He glanced across the carriage. Someone was at the door which connected it to the next carriage!
It could be the attendant, he told himself. But there was no reason at all why he should have returned. Besides, the attendant would expect the door to be locked — since he was the one who had locked it when he left — and would have opened it with his key.
Blackstone’s instincts beginning to override his thought processes — and his heart already beating at a gallop — he looked around the carriage for a suitable weapon. The heavy poker, resting against the stove, seemed his best bet — and, springing out of his chair, he had almost reached it when the lock broke, and the men burst into the room.
There were two of them, big brutes with heavy beards. One carried a vicious-looking club, and the other held a length of twine with the ends wrapped around his hands. Blackstone hoped they would both rush him at the same time, but instead — like the professionals they were — they separated, in order to come at him from different sides.
Blackstone thought of screaming for help, but he knew that screaming would take energy he could not afford to waste, and that even if his cries were heard, it would be all over by the time anyone else got there.
The two men were only a few feet from him now. The one with the cord made a lunge forward.
Blackstone was not fooled. The cord was for later, when he was less able to resist, and the job of weakening him was in the hands of the man with the club. He stepped to the side and lashed out with the fire poker at the spot he expected the club-swinger to be occupying a split second later.
His arm jarred as the poker struck muscle and bone. The club-swinger grunted, but there was no time to assess how badly he was hurt, because though the strangler had been planning to hold back, he would undoubtedly now be on the offensive.
Blackstone swivelled round to regain his original position, but he was too late. Far too late! The strangler, having moved with astounding speed, was now behind him, and even as his mind was registering the fact, the Inspector felt the cord tightening around his neck.
The cord bit into his skin, and though Blackstone struggled he could sense that — already — there was not enough air getting through to his brain.
The poker had caught the man with the club on his arm, and instinct had made him drop his weapon, but now he was coming to terms with the pain, and it would not be long before he picked the club up again. And all the time, the pressure around Blackstone’s throat was getting harder, his brain was screaming for relief, and he was getting black spots before his eyes.
He had, at the maximum, half a minute — and at the minimum a few seconds — to take some kind of counteraction. Despite the agony it cost him, he twisted round and pushed, so that the strangler’s right hand was sandwiched between his head and the stove pipe.
The effect on the strangler was instantaneous. The Russian screamed — loudly and deeply.
For his part, Blackstone felt as if his head had been thrust into a furnace, but it would be even worse for the Russian, whose hand was being cooked.
The cord around his neck went suddenly slack, and Blackstone pulled away. The strangler was gazing down at his burnt hand in disbelief, but the club-wielder was ready for action again and, rather than stop to pick up his weapon, he lashed out with his leg and caught Blackstone a heavy blow on the knee.
The pain was indescribable, and though he knew it would be fatal to allow it to happen, Blackstone felt his leg buckle beneath him.
The moment he hit the floor he started to wriggle out of the way, which meant that the club-wielder’s foot slammed into his chest, instead of its intended target, which was his head.
But even that was enough, he thought, as he felt the air rush from his lungs. Even a kick to the diaphragm was sufficient to put him out of action long enough for them to do what they wanted to do.
He braced himself for a fresh assault. Knowing that it was a pointless exercise. Knowing he was only prolonging his own agony, while only slightly delaying the inevitable.
The promised attack never came. Instead, the club-wielder grunted again, and slumped to the floor beside him.
Blackstone forced himself to look up. Two new men had entered the carriage. They were as big as his attackers, and had rags hiding the lower halves of their faces. One of these men, it became plain to him, had knocked the clubman out, while the other had dealt with the strangler, and now there were three men lying on the floor of the carriage.
One of his rescuers walked over to the side of carriage and opened the door which would let out on to the platform when the train was standing at the station. That task completed, he dragged the club-wielder over to it, and flung him out into the darkness. His companion did the same with the strangler. Then, still not having said a word, either to each other or to Blackstone, the two men exited through the broken door into the next carriage.
Blackstone, still gasping for air, lay where he was for perhaps another two minutes, then, slowly and painfully, dragged himself over to the chaise-longue. He would rest for a short while, he promised himself, and then he would follow his rescuers and demand to know what was going on
He was still thinking that when he fell into a deep and troubled sleep.
Chapter Four
Ker-clank… ker-clank… ker-clank .
For his first few semi-conscious moments, Blackstone tried to rationalize the mechanical noise that seemed to be entering his head through his right ear, which was pressing down on some sort of soft, yielding surface.
Ker-clank… ker-clank… ker-clank .
Wheels! Rails! Train! Russia! his brain informed him, delivering each thought in the same rhythm as the sound it was attempting to explain. It was all coming back to him now. The murderous intruders. His rescuers. The ruthless and efficient dispatch of the former by the latter.
How long ago had that all been? Some considerable time, obviously, since the brightness — which managed to penetrate even his closed eyelids — told him it must be morning.
He opened his left eye cautiously, then closed it again, and opened his right. He was where he’d thought he’d be — lying on the chaise-longue in a railway carriage somewhere in Central Russia.
Both eyes now open, he swung his legs off the seat and twisted his body round. It hurt — Jesus, it hurt! — but he supposed, given the circumstances, that it could have been a devil of a lot worse.
Still cautious, he turned slowly towards the carriage’s kitchen area. The Russian in the braided white jacket was standing with his back to him, next to the steaming samovar.
“Any chance of a cup of tea?” Blackstone asked, noting as he spoke that though his voice came out as loud as he intended it to, there was a cracked and unnatural quality to it which he could have done without. “Tea?” he repeated.
The Russian grunted a response. Perhaps he understood the words and perhaps he didn’t — given his blank-faced approach to life it was difficult to tell — but he had clearly divined the intention, since he reached across with one of his slab-like hands and picked up a cup.
Blackstone looked around the carriage. Any number of things must have been disturbed during the course of the fight, but there was certainly no evidence of that now. Even the poker was back where it should have been.
He rose to his feet, walked tentatively over to the door which led through to the next carriage, and forced his eyes to focus on the lock. It had been smashed the night before, but now, apart from a few scratches on the woodwork, there was no evidence of that damage, either.
The attendant handed him his cup of tea, and Blackstone took it over to one of the armchairs. He took a sip or two of the hot, sweet liquid and started to feel better. He would be bruised, he was sure of that, but as far as he could tell, he’d had no bones broken.
The door to Sir Roderick’s sleeping compartment swung open, and the Assistant Commissioner — as spruce as ever — stepped into the main carriage. Then he glanced across at Blackstone — and a look of disd
ain came instantly to his face.
“Just because we’re far away from home, that’s no reason to let your standards slip, Inspector,” he said severely. ‘You look as though you’ve been to bed in that suit.”
“I’ll smarten myself up before we meet the Russian bigwigs,” Blackstone promised. But he was thinking: How could you possibly have slept through the disturbance last night?
“I’m going to have some breakfast,” Sir Roderick said, the tone of censure still evident in his voice. “I suggest, as part of pulling yourself together again, that you do the same.”
Blackstone joined him at the table. The moment he looked at Sir Roderick’s dilated eyes, he knew he had an answer to the question he had posed to himself only moments earlier. Todd had slept so soundly because his sleep had been induced by some kind of drug — most probably opium.
The Inspector wondered if the high-ups back in the Home Office — or any of the men who dined with Sir Roderick regularly at the exclusive club they were all members of — had even the slightest suspicion that the Assistant Commissioner was in the grip of an unfortunate and debilitating habit.
The table had already been laid with bread, butter and jam. To these, the stolid attendant added two plates of fried eggs, delivered with all the finesse of a pile-driving hammer. Then, without a word, he took his leave.
I need more information, Blackstone thought. Much, much more information. He looked down at the fried eggs — swimming in a sea of butter — and wondered whether his poor stomach would regard their arrival as a reward or as a punishment.
He didn’t like the idea that someone was trying to kill him, he told himself. But it was made all the worse by the fact that he had no idea why they should want him dead. And though he was grateful that he also had two guardian angels who seemed intent on him staying alive, he would dearly have liked to know what they hoped to get out of it.
A younger — less experienced — Blackstone would probably have put the question directly to the Assistant Commissioner. This Blackstone, who had seen much — and would like to have forgotten a great deal of it — decided to approach the subject with more caution.
If Sir Roderick didn’t know what was going on, he argued, then news of the murder attempt might throw him into a panic. If, on the other hand, Sir Roderick knew exactly what was happening — and had chosen not to confide in Blackstone, despite the obvious danger to the other man —then he was not likely to open up now, just because a mere inspector had very nearly been killed. It was wiser then — more prudent to go about things indirectly.
The best way to make a pig squeal is to poke it with a sharpened stick,’ a red-faced country boy who’d served with Blackstone in India had once said. It had made sense to Blackstone back then. It still did. And there had never been a better time than now to produce that stick.
Blackstone took his initial jab with his sharpened stick as the train slowly rolled out of yet another drab country station.
“So I am right in assuming that the Tsar doesn’t know that the golden egg has been stolen, sir?” he said, giving the Assistant Commissioner no more than a gentle prod.
“Of course the Tsar does not know,” Sir Roderick replied curtly, then made a show of spreading Golden Syrup on his bread.
“Why doesn’t he know?” Blackstone persisted.
“Because he simply would not understand.”
“Wouldn’t understand? Has he led such a sheltered life that he’s never heard of robbery?”
Despite having announced his intention to eat a hearty breakfast, Sir Roderick had so far shown very little enthusiasm for his food — that’ll be the drugs, taking away his appetite, Blackstone thought — but now he abandoned all pretence of interest, and laid his knife down.
“Of course His Imperial Majesty has heard of robberies,” the Assistant Commissioner said, almost wearily. “Even coming from the privileged background from which he does come, he is naturally aware that such unfortunate occurrences as robberies do exist...”
“I’m relieved to hear that,” Blackstone said, almost to himself.
“But that is not at all what I meant when I said His Imperial Majesty wouldn’t understand.”
“Then what did you mean?”
“I meant that it would be inconceivable to him that any of his subjects would dare to steal something which he had personally bestowed as a gift on his uncle, His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales.”
“Then maybe, in the interest of his education, it’s time he learned that somebody has dared,” Blackstone suggested.
“Even if one of his courtiers were brave enough to tell him the truth about what has occurred — and that, in itself, is highly unlikely — he would see it in a very different light to the way that you or I might see it.”
“Would he now?”
“Indeed he would! Rather than accept that even one of his subjects does not grant him the respect he feels he deserves, he would be inclined to believe that His Royal Highness placed so little value on the gift bestowed upon him that he was careless enough to lose it.”
“If I had an uncle, I suppose I might get annoyed with him from time to time,” Blackstone said. “Families do fall out once in a while. It’s only human nature. But does that really matter to anybody else?”
Sir Roderick laughed condescendingly. “Of course it matters. Everything the Tsar does or thinks matters.”
“And why is that?” Blackstone asked, now feeling so much like a country bumpkin pig-prodder that he almost wished he had a straw to suck on.
Sir Roderick sighed the sigh of a man who finds himself dealing with a lower and less subtle intelligence.
“Our own dear Queen may guide her government — and do so superbly, as we all freely acknowledge — but she certainly does not command it,” he explained. “The Tsar knows of no such restrictions. His title says he is the ‘absolute autocrat’ and that is no more than a statement of the truth. If he chooses to, he can make a family disagreement spill over into a wider world. To put it another way, he can completely sour British-Russian relations on a political level.”
“But it wouldn’t work the other way round?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“If, say, the Prince of Wales was annoyed with the Tsar?”
“Naturally not.”
“In other words, the Prince doesn’t really matter a toss, but if the Tsar breaks wind, we all have to pretend he’s letting off perfume.”
Sir Roderick glared at Blackstone. “That is both a crude and an unpatriotic way to phrase the matter,” he said. “And I cannot help but note that it is some considerable time since you have addressed me as ‘sir’.”
“Sorry, sir,” Blackstone said, almost sounding sincere. “But I’m right, aren’t I? That is how things are.”
“In a manner of speaking,” Sir Roderick agreed reluctantly.
“There’s something else that’s been bothering me,” Blackstone said, risking another prod.
“And what might that be?”
“Are all visitors to Russia given their own personal railway carriages to travel around in?”
“I know nothing of the transport arrangements in this country,” Sir Roderick replied. Then, observing that his answer had failed to satisfy the Inspector, he felt obliged to add, “I did not say that no one in the Russian government knew of the fate of the egg.”
“Didn’t you, sir? Given that you’ve kindly taken the time to explain to me that the Tsar is the government, I rather thought you’d said just that.”
Sir Roderick’s eyes narrowed. “Are you trying to be witty, Blackstone?” he demanded. “Or are you really as naïve as you seem?”
Blackstone met his gaze. “I’m a simple copper, sir,” he said. “That’s why I didn’t feel I was the right man for this case from the start. I believe I may have mentioned that at the time.”
Todd sighed again, from pure exasperation this time. “The Commissioner controls the Metropolitan Police Force,” he said slo
wly, “but that is not to say that he dictates every action of every policeman on every beat. You can surely appreciate that, can’t you?”
The Commissioner has no idea what it’s like to even be on a beat, Blackstone thought. But aloud, he contented himself with saying, “Yes, sir, I think I can appreciate that.”
“Very well, then. In the same way as the Commissioner is not aware of the day-to-day running of the Metropolitan Police Force, the Tsar knows nothing about the theft, nor about us. But there are people within his government who have sanctioned what we are doing.”
“In other words, we are travelling under the patronage of the Tsar’s government,” Blackstone persisted.
“There is a certain Russian minister — his name is of absolutely no interest to you — who feels that it might be better for all concerned if the egg were recovered as soon as possible,” Sir Roderick conceded. “Indeed, this whole expedition would not be practicable without his co-operation. But you need not let his invisible presence inhibit you. I have been assured that he is quite content this should be a Scotland Yard investigation.”
He’d prodded as much as he dared for the moment, Blackstone thought, but he still hadn’t got his pig to squeal anything he could really make sense of.
Sir Roderick’s explanation of why they were in Russia would have sounded very plausible the day before — or at least, plausible enough not to have been dismissed completely out of hand. But after what had happened overnight, it had lost all credibility.
Assassins were not sent out to kill policemen whose only job was to investigate the theft of a golden egg. So while the egg might possibly figure in the investigation, it was not what the investigation was about.
Then what did it concern? What was its purpose? Sir Roderick knew, but Sir Roderick was saying nothing. Unless, Blackstone thought with a shudder… Unless Todd was as much in the dark as he was himself. Unless they were both being used as dupes!
Sir Roderick, having pushed his uneaten food to one side, made a show of consulting his pocket watch.
Blackstone and the House of Secrets (The Blackstone Detective series Book 3) Page 3