Blackstone and the Burning Secret (The Blackstone Detective Series Book 4) Page 14

  ‘To whom?’

  ‘To our troops fighting in Southern Africa! Can you imagine what effect it would have had on their morale to learn that the centre of the very Empire they are fighting for is under attack? And what about the Boers? Can you even begin to conceive of what the news might have done for their morale? Until now they have thought themselves alone, fighting the mighty British Army. If they learned they had an ally—even an ally who is only working for his own greedy ends—it would greatly strengthen their resolve. It could have put the whole campaign back months. It might even have damaged it irrevocably.’

  ‘You are the Minister of War, yet I seem to be the one who has the greatest faith in the courage and resolution of the British fighting man,’ the Prime Minister said rebukingly.

  ‘The British fighting man!’ Lansdowne said, with scarcely veiled contempt. ‘We’re not discussing knights in shining armour, squaring up to each other on a small battlefield, Prime Minister. What we have here is a modern war. Such wars are not won by acts of individual courage, but by well-oiled military machines. And these attacks are throwing a spanner in the works of our particular machine. For God’s sake, pay these people off, Robert—pay them while you still have the chance!’

  Lord Salisbury shook his head gravely. ‘I will not go against the wishes of the Cabinet in this matter,’ he said.

  ‘If we were not at war with the Boers, I’d tender my resignation,’ Lansdowne said hotly.

  ‘And if we were not at war with the Boers, I’d accept it,’ the Prime Minister replied.

  *

  Patterson put down the telephone. ‘I’ve just been talking to a mate of mine who works for the House of Lords,’ he said. ‘He tells me that they’re very careful with their control of stationery supplies, because they don’t want any of them falling into the wrong hands.’

  Of course they didn’t, Blackstone thought. A House of Lords letterhead would be an absolute gift to a con-man who was pretending to be a member of the aristocracy.

  ‘But however careful they are, no system’s perfect,’ Patterson said, trying his best to sound optimistic. ‘A clerk or a secretary might have been able to steal a sheet or two.’

  But where would the clerk or secretary get the five hundred pounds which was wrapped up in it? Blackstone wondered.

  Whichever way he looked at it—however much he tried to explain the evidence away, he was forced back to the conclusion that Lord Moneybags was, in fact, a real lord.

  And real lords were rarely punished for their crimes, however heinous. Rather it was the little man who tried to bring them to justice who suffered—because what happened to him didn’t matter a damn.

  There was still a chance to extricate himself from the situation, Blackstone told himself. All he had to do was discard the evidence he had found in the workhouse. Of course, that would mean he’d fail to solve the case, but his career could possibly withstand that. And even if it didn’t, even if he was thrown out on his ear, he would still have the five hundred pounds—because nobody was going to try to claim that back.

  But he knew, even as he was holding this debate in his head, that he could never do it. Most of the general public looked down on orphans—were not the least surprised when they fell from grace. It had been a hard battle to convince this same general public that it was wrong, but up to that moment he had always been able to point to himself as just one example of the many orphans who hadn’t fallen. But what if he now did go off the rails? Even if his fall went generally undiscovered, he would know about it—he would feel he had betrayed all those children he helped to keep alive with his donations.

  The phone rang, and Patterson answered. ‘It’s the lads I’ve got watching the Austro-Hungary Club,’ he said. ‘They thought we might like to know that Mouldoon and Rilke have just arrived.’

  Perhaps he still might have a chance of coming out of this whole bloody mess in one piece, Blackstone thought. Perhaps he could advance the investigation without having to deal directly himself with the rogue peer in the House of Lords. Perhaps—just perhaps—one of his superiors would take over when it became clear that an important man was involved.

  ‘What do you want me to tell the lads, sir?’ Patterson asked.

  ‘Tell them to arrest Rilke and Mouldoon, and bring them down to the Yard,’ Blackstone said.

  23

  There was a spy-hole set in the door, and by putting his eye against it, Blackstone could observe the man sitting at the table in what was officially called the Interview Room, but which both of them knew was, in truth, the Interrogation Room.

  It didn’t look good, he told himself. The very act of being arrested should have shaken the man inside. The period he had already spent in this forbidding room—with no company but his own thoughts—should have further unnerved him. Yet Mouldoon seemed as calm as if he were simply waiting for a train to arrive.

  Blackstone opened the door and stepped heavily into the room. Mouldoon, for his part, looked up with what could almost have been called a wry smile playing on his lips.

  ‘I know what’s going through your mind,’ Blackstone warned him.

  ‘Do you really?’ Mouldoon replied.

  ‘Yes, I most certainly do. At the moment you’re congratulating yourself on how well you’re standing up to your ordeal. But the feeling won’t last, you know. Believe me, it never lasts. And what will replace it? Well, I think I’ll leave that to you to find out for yourself.’

  ‘You have no right to treat me in this manner, you know,’ Mouldoon said, almost conversationally. ‘I’m not a criminal.’

  His response was a bad sign, Blackstone thought. It was far too relaxed—far too complacent. A good sign—a sign that he might eventually break—would have been a defiant response, an insistence that, despite what his captor had just said, he could take whatever was dished out to him.

  Blackstone sat down opposite his prisoner. ‘So you don’t think you’re a criminal,’ he said. ‘That’s funny, because I could have sworn I’d seen you in an illegal gaming club.’

  Mouldoon grinned. ‘I could have sworn I’d seen you there, too.’ He held up his hands to forestall anything Blackstone might say. ‘I know! I know! You were pursuing an inquiry.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And I was there to gamble. OK, I admit it. I’ll sign a statement to that effect, if it will keep you happy. But what will be the consequences of my “illegal” action? A fine? Then why don’t we save some time? Just tell me how much this fine of yours is likely to be, and I’ll pay it right now.’

  ‘Gambling’s not the only reason you’re here,’ Blackstone said. ‘I could also charge you with living off immoral earnings.’

  ‘With what?’ the American asked.

  ‘I have reason to believe that you run a string of prostitutes out of the Austro-Hungary Club.’

  ‘I certainly do no such thing.’

  ‘You introduced me to one of them.’

  ‘I introduced you to a young lady,’ Mouldoon corrected him.

  ‘And why should you have done that?’

  ‘I was being no more than polite to a fellow guest at the club. I had no idea the woman in question was a professional—and you’ll never be able to prove that I did.’

  ‘We have her signed statement in which she swears that she was working for you.’

  ‘So it’s my word against hers. The whore versus the well-dressed, soft-spoken American gentleman. So tell me, Inspector, which one of us do you think the magistrate’s more likely to believe?’

  ‘It’ll be more than just her word when we’ve interviewed the other whores,’ Blackstone said.

  Mouldoon leaned back in his chair. ‘Well, I sure wish you luck in finding them,’ he drawled. ‘I don’t recall seeing any of the young ladies around since the night before last.’

  So whatever she’d promised, Molly the prostitute had warned Mouldoon off, Blackstone thought. He shouldn’t be surprised by that, he supposed. In fact, he should have bee
n expecting it.

  ‘Maybe I won’t be able to make the charges stick at the end of the day,’ he said, changing tack. ‘But I’ll certainly try my damnedest to. And while I’m trying, you’ll be locked up in a prison, where some very nasty people will want to get at you—especially if they’re given some sort of encouragement.’

  Mouldoon smiled. ‘Is that a threat?’

  ‘You tell me! I’d certainly think that it was, if I were on the receiving end of it.’

  Mouldoon nodded thoughtfully. ‘You’re not truly interested in locking me up for running a few hookers out of a gaming club,’ he said. ‘What is it you’re really after?’

  Blackstone took the sketch of ‘Lord Moneybags’ out of his pocket, and slid it across the table. ‘Tell me about him,’ he said. ‘Or are you going to pretend that you don’t recognise him?’

  ‘Oh, I recognise him, right enough. He’s a customer at the Austro-Hungary Club.’

  ‘And what’s his name?’

  ‘He signed in the register as Mr Smith.’

  ‘But we both know that’s not his real name.’

  ‘Of course we do. No more than it is yours. But I don’t happen to know what his true name is.’

  ‘Did he ever show an interest in any of your girls?’

  ‘They’re not my girls.’

  ‘Did he show any interest in the girls, then?’

  ‘No. He didn’t appear to care for women.’

  ‘So it’s boys he likes?’

  ‘Nor boys, either. His vice is gambling.’

  ‘Did he gamble heavily?’

  ‘Not excessively.’

  ‘I heard that on one night alone he lost four thousand pounds at the baccarat table.’

  ‘Did he indeed? Well, that’s easy enough to do, if you’re facing an unlucky run of cards. But since I didn’t see it for myself, I really couldn’t say whether that’s true or not.’

  ‘You’re not being very helpful, Mr Mouldoon.’

  ‘You may well be right, Inspector Blackstone,’ the American agreed easily, ‘but perhaps the reason for that isn’t because I won’t be, but rather because I can’t be.’

  ‘Need I remind you that you could have some very nasty experiences down in the cells?’ Blackstone said, shaking his head mournfully. ‘Some very nasty experiences. I don’t want to go into any of the unpleasant details, but I should think you could pretty much imagine them for yourself.’

  Mouldoon smiled again. ‘Let me give you a piece of advice, Inspector,’ he suggested. ‘Never make a threat you can’t keep.’

  ‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’ Blackstone demanded.

  ‘It means that I regard myself as a pretty good judge of character. And this is the way I read yours—you’d like a confession of some sort from me, but there’s certain means you wouldn’t employ, however badly you needed it.’

  He was right to think he’d be as safe in the cells as he would be in his own home, Blackstone thought. He was right to assume that the man who was locking him up would see to that personally—because that was just his way.

  The Inspector sighed and turned to the constable who was standing in the doorway. ‘Take Mr Mouldoon down, will you, please?’ he said. ‘Find him a nice quiet cell on his own.’

  *

  Rilke was quite as relaxed as Mouldoon had been, but in a stiffer, more Germanic manner.

  ‘Tell me about this man,’ Blackstone said, showing him the same sketch he had shown to Mouldoon only minutes earlier.

  ‘I believe his name is Smith.’

  ‘And he’s a heavy gambler?’

  ‘He certainly likes to gamble. Most people who go to gambling clubs do. That is why they go there.’

  ‘I don’t think you quite appreciate your own position, Mr Rilke,’ Blackstone said. ‘You’re in a great deal of trouble.’

  ‘Am I?’

  ‘You most certainly are. As the owner of the Austro-Hungary Club—’

  ‘But I am not the owner,’ Rilke interrupted.

  ‘As the manager, then.’

  ‘I am not the manager, either.’

  ‘Then who is?’

  ‘The manager, as I understand it, is a man called Jones.’

  ‘And where might I find him?’

  ‘I am afraid I cannot help you there, Inspector. I haven’t seen him for several days.’

  ‘So, in his absence, the club’s been running itself, has it?’ Blackstone asked sceptically.

  ‘Any institution which has been established with care and precision is perfectly capable of running itself for some quite considerable time,’ Rilke said. ‘That is something we Germans have learned—and something you English could learn from us.’

  ‘According to the German Consul-General, the only Rilke in England at the moment is five years old.’

  Rilke shrugged. ‘The German Consul-General is wrong,’ he said. ‘I am the living proof of that.’

  ‘But can you prove your real name is Rilke?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You can’t? You don’t have any documents? A passport, for example? Or an identity card?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I thought that you Germans prided yourselves on the extent of your documentation.’

  ‘And so we do. But, unfortunately, all such documents were stolen from me a week ago.’

  ‘Did you report the theft?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘There seemed no point in doing so. I have very little confidence in the English police.’

  ‘You do understand your position, don’t you?’ Blackstone asked. ‘You do know you could go to gaol?’

  ‘For what?’ Rilke responded. ‘You will find no evidence to tie me in with the club.’

  ‘In that case, we’ll just have to deport you as an undesirable alien, won’t we?’

  ‘I wish you would. I am already bored with this wet little country of yours, and would welcome the chance to travel back to the Fatherland at the expense of your government.’

  *

  The pub seemed much more subdued than it normally did. Or maybe it was just he, himself, who was subdued, Blackstone thought, as he drew patterns in the beer some earlier customer had spilled on the table. Probably it was just him—he certainly had reason enough.

  Patterson returned from the bar with two pints of best bitter. Blackstone examined his for a moment—as if he were not quite sure what it was—then downed half of it in a single gulp.

  ‘Does that make the world look any better, sir?’ Patterson asked, his voice edged with concern.

  ‘We can’t hold them, you know,’ Blackstone said moodily, ignoring the question. ‘At least, we can’t hold them for long. Rilke took great pleasure in informing me that we’ll never tie him to ownership of the Austro-Hungary Club, and he sounded so confident about it that I’m inclined to believe him.’

  ‘What about Mouldoon?’

  ‘The same with him. We’ll never make the charge of procurement stick—not if he’s been as careful as I think he’s been. Besides, when all’s said and done, neither of them is directly involved in the crime we’re actually investigating.’

  ‘You don’t think they have anything at all to do with the arson attacks?’ Patterson asked.

  ‘Why should they have? Why get their own hands dirty when there’s absolutely no need for them to do so?’

  ‘If they want the money…’

  ‘It’s Lord Moneybags—or whatever the bugger’s real name is—who owes the money. And it’s Lord Moneybags who has to find some way of raising it. All they have to do—as the people who are no more than his creditors—is to sit back and wait for him to hand it over.’

  ‘Do you think they know who he really is?’

  ‘Of course they do! If he’s that much in debt to them, they just have to know his real name, and where he lives. But if they tell us his identity, we’ll arrest him—and he’ll never be able to clear his debt to them. So it’s in their interest to keep quiet, even if
keeping quiet involves them spending a little time in gaol.’

  ‘And you don’t think gaol will soften them up at all?’

  ‘Not a chance. It’s…’ Blackstone waved his hands helplessly in the smoke-filled air, ‘…it’s almost as if they’d known this very thing was going to happen all along, and had been mentally preparing themselves for it.’

  ‘I know just what you mean,’ Patterson said. ‘So what’s your next move, sir?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about it, and there is only one move I can make,’ Blackstone told him. ‘I’m going to have to take everything we’ve got so far, and lay it on the desk of Sir Roderick-bloody-Todd.’

  Patterson was taking a sip of his pint, and when he heard what Blackstone had said, he almost choked on it.

  ‘You’re going to take it to the Assistant Commissioner?!’ he said, when he could finally speak again.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But you know Todd as well as I do, sir. Probably better!’

  ‘True,’ Blackstone agreed.

  ‘If you went to him with cast-iron proof of our theories, then he might—and I say just might—be prepared to put all his personal prejudices aside for one moment, and listen to what you had to say. But we haven’t got cast-iron proof, have we? What we do have is a piece of House of Lords notepaper, and the opinion of a common prostitute that one of the clients at the Austro-Hungary Club acted as if he were actually a lord.’

  ‘And the sketch Molly provided us with,’ Blackstone pointed out. ‘Don’t forget the sketch.’

  ‘Normally I’d say that what we’ve got is no more than circumstantial—but I’m not even feeling that optimistic at the moment,’ Patterson said. ‘You can’t go and see Todd, sir. He’s never going to stand for you accusing a member of the House of Lords—a peer of the realm—of arson. Not on our evidence!’ He paused, and, for the first time since they’d been working together, put his hand on his boss’s shoulder. ‘Don’t do it, sir. He’ll blow his stack. He’ll have your balls for breakfast.’