Blackstone and the Burning Secret (The Blackstone Detective Series Book 4) Page 22

  ‘He’s not German at all,’ Emily said in a panic. ‘He’s a Boer. From Southern Africa.’

  ‘A farmer?’

  ‘A lawyer.’

  ‘Where did he meet your husband?’

  ‘In America.’

  ‘And what was he doing there?’

  ‘Trying to raise support—and money—for the Boers’ fight against the British Empire.’

  ‘And why did your husband become so interested in him?’

  ‘Because Lucas is a great man! Because Lucas supports the cause of freedom everywhere.’

  ‘The rope, Emily,’ Blackstone reminded her, almost gently.

  ‘Southern Africa’s very rich,’ Emily Tyndale said. ‘It’s got gold, and it’s got diamonds.’

  ‘And if the Boers ever manage to break away from the Empire, they’ll need more railways, and they’ll be looking for someone—say an American with a great deal of experience in the field—to build and run them.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘So someone—perhaps your husband, or perhaps Rilke—came up with a plan which would help the Boers to win.’

  ‘It was all Rilke’s idea,’ Emily said. She began to cry. ‘Lucas and I were sucked into this whole terrible affair against our wills. You’ve got Rilke now. Can’t you let us both go?’

  The tears were very convincing, Blackstone thought, but then Emily Tyndale was an actress.

  ‘Perhaps I’ve not made myself clear,’ he said. ‘Two people will hang. What we’re deciding here is which two people. Now if your husband and Rilke didn’t come up with this plan, then maybe it was Rilke and you.’

  Emily’s tears stopped flowing. ‘Rilke had the original idea, but Lucas helped him to polish it up and refine it,’ she said. ‘But they can’t take all the blame. They had quite a lot of support from some of the leaders of the Boer republics.’

  ‘Unfortunately, they’re not here, but your husband and Rilke are,’ Blackstone said. ‘Would you like to tell me how this man McClusky became involved in the plot?’

  ‘We needed…’ Emily paused. ‘When I said “we” I meant “they”. I meant my husband and the evil Mr Rilke.’

  ‘I get the point,’ Blackstone said. ‘You’re personally as pure as the driven snow. But I still need to know the mechanics of the plot.’

  ‘They needed to recruit somebody who had a close connection with Lord Lansdowne,’ Emily said. ‘We—they—drew up a shortlist of possible candidates. McClusky was chosen because of his military connections—and because it soon became obvious that he’s a very greedy man.’

  ‘Who was working with him?’

  ‘Working with him?’

  ‘On the arson attacks. We know now that it wasn’t Davenport, but McClusky couldn’t have done it alone. So what’s his partner’s name?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Emily said. ‘I swear I don’t know. He said he’d be happier putting his own team together. I think he probably used people he’d served in the Army with.’

  ‘But the Honourable Charles Davenport was definitely not part of that team, was he?’

  ‘No, he wasn’t.’

  ‘So tell me how he fitted in.’

  ‘It happened almost by accident,’ Emily said. ‘Rilke had already bought the Austro-Hungary Club. We needed it because—’

  ‘I know why you needed it,’ Blackstone said.

  ‘They knew that once they’d lured you there, you’d have easily spotted if it had been nothing but a fake. So it had to be a real gambling club, which was why Rilke began to run it as if it actually was his business.’

  ‘Why me?’ Blackstone asked.

  ‘Why you?’ Emily repeated. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The blackmail notes were addressed to me personally. Was there a reason for that?’

  ‘Of course. Rilke said it was the best way to be as certain as we could be that you were in charge of the investigation.’

  ‘And he wanted me in charge?’

  ‘Yes. Because Rilke was afraid that, once they saw the way the investigation was heading, most inspectors would try to fudge it. But he’d heard that you wouldn’t do that. He’d heard that once you got your teeth into a case, you’d stick with it to the bitter end, whoever was involved.’

  ‘I’m flattered,’ Blackstone said.

  ‘Lucas didn’t like the idea,’ Emily continued. ‘He said you might be smart enough to see through whole thing. But Rilke told him not to worry. He said that dogged determination shouldn’t be confused with brains, and you were probably just as stupid as all the other officers in Scotland Yard.’

  ‘It’s always a mistake to underestimate the enemy—and it’s one I’ve made a few times myself,’ Blackstone said. ‘Let’s get back to Charles Davenport. A few days before the operation was due to begin, he came into the Austro-Hungary Club, didn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To gamble, of course.’

  Was that the only reason he was there?’

  ‘Yes. His family paid him an allowance, on condition that he lived in Italy. But he just couldn’t keep away from the London clubs, so he secretly returned to Britain.’

  ‘And what happened next?’

  ‘He ran out of money, and asked for credit. When Rilke refused it, he threw an absolute fit. He said he had powerful friends, and threatened to use their influence to have the club closed down.’

  ‘He mentioned Lord Lansdowne as one of these powerful friends of his, did he?’

  ‘Yes.’

  And that, Blackstone thought, had pretty much sealed his fate.

  ‘What did Rilke do?’ he asked. ‘Drug him?’

  ‘Yes. At least, for most of the time.’

  ‘And then you kept him locked away until you needed him?’

  ‘Rilke kept him locked away. In the cellar of the club. Maybe Lucas had something to do with it, too—I can’t say for certain—but I didn’t know anything about it.’

  Ah, how little spousal loyalty meant when the threat of the rope fell across it, Blackstone thought.

  ‘The night the Golden Tulip was set on fire, Rilke killed Davenport,’ the Inspector said. ‘He did it by hammering a specially prepared piece of metal into his chest. Then Davenport was left in the water for us to find. He was the perfect clue for you to leave, because he served not one, but two, functions—to both lead me to the door of the Austro-Hungary Club, and to establish a link between the arson attacks and Lord Lansdowne.’

  Blackstone thought back to his own visit to the club. At the time, he had congratulated himself on pulling off his impersonation of a rich, rough millionaire. But Rilke hadn’t been fooled at all. The Boer had been expecting him, and however bad his impersonation had been, Rilke would have let him in—because, for the plan to work, it was necessary for him to be introduced to Emily.

  ‘Your only job—your only part in the whole thing—was to describe Lord Lansdowne to me,’ Blackstone said.

  ‘And to say that I’d seen him in the company of Davenport and McClusky,’ Emily replied.

  ‘Of course,’ Blackstone agreed. ‘Had you ever actually met Lord Lansdowne?’

  ‘No, but I’d studied several photographs of him, and watched him enter and leave the House of Lords.’

  I’m about to save Lansdowne’s career, Blackstone thought—the career of one of the Privileged Few, of an Empire builder. If my mother was still alive, she’d be ashamed of me.

  Under other circumstances, he’d probably have been quite content to step aside and let Lansdowne look after himself, he reflected.

  And why not?

  He had no brief for the British Empire, and some sympathy for the Boers’ desire for independence. But Rilke and Tyndale had killed a man as part of their plot—and that couldn’t go unpunished, even if, in the process, it meant getting the Minister of War off the hook.

  ‘So let’s be perfectly clear about this,’ he said. ‘Lord Lansdowne has never set foot inside the Austro-Hungary Clu
b.’

  ‘He hasn’t.’

  ‘You didn’t try to lure him in?’

  ‘No.’

  Of course not. Why run the risk, when they didn’t need to? It mattered not a jot whether he had, or hadn’t, been in the club. All that was necessary was that enough people—enough of the right people—believed that he had.

  ‘Was it Rilke or Lucas who sent the anonymous letter about Lansdowne to the Prime Minister?’ Blackstone asked

  ‘What anonymous letter?’ Emily asked.

  She wasn’t going to admit to any more than she had to, Blackstone thought. And it didn’t really matter, in terms of putting his case together, which of the two men had sent it. But it had to be one of them, because—aside from Sir Roderick Todd, Sergeant Patterson and himself—they were the only ones who knew enough about the whole affair to have penned it.

  ‘The first fire burnt down a single warehouse, when it could have gutted a whole street,’ Blackstone said. ‘The second destroyed a single ship when it could have spread through the entire eel fleet. The explosion on Tower Bridge never happened at all. Why were they all such failures?’

  Despite herself, Emily smiled. ‘Is that what you think they were, Inspector? Failures?’

  ‘No,’ Blackstone agreed. ‘They weren’t failures at all, were they? They achieved exactly what they set out to achieve. You didn’t want to do too much damage—because you were afraid that if you did, the Government might panic and pay the ransom. And you weren’t interested in money. What you wanted was the investigation into Lord Lansdowne to continue until we’d collected enough of the fake evidence you’d planted to make our case against him.’

  Emily nodded.

  ‘Tell me what was supposed to have happened?’ Blackstone continued.

  ‘Lansdowne was meant to resign,’ Emily said.

  And he’d come damn close to doing so, Blackstone reflected—another twelve hours and he’d have been gone.

  ‘And since, with the war going on, he’s just about the most important person in government at the moment, the rest of the Government would probably have fallen with him,’ the Inspector said.

  ‘Yes, that’s what was supposed to have happened.’

  ‘With the Government’s fall, the Liberals would have taken power. And as they’ve been against the war right from the start, they wouldn’t have carried on pursuing it as this government has been doing—they’d have sued for peace with the Boers.’

  ‘That’s what we hoped for.’

  ‘So the Boers would have gained virtual independence—and your husband would have been rewarded for the part he played in it all by being given control over the railways.’

  ‘You make it sound as if he were doing it all for purely selfish reasons,’ Emily said.

  ‘And wasn’t he?’

  ‘No, he was not.’ Emily’s voice rose to a dramatic trill, as if she were delivering the final speech in the play. ‘Lucas was driven by the instinct of a true pioneer—the spirit of freedom. Southern Africa lay at his feet. The whole of Africa was just on his doorstep. He would have been a power to be reckoned with!’

  She fell silent. She did not actually bow, but she was clearly waiting for applause.

  ‘And now, instead of being a power to be reckoned with, he’s just another jailbird,’ Blackstone pointed out.

  ‘A great tragedy!’ Emily said. ‘A great waste of talent.’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Still, I’ve done all I could for him—all any wife could be expected to do. May I ask you one question?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘How long do you think I’ll go to prison for?’

  ‘That depends on how well you play it,’ Blackstone said. ‘You need to convince the jury that you had only a minor role in the affair. And you need to charm the judge. If you can do all that, you might get away with four or five years.’

  ‘Four or five years,’ Emily repeated thoughtfully. ‘Then it won’t be too late.’

  ‘Too late for what?’

  ‘For my comeback, of course! I won’t even have to audition for roles. Theatre companies will be falling over themselves to take me on—because they’ll know that they’ll be hiring someone famous, someone who can pull in the crowds.’ She paused. ‘Lucas was holding me back, you know. He was denying me my destiny. But all that’s over now.’

  ‘True,’ Blackstone agreed. ‘And I suppose you could say that crime’s loss is the theatre’s gain.’

  ‘Beautifully put,’ Emily agreed.

  36

  ‘Just look at yourself, Inspector,’ Sir Roderick Todd said. ‘You’re unshaven. Your suit’s crumpled. You’re a positive disgrace.’

  ‘I haven’t had much sleep in the last thirty-six hours,’ Blackstone replied. ‘And I didn’t go home to change, because your message said that you wanted to see me the moment I got back to London.’

  ‘Even allowing for all that, I still think you could have made more of an effort,’ Sir Roderick said peevishly.

  ‘I’ll try to do better next time,’ Blackstone said. ‘That is, if there’s to be a next time.’

  ‘You almost cost Lord Lansdowne his career,’ Todd said. ‘You almost brought the Government down.’

  ‘It was Rilke and Tyndale who did that,’ Blackstone pointed out. ‘All the clues they left clearly pointed to Lansdowne being involved.’

  And Lansdowne himself hadn’t actually helped his case, the Inspector thought. Of course, it may have been because he was feeling under the weather that he didn’t recognise the sketch of McClusky immediately—but it had still looked suspicious.

  ‘Granted, Rilke and Tyndale did their best to implicate His Lordship,’ Sir Roderick conceded. ‘But a good detective—even a merely competent one—would have seen through it all from the start. That’s my considered view of the matter, at any rate.’

  ‘But it isn’t everybody’s view?’ Blackstone guessed.

  ‘Lord Lansdowne has interceded on your behalf,’ Todd admitted. ‘I can only put it down to his very generous nature and his complete ignorance of how a police force is supposed to work. Of course,’ he added hastily, ‘we can’t really condemn His Lordship for his lack of knowledge on that particular front.’

  ‘Of course not,’ Blackstone agreed.

  ‘Nevertheless, the upshot of Lord Lansdowne’s no doubt well-meaning intervention is that you are to be given another chance,’ the Assistant Commissioner continued. ‘Another chance, Blackstone! Mark those words well. That is not the same as saying that the slate is wiped clean of all that has gone before.’

  ‘I’m sure it isn’t,’ Blackstone said.

  *

  Patterson and Dr Carr were waiting for him in the pub. ‘How did it go?’ the Sergeant asked.

  Blackstone shrugged, then reached for his pint. ‘As well as could be expected,’ he said.

  ‘Archibald here’s been explaining the whole thing to me,’ Ellie Carr said. ‘You’re really not as dense as you look, are you? In fact, I’d say you’ve got quite a good brain—for a flatfoot.’

  ‘Compliment noted and accepted,’ Blackstone told her.

  ‘Well, I ‘ave to be nice to yer, don’t I?’ Ellie Carr said, slipping back into her Cockney. ‘I mean ter say, I was rather ‘oping that yer’d throw more of yer cases my way.’

  ‘Considering you saved my bacon on this one, I don’t see how I could refuse,’ Blackstone said.

  ‘Good, I’m glad that’s settled,’ Ellie Carr said. She turned her attention back to Patterson. ‘Archibald?’

  ‘Yes, Ellie?’

  ‘Would you be an absolute sweetheart and go and buy us another round of drinks?’

  ‘I’d be glad to.’

  Ellie Carr reached across the table, and ruffled Patterson’s hair. ‘Good lad!’ she said.

  ‘My Sergeant’s engaged to be married,’ Blackstone said, when Patterson had gone to the bar, and was thus out of earshot.

  ‘So he was saying before you arrived.’

  ‘She’s a nice girl,
his Rose. No match for you, admittedly, but still a very nice girl.’

  ‘You’re making some kind of point, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘Would you care to spell it out?’

  ‘I don’t think I need to. I think you’ve got it already.’

  ‘You’re saying that I should leave young Archibald alone, are you?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Ellie Carr laughed. ‘You need have no worries on that account, Inspector,’ she said. ‘When it comes to my meat, I like it young and fatty. But if we’re talking about my men, I prefer them older—and much stringier.’

  If you enjoyed reading Blackstone and the Burning Secret, you might be interested in Blackstone and the Great Game, also by Sally Spencer.

  Extract from Blackstone and the Great Game by Sally Spencer

  Prologue

  Chandrapore, Northern India, 1897.

  From his balcony, the Maharaja could see both the gardens which surrounded his palace and the town which lay beyond. It was a view much admired by the representatives of the British Raj, but even their appreciation—as they devoured it with their greedy, acquisitive eyes—had not succeeded in souring the pleasure he took from it himself.

  A unit of his army was being drilled in the maidan—the town square. He watched it for a few moments with the trained eye of an ex-soldier, then nodded his head in approval. His men were good—much better than the soldiers from any of the neighbouring princely states. Which was not to say, of course, that they would be any match for the British Army. No, should they choose to, the British could sweep through Chandrapore in a matter of days.

  The Maharaja had once seen a tightrope walker in a travelling circus, and it struck him now that his task involved as much of a balancing act as that performed by the man on the high wire. His army was just one case in point. If it had been any weaker, the British would have considered the state such easy pickings that they would have been unable to resist the temptation to overrun it. If, on the other hand, it had been any stronger, they might have perceived it as a threat which must be dealt with before it grew any more out of hand. By keeping it at just the size it was, he offered a warning—without making that warning into a threat.