Carver's Quest

by Rennison, Nick

  From Serle Street he turned into Carey Street. Outside the door of a pub named the Seven Stars he stopped briefly, as if contemplating early morning refreshment. Instead, he crossed the road and walked into Bell Yard. There were few people about and Adam was no more than ten yards behind his quarry, but Jinkinson seemed still to be oblivious of his follower. Emerging onto Fleet Street opposite Middle Temple Lane, both pursued and pursuer were suddenly caught up in the bedlam of a London crowd as they turned towards Ludgate Hill. Traffic, funnelled through the bottleneck of Temple Bar, had come to a halt. Adam looked swiftly to his right where Wren’s stone edifice squatted in the middle of the highway. Pedestrians, squeezed under its side arches, jostled past one another. A light, perhaps a gas lamp, could be seen in the room above the central archway, which was an office of Child’s the bankers. He turned his attention once more to his quarry. Jinkinson had wasted no time in pushing his bulk through the crowds and Adam soon feared he would lose sight of him. He made his own way through the press of bodies, elbowing others out of the way before they elbowed him. As he walked on, the source of the chaos became clearer. There was another obstruction further up Fleet Street and the road had become a tangle of stalled vehicles. Omnibuses, cabs, horses and carts, waggons and drays had all come to a halt and their drivers, shouting and cursing, added their own contributions to the city’s unceasing roar. There was no clear way across the street. Over the heads of the jostling men and horses, Adam saw Jinkinson dodging into one of the innumerable alleyways that branched off Fleet Street. For the moment, he was unable to follow him.

  Eventually, Adam pulled himself free of the crowds and reached the spot where Jinkinson had disappeared. He was temporarily uncertain which way to go. Either side of a tobacconist’s shop, two narrow lanes ran in parallel. Which one had the man taken? Adam had little time to decide. He chose the right. The roar of the traffic was left almost instantly behind. He had gone no more than twenty yards down the alley when another obstruction appeared. A boy, barefoot and filthy, stood in his path. He held out a hand so black with dirt that mustard and cress could have been grown in it, and begged for ‘Just a ha’penny, sir.’ The boy’s clothing was astonishingly threadbare. He looked as if he had simply crawled naked through a pile of disintegrating rags and trusted to chance that some of them would attach themselves to his body. Only a handful had. Adam moved past him but the urchin followed, still calling for his halfpenny. Adam stopped and reached into his pocket for a coin. He held a penny in his hand so that the boy could see it.

  ‘Did a gentleman in yellow pass this way?’

  The boy grabbed for the penny. Adam moved his hand. The boy turned a grubby and sulky face up at him. Then he pointed to another, even narrower, alley, which branched off the first. Adam had not even noticed the entrance to this second alley.

  ‘He went dahn there,’ the boy said.

  ‘Thank you. The penny is yours.’

  The boy snatched it from Adam’s hand before he had finished speaking and ran off. Adam turned into the second passage and found, to his surprise, that it doubled back on itself. Within moments, he was once more on Fleet Street. What was Jinkinson doing? Adam’s first thought was that the enquiry agent had observed his follower and was attempting to shake him off but, as he looked up Fleet Street towards St Paul’s, he saw the man still ahead of him. Jinkinson was loitering outside a barber’s shop, standing beneath its red-and-white striped pole and peering intently into its window. Eventually he moved on and Adam was able to continue his pursuit. Passing the barber’s, Adam looked briefly into the window himself but he could see nothing more interesting than a sign which advertised shaves at a penny and haircuts at twopence.

  Jinkinson, twenty yards in front of him, suddenly dodged into the traffic that trundled towards Ludgate Hill. For a moment, Adam was seized by the mad thought that the man had decided to commit suicide by casting himself beneath the passing vehicles. However, it was almost immediately clear that Jinkinson was an experienced London pedestrian. The cries and shouts of enraged drivers drifted back to where Adam was standing, but Jinkinson, showing unexpected agility in one so fat, had glided through the traffic and had safely reached the other side of Fleet Street. Now, to the astonishment of his pursuer, he turned back towards the Strand and began to walk purposefully in that direction. Perplexed, Adam stood on the pavement opposite, jostled by the crowds and wondering what to do. He decided that he had little choice but to follow Jinkinson’s example and cross through the traffic. Slipping between two cabs that had been forced to a halt, he evaded a cart piled high with baskets of fruit heading in the other direction and gained the far side. Jinkinson was still in sight but marching briskly into the distance. Within a couple of minutes, both the enquiry agent and his pursuer were past Middle Temple Lane and heading towards Westminster.

  Jinkinson was now in a hurry. He increased his pace as he made his way down the Strand. He came to a halt briefly outside a London and Westminster Bank. Adam thought for a moment he was about to enter it, but the enquiry agent had no such intention. After looking down at his shoes and rubbing first one and then the other on the backs of his trouser legs, he hurried on. He crossed the entrance to Villiers Street and made his way past the French Renaissance frontage of the Charing Cross Hotel. Adam, still some twenty yards to his rear, was hard pressed to keep his quarry in sight as he walked into Whitehall. Jinkinson’s stride had become unmistakeably purposeful. Within ten minutes he was in the middle of Westminster Bridge. There he halted and, leaning against the railings, looked down into the waters of the Thames below. Adam also stopped. Standing to one side of the flow of pedestrians across the bridge, he watched a man in a charcoal grey morning suit and top hat approach the enquiry agent. Jinkinson turned to greet him.

  Even at a distance of fifty yards, Adam had no difficulty recognising the newcomer. Although he had never been introduced to him, he knew the man by sight from the Marco Polo. It was Sir Willoughby Oughtred. From where he was standing, he could see that Jinkinson and the baronet were already deep in conversation. They made an incongruous couple, one plump and yellow-waistcoated, the other tall and formally dressed. He could not, of course, hear anything of what they said but Jinkinson looked to grow increasingly excited. After a minute or two, he was waving an arm and seemed to be pointing across the bridge in the direction of the Clock Tower. Oughtred responded by leaning forwards and prodding the agent three times in the chest. He then turned on his heel and began to walk back towards the Palace of Westminster. As he passed Adam, the young man feigned extreme interest in the river and the curious patterns of the railings reflected on the water, but he need not have bothered. Oughtred, who looked furious, had no eyes for anybody around him. He marched on in the direction of Parliament Square and was soon lost to sight amidst the other pedestrians. Adam glanced back at Jinkinson, who had remained on the bridge. He decided he had seen enough for one morning. Hailing one of the many cabs that patrolled the area, he headed for home.

  * * * * *

  For the next five days, Jinkinson made few excursions from Poulter’s Court without someone at his heels. The following morning it was Quint who stood near the archway and waited for the enquiry agent to emerge on his business. From that day onwards, he and his master divided the duties between them. On four of those days, Jinkinson did little but stroll through the streets that ran between High Holborn and the Strand, like a nobleman touring his estate. He nodded amiably to passing acquaintances and stopped to engage many of them in lengthy conversation. On several occasions, Jinkinson sang as he walked. He had a deep baritone voice and he always sang the same tune, treating his fellow pedestrians to an aria from an Italian opera Adam half recognised as the work of Donizetti. Was it, he wondered, Lucia di Lammermoor? The plump investigator peered from time to time into shop windows on his travels and rarely passed a public house without venturing inside to sample its ale. He chose to spend little time in the offices off Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Only on the afternoon of the
fifth day did he demonstrate any sense of purpose. It was Quint who was loitering near Poul-ter’s Court when Jinkinson emerged at around three o’clock, and it was Quint who followed him down to the Strand. Back in Doughty Street, he reported his news to Adam while preparing a supper for himself of cold meats, bread and ale.

  ‘It wears a man out, following old Jinks. Never was such a bugger for walking. And talking. Gawd, how ’e can talk. Gassing away at everybody he meets.’

  ‘He’s certainly a man of eloquence when given the opportunity.’

  ‘’E’s like a sheep’s head. All bleeding jaw.’

  ‘True enough, Quint. But what did he do today apart from jawing?’

  ‘Well, ’e sets off from Poulter’s Court. Going at a good lick. Not like the other day when he was moochin’ around like the bleeding Duke of Seven Dials. Off he goes down Chancery Lane with me a short ’op behind ’im. Into the Strand we goes and we ends up outside that pub on the corner of Fountain Court. You know the one?’

  Adam indicated that he did.

  ‘’Ere we are, I thought. Ain’t that just plummy?’ Quint spoke with bitter sarcasm. ‘’E’ll be in here the rest of the day and half the night and, by stop-tap, he’ll be as drunk as a rolling fart. But, no, this is one pub he ain’t going into. ’E stops outside. In fact, he moves round the side of the pub and stands leaning against the wall in the court.’

  ‘Unusual, indeed, for our man to resist the lure of liquor. Was he waiting for someone, I wonder?’

  ‘’Ere, moisten your chaffer on this.’ Quint handed Adam a glass of beer. ‘There’s more of the story to come. Jinkinson’s standing there in the court and I’m a-loiterin’ in the street, tryin’ to keep half an eye on him, when this gent comes up the Strand from Trafalgar Square end. All togged up to the nines like a right swell. And ’e joins our man in the court.’

  ‘A swell, you say?’

  ‘Thought at first he might be some Champagne Charley out on a spree. But ’e knows old Jinks.’

  ‘So he was the man for whom Jinkinson was waiting? Any distinguishing marks to this swell?’

  ‘Not so’s you’d notice.’ Quint shrugged. ‘Enough moustache for ten men. Can’t hardly see his mouth for lip-thatch. But nothing else.’

  ‘And why was he meeting Jinkinson in some pub alley?’

  ‘Old your ’orses. I’m comin’ to that. Now Jinkinson don’t know me, do ’e? There’s no harm, I think, in getting a bit closer. So, I stagger into the court as if the drink has just took me and fall into a heap.’

  ‘Quick thinking, Quint.’

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ said Quint complacently. ‘You get the picture, then. There’s our man. And there’s his friend, all dressed up like Christmas beef. Both of them standing in the court. And then there’s me, playing the drunk and sliding down the wall. They give me a quick glance and then they forget me. They begin to talk. Whispering, mind you, but I can catch some of what they say.’

  ‘And what do they say?’

  ‘The gent’s name is Garland. Mr Garland, I hear Jinkinson say, not once but several times. Same name as was in the book I filched.’

  ‘Lewis Garland. He’s an MP.’

  ‘Well, this here Lewis Garland is fit to be tied. Angry as a dog chasing rats, by the sounds of ’im. Not that he raises his voice or anything. But I can tell ’e’s raging.’

  ‘He was threatening Jinkinson, was he?’

  ‘I reckon so. But our man ain’t too fussed. Sounds like ’e’s doing a bit of ’is own threatening in return. Something about the papers and a scandal.’ Quint sat down at the table with a plateful of food and fell upon the cold mutton and bread.

  ‘And how did Garland respond to what our friend Jinkinson was saying?’

  ‘He didn’t say more ’n a few words. But he looked as if he was like to have forty fits, didn’t ’e? Then Jinkinson was off again, yammering and chattering at ’im a bit more.’

  ‘Could you catch any more of the conversation?’ Adam asked.

  ‘Not much.’ His mouth full of meat and bread, Quint’s voice was indistinct. Crumbs sprayed upon the table.

  ‘You eat as if you’d had no sustenance in weeks, Quint. Lions rending the flesh from their prey have nothing on you attacking cold mutton.’

  ‘All very well for you to say,’ Quint responded, sounding aggrieved and still tearing chunks from the bread in front of him. ‘You ain’t the one who’s been chasing old Jinkinson all afternoon and spent his time face down in the muck. You’ve prob’ly been greasing your gills down some chophouse.’

  ‘Not guilty, your honour. However, your courage in casting yourself down amidst the inn yard’s effluvia certainly deserves acknowledgement. Please accept my apologies. But do slow down, man, or you’ll choke yourself and I will have no idea how to save you.’ Adam took a long pull from his glass of beer. ‘So, what more did you hear from Jinkinson and Garland as you were lying so selflessly in the gutter?’

  ‘As I say, not much.’ Quint drank his own ale. ‘Our man, he says something about an ’arbour in the woods, whatever that might mean. Then there’s some pretty choice insults exchanged atween the two of ’em. Not that I can hear ’em exactly on account of my ear’s next door to a pile of horseshit, but I can get the general drift of ’em. Then Garland makes to leave. You come bothering me again, he says, and I’ll darken your bleeding daylights for you. Or words to that effect. And he stomps off up the Strand in the direction he come from.’

  ‘What about Jinkinson? What did he do?’

  ‘What d’you think? He goes into the pub for a drop of the lush. And I picks meself up and heads back here.’

  ‘Well done, Quint. Thanks to your initiative in hurling yourself into the filth of that pub yard, we now know that Jinkinson has approached two of the men who were named in that notebook. And at least one of them was extremely displeased when he did so. But why did he contact them?’ Adam stared into his now empty glass of beer as if the answer to his question might be lurking among the dregs. ‘To blackmail them, we must suppose.’

  ‘What if this Jinkinson we’ve been trailing around town for days is the cove what killed Creech?’ Quint asked. ‘What if he was putting the squeeze on him as well, and things got a bit out of hand? You given that a thought?’

  ‘I have, indeed.’

  ‘Any result from giving it a thought?’

  ‘I have come to the conclusion that Jinkinson is not the stuff of which murderers are made. He may well be a bit of a rogue, I grant you, but he is not the man who despatched poor Creech from the world. He was utterly astonished when I told him of Creech’s death. He would have had to be a Kean returned from the grave to feign the surprise I saw on his face that day in his office.’

  Quint stood and moved towards the fire where Adam was slumped low in the depths of his favourite armchair. He gathered up the empty glass that the young man had rested on one of its arms.

  ‘You want another of these?’ he asked, dangling the glass in front of his master’s eyes. Adam shook his head. The servant retreated to the kitchen.

  ‘You come up with any more ideas about Creech getting hisself killed, then?’ he called. He returned to the sitting room clutching a green beer bottle and began to paw at its cork stopper. ‘Like who might have done it?’

  Adam shook his head again. ‘No, I have not yet come to any conclusion about the identity of the murderer.’ The young man gazed up at the ceiling. ‘However, I have not been entirely idle while you have been trailing down the Strand after our friend.’

  Quint grunted, as if to suggest that he wasn’t sure he believed this. He had succeeded in removing the cork from his bottle and was now pouring its contents gently into his own glass. He stared at the beer with a look of intense concentration as he did so.

  ‘I have travelled out once again to Herne Hill,’ Adam continued. ‘The place already looks nearly as deserted as a haunted house. Pulverbatch and his men appear to have no further interest in it. Its only inhabitant is a
young man named John. He was one of Creech’s servants. He is the only one who has not yet moved on to another situation, although he was eager to assure me that he has had offers from several most respectable families in the neighbourhood.’

  ‘He’s there on his own?’ Quint looked up in surprise. He had almost finished his careful decanting of his beer into the glass. ‘I raise my ’at to him. Wouldn’t catch me lying down to sleep in a dead man’s ’ouse.’