Blackstone and the Great Game (The Blackstone Detective Series Book 2)

by Spencer, Sally

  ‘Aye, we’ll have him back with us soon enough,’ her husband repeated, checking his father’s watch again. There was a knock on the door.

  ‘That’ll be the police with our Wilfred, now,’ Ramsbottom said. ‘Well, answer the door, girl!’ he called to his maid—the daughter of an impoverished relative.

  It was not the police who had come calling. Instead, it was a hotel servant, carrying a gift-wrapped parcel.

  ‘This has just been delivered for you, sir,’ the man said. ‘An’ what is it, exactly?’

  The servant looked down at the parcel. ‘From its shape I’d say that it’s a hat box—so I assume that it’s a hat.’

  ‘I’ve ordered no hat,’ Ramsbottom told him. ‘Are you sure it’s intended for me?’

  It says ‘Mr Ramsbottom’ on the label. And you’re the only Mr Ramsbottom staying in the hotel.’

  Ramsbottom sighed. ‘I suppose you’ll be expectin’ a tip for bringin’ it, will you?’

  ‘It is customary, sir.’

  ‘Customary my bare backside,’ the cotton magnate said. ‘Things have come to a pretty pass indeed when folk want payin’ for carryin’ a box up a few flights of stairs.’

  But even as he spoke, he was feeling in his pocket for the smallest coin he could find.

  The hotel servant took the tip almost as graciously as he would have done if he had considered it adequate, and departed.

  Ramsbottom took the parcel over to the table.

  ‘It’s very heavy for a hat,’ he commented. Then he noticed the stain which was beginning to form at the base of the package, and added, ‘An’ as far as I know, hats don’t leak.’

  A sudden look of horror came to his face. He ripped away the wrapping paper, lifted the top of the hatbox, and gazed inside.

  ‘Oh my God!’ he moaned.

  He had been right when he’d assured his wife that the kidnappers would return his son—but only partly right.

  ***

  ‘I been reading the kidnappers all wrong,’ Blackstone confessed to Patterson, half an hour later. ‘I assumed that they only asked for a hundred pounds when they took Vanessa Todd because they didn’t know what they could have got. But I see now that wasn’t the reason at all.’

  ‘So what was the reason?’

  ‘They wanted the police to be involved in the case, but they didn’t want us to be too deeply involved. By setting the ransom at a hundred, they purchased just the amount of police interest they required.’

  ‘Required for what?’

  ‘For their rehearsal of the real crime.’

  Patterson rubbed the back of his head again. Like a victorious army on the rampage, the itching seemed to be spreading out.

  ‘So you’re saying that Vanessa Todd’s kidnapping was nothing more than a try-out for the kidnapping of Wilfred Ramsbottom?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ Blackstone said. ‘I’m not.’

  ‘Then you’ve lost me again.’

  ‘Vanessa Todd’s kidnapping was like the first read-through of the script,’ explained Blackstone, who had recently acquired a passion for the theatre. ‘Wilfred Ramsbottom’s was more like a full dress rehearsal for the actors. That’s why they upped the ante. By asking for a thousand pounds, they were ensuring that we’d become actively involved—because they wanted to see what we could do when we were really trying.’

  ‘So why did they cut Wilfred’s head off and send it to his parents in a hat box?’ Patterson asked. ‘That won’t get them any money, will it?’

  ‘No, but they didn’t actually want any money this time. I suspect that they’d have been very disappointed if Obadiah Ramsbottom had decided to pay up. They may even have chosen him precisely because they’d figured he wasn’t the sort of bloke to hand over his cash.’

  ‘You’re saying they planned to cut poor Wilfred’s head off right from the stare?’

  ‘I’m saying they always hoped they’d have a reason to decapitate him. And we gave them a good one, didn’t we—an attaché case stuffed with last night’s newspaper.’

  ‘So—if I’m following you correctly—they did it to show that they mean business?’

  ‘That’s precisely why they did it.’

  ‘And they weren’t interested in the thousand pound at all

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘Which means that when they stop rehearsing—when they put on a proper performance—they’ll be demanding a bigger ransom?’

  ‘A much bigger ransom.’

  ‘Which, if you take things to their natural conclusion, means that they’re planning to kidnap someone very important.’

  ‘Oh yes! Someone very important indeed,’ Blackstone agreed gravely.

  Five

  Reginald Dilkes, as several of his more embittered colleagues were always willing to point out, had a great talent for self-satisfaction. Indeed, they would further claim, he had turned it into almost an art form. Such attacks did not bother Dilkes. He had, in his own unbiased opinion, good reason to be proud of himself. His column—‘The Eyes and Ears of London’—was the most thumbed page of the Evening Chronicle. Minor peers fawned on him outrageously, and even lesser royals thought twice before they were rude to him. It was years since he’d actually been asked to pay his bill in any of the fairly fashionable restaurants, and one of the better seats at the theatre was always his for the asking. There was no doubt, in other words, that he was a force to be reckoned with.

  His original purpose in going to Claridge’s Hotel that afternoon had been to interview a visiting American railroad millionaire, but he had approached his task without much enthusiasm. The problem, as he saw it, was that ever since the industrial boom on the other side of the Atlantic, American millionaires had become so commonplace that they were starting to lose their public appeal. The tall, bearded nigger—on the other hand—was a novelty which might well tickle his jaded readers’ fancy.

  The ‘nigger’ in question was sitting at the other end of the lobby, on a carved teak chair which could almost have been called a throne, and had certainly not been supplied by the hotel. He was dressed in flowing silk robes covered in elaborate embroidery. In front of him was a polished brass table (again undoubtedly alien to Claridge’s). A delicate china teapot rested on the table, and though the man was far from alone—several other men sat cross-legged on the floor at his feet—there was only one cup.

  Dilkes made his way across the room to where the exotic foreign party was situated. There shouldn’t be any difficulty in getting an interview, he told himself. The niggers would probably be glad to have somebody speak to them almost as if they were equals.

  Two of the men sitting cross-legged on the floor watched the journalist’s progress with keen interest, and when the man’s intended destination became apparent, they rose slinkily to their feet.

  Dilkes noted their action with some approval. It was quite right that the two niggers should rise at his approach, he thought. True, the rest of the party were still seated, but the moment they too saw him, they’d probably jump to their feet smartly enough.

  He drew level with the group, but no one else stood. Uppity lot, he thought—but he considered himself something of a liberal, and was quite willing to make allowances for the fact that they were too ignorant to know the proper way to behave in the presence of a white man.

  Dilkes looked down at the man sitting on the chair. ‘You don’t happen to speak any English, do you, old chap?’ he asked.

  The two standing Indians now moved with astounding speed, and before he had time to appreciate what was really happening, the journalist found himself sandwiched between them. Not only that, but they had taken a firm grip of his arms and he felt a slight pricking in his side which he could only assume came from the point of a dagger.

  ‘Here, what’s going on?’ he demanded.

  One of the men sitting cross-legged on the floor looked up. He was, Dilkes saw, wearing steel-framed glasses and a look of disdain. ‘Is there some purpose to your invasion of our privacy?’
he asked.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Who are you, and what do you want?’

  If the journalist had not been being held so tightly, he would probably have shrugged. As it was, he said, ‘My name’s Reginald Dilkes. I’m a famous newspaper reporter. I wanted a word with your mate here.’

  ‘My mate?’ the man with steel glasses repeated. ‘Are you perhaps referring to His Majesty, the Maharaja of Chandrapore?’

  ‘If that’s who he is.’

  ‘I am his personal secretary. Please enlighten me—why should you wish to speak to ‘my mate’ here?’

  ‘Tell your blokes to let go of me, before I call the management!’ Dilkes said, starting to realize how humiliating his position might seem to others, and feeling an anger building up inside him.

  ‘It would be a mistake to call anyone,’ the secretary said. ‘You can’t threaten me!’ Dilkes blustered.

  ‘Nor am I trying to do so. I am merely pointing out that if you were to call the management, you would be the one to be thrown out on to the street.’

  ‘Me? Thrown out?’

  ‘Undoubtedly. And to avoid such an unpleasant occurrence, I will give you one more opportunity to answer my question. Why do you wish to talk to the Maharaja?’

  There was a confidence and certainty in the other man’s tone which unnerved Dilkes. He still couldn’t see the manager taking a nigger’s side rather than his, but perhaps it would be better not to put the matter to a test.

  ‘Like I said, I’m a journalist,’ Dilkes told the secretary. ‘I work for the Evening Chronicle. I wanted to do an interview on your mate. I thought my readers might find it interesting.’

  The secretary looked up at the Maharaja. The Maharaja nodded.

  ‘His Majesty is willing to grant you an audience,’ the man in steel-framed glasses said. ‘But there are certain conditions attached to such an audience. You must not look him directly in the eye, and you must address him at all times as ‘Your Majesty’.’

  Bloody cheek! Dilkes thought. Still, he’d already gone through the humiliation of being manhandled by these niggers—he might at least get a good story out of it.

  ‘All right,’ he agreed. ‘But tell these two hooligans of yours to let go of me first.’

  The secretary nodded. The two guards released their grip and melted away into the background.

  Dilkes cleared his throat. ‘Why, precisely, are you in London?’ he asked the Maharaja.

  ‘Why, precisely, are you in London, Your Majesty?’ the secretary corrected him.

  ‘Why are you in London, Your Majesty?’ Dilkes agreed reluctantly.

  ‘Are you happy to continue this audience in English?’ the Maharaja asked, in a rich deep voice. ‘Or would you feel more comfortable if we converted to French?’

  The question was even a bigger loss of face than the manhandling had been. Dilkes looked down at the floor. ‘I don’t speak French,’ he admitted.

  ‘I don’t speak French, Your Majesty!’ the secretary said.

  Dilkes glanced quickly around him to see if there was anyone in the lobby he knew. There was not.

  ‘Your Majesty,’ he added.

  ‘Very well, we will proceed in English,’ the Maharaja said.

  ‘I am here for two purposes. The first is to shop.’

  ‘Shop for what…Your Majesty?’

  ‘For motor cars.’

  ‘Motor cars?’

  ‘That is what I said. Mr Benz of Germany makes a very fine one called the Viktoria. I intend to buy a dozen of them.’

  Dilkes gulped. ‘A dozen?’ he repeated. ‘But won’t that be very expensive…Your Majesty? Where do you think you’ll get the money from?’

  ‘You are being impertinent!’ the secretary growled.

  ‘That is quite all right, Aggarwal,’ the Maharaja said. ‘Tell me, Mr Dilkes, what do you know about Chandrapore?’

  The journalist sniffed. ‘Not a lot.’

  ‘Do you, in fact, know anything about it at all?’

  ‘I know it’s in India.’

  ‘But not in British India.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  The Maharaja shook his head, almost pityingly. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘Do you have any idea of the size of my state?’

  The nigger was trying to make a monkey out of him, Dilkes thought. Well, the bugger wasn’t going to get away with it.

  ‘I believe Chandrapore is about the same size as Devon,’ he said, trying to sound authoritative.

  The Maharaja smiled. ‘Devon, England?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course Devon, England!’

  ‘Then you have clearly been misinformed. Chandrapore is, in fact, slightly larger than the entire British Isles.’

  ‘You’re joking!’ Dilkes said.

  The Maharaja looked down at his attendants. ‘Are they laughing?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, no.’

  ‘If I had been making a joke—even an extremely weak one—they would have been roaring their heads off. What is the population of the British Isles, Mr Dilkes?’

  ‘I’m not sure I could say exactly.’

  ‘It is roughly twenty-eight million people. Chandrapore has only twenty million—but that is still more than enough loyal subjects, I think you will agree, to raise the money for their beloved Maharaja to buy a dozen motor cars for his personal use.’

  ‘I…I suppose so,’ the bemused Dilkes agreed.

  ‘You asked me my other reason for being here,’ the Maharaja continued. ‘It is to pay a visit on my fellow monarch.’

  ‘Your fellow monarch?’

  ‘Queen Victoria.’

  ‘Your .fellow monarch?’

  ‘I am invited to the India Office for tea tomorrow. My dear sister Victoria has agreed to send an honour guard from one of her finer regiments to accompany us. I do not care one way or the other about such things, but no doubt it will create an interesting diversion for the common people to gaze on.’

  ‘The common people!’ Dilkes said, almost exploding in his indignation. ‘Are you talking about English men and English women as common people?’

  ‘And English children, too, I should imagine.’ The Maharaja waved his hand airily. ‘You may go now.’

  The time had come to stand up for himself and for his country, Dilkes decided. Somebody had to tell this jumped-up nigger that having all the money in the world still didn’t make him anything like the equal of the lowliest Englishman. Yes, he needed putting in his place. And the man who put him there might as well be Reginald Dilkes, the Ears and Eyes of London.

  The words were already forming in his mouth when he saw that the two ruffians who had manhandled him earlier were back in position, and had their hands resting lightly on their jewelled—but probably still lethal—daggers. The Maharaja had turned away from him—had already, it seemed, forgotten that he ever existed—but Dilkes felt the secretary’s eyes burning into his forehead, and knew what he had to do.

  ‘Please convey to His Majesty my thanks for his granting me an audience,’ he said, almost choking on the words. ‘It was very gracious of him indeed.’

  The secretary gave the journalist a supercilious smile. ‘It was merely a case of noblesse oblige,’ he said, ‘but since you speak no French I suppose you have no idea what that means.’

  Six

  There were few streets in London in which the air was as damp as it was on Burr Street. A slight breeze from almost any direction carried on it moisture from either the docks or the Thames, and even in the driest of summers the window frames and doors—and perhaps even the people—continued the process of slowly rotting away. It was a desperate street in which hard times would be replaced—but not for long—by times which were not quite so hard. People died young there, and any man living on it who reached the age of forty could consider himself fortunate indeed.

  As Blackstone walked down Burr Street that late evening, he was aware of all the eyes which followed his progress. Eyes from behind tattered curtains, eyes from
deep in dark alleys. Eyes in front and eyes behind. Maybe a dozen pairs of them in total—and all of them hostile.

  Perhaps he should have put on a fiendishly clever disguise, he mused fancifully. Sherlock Holmes, whom his creator Conan Doyle described as being as tall and thin as Blackstone was himself, certainly would have worn one. Holmes, in this situation, would have contrived to appear a much shorter man, possibly with a hair-lip and crossed eyes.

  And he’d have looked such a sitting duck that he’d not have got more than a hundred yards without having his wallet removed and his throat cut! Blackstone thought.

  So it was better from his point of view—far better—that the watching eyes knew exactly whom they were looking at. They wouldn’t see him as a soft target, and the only people likely to attack him were any of the three or four dozen criminals in London who felt they had a compelling reason to kill him.

  He chuckled again at the thought of Sherlock Holmes in disguise. He enjoyed the Holmes stories himself. More than enjoyed them—he had learned a great deal about deductive reasoning from reading them. Conan Doyle was, in his opinion, a great writer, and would probably have made a pretty fair detective himself.

  It was only when that same writer described London and the people who inhabited it that he moved on to much shakier ground. The city was a far more complex place than Doyle made it seem. There were an infinite number of divisions and boundaries which were never shown on any map. Simply crossing from one street to the next could take the traveller into another world—one which was governed by an entirely different set of rules to those operating in the apparently identical street he had just left.

  In a way, Blackstone supposed, Conan Doyle was forced into such simplifications by the very nature of his work. The diversity of the capital city could not be encompassed in a single short story, or even in a very long novel. Still, in some ways the stories contained the essential truth, for though no one criminal had the power of Conan Doyle’s Professor Moriarty—the Napoleon of Crime—there were plenty of lesser ‘Napoleons’ running their operations in the darker parts of the metropolis. Indeed, the main point of this expedition into the docklands was to contact one of these minor dictators.