‘Thank you, sir,’ said Killigrew.
Molineaux bent over and retrieved Cargill’s pencil and notebook from the ground. ‘You dropped these, sir.’
‘Ah, thank you, Seaman…’
‘When I was a kinchin, I always wanted to be a “D”.’
‘A “D”?’
Cargill smiled thinly. ‘Thieves’ cant, Mr Killigrew. He mans a detective. I shan’t ask where he learned such an expression.’
‘When you were a child, Molineaux, you were a petty thief,’ said Killigrew.
Molineaux shrugged. ‘Just the other side of the coin, sir.’ He was about to hand the notebook to Cargill, but could not resist opening it and pretended to read a page at random. ‘One: do shopping. Two: pick up laundry. Three: beat suspect to death in order to extract confession. Four: tell superintendent the suspect sustained his injuries falling down the stairs.’
‘It doesn’t say that,’ Cargill protested wearily.
Molineaux grinned. ‘Just my little joke, sir.’ He held out the notebook and the pencil. Cargill was about to take them when a frown clouded Molineaux’s features and he snatched it back.
‘Could I please have my notebook back?’ Cargill protested.
‘Give it back to him, Molineaux,’ Killigrew snapped irritably.
‘Wait a moment, sir.’ The seaman reached inside his shirt and pulled out a grimy piece of paper with some numbers pencilled on the back. He stared at the paper, then flipped open the notebook in his other hand and stared at that before glancing back to the paper. ‘Sir, I think you’d better take a look at this.’
Killigrew smiled sheepishly at Cargill. ‘You don’t mind if I humour him, do you?’
The annoyance on Cargill’s face was plain to see, but he shrugged wearily as if he could not be bothered to protest.
Molineaux held both the notebook and the paper for Killigrew to see. The paper had dearly been soaked in sea water at some point and was all crumpled and torn, but both the printers’ ink and the hand-written information had been fast long enough not to have run too much. The ink was faded but still legible.
It was a receipt for an eight-inch shell gun.
‘Where did you get this?’ Killigrew demanded of Molineaux.
‘On board the Buchan Prayer, sir, on Ingersoll’s desk. Look at the tails of the Gs, sir, and the capital Es.’
A look of panic appeared on Cargill’s face. ‘Give that to me!’ He tried to snatch the receipt from Molineaux, but the seaman held the paper above his head and took a step back.
Killigrew laid an arm across the assistant superintendent’s chest to hold him back. ‘I’d say you’ve got some explaining to do, Mr Cargill,’ he said.
‘All right, so occasionally I do a little paperwork for Ingersoll,’ blustered Cargill. ‘That’s not a crime, is it?’
‘Filling out receipts? Weak, Cargill, damned weak. You’ll have to do better than that.’
‘Can I say it, sir?’ pleaded Molineaux. ‘Please let me say it. I know all the words and everything.’
‘Be my guest.’
Molineaux stood in front of Cargill. ‘Assistant Superintendent Cargill, I am arresting you on suspicion of colluding with pirates and conspiracy to murder.’ He reached into Cargill’s coat pocket and drew out a pair of handcuffs. ‘You do not have to say anything at this time, but anything you do say may be taken down and used as evidence in a court of law.’ As happy as a clam at high water, Molineaux cuffed Cargill’s hands behind his back. ‘I always wanted to say that to a peeler.’
Killigrew smiled thinly. ‘That’s the biter bit.’
‘Surely you don’t believe… ? The whole thing is preposterous, gentlemen, simply preposterous! I’m an assistant superintendent, for God’s sake. What could I possibly have to gain by helping Zhai Jing-mu?’
‘How much did Bannatyne promise you?’ demanded Killigrew. ‘You’ve been spying for him all along, haven’t you? You were the one who made sure that the preparations for Zhai Jing-mu’s trial dragged on as long as possible, to give the Triads more time to rescue him. And you were the only one to survive the attack on the gaol when Zhai Jing-mu was rescued. Why weren’t you invited to Bannatyne’s ball? Because you had to help the Triads rescue Zhai Jing-mu?’
‘Damn it, man! I was shot!’
‘In the leg. Very easy to shoot oneself there without doing too much damage.’
‘I hope you know what you’re doing, Killigrew,’ said Keppel.
‘Doing?’ Cargill was livid. ‘I’ll tell you what he’s doing. He’s making a big mistake, that’s what he’s doing!’
‘I don’t think so, sir,’ said Killigrew. ‘I should have seen it earlier. Cargill here’s been blocking every lead to Zhai Jing-mu every step of the way. The prisoner who was poisoned at the gaol: the bakery had nothing to do with it. You were terrified I was going to persuade him to tell me where Zhai Jing-mu’s base was, weren’t you?’ he asked Cargill. ‘The morning we interrogated that poor fellow Chan I noticed you kept looking at your watch, as if you were waiting for something to happen. Then news of Lieutenant Dwyer’s death arrived. Was that what you were waiting for? The information which you knew would make me lead Peri Dadabhoy into a trap?’ Killigrew struggled to keep his voice calm, but inside he was filled with hatred: Cargill had been as responsible for Peri’s death as Zhai Jing-mu himself. ‘When you heard I’d survived, you murdered the prisoner in case I came back to renew my interrogation of him. Then there was the Triad I captured outside the joss house on Hollywood Road. You were careful to kill him before he could tell me anything.’
‘He was going to stab you.’
‘I’ve been thinking about that. I couldn’t work out how you could have seen that dagger from where you stood; even I couldn’t see it, and I was standing right over him. Now I understand: you couldn’t see it, could you? Not until after he was dead, when it gave you a perfectly good explanation as to why you shot him.’
Cargill was starting to look pale. ‘This is insane. You can’t prove any of this.’
‘Sooner or later we’re going to find Verran. One of you two is going to talk. You both know it’s Bannatyne I’m after, so why should you swing for it? Whichever one of you turns Queen’s evidence first, wins. The loser goes to the scaffold. You’ve got a head start, Cargill. I suggest you make the most of it.’
The police officer slumped in total dejection. Then a greasy smile slid across his face and he chuckled. ‘You’ll have to catch Verran first.’ It was as close to an admission of guilt as he was likely to get.
‘Don’t concern yourself on that account,’ said Killigrew. ‘We shall.’
‘I don’t think I have anything more to say until my lawyer is present.’
‘Very wise,’ growled Keppel.
They put the prisoners in irons aboard the three junks which had not been destroyed and Cargill was taken on board the Tisiphone and put in irons in the lee waist with a marine to stand guard over him.
All three of the vessels in Keppel’s scratch flotilla had sustained damage in the battle. The Tisiphone was the worst hit: both the captain’s day room and the wardroom behind it smashed up by the round shot which had penetrated her stern, but Commander Robertson was clearly delighted with a day’s work well done and surveyed the damage to his quarters and personal possessions with an uncharacteristically sanguine expression.
The Tisiphone’s engineer, Muir, made one of his rare forays from below decks. ‘We took a shot in the engine room, sir,’ he reported to Killigrew as Keppel explained the implication of Cargill’s guilt to Robertson. ‘One of the connecting rods is bent out of kilter.’
‘Lucky it didn’t go through one of the boilers. Can you fix it?’
Muir grimaced. ‘I’ve managed to jury-rig it, sir, but it won’t hold for long. It’ll need to be replaced as soon as possible.’
‘Haven’t we got spares aboard?’
‘That was the last spare, sir. I put an indent in at the dockyard two months ago, but you kno
w what they’re like.’
Killigrew nodded. ‘Will it hold until we get back to Hong Kong?’
‘I’d be happier if we went under sail power only.’
‘We need wind for that, Mr Muir.’ The breeze had died away to leave the three vessels becalmed.
Molineaux appeared at Killigrew’s elbow. ‘Sir.’
‘That was good work, Molineaux, spotting the similarity of the handwriting on the receipt to that in Cargill’s notebook.’
‘Thank you, sir. But I still can’t help wondering why Cargill should make out the receipt instead of Ingersoll. Unless Bannatyne wanted to be sure there was no way it could be traced back to one of his employees.’ Killigrew stared at him for a moment as the implication of Molineaux’s words sank in, and then checked his watch. It was almost three thirty: only five and a half hours until the hour of the pig. He crossed to where Keppel and Robertson were talking on the quarterdeck. ‘Sir? We can’t waste any more time here. We must get back to Hong Kong as quickly as possible.’ He explained his theory quickly to both officers. ‘If Bannatyne’s planning what I think he is, we can’t afford to take any chances. He won’t know that Zhai Jing-mu’s dead; no one in Hong Kong will, until we get there, and that will be with only an hour or two to spare.’
‘That’s all very well, Second, but the Shanghae took a shot in her boilers and ours were damaged,’ said Robertson. ‘Unless you can whistle up a wind for us, I’m afraid we’re becalmed.’
‘Sir?’
‘What is it, Muir?’
‘It’s only twenty-five miles to Hong Kong. I reckon there’s a good chance the jury-rigged connecting rod will hold out till then.’
‘What if it doesn’t?’
‘If it breaks… well, it might do some serious damage to the engine. I mean, we could be in dock for weeks.’
‘Leaving us stranded, at the mercy of the wind, you mean.’
‘We’re at the mercy of the wind now,’ Keppel pointed out. ‘If Killigrew’s right – and he usually is – we can’t just sit here and do nothing. There are some ponies in the village. I’ll send Lieutenant Bowyear and some men overland to Kowloon; they should be able to get a fishing boat there to row across to Victoria.’
Killigrew snapped his fingers. ‘That’s it, sir! The fishing station at Kowloon! If there’s a shell gun lined up at the governor’s stand, that’s where it’ll be.’
‘Would it be close enough?’ wondered Keppel.
‘Extreme range, sir. But firing from a fixed platform, with plenty of time to measure the charge and line up the shot – a good gunner could be bang on target with the first shot.’
‘All right. Bowyear will ride for the fishing station at Kowloon to find that gun. Robertson, you take the Tisiphone and try to warn the governor. The rest of us will follow under sail with the prisoners, and pray for you. Remember, if Bannatyne can make it look as though the Chinese were behind this atrocity – and with his partner in the House of Commons he shouldn’t find that too difficult – then the public will soon be baying for another war with China and anything we say to contradict them won’t matter a damn.’
* * *
‘Do you have any idea how many rumours of plots, assassinations and uprisings cross my desk every week?’ Governor Bonham tilted his head back so his valet could tie his cravat. He stood before a cheval-glass in the dressing room of a house he had to rent from one of the China traders; although a site had been chosen and the land had been cleared, building work had not yet begun on an official residence for Her Majesty’s governor, plenipotentiary and superintendent of trade. Bonham was obviously used to receiving enquiries from naval officers at all hours of the day and continued to dress for the evening’s festivities as he gave them an audience.
‘No, sir,’ Killigrew said innocently. ‘How many?’
Bonham glared at Killigrew. Robertson motioned impatiently for his second lieutenant to be quiet.
‘Enough to mean that if I paid any attention to all of them, I wouldn’t be able to do my job,’ said Bonham. ‘In fact, the whole machinery of government would come to a standstill. Did it ever occur to you that that might be exactly what the Triads desire?’
‘Sir, I’m not asking you to heed all of them,’ said Robertson. ‘Just this one. It’s more than a rumour. Lieutenant Killigrew has had titbits from known members of Triad-affiliates – to which Able Seaman Molineaux is a second witness to some – and we’ve also had it independently confirmed by a Chinese informant.’
Bonham smiled tolerantly as his valet helped him into his coat. ‘Listen to yourself, Commander. A Chinese informant? A naval lieutenant with a reputation for being excitable, and a common sailor? Hardly what I’d call reliable sources.’
Killigrew could feel his temper welling up within him like bile, but checked himself. It would be wisest to leave the talking to Robertson.
‘A naval lieutenant with a proven track record in getting results, sir,’ said the commander. ‘And I’m not asking you to halt the machinery of government, just to cancel your attendance at the festivities tonight.’
‘And lose face in front of the Chinese? I’m sorry, Robertson, but it will take more than some nebulous notion of a conspiracy to make me do that. You don’t even know what it is that these conspirators are planning to do.’
‘They’ve got a gun,’ said Killigrew. ‘Probably an eight-inch shell gun, by the sound of it; Able Seaman Molineaux found a receipt for one on board the Buchan Prayer. My guess is they’re planning to fire it at the stand overlooking the harbour. That might put a spoke in the machinery of the island’s government,’ he could not resist adding. In addition to Bonham, General Staveley and all the island’s senior officers and officials had places in the stand, along with their wives.
Bonham’s valet adjusted his sash until the governor slapped his hand away in irritation. ‘An eight-inch shell gun cannot be an easy thing to conceal, Mr Killigrew. You find me your shell gun, and maybe then I’ll listen.’ He smirked. ‘Of course, once you’ve done that, I trust you’ll attend to the matter so that there will be no need to call off the celebrations.’
‘If there’s nothing more I can say to dissuade you, sir…’ Robertson saluted and motioned for Killigrew to accompany him out of the room. The butler saw them to the door.
‘You wouldn’t think it would be so difficult to persuade someone to permit you to save his own life, would you, sir?’ sighed Killigrew.
Robertson rubbed his temples wearily. ‘I don’t know, Second. Bonham’s got a point. It does sound rather far-fetched. All we’ve got to go on is cryptic hints and suppositions. If we’re wrong about this, we’re both going to look pretty foolish come midnight when the celebrations have passed off without a hitch.’
‘Oh, I hope we’re wrong, sir,’ said Killigrew. ‘I pray we’re wrong. If looking foolish is the price I’d pay for that, I could bear it.’
Hartcliffe was waiting for them outside with a dozen bluejackets from the Tisiphone, some of them with black eyes and bruises. ‘Well?’ Robertson demanded impatiently.
‘Bannatyne’s not at his house or at the factory, sir. We searched both thoroughly.’
‘What happened to your men?’
‘Some of Bannatyne’s men didn’t like us barging into the factory. They tried to stop us.’
‘Hope you gave as good as you got.’
‘Paid back in full, sir, with interest,’ said Hartcliffe. ‘The butler at the house said Bannatyne had been called on an urgent trip to Macao for a business meeting. He couldn’t tell us any more.’
‘I might have known he’d have an… what are those things called, when you’re somewhere else at the time of the crime?’ asked Robertson.
‘An alibi, sir?’ offered Killigrew.
Robertson nodded. ‘He’s clever, damn him. We know that something ghastly is going to happen tonight, yet all the evidence we have to support our theory could so easily be construed far more innocently.’
‘What did the governor say?
’ asked Hartcliffe.
‘Everything’s going ahead as planned.’
‘Did you tell him about Bannatyne’s involvement?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous! We wanted him to take us seriously, didn’t we? “Excuse me, your excellency, but we believe there’s going to be an attempt to blow up the gubernatorial stand at the festival tonight, and we think Blase Bannatyne is behind the conspiracy.”’ Robertson snorted. ‘I’m not even sure I believe it myself.’
‘We’ve still got just over an hour, sir,’ said Killigrew. ‘I’ll take some men across to Kowloon and turn that fishing station upside down.’
‘Sorry, Killigrew,’ said Hartcliffe. ‘I’m afraid Mr Bowyear beat you to it. I bumped into him on the wharf; he’d just come from Kowloon. His men searched every inch of that fishing station and found nothing. He left them on guard there in case Bannatyne showed up with the shell gun, and came across to find us. He went back to join them as soon as he’d spoken to me.’ Killigrew sighed. ‘He’s wasting his time. If the shell gun isn’t there already, then it was never Bannatyne’s intention to use the fishing station in the first place. It must be somewhere else. Somewhere behind the stand, perhaps.’
They all turned to where the hills of Hong Kong showed faintly against the night sky. ‘Too exposed,’ said Robertson.
‘Not at night.’
‘They’d have wanted to make sure the gun was in place in plenty of time,’ said Hartcliffe. ‘It needs to be somewhere hidden, but with a clear shot at the stand.’
‘What do we do now, sir?’ asked Killigrew.
‘I don’t know,’ Robertson said heavily. ‘But I’ve a feeling you’re going to be brimming with ideas.’
‘Sorry, sir. I’m as much at a loss as you are.’
‘Hmph.’
They climbed into the carriage Robertson had commandeered from the harbour master and rode back to Victoria. The house Bonham rented at Spring Gardens was to the east of the town, almost a mile from the centre. Long before they reached the corner of Queen’s Road and Pedder Street, however, the crowds became so thick that the carriage was making almost no progress at all.
Killigrew and the Golden Dragon Page 39