by Graham Ison
‘Where is Mr Quinn, then?’
‘Mr Quinn is currently engaged on other duties, sir.’
‘Really? And what sort of other duties might they be?’
‘I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to say, sir.’
‘You mean you don’t know, Rafferty. Very well.’ Although Hardcastle did not regard Special Branch officers as being real detectives, he acknowledged that they were very good at prevaricating. He deluded himself that his own detectives would know where he had gone at any given time. Seizing his hat and umbrella, he followed the SB officer across to the Central Building of New Scotland Yard. When he was halfway there, he met Marriott on his way back.
‘Mr Collins will go down to Bow Road tomorrow morning as requested, sir. He said to tell you that he’ll meet you at Stein’s room at nine o’clock.’
‘I told you he’d still be on duty, Marriott,’ said Hardcastle. ‘Send a telegraph to Mr Sawyer and let him know. In the meantime I’ve got to see Mr O’Rourke.
‘Who’s Mr O’Rourke, sir?’
‘He’s a senior Special Branch officer, Marriott. I’d’ve thought you’d’ve known that. Wait for me until I get back.’
‘Very good, sir.’
Hardcastle tapped on the heavy oaken door of Superintendent Quinn’s office and waited until bidden to enter.
‘Be so good as to report on the progress of your enquiries into the Stein murder, Mr Hardcastle.’ James O’Rourke, like Quinn an Irishman, was a man not accustomed to wasting words.
What Hardcastle did not know, however, was that although Quinn was supposedly engaged on ‘other duties’ he had in fact ceded the enquiry into Stein’s murder to O’Rourke, who was an expert in Jewish extremist factions within the United Kingdom and Ireland.
‘An interesting development has occurred, sir.’
‘And what might that be?’ O’Rourke frowned at Hardcastle, and stroked his beard.
Hardcastle explained about the button and the footprint that had been found at the scene of Gosling’s murder, and that he was now fairly certain that there was a connection between Gosling’s death and the killing of Peter Stein.
‘That comes as no surprise, and it’s interesting that they are both Jewish.’ O’Rourke scribbled a few notes on a pad. ‘I’ll pass that on to Mr Quinn and to MI5. Anything else?’
‘Captain Haydn Villiers is detained in the Tower, sir. I understand that he’s likely to be charged with treason.’
‘I know that, Mr Hardcastle, but I doubt that the charge will be one of treason. It’s more likely to be under Section One of the Official Secrets Act. But we shall see.’
‘It would seem that Villiers is also Jewish, sir. When I interviewed his mother, I noticed that she was wearing a Star of David around her neck.’
‘On a chain, I presume,’ said O’Rourke acidly, pausing and looking up from his note-taking.
‘Yes, sir, on a chain.’ Hardcastle felt as though he was being treated like a junior detective.
‘I suspect that this whole business has something to do with the Zionists, Mr Hardcastle, and their desire for a Jewish homeland. We already know that Villiers is to be charged with passing information to the French Jew Pierre Benoit, who in turn passed it to Stein … or maybe Sinclair Villiers.’ O’Rourke emitted a deep sigh. ‘As if we had not got enough to do tracking down secret agents that the Germans have the audacity to send here, we now have to deal with the home-grown variety. Very well, keep me informed of any developments.’
‘Very good, sir.’ Hardcastle was surprised that Special Branch was now including Sinclair Villiers in the conspiracy.
‘That’s all,’ said O’Rourke, waving a hand of dismissal.
When Hardcastle returned to his office, he had told Marriott to go home, telling him it was time that they had an early night. A quarter past eight was not exactly early in Marriott’s book, but at least it was an improvement on the previous few evenings.
Leaving his bicycle outside, Marriott let himself into his police married quarters in Regency Street as quietly as possible. He knew that the two children, James and Doreen, five and three respectively, would both be in bed. One day, he thought, I might even be home early enough to read them a bedtime story. He took off his coat and hat and hung them on the hook in the tiny hall.
Lorna Marriott was in the kitchen preparing supper. She stopped what she was doing to give her husband a kiss. ‘Been let off the leash, love?’ There was surprise in her voice.
‘It’s what the guv’nor calls an early night, pet.’
‘Well, I suppose it’s earlier than usual,’ said Lorna, returning to the cooker.
‘Mr Hardcastle sends you his regards,’ said Marriott.
‘I’d rather he sent you … earlier than this.’ Lorna looked pointedly at the kitchen clock before turning to face Marriott. ‘What was it this time?’
‘The murder we’re dealing with has got a bit complicated, pet.’ Hanging his jacket on the back of a chair, Marriott opened a bottle of brown ale and settled himself at the kitchen table. ‘We’re investigating another murder that took place on Bow Road’s patch in Whitechapel Division,’ he said, admiring the trim figure of his twenty-eight-year-old wife as she darted back and forth across the small kitchen.
‘Haven’t they got any detectives down there, then, love?’ asked Lorna sarcastically.
Marriott laughed. ‘Yes, of course they have, but it seems that the job at Bow Road is somehow tied up with the murder of Reuben Gosling in Vauxhall Bridge Road.’
‘I sometimes think you’d’ve been better off if you’d stayed in the Uniform Branch, Charlie,’ said Lorna, as she put a plate of haddock, peas and mashed potatoes on the table in front of him. ‘Meg Lewington’s husband Sid works eight-hour shifts and has one day off a week. And I’ll bet he’ll be an inspector before you are.’ Sidney Lewington, a station-sergeant at Gerald Road police station on B Division, lived with his wife Meg next door to the Marriotts.
‘I’d be bored to tears, pet.’ Marriott was unwilling to enter into a discussion about career prospects in the Metropolitan Police, even though he occasionally wondered if becoming a CID officer had been a wise move. ‘What’s for pudding?’
‘Apple pie and custard,’ said Lorna.
Alice Hardcastle’s reaction to the arrival of her husband was different from Lorna Marriott’s. But, as she often said, she had been ‘married to the police force’ for the past twenty-three years and had grown accustomed to the hours her husband was obliged to work.
‘You’re early tonight, Ernie,’ she said, as Hardcastle appeared in the kitchen doorway.
‘There wasn’t much more I could do today, love. But tomorrow’s going to be busy. I’ve been stuck with a murder on Bow Road’s toby.’
Alice turned from the stove and flicked a stray lock of hair out of her eyes. ‘Why’s that? I thought you were dealing with that one in Vauxhall Bridge Road.’
‘I am, but the two of them are connected.’ Hardcastle poured a whisky for himself and an Amontillado for his wife. ‘The bosses at the Yard thought it’d be a good idea if I handled both cases.’
‘I sometimes think they take unfair advantage of you, Ernie. It’s time you were promoted and given an easy job at the Yard.’
Hardcastle laughed. ‘Fat chance of that,’ he said. ‘I don’t kowtow to the right people.’
‘That’s a fact, Ernie, but perhaps you ought to try.’
‘What, and change the habit of a lifetime? I don’t think so, love.’
‘No, I don’t think so either,’ said Alice. ‘I’ve grown used to you the way you are. And I’ve no doubt the Metropolitan Police has as well. And you know what they say about teaching old dogs new tricks.’
At nine o’clock on Saturday morning, Hardcastle and Marriott arrived at the room in Bow Road where Peter Stein had been murdered. DI Collins and DDI Sawyer were already waiting.
‘I left the PC on duty here, Ernie,’ said Sawyer.
‘Thanks, Tom,’ said Hard
castle, ‘but once we’re done today you can let the chandler downstairs have the room back.’
‘I’ll make my way back to the nick, then, Ernie. Let me know if there’s anything else I can do.’
‘Thanks, Tom. By the way, how’s your boy getting on?’
‘He’s in Gallipoli,’ said Sawyer.
‘In Gallipoli? What’s he doing out there? I thought he was in France.’
‘He’s with the Highland Light Infantry, and they got sent.’
‘How did he finish up in a Scottish regiment, Tom? You’re not a Scotsman, are you?’
‘Bethnal Green, born and bred, so’s the lad, but that’s got nothing to do with it. They put ’em in any regiment that’s short of men, whether they like it or not. But that’s the army for you.’
‘Bit like the Job, Tom.’ Hardcastle spoke with feeling; unpalatable postings had happened to him over the years. ‘I hope he keeps his head down.’
‘So do I, but I have heard they’re pulling our lads out of there in the next few days. General Monro took over from Hamilton last October, and straightaway began talking about evacuating our boys and the Anzacs.’
‘Bloody good job, too. It was a daft idea of Churchill’s, thinking we could sort out the Turks on their own patch.’
‘Couldn’t agree more, Ernie,’ said Sawyer, ‘but Squiffy has a lot to answer for in that regard.’ The prime minister, Herbert Asquith, was invariably known as Squiffy because of his fondness for alcohol. ‘Anyway, I’ll leave you to it. Anything you need, just let me know.’
‘I’ll get to work, then, Ernie,’ said Collins, once Sawyer had departed.
‘Right you are, Charlie. In the meantime, I’ll have another word with the shopkeeper downstairs. What was his name again, Marriott?’
‘Percy Dyer, sir.’
‘Yes, that’s the fellow.’
The two detectives entered Dyer’s shop from the rear door and found the chandler dealing with a crowd of customers.
‘Won’t keep you a moment, sir,’ said Dyer, over his shoulder. ‘There’s always a rush on of a Saturday morning.’
‘Take your time, Mr Dyer.’ Hardcastle gazed around the shop, and realized that Dyer was more than just a chandler. Candles, brooms and brushes and mops, boxes of black lead and furniture polish and bars of soap vied with each other for space on the groaning shelves. On the floor on the customers’ side of the counter were several oil heaters and a Star vacuum cleaner. An overpowering odour of vinegar pervaded the entire shop and, Hardcastle had noticed earlier, it was a stench that permeated even the floor above.
Dyer filled a can with methylated spirit from a drum at the end of the counter, and handed it to a small boy in exchange for a few pennies.
‘Now, sir,’ he said, wiping his hands on his apron, and turning to face the DDI as the last customer left the shop, ‘how can I help you?’
‘How long had Peter Stein been occupying the room upstairs, Mr Dyer?’
The chandler turned to a calendar on the wall behind him. ‘He moved in a few days before Christmas, sir. Monday the twentieth, to be precise.’ He paused and rather shamefacedly added, ‘It wasn’t really meant for living in. I used it as a storeroom, but Stein was desperate for somewhere to live, so I took him in. But he said he wouldn’t be here for long.’
‘He wasn’t,’ observed Hardcastle.
‘Where were you on New Year’s Eve, Mr Dyer?’ asked Marriott, cutting into the chandler’s conversation with Hardcastle.
‘Upstairs with Queenie, sir. That’s the missus. We toasted the New Year at midnight and then went to bed.’
‘D’you happen to know if Stein was in at that time?’
‘No, he wasn’t, sir. He went out … now let me see. Yes, about nine o’clock or thereabouts. It was just as I was closing up and he asked if he could go out the front way in time to catch the next tram. Well, I hadn’t locked up, so I let him out through the shop.’
‘Did he say where he was going on this here tram?’ asked Hardcastle.
‘No, he never said, but I s’pose he was going up the West End somewhere. Trafalgar Square’s quite the place to see the New Year in. Not that it’s ever taken my fancy. Too many people, if you know what I mean.’
‘I do indeed,’ said Hardcastle, but for a different reason. There were always crimes to investigate arising out of the Trafalgar Square festivities which seemed to act like a magnet to pickpockets.
‘How was Stein dressed, Mr Dyer?’ asked Marriott.
‘He had on that reefer jacket what he always wore. I don’t think he owned an overcoat. Leastways, I never saw him in one.’
‘Was he wearing a scarf?’
‘Come to think of it, he was, sir,’ said Dyer.
Marriott produced the scarf found in Sinclair Villiers’s precious Haxe-Doulton, and showed it to the chandler. ‘This one?’
Dyer took hold of the scarf and examined it closely. ‘I couldn’t say for sure, sir, but I must say it looks very like the one he had on at the time.’
A young ragamuffin entered the shop and touched his cap. ‘Please, Mr Dyer, ma says can she have two candles.’
‘You must be burning ’em all night, young Willy,’ said Dyer, taking the candles from a shelf and wrapping them in newspaper. ‘A ha’penny to you, my boy, and give your ma my regards.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ said the lad, and ran from the shop.
‘Should’ve charged him a penny, sir,’ said Dyer, ‘but his pa’s doing time for burglary and the family’s a bit short of the readies.’
‘Very charitable of you, Mr Dyer,’ said Hardcastle. ‘Did Stein have any visitors that you know of?’
‘None that I ever saw, sir. Mind you, if there was any, they’d likely have come in from the alley off of Harley Grove and in the back door. Of course, he had a visitor on the day he was killed.’
‘Yes, I gathered that,’ said Hardcastle drily, ‘but you don’t know of any other callers at any other time.’
‘I did hear a bit of a barney going on on Christmas Eve,’ said Dyer, ‘so I s’pose he must’ve had a visitor then. I thought it was high jinks on account of it being the festive season, but then I heard raised voices like they was having a bit of a bull and cow. It only lasted a couple of minutes, and then I heard the back door slam and it was all quiet after that.’
‘Marriott, take a statement from Mr Dyer,’ said Hardcastle, ‘and I’ll go back upstairs and see how Mr Collins is getting on.’
‘I’ve already made a statement to Mr Sawyer,’ said Dyer.
‘Well, now you’ll be making another one,’ said Hardcastle.
‘I’m just about finished, Ernie,’ said Collins, when Hardcastle joined him in the room once occupied by Stein. ‘Got a few dabs and on a quick examination I reckon one or two of them match those found at Gosling’s shop and in Villiers’s car. But I can’t be absolutely certain until I get back to the Yard.’
‘D’you mean you can remember what they look like, Charlie?’ Hardcastle, to whom the comparatively new science of fingerprints was still largely a mystery, was surprised and at once sceptical about Collins’s claim.
‘I get to know prints like you get to remember faces, Ernie, but like I said, I’ll have to make sure.’
‘I hope you’re right, Charlie, because if you are, it might’ve solved who did for Reuben Gosling.’
‘I thought you said there were two of them,’ said Collins, and laughed.
‘Yes, I did. Trust you to ruin my day.’
‘I don’t think I have, Ernie. I found two distinct sets, so one of them could belong to Stein’s accomplice. Your problem is finding the bugger. But I should be able to let you know before the day’s out.’ Collins packed up his equipment and made his way back downstairs.
It had only taken Marriott twenty minutes or so to take another statement from Percy Dyer regarding Stein’s tenancy and movements, and by twelve thirty he and Hardcastle were being set down from a cab in the courtyard of New Scotland Yard.
; ‘Time for a wet, Marriott,’ said Hardcastle, and led the way to the downstairs bar of the Red Lion on the corner of Whitehall.
‘Morning, Mr Hardcastle. The usual?’ Albert, landlord of the Red Lion, knew all the Cannon Row detectives as well as those at Scotland Yard.
‘Yes, and a couple of fourpenny cannons, Albert.’
‘You must be busy with this Gosling murder, Mr Hardcastle. You too, Mr Marriott.’ Albert placed two pints of best bitter on the bar together with two hot steak and kidney pies.
‘Enough to keep us burning the midnight oil, Albert,’ said Hardcastle, taking the head off his beer. ‘But nothing I can’t cope with.’ He drained the last of his beer and glanced at his watch. ‘Still, I think we can make time for one more pint, please, Albert.’
After each had downed a further glass of beer, the two detectives made their way back to the street. ‘Time we were getting up to St Mary’s, Marriott,’ said the DDI, and they walked the short distance into Whitehall.
Dr Bernard Spilsbury was at work on another cadaver when Hardcastle and Marriott arrived at the mortuary attached to the hospital in Paddington.
‘I won’t keep you a moment, Hardcastle, my dear fellow. I’m just dealing with a prostitute who clearly offended someone in Praed Street late last night.’ Spilsbury carefully removed the liver from the body and placed it in a bowl alongside a heart. ‘Judging by the state of her liver, I would say that this young whore consumed far too much alcohol,’ he said. ‘Not that she’ll have to worry about that any more.’
Tossing his bloodstained rubber gloves into a medical waste bin, the pathologist removed his rubber apron and placed it on a bench.
‘I’ve recovered the round that did for your poor fellow, Hardcastle.’ Dr Spilsbury picked up a pair of forceps and used them to point at a solitary bullet resting in a kidney-shaped enamel bowl. ‘Straight into the heart. The killer was either an excellent shot or a damned lucky one. Whichever way it was, it took only a single round to send your man Stein off to wherever the dead go.’ He laughed cheerfully. ‘I’ll let you have my statement by first thing tomorrow.’