. ‘I suppose I was. She used to help me with my work, when I was fallin’ behind.’

  Blackstone smiled at her, though he didn’t find it easy. ‘And I suppose that you helped her with her work, when she was falling behind?’ he asked.

  ‘Nancy never fell behind,’ Florence said resentfully. ‘Nancy always managed to finish her work in plenty of time.’

  ‘And while you were working side-by-side, did you talk to each other?’ Blackstone asked.

  Florence sniffed again. ‘Not allowed to talk when we’re working. It’s one of the rules.’

  ‘But I’ll wager the pair of you broke that rule now and again, didn’t you?’ Blackstone cajoled.

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘And when that happened, did Nancy tell you things?’

  ‘Tell me things? Like what?’

  ‘Like, for example, what she did when she went out for a walk with her friend, Jenny, who she’d known at the orphanage?’

  Florence’s eyes narrowed even further, as if she was expecting some kind of trap.

  ‘They didn’t do nothin’,’ she said. ‘They walked. What else can you do, when you ain’t got no money?’

  ‘You did hear Mr Boone say that whatever you told me wouldn’t get back to him, didn’t you?’ Blackstone asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So you can speak freely. You can tell me anything that Nancy told you. I promise that it won’t hurt her. It may even be to her advantage. Do you understand that?’

  Florence looked down at the table. ‘Yes.’

  ‘So let me ask you again. What did Nancy do when she was out walking? Did she meet anybody?’

  ‘Might have done.’

  ‘Don’t you want to help her?’ Blackstone asked, exasperated.

  Florence looked up.

  ‘No,’ she said, with a sudden fierceness entering her voice. ‘Why should I want to help her? She’s abandoned me, ain’t she? She’s out there livin’ high on the hog, an’ I’m still stuck here. An’ it’s even worse for me now than it used to be, because she ain’t here to give me a hand.’

  ‘So you don’t want to help her,’ Blackstone said resignedly. ‘But maybe you’d like to help yourself.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  Blackstone took two dollar bills and one $5 dollar bill — Meade’s money — out of his pocket, and laid them flat on the table. Florence gazed down at them, almost mesmerized, and licked her lips.

  ‘Did Nancy meet someone when she was out walking with Jenny?’ Blackstone asked.

  Florence nodded. ‘Yeah, a guy called Eddie.’

  ‘Eddie what?’

  ‘Don’t know,’ Florence said, as her hand began to creep slowly across the table towards the dollar bills.

  Blackstone slammed his right hand down hard, over the money.

  ‘Eddie what?’ he repeated.

  ‘Eddie Toscanini,’ Florence said sulkily.

  Blackstone lifted his right hand slightly, extracted one of the dollar bills with his left, and passed it across the table to Florence.

  ‘And she saw him more than once, didn’t she?’ he asked.

  ‘After the first time they met, it was every time that her and her friend went out.’

  ‘And when she eventually ran away, it was this Eddie Toscanini she ran away with, was it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Blackstone took out the second dollar, and dangled it in the air.

  ‘Where did they run away to?’

  ‘She told me that he lives on Little Water Street. I think that’s near the Bowery.’

  Blackstone released his hold on the second dollar bill, and the girl caught it in mid-air.

  ‘And what does he do, this Eddie Toscanini?’ Blackstone asked.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘What’s his job?’

  ‘No idea,’ Florence said. ‘Listen, mister, I’ve told you all I know. Can I have the rest of the money?’

  ‘No
, you can’t — because you’re still holding something back,’ Blackstone said sternly.

  ‘I ain’t. I promise I ain’t.’

  ‘You said that Nancy was living high on the hog, didn’t you?’

  ‘That’s was just a manner of speakin’. I don’t know anyfink. Anyway, whatever life she’s havin’, it must be better than bein’ here.’

  ‘You said she was living high on the hog,’ Blackstone repeated. ‘Which must mean that Eddie’s got money, which in turn must mean that he’s got some kind of good job.’

  ‘Don’t have to mean that at all,’ Florence said stubbornly.

  ‘All right, have it your own way,’ Blackstone said, picking up the $5 bill and making as if to return it to his pocket.

  ‘Wait a minute!’ Florence said frantically. ‘I do know what Eddie does, but I didn’t want to say in case I got into trouble.’

  ‘In trouble?’ Blackstone repeated. ‘With Mr Boone?’

  ‘With Eddie,’ Florence said.

  ‘I promise you that whatever you tell me, I won’t say it came from you,’ Blackstone said, dangling the $5 bill in the air, just as he had dangled the single one.

  ‘How do I know I can trust you?’ Florence whined.

  ‘You don’t,’ Blackstone told her. ‘But if you do decide not to trust me, then you’ll never get this money.’

  ‘Eddie works as a runner for the Five Points Gang,’ Florence said, the words spilling out of her mouth as she reached forward and snatched the $5 bill from Blackstone’s hand.

  If there were a prize for being the one place on earth that God had truly forgotten, Five Points would not have been a racing certainty to win, Blackstone thought — but it would certainly have been in with a chance.

  The area owed its name to the fact that five streets — Anthony, Orange, Mulberry, Cross and Little Water — all met there, and it was at least as depressing as anything he had ever come across in London.