‘And why exactly are you telling me all this?’
‘I just thought I should warn you that I may have to call on your talents again in the future, if the situation requires it.’
‘Is that likely to happen?’
Jeremy didn’t answer, just looked at Cobb.
‘Look,’ said Cobb, ‘this has all been fascinating but can I go home now?’
‘Certainly. Is there anything I can do for you before you go?’
‘Isn’t that against the rules, interfering?’
‘Cobb … I make the rules,’ stated Jeremy, firmly.
‘Okay then, just give me a quiet life. I’m getting fed up having to keep saving the world.’
‘I can’t do that. You have other adventures in store for you, so it will be an interesting life, but a long and happy one, I promise you that.’
‘I just want a normal life.’
‘There is no normal, there’s just life,’ replied Jeremy.
Then a thought occurred to Cobb. ‘Can you save my friend Thornton Wells? He’s dying … if he’s not dead already.’
‘Ah Thornton, yes … an interesting man. It would be a shame to lose him from the side of the good men. Consider it done.’
‘Just like that?’ asked Cobb.
‘Just like that,’ stated Jeremy.
‘Thank you.’
‘Oh, Cobb, one last thing … never trust an Elf!’
‘What? There’s no such thing as Elves, are there? Even if they weren’t just a myth, surely they died out long ago?’
‘They never died out, they just went … somewhere else. One of these days they’re going to want to come back. Now, it’s time for you to go home.’
Cobb looked at the Supreme, Ultimate being in the Multiverse. ‘Jeremy?’ he asked.
Jeremy waved his hand and Cobb was gone.
***
Cobb appeared in his own office in the front room of the house. He looked around, it was empty, so he went into the drawing room. Adele was sitting there looking exhausted, resting her head on her hand. She didn’t look up when he came in, assuming it was Won Lungh.
‘Adele? What is it?’
‘COBB!’ she screamed and ran to hug him. ‘You’re safe.’ She clung to him tightly.
‘How’s Thornton?’ he asked.
She let go of him. ‘I’m sorry Cobb, he’s fading fast. I’ve sent Won Lungh to find Sir Robert Emmersley and Mrs. Stiverley. I just came out for a break before, you know, before …’
‘Jeremy!’ he muttered under his breath, ‘Damn it, you promised.’
They clung to each other again and stood there in silence. After a while Cobb disentangled himself and said hoarsely, ‘I’d better go and say goodbye, I suppose’.
They left the room and slowly ascended the stairs, making their way to the guest bedroom where Thornton lay, near to death. Cobb turned the handle slowly and swung the door open.
‘Steady on,’ said Thornton, standing on one leg pulling on a pair of trousers. ‘Can’t a fella have some privacy while he’s dressing?’
Cobb and Adele stood there astounded as Thornton pulled on his trousers and then put a shirt on.
‘What …? What …?’ stuttered Adele. ‘When I left the room ten minutes ago you were at Death’s door. What happened?’
‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘I fell asleep when you left and then I woke up feeling great. Cough had gone and everything. Never felt better in my life. And here’s the strange thing, I found this on the pillow and I’m sure it wasn’t there before I fell asleep.’ He picked something off the bed and held it out to Cobb. It was a red rose.
Cobb took the rose and smiled even though his eyes were full of tears. Thank you Jeremy, he said in his mind. He turned to Adele and gave her the rose. She looked puzzled but he told her, ‘It’s a souvenir, from a friend of mine.’
‘Who? And how did they get in here?’ asked Thornton.
‘I’ll tell you all about it later. We’ll leave you to get dressed, come and join us when you’re ready.
They went back downstairs to the drawing room.
‘Well, that’s a turn up for the books. I guess prayer works after all,’ said Adele. ‘So how did it go with Harlequin?’
‘Oh that went all right. He’s been forgiven and they’ve given him his powers back. I’ll tell you all about it later.’
‘Is there anything I can get for you?’ she asked him.
‘You know … there’s one thing I’ve really missed. I’d love a cup of tea.’
‘Right, I’ll get Won Lungh to make us a pot.’
As she left the room he sat down in his favourite armchair. With a start he looked down at his feet. He lifted his feet and flexed them, his boots weren’t hurting him anymore, he had broken them in at last. He settled back in his chair and smiled. He’d rescued Harlequin, Thornton was well again and his boots fitted comfortably … all was right with the world.
Epilogue
It had been seven days now since Cobb had come back from Angleland and he had caught up on his sleeping and eating, Thornton had been checked out by Dr. Bromley and Sir Willoughby Potts. Both of them were amazed and pleased to give him a clean bill of health, so he had moved home again.
All was right with the world, except for one tiny thing that had been niggling at him … Captain Gerald James. Something was wrong there and it niggled the detective in him. He’d made a few enquiries around Spitalfields Market and apparently no one remembered there being a crash or anyone being injured, at all. So now it looked like the solicitors Sewem, Grabbit and Runne, had been lying to him as well.
He’d gone to see his old friend Inspector George Benton and explained the situation to him. George had kindly telegraphed to Harwich to see if Captain James had really come from there. He would call in on him today and see if the Harwich police had replied yet.
Cobb went to Caledonia Yard and made his way to George Benton’s office. He knocked on the door and was answered with a cry of, ‘Come in.’
‘Can I interest you in two tickets for the Policeman’s Ball?’ asked Cobb.
‘I’m sorry I don’t go to dances,’ replied George.
‘It’s not a dance … it’s a raffle!’
‘Ha ha, the old ones are still the best.’
‘Morning George.’
‘Morning Cobb, can I offer you a cup of tea?’
‘Yeah, that would be nice.’
George Benton bustled about and put the kettle on to boil and put the tea in the pot. Cobb felt strange being back in his old office. George Benton was doing Cobb’s old job on the force, leading Cobb’s old team. The kettle boiled shortly and George put the water into the teapot.
‘I was going to call around to see you later, Cobb if you hadn’t come in. We’ve had a reply from Harwich police, very strange. They say that there was a Captain Gerald James in Harwich for many years but they also have a record of the burial of a Rupert James earlier this year. Did that name come up in your investigation?’
‘No, never heard of him. Who was he?’
‘His brother,’ explained George as he poured the tea into mugs, added the milk, gave it a stir and put it in front of Cobb. ‘So what do you think?’ George asked him.
‘Well it sounds crazy but we know that Gerald James is not what he appears to be … suppose he’s not who he appears to be.’
‘So you reckon that if we dug up Rupert James’ grave we would find Gerald James?’
‘Spot on … I knew I’d trained you well.’
‘But why? Why take on his brother’s identity,’ asked George.
‘Well he did say that he got a pension from Havencrest. By coming to Londum, he could still claim the pension as probably no one in the Londum offices knew him, so he could pass himself off as Gerald. So there you have it, he’s set up for life now, a small but steady income.’
‘So who’s trying to track him down now, do you reckon?’
‘We won’t know that until they find him. Look, what d
o you say to me going back to the solicitors and telling them I’ve had a change of heart and giving them James’ address. Keep a couple of men on James and see who turns up?’
‘Do you have his new address? He’s bound to have moved in case you told the solicitors,’ George asked him.
‘Yes, I went back and spoke to his friends and with a little financial inducement they told me what I need to know.’ He pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket and slid it across the table.
‘When will you tell the solicitors?’
‘If your men can be ready tomorrow morning, I’ll do it first thing.’
‘Right, it’s a deal,’ said George.
‘Thanks for the tea,’ said Cobb, ‘I’ll come around when it’s done.’
‘We’ll have to stay somewhere close if we want to be in at the kill.’
‘I know a café in Spitalfields Market we can hang out in.’
***
Cobb and George Benton were sitting in the café reading the papers and chatting. It was the second day they had been waiting for some action. George had a team of two men following James and a third man to act as the go between to notify them and the team George had on standby.
George and Cobb were just discussing the relative merits of home cooking versus eating in restaurants when George’s man burst through the door.
‘Inspector, two men have turned up at James’ lodgings. They’re just outside watching at the moment but we think they’ll go in soon. I’ve put the team on alert. We had a uniformed guy walk along the street to delay them for a while until you could get there.’
‘Good thinking,’ said George. ‘Let’s go.’ The three of them left the café and headed off. There was a carriage waiting outside the market and it took them the half a dozen or so streets to near where James’ place was being staked out.
There were four men waiting for them when they got there. ‘We’ve got another three men and a uniformed officer at the other end of the street,’ they told George.
By sneaking down an alley and peeking down the street, Cobb and George Benton could see the two men watching James’ place, casually standing on the street and chatting, like you could see on any street corner in Londum.
‘Where is James’?’ asked George.
‘Number sixteen, room three,’ replied Cobb.
‘Hey up, here we go,’ said George. The two men were strolling casually across the street to number sixteen. They walked up the stairs and knocked on the door. After a brief conversation with whoever answered, they were allowed in.
As soon as the door closed behind them, George was out in the road waving to his men at the other end of the street. They all gathered outside number sixteen, Cobb, George Benton and the other eight policemen. ‘Right,’ said George,’ three of you go around the back.’
After giving them some time to cover the rear exit, George took the others up the stairs to number sixteen. To save time, George got the uniformed officer to knock on the door and talk his way in. They all piled in after him.
One of the officers took the landlady aside and spoke to her while the rest of them quietly made their way up the stairs to number three.
‘Cobb, stay at the back when we go in,’ George told him. ‘If a civilian were to get injured on a police raid, I’d be out of a job.’
Everyone got ready and George banged on the door of number three, ‘Open up, it’s the police!’ No answer. George turned the doorknob and the door swung open. Inside the two men were wrestling with James on the bed. One of them was holding him down and the other appeared to be trying to pull his leg off.
The constables raced into the room and grabbed the men, dragging them off James.
‘All right, I’m Inspector George Benton of The Metropolitan Police. Somebody had better tell me what’s going on here.’ The two men kept silent and just glared at him. He had the constables sit them down in two chairs and keep an eye on them. Cobb studied them, they were well dressed and looked more like middle class tradesman than street criminals.
‘Thank the Gods you’re here, Inspector,’ said James. ‘These men just attacked me, I don’t know why.’
‘Shut up, you’re under arrest too,’ said George.
‘Me? What have I done?’
‘Stand up,’ George ordered him.
James got up slowly off the bed.
‘Now take your coat off.’ James seemed unwilling to comply. ‘Constable, assist him will you?’
The constable took James coat off.
‘Now drop your trousers.’
‘What?’
‘Do it!’ George snapped at him.
Slowly and reluctantly James did as he was told and there for all to see, was his right leg bent up behind him and held in place with a strap. Cobb and George both breathed a sigh of relief, Cobb trusted what he had seen and George trusted Cobb … but you never know, mistakes do happen.
‘Take the false leg off,’ George ordered him.
James took the wooden leg off and put it on the bed. After un-strapping his leg and stretching it out, he put his trousers back on.
‘Right,’ said George turning to the two men, ‘somebody want to tell me why you were after him and his leg? Why you were trying to tear it off him when we came in the room?’
Neither of them replied, so he turned to James, ‘And what about you? We know about Rupert James you know. We know somebody is buried in Harwich and that may well be Gerald James. We’ve got you on masquerading as somebody else for unlawful financial gain, so if you speak up now it may go easier for you.’
James knew when he was beaten. ‘Okay, you’re right. I’m Rupert James. When my brother died I was living in Harwich. I didn’t have two ha’pennies to rub together and I saw the chance to live out an easy life, collecting his pension. We looked very much alike and I was the one who found him dead, nobody knew about it except me. It was natural causes by the way, I draw the line at some things.
‘I just told the authorities that it was Rupert James that had died, not Gerald. After the funeral I came up to Londum, I knew if I went to Havencrest offices in Harwich then someone might spot I wasn’t actually Gerald but I figured in the Londum offices they wouldn’t know any difference. And that’s the way it’s been. I was living comfortably at last.’
‘And what about these two?’ Cobb asked him.
‘Never seen them before in my life, I don’t know why they attacked me.’
Cobb looked at the two men. ‘Well … anything to add.’
The two men looked at each other and at first it looked as if neither was going to say something then one of the men broke down.
‘That’s it, I’ve had enough of this farce.’
‘Quiet!’ said the other one.
‘No Greg, if we say nothing then that leg is going to end up in the evidence locker at Caledonia Yard and we’ll never see it again! I’m not having that. I’m telling them.’
His companion just glared at him and declined to say anything further.
The first man spoke again. ‘My name is Michael Doolan and this is Greg Webb. James is right, he doesn’t know us, we used to do business with his brother Gerald. You should take a closer look at that wooden leg.’
Cobb was the nearest and he picked it up and examined it. It looked solid until he saw a join running down the calf. He took out his penknife and after opening it, slid the blade into the join. He slid it down the line until he heard a click as a catch activated.
The calf of the leg swung open to reveal a padded interior containing a small leather pouch. ‘I think you’d better open that George,’ he said handing it to him.
George opened the pouch and poured the contents into his hand. Everyone in the room gasped except Doolan and Webb. There were a dozen finely cut diamonds there. Each one at least a carat in size.
‘Well Mr. Doolan,’ said George, ‘care to explain this?’
‘Greg and I are businessmen from Harwich. We had a good deal going with Gerald James. He did the r
un between Harwich and The Nederlands so we used to get him to smuggle in some diamonds from time to time. They’re all legally bought and paid for but we used to avoid paying the import taxes. Even when James retired he could still get free trips on his old ship to The Nederlands, so he would still do occasional runs for us.
‘Then when Gerald went and died on us before he could hand over the latest shipment, his idiot brother started passing himself off as him and began hopping around on Gerald’s wooden leg carrying our diamonds.
‘We managed to trace him as far as Londum. We spotted him around Spitalfields but then we lost him. Somebody put us in touch with a law firm that doesn’t ask too many questions, if you know what I mean, and they came up with the idea of pretending he was a valuable witness to an accident.’
‘Sewem, Grabbit and Runne? Their chief clerk is called Catchpole?’ asked George for the record, although he knew the answer.
‘Yes, that’s them.’
‘So, you are admitting to diamond smuggling, conspiracy with the solicitors and assault on Rupert James?’ George asked him.
‘Yes, all of it. I don’t care anymore.’
James said, ‘You mean I’ve been hobbling around like a cripple for a measly pittance of a pension, when all the time I’ve been standing on a fortune in diamonds?’
Cobb said, ‘Well you know what they say, “Cheats never prosper”. Just a thought but if you’d have had your brother cremated then you’d have found the diamonds in his ashes, wouldn’t you?’
‘Right, arrest them all and get them down the Yard for booking,’ instructed George. He pocketed the diamonds and left his men to it, while he and Cobb stood by the window, out of their way.
‘Well, thanks for bringing this to my attention Cobb. This will look really good on the team’s record. I think we should take you out for a drink tonight to celebrate, if you’re free.’
‘Okay, as long as I can take that with me,’ he said pointing to the wooden leg. ‘Adele will get mad at me if I come home legless,’ Cobb laughed.
The Londum Omnibus Volume One (The Londum Series Book 4) Page 66