Читать книгу Byways to Evil - Lloyd Biggle jr. - Страница 6

CHAPTER 3

I rose at the dawn, accompanied by a twittering of sparrows. There was no point in my waking another of Lady Sara’s employees just to drive me to the river, so I walked to Bayswater Road, marvelling that the city was still intact after such a furious storm, and whistled up a four wheeler, the famous London cab sometimes called a growler because of its creaking noises, or its driver’s grumbling, or both. The route we followed was similar to the one Old John had taken the night before. Wapping Police Station was a short distance upstream from Shadwell Market.

The Wet Bobs, the water constables, were sterling fellows with a nautical air—they were recruited wholly from the ranks of expert seamen and boatmen. They were bronzed and hardened by their constant exposure to the weather and by long hours of labour at the heavy police oars. On their caps and coat-collars they wore nickel anchors, the badge of their office. In severe weather they donned watermen’s shining straw hats, and on the river they always had their “toe bags” at hand—waterproof sacks with a warm inner lining, which they wore over their legs when they were rowing.

They did a six-hour tour of duty. Then they were off for twelve hours before their next tour. They regarded night-work as their worst ordeal, and snowstorms, fog, and piercing head winds as well as rain-swollen tides could make the Thames a place of torment for them. To row for six hours under such conditions was trying even for these hardy individuals.

They patrolled the Thames continuously, day and night, year in and year out, from Fulham to Crayford Creek. Two duty boats left Wapping police stairs every two hours. One proceeded “up along,” where it was met by a boat from the Waterloo Police Station; the other made its way “down along” to meet the boat from the lowermost station at Blackwall. There were in addition supervision boats commanded by senior inspectors, the steam-launches, and the disguised boats of their detective staff. The river thieves somehow managed to elude all of this diligent attention.

That morning I joined a regular duty boat headed downstream. There was an inspector in command; he sat in the stern to steer. There were two constables at the oars, and I took the bow seat as surplus ballast. Shadwell Market, as we passed it, seemed bustling with its usual morning business, apparently untouched by the previous night’s tragedy. My companions had already heard about the murder, and all four of us scrutinized the wharves and warehouses from time to time for some sign of a large, ferocious animal, but there was too much traffic to attend to on the thronged river for us to devote much attention to the shore.

We pulled in and out among the crowded shipping, now skirting the wharves, now rounding the stem of a deserted schooner to make certain thieves weren’t at work in it, racing to overhaul a suspiciously evasive wherry, checking flotsam, capturing a derelict skiff, searching a barge for contraband goods. We passed row after row of moored black hulls with their riding lights still burning brightly. Steamers slipped past us, their sirens and hooters hoarsely warning river craft to make way. There were dapper passenger ships; grimy colliers; fish trawlers whose reeking cargo advertised their presence even when we passed them upwind; blunt-nosed coasters; Dutch eel scoops; sailing ships carrying timber from Norwegian pine forests; barges from the Medway, hay-laden halfway up their stubby masts.

A brig had caught fire and run aground, but fire floats had that problem in hand before we reached it. Several times we narrowly missed being run down by faster vessels.

My mates kept reminding me to watch for floating bodies, for—the night’s storm excepted—the weather had been lovely for a number of days, and lovely weather is drowning weather along the Thames. Not all of these deaths are accidental. Suicides happen far more frequently in nice weather.

“But not very often in winter,” one of my mates said. “The cold water puts ‘em off, seemingly.”

At mid-morning, I had them land me at a convenient wharf, and I took a cab back to Connaught Mews. I now had seen the Thames from a steam-launch and from an oared duty boat, studying the crowded river traffic and pondering ways in which thieves might make off with goods by the boatload. I had no answer to the problem, but Lady Sara wouldn’t expect one at this early stage.

I reached Connaught Mews in time to change my clothes and make myself presentable for Lady Sara’s coffee hour. She held this at eleven o’clock in her drawing room whenever anyone from her own social class asked to discuss a personal problem with her. Her friends would have been offended if she had received them in her study and positively insulted if she refused to waste her valuable time on their trivialities. The coffee hour answered both objections.

Lady Sara liked to have me present to take notes—and also, I suspected, so I could practise conducting myself with propriety under her severely critical gaze, for despite my many years as a member of her household, I was still attempting to acquire social ease in the presence of lords and ladies.

On this day, the annual social Season being over and most of Lady Sara’s friends having left town, there were only three guests. The first to arrive was the elderly Lady Cowlan, Viscountess of Durgess. She was a remote cousin of Lady Sara’s on both sides of her family. Her face was a mass of wrinkles, and she wore a heavy, fur-trimmed gown on that pleasant autumn day.

She was escorted in by Charles Tupper, one of Lady Sara’s two footmen. Except for his small stature, he looked the part perfectly. His uniform, demeanor, deferential expression, and humble politeness in the presence of such a dazzling noblewoman were impeccable. He also was poised to perform any necessary service, which he demonstrated by deftly recovering the scarf the Viscountess dropped and returning it to her with a bow. There was nothing unusual about this except that his performance in other capacities, including that of an investigator, was equally polished. Both of Lady Sara’s footmen were trained to act any part required of them—as were her other employees. In those days even a small domestic establishment like Lady Sara’s required a large staff of servants, and her housekeeper, cook, maids, footmen, coachmen, grooms, stable-boys, and such supernumeraries as she retained from time to time, all had to become adept at following a suspect, watching a suspicious address, or making enquiries in situations where their special talents could be useful.

The Viscountess ceremoniously settled herself in a comfortable chair and looked about disapprovingly. It was her first visit to Lady Sara’s drawing room, and she probably thought the place threadbare. Lady Sara’s simple tastes were completely unlike those of the Dowager Countess. At Connaught Place, the rooms occupied by her mother were filled with expensive clutter: gold tea and coffee services, heavily engraved; fruit stands and side dishes, also of gold, supported by arching palm trees with sculpted animals and cherubs about their bases; cruets blazoned with sea or land battles; silver urns crowded with sculpted flowers; trays with an entire ballet represented on them; statuettes of every kind; stoneware that displayed the history of England; clocks ornamented with Egyptian obelisks; mechanical figures that moved to music. In Lady Sara’s quarters, everything was plain and functional, like her gowns, and in exquisite taste.

Before the Viscountess could state her problem, Lord Woolston ambled in. He was an elderly baron with white hair and a spectacular white, drooping moustache. His black frock coat was set off by a gold-coloured embroidered waistcoat and a gold-coloured silk cravat. He had come directly from home; his trousers were not even wrinkled. He ceremoniously removed his gloves, gold-coloured to match his waistcoat, before he accepted Lady Sara’s hand and gave me a condescending nod.

The third arrival was the Honourable Blanche Dillion, a shy young woman about twenty, who was a younger daughter of the Viscount Dillion. She might have been almost pretty had she not been so obviously distressed. She was dressed much too severely for her age in a brown coat and skirt with just a passing nod to fashion in the lace trimming on her blouse. Her face was pale, and she behaved in an extremely subdued fashion.

Lady Sara got everyone seated. Her maid poured coffee and served an assortment of biscuits. The previous night’s storm dominated the conversation for a few minutes. Then Lady Sara diplomatically suggested that she see them one at a time in her library if they had anything to discuss with her.

Immediately all three turned shy and wanted to be last. Lady Sara was never willing to waste time on social trivialities. “Very well,” she said. “Usually it is ladies first. Since the ladies are reluctant, Lord Woolston, why don’t we start with you?”

He nodded and smiled. “Jolly good idea. Let’s get on with it.”

Lady Sara led him into the library and I followed, leaving the maid to keep the two ladies supplied with coffee and biscuits.

We seated ourselves comfortably, and Lord Woolston harumphed twice, bit his lip, and then announced, “London after the Season is a stupid place. Nothing to do, don’t you know. My granddaughter is about to have a baby, and Lady Woolston insisted on staying in town to be near her. That’s women’s business, nothing to do with me, but Lady Woolston insisted I stay, too. London is a thundering dull place with everyone gone.”

“It must seem so,” Lady Sara said sympathetically. Since Lord Woolston seemed reluctant to come to the point, she added, “You haven’t been quarrelling with both Lady Woolston and your valet, I hope.”

“Why do you say that?” Lord Woolston demanded.

“If you had been on speaking terms with either of them, you wouldn’t have been allowed to leave the house wearing that cravat with that waistcoat.”

Lord Woolston gave his cravat a bewildered glance. “Really? Never gave it a thought. Edward went to Cornwall for a few days to visit his parents, and to tell the truth, both Lady Woolston and I were upset. I went to one of my clubs last night, White’s, and the place was practically empty. I met a friend there, though. At a loose end himself, but he said he knew where we could have a friendly game of cards. So we went together.”

“How much did you lose?” Lady Sara asked.

Lord Woolston winced and chewed on his moustache. “Matter of a bit more than five thousand pounds,” he said finally.

Lady Sara nodded gravely. “Not what I would call a friendly game. What were you playing?”

“Baccarat.”

“How did you manage to lose so much?”

“Never saw such a run of luck—good and bad. Mine was all bad. This other fellow won, and won, and won. Remarkable.”

“Did your friend lose, too?”

“He did. He also lost the night before. That’s why he went back. Thought his luck had to turn.”

“But it didn’t,” Lady Sara said thoughtfully. “Were you planning to have another go at it tonight to see if your luck would turn?”

“At first, I was. But I told Lady Woolston what happened, and she threw a fit. Insisted I tell you about it.”

“There are several possibilities,” Lady Sara said. “One is that you really had a run of bad luck, but such runs rarely last an entire evening—or, in the case of your friend, two entire evenings. Another is that your own inept play was responsible, but I have played cards with you, and I doubt that.”

“Never considered myself an expert,” Lord Woolston said, “but I usually hold my own.”

“So the third possibility is the more likely one. You were cheated. The methods of cheating at cards are legion. The cards could have been marked, or the sharper could have marked them himself in the course of play. In addition, several varieties of sleight-of-hand or manipulation are possible in baccarat. A reflector—there are numerous kinds—could have enabled the sharper to identify every card as it was dealt. A holdout could have been used. There are many types, and all are devices to conceal one or more cards until it or they can be played advantageously. In connection with this, extra cards are sometimes smuggled into the game. How many players were there?”

“There were five of us.”

“Then the sharper could have had one or two collaborators, which introduces other possibilities for cheating. However it was managed, you were cheated outrageously. The question is—what can be done about it?”

Lord Woolston harrumphed. “Don’t want any fuss, you know. No publicity.”

Lady Sara smiled. “Believe me—neither does the man who cheated you. On the other hand, if nothing is done to stop him, he’ll go right on cheating. This is what I suggest. Go back there tonight and play again. Take two ‘friends’ with you. One of them will be my footman, Charles Tupper. He can spot a sharper across the room and give him back more than he bargains for. The other will be a police officer who is just as good. You’ll get your five thousand pounds back. You’ll also give the sharper a good scare. An official record will be made so the police can keep an eye on him from now on.”

“All right,” Lord Woolston said. “I’ll do it.”

“You can call here after dinner for Charles and the police officer—would nine o’clock do? Along the way, you can give them the information they will need, and they can give you your instructions. Done?”

“Done,” Lord Woolston agreed.

I ushered him out, and Blanche Dillion took his place in the library. She looked at me timidly. Then she turned to Lady Sara. “Does he have to be here?”

“He is my assistant,” Lady Sara said kindly. “We will probably need his help, so it is important that he know what your problem is. He will do his best for you just as I will.”

The young woman sat in silence for a moment. Then she burst into tears. “He said he loved me,” she said.

“Let me guess,” Lady Sara said. “You gave him your jewellery.”

“How did you know?”

“Because you aren’t wearing any of it.”

“He said he needed money to pay some debts so we could get married.”

“And your father didn’t like him?”

She shook her head tearfully.

“Have you seen him or heard from him since you gave him your jewellery?”

She shook her head again.

“Describe him as best you can.”

She did so and also gave us the Bloomsbury address where he had claimed to be living. One of her father’s grooms—his daughter had been her nurse, and she felt able to trust him—had made enquiries there after the man stopped seeing her. The landlady claimed the man wasn’t known at that address.

She had met him at Lord’s at the Oxford-Cambridge cricket match. She had thought he was with some friends of hers. Later, when her father enquired, the friends denied any knowledge of him. Her father considered him an interloper looking for a girl to pick up, which was one reason he had taken such a violent dislike to him.

The man told her his name was Kingsley Lyman. He seemed very pleasant. He did nothing at all improper, then or later. When she introduced him to her parents, they said he was no gentleman, but he had been to Oxford—

“Or so he said,” Lady Sara observed. “I know the rest of the story. You kept meeting him, and you fell in love. Finally he asked you to marry him as soon as he was able to pay his debts, so you gave him your jewellery.”

She nodded. Sobs shook her body.

“All right. I know all about this man. He has been involved in shady business before—a lot of shady business. Sit down at the desk and make a complete list of every item of jewellery you gave him. Describe it as carefully as you can and don’t leave anything out. It may be possible to recover some or even most of it.”

Once Blanche Dillion had accepted my presence, she paid no further attention to me. During her sad tale of deception, she did not send a glance in my direction. Her attitude was not uncommon among Lady Sara’s titled friends. A girl like Blanche could fall madly in love with a crook pretending to be a gentlemen, but she was unlikely to make this kind of mistake about Lady Sara’s secretary and assistant, however upright and presentable he might be. Only too obviously, he was no gentleman—he worked for a living.

At one time Lady Sara had been concerned that I might fall in love with one of these young women from titled families. That could have been devastating for me; like Blanche Dillion, all of them accepted my presence without really being aware of my existence.

But Lady Sara need not have worried. After my association with her, they and their fluttery lives that revolved so exclusively around their social concerns seemed shallow and frivolous, not to mention downright silly.

While Blanche was making her list, we returned to the drawing room for a talk with Lady Cowlan.

“So sorry to bother you, Sara, dear,” Lady Cowlan said gushingly when the maid had poured more coffee for her. “My brooch is missing—the gold one with diamonds. It was my mother’s, you know, and her mother’s, and her mother’s, and I don’t know how far back it goes, it’s a family heirloom. I’m afraid it’s been stolen, and I had so counted on giving it to Melantha.”

“When did you first miss it?”

“Oh, days and days ago. I don’t often wear it, and at first I thought I had mislaid it. I often do. But now I’ve searched and searched, and the servants have searched and searched, and it isn’t anywhere. I just realized yesterday that it must have been stolen.”

“Do you suspect anyone?”

“Goodness, no! If I suspected anyone, I would have got rid of them. I wouldn’t have a servant in the house who stole things.”

“Would you describe it for Colin?”

“Well it’s an oval, about—” She waveringly held up two fingers. “—this big.” She could have been indicating three inches or six. “It’s gold, of course, with little diamonds around the edge and a big one in the centre.”

“Very well, dear,” Lady Sara said. “You finish your coffee, and then I’ll send Colin home with you. The first thing is to make a really thorough search. When he has done that, he can talk with your servants.”

She turned to me. “Oh! Would you?”

“I should be honoured, my lady,” I told her.

While she gulped her coffee and finished the biscuit she was eating, Lady Sara took me aside. “What a parcel of dreary problems,” she said wearily. “It’s a gold antique brooch that Lady Cowlan is missing, oval, two and a half inches long by an inch high. It has ten small diamonds around the perimeter and a large one in the centre about a half carat in weight. Because it is so old, its value as an antique would certainly be far greater than the value of the stones and the gold separately, but a thief might not know that. If it really was stolen, it probably has been broken up and disposed of by now. Her servants are highly reliable, and they dote on her. I’m sure none of them took it nor would any of them cooperate with a thief. I think it much more likely that she lost or mislaid it. Find out when she last wore it and what gown she wore it on.”

We had a short ride down Park Lane in the Viscountess’s carriage. Dorothy, her maid, a sensible, middle-aged woman who had been with her for years, told me she had searched every drawer and container that could possibly have contained the brooch.

“What gown was the Viscountess wearing when she last wore it?” I asked.

This occasioned an argument between Dorothy and another maid. Neither of them remembered, and of course the Viscountess had no recollection of it. Finally Dorothy went to a wardrobe crammed with dresses, one of several such wardrobes, and took out a gown, a showy arrangement of silk that must have looked odd on the elderly Viscountess.

On the breast of the gown was pinned the brooch.

It was a typical triumph for Lady Sara—a brilliant solution to a problem that proved to be trivial only because of her brilliant solution. As was usually the case, someone else got the credit. I was warmly embraced by the Viscountess, congratulated by Dorothy, and viewed as a miracle-worker by all of the servants, who had been extremely distressed over the Viscountess’s loss. Her butler presented me with a bottle of a fine old port that I knew I didn’t have the palate to properly appreciate.

I took it home with me and gave it to Lady Sara. This was one of the few times her prowess brought her a tangible reward.

After I returned to Connaught Mews, Lady Sara and I discussed the river thefts. She first wanted to know about the Thames Police’s detective staff.

“The detectives use disguised boats and follow no schedules at all, but there are too few of them,” I said. “Occasionally they happen onto booty that’s been sunk in waterproof bags and buoyed with an innocent-looking float of some kind, but almost always this turns out to be smuggled goods. The smugglers cache them here and there in small quantities, and the occasional discovery of a hiding place is no great loss to them. As far as the police are concerned, these are worthwhile ‘finds,’ but they have nothing to do with the river thefts.”

“What are your impressions?” she asked.

“I never realized what a welter of confusion exists on both sides of the river,” I said. “It is packed with wharves, warehouses, and docks all the way to Greenwich and beyond. There are ships of every kind docked, or anchored, or arriving, or departing, or moving from one place to another. It is difficult to make any sense of it.”

There was laughter in her voice. “Spoken like a true landlubber. Successful thieves have the ability to turn such confusion to their advantage. That is why they are successful. What are their chances of being overlooked if they boldly move goods through that clutter of shipping by daylight?”

“None,” I said confidently. “They might manage it once or twice, but they would be caught sooner or later and probably sooner. The police and customs authorities keep a closer watch on things than seems possible.”

“In any case, the actual stealing would have to be done at night when there are few people about,” Lady Sara mused. “The first question is whether the stolen goods are being removed by waggon or by boat.”

I had no answer to that, but I felt certain of one thing: If by boat, they weren’t being transported far. “When boats move on the river at night, someone knows all about them or quickly becomes suspicious,” I said. “They couldn’t navigate through London’s harbour night after night in unlighted boats of whatever description without both police and customs authorities investigating. Even if the boats are properly lighted, someone will soon get curious as to who they are and where they are going. They aren’t transporting stolen goods from Tilbury to somewhere beyond the upper pool, for example.”

“All the thefts to date have occurred between London Bridge and Greenwich,” Lady Sara said. “The thieves probably have a haven somewhere along those reaches. Or several havens. Even so, it seems strange that the authorities have never caught sight of them. Chief Inspector Mewer considers this a simple case. ‘One not worthy of Lady Sara’s attention,’ was the way he put it to a subordinate. He regards the thieves’ success as a question of luck, but he has to concede they have been uncommonly lucky.”

“There has to be more than luck involved,” I said.

“A great deal more. The thefts have been managed so cleverly that the firms robbed haven’t been able to decide when or what time of day it happened or what employees were on duty. That suggests an organization of highly skilled thieves. But to return to the waggon or boat question—however the thefts are managed, almost certainly the goods are being taken somewhere quickly by boat.”

“Why not by land?” I asked, remembering those sharp-eyed police on the river.

“Think how many waggons it would require, or how many trips by one waggon, to transport the quantity of goods stolen. That would attract far more attention around the looted warehouses than a single unlighted boat. I am certain the thefts occur at night with the goods being removed by boat to a warehouse or warehouses along the river.”

I thought for a moment about what I had seen from the river. “If the thieves were to use a boat small enough to nose into narrow openings, they could move closely inshore and keep out of sight by threading their way among anchored or docked ships. That might enable them to escape detection indefinitely.”

Lady Sara shook her head. “The boat would have to be large enough to carry worthwhile loads. Also, a boat behaving in the manner you describe would arouse suspicion the moment anyone glimpsed it. The thieves may find boldness more effective than stealth because it isn’t so likely to be suspected. They may keep to the centre of the river and follow in the wake of a large boat. Or they may work up one side and then drift back downstream on the other side. They may change their tactics repeatedly.”

The idea of a small boat hiding in shadows along the shore appealed to me, and I was reluctant to give it up. “Sentries posted on the bank could detect them easily if they really are moving close inshore,” I said.

“But we don’t want them ‘detected,’” Lady Sara said. “Capturing one boat wouldn’t solve anything. They would simply change their tactics. We must find out where they are taking the stolen goods. Their warehouse, or warehouses, will have to be our first objective. These may belong to a firm handling a large volume of legitimate business. Only in that way could quantities of stolen goods be disposed of without eventually arousing suspicion. We also need to know something about the way goods are handled along the river. When you can spare the time, give some thought to that.”