“Plates for counterfeiting clothes coupons.”
“Yes. I can’t say that I am very knowledgeable about counterfeiting. Does that subject fall within the vast grey area of skills you cannot discuss?”
“No,” said Iris thoughtfully. “But I know a likely lad. We could visit him tomorrow morning. Meet me at the office and we’ll go from there.”
“Will do. Oh, your friend Miss Kemp telephoned. She needs to speak with you. I’m afraid that I let her know that I knew who she was. She sounded put off by that.”
“Oh, dear. I’ll have to patch that up. I was going to enlist your help in finding someone for her.”
“She’s our client?”
“It’s been an informal barter of services rather than a full contract.”
“Understood. She’s been very useful. Ah, here’s our train at last.”
* * *
Iris saw no suspicious cars tailing her, either from the government or the underworld. She treated herself to a chop at a restaurant on the next street, taking a table where she could keep her back against the wall and an eye on the entrance. She brushed off a would-be suitor with ease, and wondered where Andrew was at that moment.
It was different to enter her flat knowing that there was no possibility of him waiting for her. The silence of absence, of desertion, filled the small rooms until she felt she was drowning in it.
She was going to have to put some serious thought into what she was doing with her life. She was upset over Gwen calling her out. Upset because everything she said was true. She wasn’t used to having a female friend who wasn’t in some manner or another competition. She wanted to tell her everything.
But telling her everything might drive her away.
She sighed, then remembered the call from Jessie. She picked up her telephone and dialed her number.
“It’s Iris,” she said. “Are you free to chat?”
“Another Friday night at home, no thanks to you,” said Jessie.
“I’m working on it,” said Iris. “In fact, I’m bringing in the big guns.”
“What are they?”
“My partner, Gwen. She has a gift.”
“Yes, I wanted to talk to you about her. She wasn’t supposed to know my name.”
“Sorry. We’ve stumbled into a situation despite ourselves, and now it’s all hands on deck.”
“That’s the other thing. Do you know how much trouble you could have got me in, pulling the file on a dead girl?”
“That’s hardly fair, Jessie. She wasn’t dead at the time.”
“And that makes it better? It’s a good thing I didn’t actually sign them out. I would have been up to my neck.”
“Apologies, apologies,” said Iris. “We’ll try not to refer any more future murder victims.”
“I suppose that sort of thing is hard to predict. Although, it’s not like your girl was completely on the straight and narrow.”
“Was there anything besides that one arrest?”
“Some reference to her being in with the Wapping Wall gang. Archie Spelling’s boys. You’ve heard of them?”
“I’ve met them. We’re all chums, now.”
“You have been busy. Be careful with that lot, all right?”
“I will,” promised Iris. “Oh, one more thing to satisfy my curiosity. Do you remember who arrested Miss La Salle in that case?”
“Oh, Lord, I’d have to look it up. The name was an odd one—reminded me of a fish.”
“Pilcher?”
“Pilcher! Like pilchard! Yes, that was it.”
“I thought it might be. All right, keep mum about our special relationship. Good things will come of it.”
“Will do. How’s your bloke?”
“Don’t have a bloke at the moment.”
“You should put your friend on the case.”
“Too much responsibility,” laughed Iris. “I’m hard to please. Good night, dear.”
* * *
“You are about to meet someone from my mysterious recent past,” said Iris as she and Gwen walked east from Mayfair the following morning.
“What’s off-limits when we talk?”
“Nothing about his area of expertise is off-limits,” said Iris. “Anything about how he and I came to know each other or what we did together is.”
“Not an ex-lover,” said Gwen, glancing at her.
“Not this time,” said Iris. “Not all of them are, no matter what you think of me.”
They passed through the theatre district, taking a right from Earlham Street.
“There we are,” said Iris.
J. B. SMALLEY & SONS, FINE PRINTS AND LITHOGRAPHS read the sign. The shop was painted in a surprisingly cheerful brown. The windows displayed prints of a variety of subjects and age. The two women stopped for a moment to look in the windows.
“These are beyond my budget,” said Iris. “And we haven’t even got to the Dorés inside. Shall we?”
Gwen was fixated on an engraving of the Roman Forum.
“Don’t start,” said Iris. “Work to do.”
“Right,” said Gwen. “Let’s go in.”
The interior was a gallery, a veritable maze of partitions to maximize the number of prints that could be displayed. A tall man in a cutaway suit that would not have been out of place in Ascot Downs during the previous century was discoursing in plummy tones to a pair of matrons whose handbags no doubt were sagging under the weight of the money they intended to spend there.
“That’s J. B. Smalley,” whispered Iris. “He’s occupied at the moment. We may as well browse while we’re waiting. Don’t get caught by anything that will trigger the weepies if you can help it.”
“That section of animal prints should keep me dry-eyed,” said Gwen. “Come fetch me when he’s ready.”
She sauntered over to a section devoted to naturalists’ depictions of creatures as they saw them or hoped they would be, going back to Linneaus. One in particular caught her eye and brought a happy smile to her face. She went over to look at it more closely.
It was a narwhal, shown improbably on top of a black rock, posing with its tail up while the ocean waves crashed dramatically about it. It had irregularly shaped spots over its plump body, and the signature tusk had a scrolled pattern along its length.
“From the Brehms Tierleben, First Edition,” came the plummy voice from behind her. “Are you familiar with it?”
“I am not,” said Gwen turning to face him. “But I know a narwhal when I see one.”
“How so, if I may ask?”
“I have a budding narwhal enthusiast at home,” she said. “He became quite taken with the one he saw at the British Museum. Now, he writes adventures about it. What is the Brehms Tierleben?”
“A zoological encyclopedia, initially published in six volumes in Germany in the 1860s,” said Mister Smalley. “The illustrations were under Robert Kretschmer’s supervision, but I don’t think that he himself executed the narwhal. My personal opinion, only. There is no way of verifying it. This was created from the original plates, however. It’s a peculiar creature, but somehow endearing.”
“It is lovely in its own way, isn’t it?” agreed Gwen. She glanced at the price, then sighed. “A little much for an illustration for a boy’s playroom, I’m afraid.”
“I do have a reproduction that I could offer for substantially less,” said Smalley. “I happen to be a fellow narwhal enthusiast. I would be delighted to encourage your son in his pursuits. Would you care to come in back?”
“Yes, thank you,” said Gwen. “May my friend join us?”
“Miss Sparks is always welcome anywhere in my establishment,” he said. “James Smalley, at your service.”
“Gwendolyn Bainbridge,” she returned.
“Gracious, Jimmy,” said Iris, who had watched the entire exchange. “You’ve got the act down perfectly. I’m impressed.”
Smalley turned to her, put his finger to his lips, and smiled slightly.
“This wa
y, ladies,” he said, leading them to a door at the rear.
They found themselves in a large storage area, with shelves holding cardboard tubes labeled with their contents. There was a desk and a few chairs at one side.
“Great to see you, Sparks,” said Smalley, grinning at her.
The tones were less plummy, noticed Gwen.
“Great to see you as well,” said Iris. “Gwen, meet Jimmy the Scribe, one of the best forgers in London.”
“Until I was forcibly retired,” he added quickly. “I became a cloistered guest of the Crown for a few years until my services came back in demand.”
“Jimmy forged documents for a lot of brave men and women who infiltrated Europe during the war,” said Iris. “He’s the best.”
“I was one of many,” he said modestly. “I was happy to put my skills to use for my country.”
“Plus it got you sprung,” said Iris.
“Full pardon, permission to take on a new life, so long as I keep on the up and up.”
“This all looks quite—legitimate,” said Gwen.
“A life is much easier to forge than German transit papers,” he said. “I became a forger because I was a better copyist than I was an artist, but that never stopped me from wanting to live amongst these marvels. And lo and behold, I’m making better money running this shop!”
“Think how your life would have been different if you had realized that at the beginning,” said Iris.
“I do,” said Smalley. “But it keeps leading to the point that if I hadn’t done what I did as well as I did, then I couldn’t have helped the war effort as much. I would have made a terrible soldier. Now, to the topic, Sparks. You called saying that you wanted to pick my brain. What scheme are you planning?”
“Not my scheme, someone else’s,” said Iris. “We think there’s a large forgery operation afoot.”
“Making what?”
“Clothing coupons.”
“Oh, that’s a good target,” said Smalley, leaning back in his chair and linking his hands behind his head. “Homemade plates?”
“The real thing. Purloined, then purloined again.”
“Give me the rundown.”
Iris summarized the details while Jimmy listened, rocking back and forth.
“I love it,” he said when she finished. “No artistry in making coupons, but I appreciate the sheer scale of the enterprise. So, what do you need to know from me?”
“What do they need, where do they get it, how would we go about finding the same things and tracing it to them?”
“Is that all?” laughed Smalley. “Well, you need a printer, preferably somewhere out of the way so people won’t notice it. You need ink of the right type, and you need paper, matching colour and stock. Plus people to run it, distribution, and so forth.”
“There’s a paper shortage,” said Gwen. “There’s rationing. How would they get enough?”
“Oh, there’s black markets for everything,” said Smalley. “The trick is getting the right kind of paper—a lot of the fake coupons I’ve seen are too thick, or the paper’s too smooth.”
“You’ve seen them?”
“I’ve been called in to consult for the government occasionally,” said Smalley. “Part of the conditions of my freedom.”
“Let’s say that I wanted to acquire a large amount of paper without going through proper channels,” said Gwen. “Where would I find it?”
“Well, I would go to people who are in the business of producing things on paper that are not so legal.”
“For example?”
“Racetrack touts—tote tickets use a lot, and that’s something where you cut things down to small sizes, so they’d be a good fit for making coupons.”
“That’s a thought,” said Iris.
“And—I assume that neither of you is so delicate as to faint at this next suggestion?”
“We’ll do our level best,” promised Iris.
“Pornography,” said Smalley. “Always around, always available. Someone keeps printing it because people keep buying it. Hell, I’ve got a few things here for special collectors that I would blush to show you, except the detail of the wood-cuts is exquisite.”
“We’ll pass, thank you,” said Iris. “So, racetrack touts and pornographers should be our next direction. Sounds marvelous. Thanks, Jimmy. Grand as always.”
“Likewise,” said Smalley, standing. “One more moment.”
He rummaged through a shelf, then brought a print over to the desk and unrolled it.
“It’s the narwhal!” exclaimed Gwen. “I thought you were just making an excuse for us to come in back.”
“Not an original, but a good reproduction,” said Smalley. “I could let you have it at a very reasonable price.”
“It’s very good,” said Gwen. “Yes, thank you. I’ll take it.”
Iris looked at it carefully.
“This is one of yours, isn’t it, Jimmy?”
“It is.”
“But you’re no longer in the forgery business.”
“A reproduction, acknowledged as such, is not a forgery,” said Smalley. “I am still an artist. And I do love narwhals.”
“Who doesn’t? Gwen, I’ll wait for you at the front.”
Gwen joined her a short time later, the narwhal rolled and safely stored in a cardboard tube.
“That was useful,” said Iris as they strolled back to the office. “Now, all we have to do is dive into the worlds of racing and pornography without losing our footing or our clothing. There can’t be too many places where—”
“Iris,” said Gwen thoughtfully. “I think I know where it is.”
CHAPTER 14
“I can’t believe you wore that,” said Iris.
“I’m sorry, it’s my first burglary,” said Gwen. “I wasn’t sure what to wear.”
“You look like a genteel lady housepainter.”
“I didn’t want to put on anything nice,” said Gwen. “I imagined that there would be some crawling through attics or climbing through windows. Next time, tell me what to do.”
It was seven o’clock the following morning, and the two had rendezvoused at the corner of Commercial Road and Sutton Street. The early Sunday traffic was negligible. The Roman Catholic Church on the next block had yet to open its doors.
Gwen was wearing a grey man’s overall, cinched tight at the waist with piece of cord. Her top was an old muslin blouse that had spatters of paint on it. She had a straw hat over her mane, which was nonetheless impeccably coiffed.
Iris, on the other hand, wore her normal office suit, augmented by a larger handbag than usual.
“You wore that same outfit when we painted the office,” she remembered. “I can still see the green streaks.”
“What should I have put on?”
“Everyday clothes so you look like an everyday person, and shoes that you can run in,” said Iris.
“Oh,” said Gwen, her face falling. “Do you expect us to take to our heels at some point?”
“Always a possibility. Now, where is that man?”
She scanned the street in both directions.
“Maybe he disapproved,” said Gwen. “Maybe he was scared off.”
“Maybe I will give him a good, swift kick in his—oh, there he is.”
They waited as Roger Pilcher strolled up, wearing his normal pinstripes.
“Good morning, ladies,” he said, touching the brim of his trilby with one finger.
“You are late,” said Iris.
“Not by much.”
“If you ever again make me wait in the middle of Stepney, I shall break up with you,” said Iris.
“Oh, is this Stepney?” asked Gwen, looking around with more interest.
“What’s she doing here?” asked Pilcher. “Got a date posing for Van Gogh?”
“He knows about Van Gogh,” said Gwen. “Completely out of character.”
“So are both of you,” said Pilcher. “Time to tell me what this is all about.”
>
“Gwen had this marvelous idea,” said Iris.
“More of a theory,” cautioned Gwen.
“But a very good theory.”
“Speculative, I admit. It needs some evidence to really make it fly.”
“Which is why we’re here.”
“On Commercial Road,” said Pilcher. “In Stepney. You still haven’t told me anything.”
“Well, we don’t actually have anything,” admitted Iris. “But we think we know where your missing plates have got to.”
“You have?” he exclaimed. “Where? How?”
“Walk, and we’ll explain,” promised Iris.
She turned down Sutton and set a brisk pace. Pilcher had to scramble to catch up to her. Gwen matched them easily.
“So, we were thinking, what if Miss La Salle had been part of whatever group had nicked the plates from Archie?” Iris began.
“Impossible,” said Pilcher. “She was my informant. She couldn’t have done anything like that without me knowing.”
“You see, you’re not giving her enough credit,” said Iris. “Tillie may not have had much formal education, but she was smart. She knew how to survive in a violent world and make her own fortune. She was able to keep Archie from finding out she was an informant and still work him for favours.”
“What does that have to do with the plates?”
“They were stolen around the same time that she supposedly broke up with you,” said Gwen. “She told Fanny that she was coming into something that would set her up for life. She also said that—”
She hesitated as Pilcher looked at her.
“Said what?” he asked.
“She made some rather disparaging remarks about you,” said Gwen.
“Specifically?”
“That she had you wrapped around her finger,” said Gwen hurriedly. “I’m sorry.”
“Did she now?” said Pilcher, shaking his head. “Woman had a nerve or two. Wait. You’ve brought me to Martha Street?”
“Ta da!” said Iris, smiling. “Where the late Tillie La Salle worked in Tolbert’s dress shop.”
“Right, I knew that,” said Pilcher. “Where are you going with this?”
“This is the big theory,” said Iris.
The Right Sort of Man Page 24