‘I hoped the same,’ Pound told him and turned to me. ‘What is your business with this man?’
‘Is that Eric with a U?’ Horwich picked up his pen.
‘Prince Ulrich attempted to force himself upon me.’ I indicated the prince with a tip of my head and in an instant Inspector Pound’s cool blue eyes took on a glow.
‘And what have you to say to that?’ he asked the prince sharply.
‘I am a member of His Imperial Majesty Kaiser Wilhelm’s delegation here on diplomatic business,’ Prince Ulrich responded contemptuously. ‘I do not answer to you.’
Pound’s eyes flared. ‘I am an officer of the law of this land and no man is exempt from it.’
‘However,’ Ulrich met his glare insolently, ‘since you are clearly acquainted with this peculiar woman, you might ask her to remove her pistol from my person.’
I had almost forgotten that the revolver was still poking into the side of my captive’s chest and unhooked my arm from the prince’s to bring out the gun.
‘Blow me,’ the man said and, snatching his dog’s lead from Constable Perkins’s grasp, scarpered on to the street. The fish-wife had beaten him to it.
‘Not your usual style.’ Pound raised his eyebrows as he eyed my weapon. ‘I would be grateful if you could point it at the floor.’
I did so and the inspector took my weapon by the barrel, carefully lowering the hammer and passing it to the sergeant. ‘Put that in the safe.’
‘It is not loaded anyway,’ I assured him.
The prince laughed. He had strong white teeth and was, in an instant, altogether less forbidding.
Inspector Pound greeted my announcement with something close to despair. ‘Keep this man here but do not arrest him,’ he instructed Horwich. ‘I will take a statement from Miss Middleton in my office.’
I followed him down the corridor. ‘I was not expecting to see you here,’ I told his broad back.
‘They are very short with injuries and a resignation,’ he told me gruffly over his shoulder, and I pondered on the irony of that, for it would have been much easier to have taken my prisoner to the Limehouse Station had I not been trying to avoid this meeting.
I had first entered that room the day after I came to London, when Sidney Grice had questioned William Ashby for the stabbing to death of his wife, Sarah. Inspector Pound had a contempt for paperwork which was to earn him more than a few reprimands from his superiors over the years and the room had been in chaos, but whoever had used it in George’s absence had been exemplary in his tidiness for there was not a document on the floor, not a chair piled high with files.
‘Take a seat,’ he instructed rather than offered and I sat on the edge, my bustle against the back spindles, whilst he perched on the corner of his desk.
‘So what is this about?’ His tone remained official.
‘I am sure you remember Geraldine Hockaday,’ I began.
‘I am unlikely to forget that case,’ he replied grimly. ‘Schlangezahn got off without charge and the German ambassador demanded that I was dismissed. If he had not been so high-handed and got the Home Secretary’s back up, I would have been looking for another job.’
George Pound rebuttoned his collar.
‘Well, you have two witnesses who will not be intimidated this time,’ I assured him.
‘Two?’ He straightened his tie.
‘Peter Hockaday was there with me.’
‘Her brother?’ he clarified in surprise, brushing some dust off his knee.
‘He pretended to be a procurer.’
Pound’s eyes narrowed and I knew that look. ‘This sounds dangerously like entrapment.’ His hands rose and for a moment I imagined they might cup my face but he only tugged his coat sleeves down over his wrists.
‘He approached Peter.’
‘In front of witnesses?’
‘None that would come forward,’ I admitted. ‘It was in the lounge bar of the Waldringham Hotel.’
Inspector Pound exhaled heavily through his nostrils. ‘What does Mr Grice think of all this?’ He tapped his right heel three times against the desk. ‘And why is he not here?’
I swallowed. ‘I have not told him yet.’
Pound blew out through his lips and I could not help but remember how they used to mould to mine. He rocked forward on to his feet.
‘When I came into the lobby there was an angry mob baying for Schlangezahn’s blood, with a ferocious black hound straining to savage him,’ he decided. ‘I shall detain Prince Ulrich here for his own protection and to maintain public order. You will go home and return immediately with Mr Grice, and we will see what we can sort out of this mess.’ He opened the top drawer of his desk and brought out a full whisky bottle. ‘Perhaps he will be a bit more conversational over a drink.’ He rooted about for two almost clean glasses.
‘I doubt it,’ I said.
‘So do I.’ Inspector Pound huffed. ‘Go.’
33
The Nightwatchman and Identical Twins
THE NIGHT WATCHMAN was hurrying down steps to knock on basement doors as I returned to Gower Street. In poorer areas he would have tapped with a bamboo pole on upper windows, but in this part of Bloomsbury it was the servants who were roused, not the householders. The latter could have an extra hour or so in bed while their water was heated and breakfasts prepared. My guardian would not pay the penny a day for this service. He expected our maid to wake herself without the benefit of this or the expense of an alarm clock. After all, he always woke up at exactly whatever time he had decided upon.
Molly did not look like she had been up long when I tapped on the door and she was in the process of pinning on her hat when she answered my call.
‘Yes?’ She peered blearily though the gap.
‘It’s me, Molly.’
‘But you’re in bed,’ she objected.
‘As you can see, I am not.’ It was starting to rain.
Molly wrinkled her nose. ‘How do I know you ain’t not your own identifical twin like Gasper Square in The Shade of Merry Murray?’
‘Squire Jasper,’ I corrected, as if the name mattered. I had long given up trying to convince her that I had invented the story for amusement. ‘If you think I am not me, go and see if I am in my room.’
Molly considered my suggestion.
‘All right, I shall abmit you.’ The idea of running back upstairs cannot have been attractive to her. ‘But, if you aintn’t not you, you’ll be fearious when you find out.’ She took the chain off. ‘And you dontn’t not want to get on the wrong side of you, I can tell you, miss – if you are you.’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake.’ I rammed my cloak into her arms and marched into the study.
‘He’s out,’ Molly called after me. ‘Infestigating why Nelsong’s Columns aintn’t not been stolled.’
I went upstairs to tidy myself up. It had been a long night and the effects of the opium had still not worn off. I sat on my bed and the next thing I knew, there was a face pressed against mine and Molly was saying, ‘If you aintn’t not the other one, he wants to see you immediantley and that means without not no delay.’
I got up, straightened my clothes as best I could, and trudged down after her.
Sidney Grice sat at his desk perusing his copy of Jacob Cromwell’s Secreta Botanica, the infamous book of poisons, which was one of his greatest treasures. There were only four copies known to be in existence.
‘Explain,’ he said without looking up.
‘How much do you know?’
He turned a page with an exquisite float of the fingers. ‘You do not imagine you can go in and out of people’s lodgings without such visits being drawn to my attention – especially those of Lieutenant and Miss Hockaday?’
‘Gerry has spoken?’
My guardian scribbled a note on a sheet of white paper and suddenly I felt like the little girl I had been, on one of the very few occasions her father had scolded her.
‘Dawson has nineteen faults of which I am a
ware.’ He leafed back. ‘One of which is his loyalty.’
“Is that a fault?’
‘To me, no: to you, no: to you in preference to me, yes.’ He ran his white-gloved finger lightly under a line and whispered helleborus niger, as if it were sacred.
‘I knew that you use street urchins to supply information but I did not imagine that you employed them to spy upon me,’ I said indignantly.
‘And yet . . .’ Sidney Grice looked up. He had a black patch on, but his good eye seemed to drill into me. ‘You have such an invigorated imagination as a rule.’ He placed his pencil parallel to his blotter. ‘Explain.’
‘Peter was set upon killing Prince Ulrich, but I persuaded him that it would be better to bring him to justice.’
Mr G took off his pince-nez and polished both lenses, though only the left was of any use to him. ‘Continue.’
‘We decided between us that the best way was to catch him in the act.’
‘And so you used yourself as bait?’
‘Yes.’ I looked down.
‘It seemed to you that the best way to apprehend a criminal was to trick him into committing another crime?’ He clipped his eyeglasses back on to his long thin nose.
‘Put like that . . .’
‘Put like that, does it seem foolish?’ My godfather slapped his desktop. ‘I devoutly hope it does, because it was. It was also reckless and immoral.’ He raised his hand to forestall my defence. ‘Where is he now? And, if I were a praying man, I would be petitioning God for you to tell me truthfully that he is not in Marylebone Police Station.’
‘You prayers would not be answered,’ I admitted. ‘I left him with Inspector Pound.’
Sidney Grice clicked his tongue meditatively. ‘And was he delighted with your actions and the position in which you have placed him?’
‘He was not,’ I conceded. ‘In fact he asked me to fetch you at once.’
‘Am I a rubber ball or a stick that I should be fetched?’ my godfather asked indignantly. ‘Do not answer for it should he obvious, even to one as mutton-headed as you, that I am not. Give.’ He upturned his palm.
‘What?’
‘Give,’ he repeated firmly, and I took an oval ivory box out of my secret pocket and placed it in his beckoning hand.
There had been three cubes left and it seemed a shame to waste them.
‘I only—’ I began, but we both knew I had not only done anything.
‘Proceed instantly into the hall.’ Although we were the same height, my guardian somehow managed to tower over me. ‘If that is not too challenging for your so-called intellect. Tell Molly to stop eavesdropping and to prepare my Grice Patent Insulated Flask of tea. Run the flag up and await me there. I shall join you in one minute and forty seconds when Mr Cromwell has revealed what he proposes as an antidote.’
The doorbell rang and I heard Molly clatter the short distance to the front door. There was a faint buzz of voices and she clumped into the room.
‘You know that man?’ she announced. ‘It’s him.’
‘Tell Dawson I shall be with him in one minute and thirty-two seconds,’ her employer commanded and returned to his book.
‘Leave this to me, Molly,’ I said and went out into the hall. Gerry stood on the doorstep in the rain and he did not look happy.
‘Where’s the guv’ner?’ he asked urgently. ‘That pal of yours is nowhere to be seen.’
34
The Mexican Tailor
SIDNEY GRICE WAS in the hall before Gerry had finished speaking.
‘Flask,’ he barked at Molly.
‘I’ve only got two pairs of hands,’ she grumbled, thundering into the basement.
‘Cloak,’ he snapped at me. ‘Where did you leave him?’ he rapped at Gerry.
‘The old biscuit warehouse on the corner of Grady Street . . .’
‘And Durrent Road.’ Mr G whipped his Ulster coat off the stand. ‘You left him there alone?’
‘Not much choice,’ Gerry protested. ‘I told him to hide and went back soon as I could. Been up and down Limehouse all night, I have.’
My guardian donned his hat. ‘Was he armed?’
‘No,’ I confessed and put on mine.
He pulled on his gloves and selected a cane, which I recognized as one of his sword sticks by the curved gouge along the shaft, caused by his fight with the Mexican tailor in The Mystery of the Unsmoked Bloater.
Molly came galloping back with her employer’s bottle of tea.
‘Marylebone Police Station,’ he instructed Gerry.
‘But we must go to Limehouse,’ I protested.
‘Is there something that fascinates you about that area?’ He pushed the cork in more firmly. ‘Or do you hope to relive your escapade?’
‘But that is where Peter is.’
‘It is where you left him.’ He rammed the flask into his satchel. ‘But, if you were listening, you would know that your accomplice has quit his post – whether voluntarily or under duress remains to be established.’
‘But we must go to look for him,’ I protested.
‘Do you know the area better than Dawson?’ Mr G demanded. ‘Even assuming your accomplice is still there, the courts and alleyways would have to be drastically simplified before they could begin to be classified as a maze, and you cannot buy information there, not even for money.’
I knew that my godfather was right and that we could trawl Limehouse for a month and achieve nothing, but I could not help feeling we should be more actively searching.
35
The Sword of Honours
INSPECTOR POUND LOOKED even more harassed than when I had left him.
‘Take a look at those.’ He thrust a fistful of telegrams at my guardian.
‘Good morning, Inspector,’ Sidney Grice greeted him and skimmed the contents.
‘Congratulations, Miss Middleton,’ Pound snarled. ‘I am currently being vilified by Sir William Vernon Harcourt, the Home Secretary, for causing an international incident. You are aware – are you not? – that this man is related to Her Majesty the Queen.’
‘Does the German Embassy know that Prince Ulrich is here?’ Mr G asked.
‘Of course.’ The inspector grimaced. ‘The envoy has just left and only to fetch the ambassador in person.’
‘Has he spoken yet?’ I enquired.
‘No, nor will he,’ Pound replied, ‘except to insult my men by telling them they are pigs and dogs.’
‘This came as a surprise to them?’ Sidney Grice clipped on his pince-nez to decipher a scrawled missive.
‘Where is he now?’ I asked hastily.
‘In an interview room.’ Pound bottled up his indignation at my guardian’s remark. ‘He’s so objectionable I’d have throttled him if I’d kept him in here, but it has been impressed upon me that it could be construed as an act of war if I locked him in a cell.’
‘He will be in one soon enough,’ I forecast.
‘Not on the evidence that you have produced, some might say manufactured.’ Mr G took off his pince-nez but continued reading.
‘However Prince Ulrich came to be at the opium den—’ I began.
‘Opium? Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ Pound protested.
‘He tried to assault me,’ I persisted. ‘At least he cannot deny that fact.’
‘It is a popular – and therefore fallacious – belief that facts speak for themselves.’ My guardian let the papers float one by one, some on to the desk but most on to the floor. ‘If they did, I would not be obliged to spend many of my conscious hours speaking on their behalf. That you have caught His Highness in a trap is almost indisputable, but there are two obvious escape routes. The first I have already alluded to. He can simply deny everything and then it is just your word against his – especially as your one witness has yet to re-emerge.’
‘Do you think he will?’ I asked worriedly.
‘Of course he shall,’ my godfather reassured me. ‘One way or another.’
‘You do not think he is—
’ I cried.
‘I have no reason to believe that Hockaday is dead,’ my godfather hastened to reassure me, ‘or alive.’
I stepped back.
‘I will send a man to look for him,’ Pound promised.
‘One man?’ I threw up my hands.
‘Which is one more than I can spare,’ the inspector told me stiffly, and I lowered my arms for I knew the force was over-stretched, with officers being seconded to Limehouse and the search for the Soft-Hearted Strangler, who had struck again in Soho. ‘And I am tied up at present with a very angry German, and running out of reasons to hold him.’
‘Well, I am not afraid to be cross-examined in court.’
‘Then allow me to be afraid for you.’ Mr G speared a ball of paper. ‘I have a deserved reputation for truthfulness, but you are a girl and what judge in his right mind would take your word against that of a Prussian officer, gentleman and aristocrat?’
‘First, I am a woman.’ I banged my fist on the wall and wished I had not. ‘And, second, my word is as good as any man’s any day.’
Mr G looked at me pityingly. ‘Shall I give examples of your deceitful behaviour since you lumbered so gracelessly into my home? Shall I mention your clumsy untruths regarding your inhalation of tobacco-leaf smoke, your ingestion of ethyl alcohol, the company you keep? Shall—’
‘What is the other way?’ Pound broke in.
‘Simply denying the facts gives me the opportunity of proving them and, if Prince Ulrich knows anything about me, which he does, he will know that it is my job to prove facts and there is none better at it than I.’ He folded the last telegram five times. ‘The second route is more elegant and almost unanswerable, and therefore he will take it.’ He tossed the paper over his shoulder without troubling to flatten it for inspection.
I looked towards the inspector for clarification but there was none forthcoming.
‘And that is?’ I enquired.
‘He has an excuse.’
‘What possible excuse could there be?’ I railed at the very idea.
Mr G raised his left eyebrow. ‘Why do we not ask the man himself?’
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