‘It’s not as if you’ve got anything to hide, is it?’ the Inspector had asked.
And what choice had there been but to agree with that?
The Colonel noticed that his breathing was becoming a little irregular. There was no need to panic, he told himself. It didn’t really matter where the policemen had gone. They wouldn’t find anything—because there was nothing to find.
Twenty
It had been a long time since Aggarwal had needed to look where he was going. In Chandrapore, whenever he travelled on foot—and that was rarely—he did so with an escort of his master’s guards, and the common herd quickly divided so that he might pass unhindered.
But this was Tooley Street, not Chandrapore. He was unknown here, and was treated accordingly. Thus he was forced to dodge the long pole from which the beer-boy hung his cans. Thus the wharfingers—who, for all their air of self-importance, were no more than minor clerks—pushed past him in their haste to reach ships which were waiting to sail. Thus even the lowly bill-stickers cursed him as he almost kicked over their buckets of paste. It was all a great humiliation for him to endure. But there had been many humiliations as he had climbed the ladders of life, and he knew from experience that, once he reached the top of any particular ladder, it was easy enough to push to the back of his mind what he had had to do during the ascent.
He had reached the end of Tooley Street and was at the entrance to Battle Bridge Stairs. Though he was only a dozen yards away from the bustling commercial thoroughfare, the atmosphere was now completely different. Back there, men had hurried from place to place. Here they lounged around, leaning against walls and chewing at toothpicks. On Tooley Street, there been a smattering of men dressed in top hats and frock coats, while here flat caps and mufflers were the norm.
He had reached the head of the Stairs. Below him, he could see half a dozen watermen. Two of them sat in their boats; the rest were squatting down on the quay, playing cards. He wondered if he should go down the steps or stay where he was. What, exactly, had the kidnappers meant when they said he should be at Battle Bridge Stairs?
He decided to go down to the quay, and gingerly placed one of his feet on slippery stone steps.
‘Look ‘oo’s comin’,’ one of the watermen called out. ‘A monkey wearin’ a whistle.’
It had been a mistake to wear a suit, especially one of the Maharaja’s good cast-offs, Aggarwal now realized. If he had bought some old clothes, the watermen might have taken him for a Lascar sailor, and not given him a second glance. And suddenly he found himself yearning for the same anonymity that he had so despised only moments earlier.
When he reached the jetty, one of the watermen—a giant of a man who seemed full of menace—stepped in front of him and said, ‘Want a ride in my boat, Sambo?’
Aggarwal’s throat was so dry that he could not speak, even though he wanted to.
‘Well, do you want to go out on the river or not?’ the man demanded.
‘I…I…’
‘He’s my passenger, Jack!’ said a voice from halfway up the steps.
‘Like hell ‘e is,’ said the big waterman. ‘It’s first come, first served in this game, Lou Gammage. You wasn’t ‘ere when ‘e arrived, so you doesn’t get to row ‘im out anywhere.’
‘I don’t want ‘is money, ‘cos I’ve already been paid,’ the man called Lou said.
‘You must fink I was born yesterday,’ the other man replied, contemptuously.
Lou had now reached the bottom of the steps. ‘Why don’t you pay my mate Jack ‘ere for the journey, but let me be the one that rows you out?’ he suggested to the secretary. ‘Fair enough, Jack?’
‘Fair enough, if you’re happy wiv that,’ the other waterman agreed. But if you ask me, you want your bumps feelin’.’
‘Give ‘im a guinea,’ Lou said to the secretary.
‘A guinea?’ Aggarwal repeated, finally finding his voice. ‘But a guinea is a great deal of money.’
‘You can afford it,’ Lou said. ‘Besides, it ain’t really you what’s payin’, is it?’
Perhaps he was one of the gang, Aggarwal thought, in which case it might be wisest to do as he said. The secretary reached into his pocket, extracted a guinea, and handed it over to Jack.
The giant waterman bit it to make sure it was genuine, then nodded that he was satisfied. With nothing more to impede them, Lou led the secretary down to his rowing boat.
‘Where are you taking me?’ Aggarwal asked nervously, as he climbed into the boat.
‘Not far,’ Lou said.
‘To the other side of the river?’
‘I told you, it’s not far.’
The waterman pulled powerfully on his oars, and the rowing boat cut through the water, leaving Battle Bridge Stairs behind it. The river was, as always, busier than any street in the very busy city. Cargo ships, moored midway between the two shores, were unloading their produce on to lighters. Steamers battled against the tide on their way upstream, and sailing ships floated downstream with it.
Aggarwal took little comfort from all the activity going on around him. His belief in Lou being a member of the gang had started to diminish. Now he was prepared to believe that the man was actually what he seemed—a genuine waterman—and he had read of cases in which watermen had drowned their passengers just to claim the police bounty for fishing them out of the river. Could that happen here? Would any of the people in these busy vessels even notice if an Indian in a good second-hand suit suddenly disappeared over the side of a rowing boat?
You must be calm, he told himself. If you are to turn this affair to your own advantage, you must remain calm at all times.
There was a long barge anchored in the middle of the river, and the waterman rowed straight to it.
‘This is as far as I go,’ he said.
The secretary was not sure he had heard correctly. ‘I beg your pardon?’ he said.
‘I pull up beside the barge, an’ you climb aboard,’ the waterman explained, talking slowly, as if to a small child. ‘But I don’t—’
‘See that flat bit at the back of the barge? Yer’ll find some steps there that will lead you down to the cabin.’
‘But who will I meet there, and how will I return to the shore?’ Aggarwal asked in a panic.
‘Beats me,’ the waterman said. ‘All I know is that when I was ‘ired to bring you out ‘ere, the bloke ‘oo was payin’ me made it quite plain that ‘e’d be very cross—cross enough to break a few of my bones—if I didn’t deliver you to the barge as promised.’
***
‘Good place to keep a tiger, well away from the main house,’ Blackstone said, looking at the walled orchard. ‘Well away from anything at all, as a matter of fact.’
Tebbitt, Colonel Howarth’s head groundsman, merely grunted. He was an old man with muscles as hard as knotted oak and skin the colour of worn leather. He had shown little enthusiasm when he had been introduced to the two detectives by the footman, and had not spoken a word as he had led them to the extreme corner of the estate, where the orchard was located.
The wall around the orchard was at least twelve feet high, Blackstone estimated. The only entrance was through a narrow door, which was secured by a large and heavy padlock.
As Tebbitt fiddled with the lock, the Inspector looked around him. There was no earthly reason why anybody should need to come near the old orchard, he thought, and even if they wanted to, all the notices which warned of danger would probably be enough to make them think again.
Having extracted the lock from the hasp, Tebbitt pushed open the heavy wooden door and the three men entered the old orchard. Half of the space was taken up by rotting fruit trees which had plainly been stricken by some kind of disease. The rest of the area was occupied by a large cage, at least forty feet square, which was made of thick wire.
‘This be where we kept ‘im,’ Tebbitt said, pointing to the cage.
‘Didn’t last long in there, did he?’ Blackstone asked.
‘Never thought him would,’ the old man said. ‘Can’t go bringing somethin’ here from some foreign land an’ expect it to flourish. Same with plants. Same with them darkies.’
‘What darkies?’ Blackstone asked.
‘Them that have started visitin’ the maister. Tha’ could tell just by lookin’ at ‘em that them was more used to heathen weather than them was to ours. Not warm enough for ‘em, tha’ sees. If them catch one little cold, them’ll be gone.’
‘When did these darkies start to appear?’ Blackstone asked casually.
‘Few days before the tiger come here,’ the groundsman replied. His eyes narrowed with suspicion. ‘Why am tha’ askin’?’
Blackstone chose not to answer the question. Instead, he said, ‘I think I’ll go for a walk around the tiger’s enclosure.’
‘Why should tha’ want to do that?’
‘Every man should experience what it’s like to be locked up once in a while,’ Blackstone said. He looked straight in Tebbitt’s watery eyes. ‘For some of us, it might be good practice for what’s to come later.’
‘Ma’s lost me,’ the old man said.
Blackstone studied him for a second. ‘Yes,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Yes, I probably have.’
Blackstone opened the door to the pen, and stepped inside. For a moment he just stood there, then he took a series of long strides from the gate to the far fence. Once he had completed this operation, he crossed the paddock again, this time diagonally.
‘What am he doin’?’ Tebbitt asked, sounding worried.
‘Perhaps he’s thinking of keeping a tiger himself,’ Patterson said. ‘Though after Colonel Howarth’s experience, it strikes me as a foolish move.’ He paused. ‘Was the Colonel upset when his tiger died?’
The expression on Tebbitt’s face told Patterson that the old man had no idea how to answer the question.
‘Well, was he upset?’ the detective prodded.
‘Not particularly.’
‘Of course, he must have been prepared for the worst,’ Patterson pressed on. ‘The vet would already have warned him what might happen.’
‘Didn’t have no vet.’
‘Really? That is strange, don’t you think?’
‘Vets cost money.’
And so do tigers, Patterson thought.
Blackstone, who was crossing the tiger enclosure again, suddenly appeared to lose his footing and fell sprawling on the ground. Patterson would have gone to help him, but the Inspector was soon on his feet, dusting himself down and putting his handkerchief—which Patterson had not even seen him remove—back in his pocket.
‘So what happened to the tiger when it died?’ the sergeant asked the groundsman.
‘I buried he,’ Tebbitt said. He pointed towards one of the decaying apple trees. Most of the ground around it was covered with patchy grass, but there was one large rectangle which had recently been dug over. ‘I buried he there.’
‘And how long after the tiger’s death did this burial actually take place? A few days?’
‘No, it were done straight away. I went to the maister an’ said, ‘The tiger’s dead,’ an’ him said, ‘Tha’s better get he buried then.’’
‘How many men did it take to do that?’
‘Nast tha’ got cloth ears? I told thee, I buried he myself.’
‘All by yourself?’
‘Just me.’
‘Wouldn’t it have been easier to get some of the other servants to help you with the job?’
‘Don’t know nothin’ bout that. Maister told me I mun bury he, an’ I buried he.’
Blackstone seemed to have completed his examination of the cage, and returned to where the other two men were standing.
‘Mr Tebbitt says he buried the tiger all by himself, sir,’ Patterson told his boss.
‘Then I’m sure he did,’ Blackstone replied airily. ‘We’ve just about done looking around here, Mr Tebbitt. Have you any idea how we might get back into Windsor?’
‘Maister told the coachman he am to take thee back into town when tha’s ready to go,’ Tebbitt said.
‘Then I suppose you’d better tell him we’re ready now.’
There was a clip clopping of horses’ hooves, and an open carriage appeared, travelling from the direction of the house.
‘He’m comin’ now,’ Tebbitt said, unnecessarily.
The Colonel was being most helpful, Patterson thought. It was almost as if he couldn’t wait to get them off his land.
Twenty-One
The waterman rowed rapidly away, leaving Aggarwal stranded on the barge in the middle of the Thames. For a moment the secretary considered hailing a passing boat and asking the oarsman to take him back to the shore.
But that would be both pointless and stupid, he told himself angrily. Because even if the kidnappers really were what they seemed to be, what would they gain by hurting him?
Three paths to the future lay open for him to tread. He could become the trusted servant of the Maharaja that he had always pretended to be. He could commit himself fully to the plot which had been hatched just before he left Chandrapore. Or he could throw in his lot with this new conspiracy. But before he could choose any of these options, he needed to know more about the third one—and he could see only one way to do that. Taking a deep breath, he tried the cabin door and found it unlocked. He pulled it open and began to descend the steps.
The portholes were covered with some kind of blackout material, and the few tiny diamonds of light which managed to permeate it only served to emphasize how dark the rest of the cabin was. The air was thick with the stink of oil, fish and sulphur, all overlaid with a smell of fear which—Aggarwal realized—was emanating from him.
He took each step carefully, first feeling it out with the toe of his shoe, and then gingerly testing it with his sole. It seemed to take an age until there were no more edges and he was standing firmly on the lower deck.
What should he do now?
He took a cautious step forward.
‘That’s far enough,’ said a voice, from within the black bowels of the cabin.
What was the speaker’s nationality? Aggarwal wondered. Was he Indian? Or English? He had not said enough yet to know for sure.
The secretary cleared his throat. ‘I am here on behalf of His Majesty—’ he began, in a squeaky tone.
‘We know who you are—and what you represent—Mr Aggarwal,’ the voice interrupted him.
English! Aggarwal decided. Or perhaps an Indian who had been educated in Britain.
‘His Majesty wishes—’ the secretary said.
‘I have no interest in what His Majesty wishes. And neither do you.’
‘I can assure you that—’
‘Why do you think we asked for you, rather than anyone else?’ the voice demanded.
‘I have no idea.’
‘Because you’re a nasty piece of work. Because you have the ambition of ten men and the ruthlessness of twenty.’
‘Because we can use you.’
‘Use me? How? What are you planning?’
‘That will become clear in the fullness of time,’ the voice said. ‘For the moment, it is enough that you fulfil the task we have assigned to you.’
‘What is that task?’
‘You are to convince the Maharaja that if he pays the ransom, his son will be safely returned to him.’
‘And is that true?’
‘Do you really care whether it is true or not—so long as you come out ahead of the game?’
‘Yes, of course I do.’
In the darkness, the other man sighed theatrically. ‘If you are to be a part of our venture, you must be honest with us,’ he said. ‘So I ask you again—do you care whether the boy is returned safely or not?’
‘No,’ Aggarwal admitted. ‘I do not care.’
‘Good,’ said the voice. ‘Then you will tell the Maharaja that the ransom will be one hundred thousand pounds.’
‘That is a lot of money,’ Aggarwal said.
<
br /> ‘It is a fortune,’ the voice corrected him. But it is a fortune which the Maharaja can lay his hands on if he is forced to.’
‘This is not a simple kidnapping, is it?’ Aggarwal asked. ‘It is part of a bigger game.’
‘I am glad you asked that question,’ the voice told him. ‘If you had not, you wouldn’t have been the man we took you for.’
‘You still have not answered the question.’
‘Yes, it is part of a bigger game. A much bigger game.’
‘Then I must be told the details of that game.’
‘No.’
‘If I am not told, then I will not help you.’
The other man laughed. It was a dry, humourless laugh, like the sound of fire ripping its way through parched brush.
‘You will help us, because you have no choice,’ he said. ‘Because refusal to do so would inevitably lead to your death.’
‘You would kill me?’
‘No, that would not be necessary. We would let the Maharaja know that you had tried to make a deal with us, and leave the rest up to him. He could devise a slower, more painful death for you than we could ever concoct ourselves.’
‘Let me understand this,’ Aggarwal said, doing all he could to keep his tone below that of a panicked scream. ‘If I make a deal with you, I will be safe. If I do not make a deal with you, you will tell the Maharaja that I did, and he will have me murdered.’
‘Very concisely put,’ the voice agreed. ‘I knew you were the right man for us.’
***
The businessmen having travelled down to the city earlier in the morning and the shopping wives planning their arrival to coincide with luncheon, the detectives had the carriage to themselves.
Patterson, who had rarely travelled in any coach other than 3rd Class, lounged back in his seat and savoured all the space. Then he sniffed. This might be a 1st Class carriage, he thought disappointedly, but in some ways it didn’t smell any different to travelling 3rd.
‘Have you learned anything of importance this morning, Sergeant?’ Blackstone asked.
Blackstone and the Great Game (The Blackstone Detective Series Book 2) Page 11