***
General Harcourt was sitting behind a battered oak desk, smoking a cigar and looking aghast at the new arrivals.
‘What’s the meaning of this, Walsh?’ he barked. ‘Don’t you realize how dangerous it is to bring this man here?’
Walsh shrugged apologetically. ‘I had no choice, General. He tried to arrest me.’
‘So why didn’t you just kill him?’
‘Because if he knew enough to arrest me, there’s no telling what else he knows. I thought you might welcome the chance to discover just how much of a danger he is to the operation.’
Somewhat pacified, Harcourt nodded. ‘You’re quite right,’ he agreed. ‘Whatever the risk, we must know what the enemy is thinking.’ He reached into his desk drawer, pulled out a revolver and pointed it at Blackstone’s chest. ‘Holster your weapon and search the prisoner, Brown.’
Brown ran his hands expertly up and down Blackstone’s body. ‘He’s clean,’ he pronounced.
Harcourt nodded again. ‘Good. Now tell us what you know, Inspector.’
‘If you think I’m going to say anything to help murderous scum like you, you’re mistaken,’ Blackstone said.
The General flushed angrily. ‘If you were still in the Army, I could have you flogged for speaking to me like that!’
But I’m not in the Army,’ Blackstone countered. ‘And thank God for that. I wouldn’t want to serve in any army which had men like you in charge.’
A sudden look of understanding appeared on the General’s face and his anger drained away.
‘I see what you’re doing,’ he said. ‘You want to provoke me into killing you now, because you feel—quite rightly—that a quick death would be preferable to what fate actually has in store for you. Well, that is not going to happen, Inspector. First, you tell us what you know, then we kill you.’
‘Doesn’t it turn your stomach working for trash like this?’ Blackstone asked Walsh.
The slap Walsh delivered in response was so hard that it almost knocked Blackstone off his feet.
‘Don’t you dare refer to a great patriot in such a way!’ the Major screamed. ‘Don’t you dare!’
The General laughed. ‘I appreciate your loyalty, Major, but it isn’t necessary. We will not play the Inspector’s games. Rather we will let him see how he feels after he’s played ours for a while.’ He turned to Brown. ‘I think it’s time we all went down to the cellar.’
***
The steps which led down to the cellar were slippery from the dampness which seeped in through the walls. The air was filled with the dank stink of the Thames and of the sewers which fed into it. At the foot of the steps was a solid iron door, which would have daunted even the sappers of the Royal Engineers.
‘The cellar is quite sound-proofed from above,’ Harcourt told Blackstone. ‘No one will hear you when you scream.’
He knocked on the door. The spy-hole opened first, then there was the sound of heavy bolts been drawn back. The door swung open.
‘Inside,’ the General ordered Blackstone. ‘And you, Brown, can return to your post.’
The cellar was a square room, lit by three oil lamps which filled the atmosphere with eye-stinging fumes. There was a table and chairs at one end of it, and three camp beds at the other. Four soldiers—big, battle-hardened men—stood looking expectantly at the General.
‘I’ve brought you something to keep you amused,’ Harcourt said. ‘You still have your tools, don’t you, Scarlet?’
The man he’d called Scarlet grinned, revealing that his mouth was missing several teeth. ‘They’re in the canvas bag on the table, sir.’
‘Excellent.’
Walsh had been looking desperately around the room. Now he said, ‘Where’s the prince?’
‘The what?’ Harcourt asked.
‘The…the little nigger,’ Walsh corrected himself. ‘I don’t see him.’
‘Then you haven’t been looking hard enough, have you?’ Harcourt asked. ‘He’s in there.’
He pointed his thumb in the direction of the far wall, at a low arched recess which might once have been a fireplace or perhaps the start of a now-defunct tunnel. Now he knew where to look, Walsh could see what appeared to be a bundle of rags heaped in it.
‘He’s not…dead…is he?’ the Major asked.
‘No, not yet,’ Harcourt replied. ‘We just keep him there so he won’t contaminate the rest of us.’ Up until that moment his pistol had pointed squarely at Blackstone, but now he took a step backwards and aimed it at Walsh. ‘I think I’m going to have to relieve you of your weapon, Major,’ he said. ‘Pull it out slowly, with your left hand, and hold it out so that Orange can take it off you.’
‘Is this some kind of joke, sir?’ Walsh asked.
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘But what have I done? Why are you deliberately humiliating me in front of the men?’
‘I have no choice,’ Harcourt replied regretfully. ‘I don’t know why you’re acting so strangely, but I do know that I can’t afford to trust you anymore.’
‘You’re making a mistake,’ Walsh protested.
‘Perhaps I am,’ the General agreed. ‘And if I am, you will be entitled to a full apology in the course of time. In the meantime, Major, I would be happier if Orange took your pistol.’
‘As you wish,’ Walsh said.
He removed the weapon as he’d been instructed, and held it out to the soldier Harcourt had called Orange. Orange took the weapon, and, at a nod from the General, placed it on the table.
Harcourt holstered his own pistol. ‘Now we can begin,’ he said. He walked over to the table himself, and sat at its head with Walsh’s gun in front of him. ‘Now where should Inspector Blackstone sit?’ he mused. ‘I think, perhaps, at other end of the table might be most appropriate. That way, I can assess his reaction to Scarlet’s questions.’ He gestured to Blackstone. ‘So if you wouldn’t mind, Inspector…?’
Blackstone crossed the room and sat in the chair. A sudden change had come over the General, he noted. Harcourt had started to sweat, and his lower lip was beginning to wobble. Some men got into this state at the prospect of sex, but in his case it was the thought of inflicting pain which had driven him into what was almost a trance.
‘You may begin, Scarlet,’ the General said, with a slight quiver of anticipation in his voice.
Orange and the other two soldiers were standing well back, but keeping a close watch on both Blackstone and Walsh. Scarlet stepped up to the table, opened his canvas bag and took out a coil of thin copper wire.
For tying the hands together, Blackstone thought. No more effective than cord or rope would have been—but one hell of a lot more painful.
Scarlet reached into the bag again, and produced a pair of pliers. He held them up to make sure Blackstone got a good look at them.
‘Sergeant Brown is the acknowledged master of extracting information,’ Harcourt said, ‘but Private Scarlet has been a most promising apprentice.’
Scarlet grinned at the compliment, put down the pliers and picked up the copper wire.
In another few seconds the wire would be wrapped around his wrist and starting to cut its way through to the bone, Blackstone thought. If there was ever a time to make his move, that time was now.
Forty-Two
Under any circumstances, the odds would not have been good, Blackstone thought—but this was just about as bad as it could have been. Harcourt had a pistol sitting just inches in front of him on the table, and could call on the support of four hardened street fighters. And what did he have? One secret weapon—and the element of surprise! No punter in the world would have risked backing him.
Scarlet picked up the copper wire, but made no move to use it. Harcourt had been right about him—he was very good at his job. He knew, as all good torturers did, that there was more to his work than merely inflicting physical pain—that sometimes the anticipation of pain could break a man more quickly than any bodily hurt.
‘Ther
e’s…there’s no need for this,’ Blackstone gasped.
Harcourt smiled. ‘Isn’t there?’
‘No need at all. I’ll tell you everything you want to know.’
‘So you’re not quite as tough as you like to pretend, are you?’
Blackstone licked his lips. ‘You don’t know what it’s like. Nobody can until they’re sitting where I am.’
‘The problem is, you still think there’s an easy way out,’ Harcourt explained. ‘And as long as you think that, you’ll hold something back from us.’
‘I won’t,’ Blackstone promised. ‘Believe me—please!’
Nothing he could have said would have given Harcourt more satisfaction, and as a man will when he is approaching orgasm, he began to drop his guard.
The General turned to face his henchmen. ‘Pathetic, isn’t it?’ he asked.
He was not the only one to be infected by complacency. Scarlet had allowed himself to get close to his prisoner—far too close. Blackstone lashed out with his right leg, aiming for Scarlet’s knee and feeling a satisfactory crunch as the heel of his boot made contact with it.
Scarlet screamed as his leg began to buckle beneath him. Then he was gone—rolling around in agony on the floor.
Harcourt made a grab for the pistol. He had a clean line of fire, and should have used it. But he didn’t. He caught a sudden movement in the corner of his eye, and turned just in time to see one of his men double over as Walsh sank his Khyber knife into the soldier’s stomach.
The General was distracted for no more than a second, but that was all the time Blackstone needed. Springing from his chair, the Inspector picked up the pliers and smashed them into Harcourt’s face with all the force he could muster.
Harcourt’s head whipped back. His mouth filled with blood, and his windpipe sucked in broken teeth. He dropped the gun on to the table, and made a frantic grab for his own throat.
Blackstone reached for the pistol. He almost made it. Then he felt a great weight slam into him, and he was falling forward. He crashed into the table. It groaned and splintered, and then collapsed. Blackstone—and the man on his back—hit the floor with a heavy thud.
The fall drove the wind out of Blackstone’s lungs, but there was no time for recovery—no time even to register the pain—before Orange had rolled him over, straddled his chest, and was attempting to choke the life out of him.
The soldier had powerful hands and a lust to destroy. As he squeezed ever harder, dark spots started to appear before Blackstone’s eyes.
The longer he allowed this to continue, some small still-functioning corner of the Inspector’s brain told him, the weaker he would become. He could already feel his strength ebbing away. Unconsciousness could not be too distant. With his right hand, he groped on the floor and felt his fingers make contact with the pliers.
A little more coughing—a little more gasping for air—and Blackstone had the pliers firmly in his hand. But he couldn’t use them as he had used them on Harcourt—not from this position. It wouldn’t work. It…simply…wouldn’t work.
The dark spots were coming thicker and faster now, and there were whole moments when Orange’s face was no more than a black circle. The Inspector raised his arm a little, and felt a thousand red-hot needles bite their way into it.
How much easier it would be to submit, he thought. To just lie there and allow death to come all the quicker.
He had the pliers open. He aimed them at where he hoped Orange’s nose was, and when he closed them again, he felt them clamp on to something solid.
That was good. Very good. If he could only summon up one last reserve of strength…
He twisted the pliers. Orange’s scream was loud enough to shatter his eardrums, yet even so, he could still hear the sound of bone groaning and then splintering. Orange’s hands went slack. Blackstone gave the pliers a couple of extra twists for good measure, and then pushed the soldier off him.
Orange rolled around the floor, moaning and holding his hands up to protect what little there was left to protect. Harcourt was slumped in his chair, a small waterfall of blood gently trickling down his chin. Scarlet was attempting to rise to his feet, but when the full force of Blackstone’s boot struck him squarely in the face, he soon lost interest in any further movement.
Blackstone whirled round to face any fresh enemies—but there were none. Walsh’s Khyber knife had done its work, and the other two soldiers lay sprawled on the floor.
The Major himself was bending over the alcove, pulling clear the bundle of rags, and cradling it in his arms.
‘Balachandra,’ he cooed softly. ‘Balachandra, my sweet boy. Are you all right?’
Across the room, the second of the soldiers whom Walsh had stabbed stirred slightly. He was dying, and he knew it. But he was not dead yet, and before he fell into final oblivion he had one last chance to do his duty. Walsh’s pistol was lying on the floor. If he could just reach it…
Slowly and agonizingly, he forced his hand to crawl towards it.
Blackstone noticed none of the dying soldier’s movement. His mind was elsewhere. He knew now why Walsh drank so much! He understood that there had been other motives—aside from the desire to finance a secret service—which had drawn him into the plot! He could see why Walsh had cast aside all his previous loyalties as if they meant nothing to him!
‘Speak to me, Balachandra,’ Walsh pleaded. ‘Say something! Anything!’
‘Wal-ish,’ the boy said softly and plaintively. ‘Wal-ish.’
‘Oh, thank God,’ the Major gasped, hugging him tightly. The dying soldier had the gun in his hand. Though it hurt him more than he could ever have imagined, he wrapped his finger around the trigger, aimed and fired.
The explosion reverberated around the room like the roar of an angry god. Blackstone swung around to meet this new danger. But there was no danger any longer—the soldier had given his all to this final act of destruction, and now his throat was filled with the sound of a death rattle.
Walsh stood stiffly for a moment, then gently lowered the boy to the ground. That done, he collapsed in a heap beside him.
Blackstone knelt down beside the fallen Major. ‘How bad as it?’
‘I’m finished,’ Walsh croaked. ‘But that doesn’t matter as long as the prince is safe.’
‘As long as your son is safe, you mean,’ Blackstone corrected him.
‘My mission was to find a wife for the Maharaja,’ Walsh said. ‘I never intended to fall in love with her, nor she with me. When we learned she was pregnant, I wanted us to run away, but she wouldn’t. She said it was her duty to stay and…’A cough racked the Major’s body, and he spat blood. ‘She died,’ he gasped. ‘Died giving birth to my child. He was all I had left of her.’
‘And you hoped that when this was all over, you could finally have him with you.’
‘Who has first call on our devotion?’ Walsh asked. ‘Our country? Or our flesh and blood? I have done many foolish things in my time, but in this, at least, I made the right choice. Whatever they may say later of me, I know I made the right choice.’
‘Rest now,’ Blackstone urged.
But he was talking to a dead man.
Forty-Three
Blackstone sat on one side of the Metropolitan Commissioner of Police’s desk, the Commissioner himself and Sir Horace Fullerton-Smythe of the India Office on the other.
‘You are here because Her Majesty’s Government, in gratitude for what you have done, has decided to explain to you the probable consequences of your own actions and the actions of others which may follow them,’ Fullerton-Smythe said to Blackstone. ‘But the privilege of hearing the truth does not carry with it the right to impart that same truth to anyone else, once you have left this office. Do you understand what I’m saying?’
Of course I understand, Blackstone thought. I’m not here because of any service I’ve done the state—I’m here because the best way to silence a man about one conspiracy is to draw him into another one.
‘I asked you if you understood,’ Fullerton-Smythe said sharply.
‘Yes, sir. I get the picture.’
‘Very well, then, let us begin. The story which the newspapers will carry is as follows: there was a revolt in Chandrapore, which was led by Prince Nagesh. The Maharaja, as a loyal subject of the British crown, asked our forces to intervene. In the course of the fighting which followed, Prince Nagesh was killed.’
‘Was he?’ Blackstone asked.
‘He may well have been. If not, that will most certainly be the case by the time the fighting is over.’
‘So the Maharaja’s back in favour?’
‘He was never out of favour as far as Her Majesty’s Government was concerned. He may have been a little awkward at times—most of these nigger princes are—but we always knew that we could control him. Now, of course, we are doubly sure of that. There is no question but that he owes his throne to us. And he knows that without our help, his son and heir would undoubtedly be dead.’
‘So you think he’ll behave himself from now on?’
‘Undoubtedly. Especially since his son will stay in England in order to continue his education. Our plan is to enrol him in a good private school as soon as possible. From there he will attend Eton, and, in course of time, no doubt will train at the Sandhurst Military Academy.’
‘Is that the Maharaja’s wish? Or just the British government’s?’
‘I would not say that the Maharaja is wholly enthusiastic about the scheme, but he certainly sees the necessity of it.’
So the boy would remain a hostage, Blackstone thought, though his captor would now be the British government instead of a group of rogue army officers. Still, if Walsh had knowledge of what went on from beyond the grave, he would no doubt be delighted that his son was to be brought up as an English gentleman.
‘Will I be responsible for collecting the additional evidence necessary for the trial of General Harcourt and his men?’ he asked.
Blackstone and the Great Game (The Blackstone Detective Series Book 2) Page 22