Blackstone and the Burning Secret (The Blackstone Detective Series Book 4) Page 5

  ‘Not particularly well,’ Patterson admitted. ‘I haven’t been able to talk to any witnesses to the fire, because—as you saw for yourself—they all melted away before we had time to take their names and addresses.’

  ‘Has the Fire Service been of any use?’

  ‘I can’t say they have. Don’t get me wrong,’ Patterson said hastily, as if he feared he might be misunderstood, ‘they’re willing enough to help. But, quite honestly, they’re as stumped by the whole thing as we are.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘It’s the nature of the fire that’s flummoxing them, you see. According to Leading Fireman Harris, every professional arsonist has his own particular way of going about the job—his own methodology, if you like.’

  ‘Methodology,’ Blackstone repeated. ‘That’s one of those big words—like marmalade.’

  Patterson grinned. ‘Would you prefer it if I called it leaving his own “mark”?’ he asked.

  ‘Definitely,’ Blackstone said.

  ‘All right. Each arsonist leaves his own mark. He stamps his name on his crime as clearly as if he’d actually signed it. So Mr Harris can look at a fire scene and say, “That’s the work of Joe Bloggs.” And even if he can’t do that—even if it’s the work of a man who’s never been arrested before—he can still say, “The person who set this fire in Pentonville was the same one who set a fire in Notting Hill five weeks ago.”’

  ‘But he can’t do that in this particular case?’

  ‘No. Because the arsonist didn’t leave any distinctive mark. Mr Harris thinks that what was used to start the fire in the tea warehouse was nothing more than a bunch of rags soaked in paraffin. He says that’s a bit like trying to do fine engraving with a stone chisel. From his viewpoint, it all seems very crude and very sloppy. Mr Harris says that any professional firebug worth his salt would be ashamed to admit that the warehouse fire was his own work.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Blackstone said thoughtfully. ‘What’s the word from our friends in the criminal fraternity?’

  ‘I talked to a couple of our best informers, and they’re as much in the dark about it as the Fire Brigade is.’

  ‘So they can’t tell us anything?’

  ‘They did say one useful thing.’

  ‘And what was that?’

  ‘Like the Fire Brigade, they’ve no idea who started the fire—but they’re pretty sure it wasn’t one of the normal jobbing arsonists.’

  Ominous, Blackstone thought. Very ominous.

  He’d been wondering why memories of India had chosen to visit him on that particular day, but now he thought he knew.

  It was because some part of his mind had started making connections that the rest of it hadn’t even begun to consider.

  Yes, that was it! This case reminded him of the kidnapping of the Indian prince, right off the streets of London, two years earlier.

  Blackstone tried to pin down exactly why his brain should want to tie together a kidnapping and an arson attack.

  The first connection was obvious, he told himself. Then, as now, he had come up against a blank wall when searching for leads—had been assured by his most reliable underworld contacts that whatever else the criminals were, they weren’t Londoners.

  But there was something else, too. The kidnappers of two years earlier hadn’t snatched the Prince immediately. They’d pulled off two other jobs—one relatively simple and the other only slightly complicated—before attempting the big one. And this new case had the same sort of feel about it.

  The warehouse fire was no more than a trial run. The arsonist not only intended to carry out his threat to set more blazes, but he was planning to make each fire more spectacular than the one which had preceded it!

  ‘You’ve gone very quiet, sir,’ Patterson said. ‘What’s on your mind, if I might ask?’

  ‘I was thinking how vulnerable this city of ours is,’ Blackstone replied.

  ‘Vulnerable?’

  ‘How exposed it is, if you’d prefer that. London’s simply not set up to handle a war on its own doorstep.’

  ‘A war?’ Patterson repeated. ‘Have I missed something in the newspapers? Who’s about to invade us?’

  ‘The firebug,’ Blackstone said grimily. ‘And he’s not about to do anything—he’s already started.’

  8

  The Prime Minister looked down the long mahogany table, around which were gathered the members of his cabinet.

  These were men who wielded immense power, he reminded himself. They could send hundreds of thousands of men to war—and had very recently done just that. The fate of the millions of subjects who made up Her Majesty’s empire rested in their hands. The future prosperity and strength of Great Britain would be determined by the decisions they made.

  Was it not, therefore, reasonable to expect that they should exude the air of being exceptional—that there would be something about them which would make them stand out from the crowd?

  Of course it was reasonable!

  And was that expectation fulfilled?

  Not at all!

  The longer the Prime Minister was in politics, the more he was learning to despise most politicians. And though a prime minister selected his ministers personally, it was not much of a choice when the pool contained more minnows and stickle-backs than it did pike and salmon.

  He let his eyes wander further, resting for a moment on each member of his team. The President of the Board of Trade—a stickleback, if ever there was one. The Home Secretary—a minnow. The Chancellor of the Exchequer—a tadpole, and a worried one, at that.

  Oh, where were the giants of yesteryear, he asked himself—the men who had served under Palmerston and Disraeli?

  Dead, most of them!

  And all he was left with was a Cabinet made up of milksops and time-servers.

  There were notable exceptions, of course. Austen Chamberlain, the Colonial Secretary, was almost a big fish. And then there was Lord Lansdowne, the Minister of War.

  Lansdowne, who had the floor at that moment, was a pike. There was no question about that. He spoke well, and had a good mind. He looked like a true statesman—and when the time came for the Prime Minister himself to step down, Lansdowne would be a very strong candidate to replace him.

  ‘In his most recent communication, General Roberts has informed me that everything is going exactly to plan,’ the Minister of War was saying. ‘He has assured me that, barring any unforeseen circumstances, the war should be over by the end of the year at the latest.’

  The Prime Minister reached into his pocket, took out a silk handkerchief, and mopped his brow.

  What was it the Duke of Wellington had said about the Battle of Waterloo? he wondered. Something to the effect that it had been ‘a damn close-run thing’.

  Well, that was what this war had been, too. If it were lost, the Liberals would be proved right, and the Conservatives wouldn’t see government again for another thirty years. But it wasn’t going to be lost. Lansdowne had promised victory by Christmas, and the electorate would show its gratitude by keeping in office the government which had fought it.

  ‘The annexation of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State will not only considerably enhance the Empire territorially, but will also keep German expansionism at bay,’ Lansdowne continued. ‘Then, of course, there is the gold. We will gain control of the mines already in existence, and establish our claim to any new ones which may be discovered. And gold, I need hardly remind you, gentlemen, is one of the products which truly lubricate the world.’

  Other ministers—overly fond of hearing their own voices—might have said much more, the Prime Minister thought. This minister, choosing to end on a high note, shuffled his papers into a precise pile, then fell silent.

  There was one other matter still to be dealt with.

  The Prime Minister cleared his throat. ‘We appear to be facing a new—and totally unexpected—problem on our own shores,’ he said. ‘You have all, I take it, seen the reproduction of the note which was handed
in to Scotland Yard?’

  The men around the table nodded their heads.

  ‘And what should be our response?’ the Prime Minister asked.

  ‘The police should lock the blighter up,’ the President of the Board of Trade said, looking reproachfully at the Home Secretary, who was—ultimately—in charge of such matters.

  The Home Secretary looked uncomfortable. ‘Scotland Yard is doing all it can,’ he said awkwardly, ‘but investigations of this nature take time to come to fruition.’

  ‘And in the meantime, we must simply endure these attacks—assuming there are more?’ the President of the Board of Trade asked.

  ‘Regrettably, yes,’ the Home Secretary agreed.

  ‘I take it that none of you would consider, even for a moment, giving in to the arsonist’s demands?’ the Prime Minister said.

  More head-nodding, and several cries of ‘Certainly not,’ and ‘I’d rather burn in hell.’

  ‘I think we should pay the ransom,’ the Minister of War said.

  He couldn’t have created a greater sensation, the Prime Minister thought, if he had stood on the table and shown his bare backside to all his colleagues.

  ‘Pay it!’ the President of the Board of Trade demanded. Pay one hundred thousand pounds!’

  ‘Just so,’ the Minister of War agreed calmly.

  ‘But…but that’s outrageous,’ the Chancellor of the Exchequer spluttered. ‘Just think of what it would do to my budget.’

  ‘Besides, if there is one thing I have learned during my time in office, it is that we can never give in to criminals,’ the Home Secretary said. ‘If we paid this scoundrel what he is asking for, what is to stop him demanding more?’

  ‘Why should he, if we do give him all he asks for?’ the Secretary of War asked reasonably.

  ‘Because that is the way the criminal mind works,’ the Home Secretary said. ‘The criminal is motivated by unlimited greed. Give him a hundred thousand pounds and he will want a million. Give him a million, and he’ll be asking for the crown jewels next. I am surprised a man of your calibre—a man who has been Governor-General of Canada, and Viceroy of India—should have failed to grasp that simple fact.’

  ‘Why do you think we should pay the ransom, Lansdowne?’ the Prime Minister asked.

  ‘Because it will buy us time,’ the Minister of War replied.

  ‘Time? Time for what?’

  ‘Time to cement our victory in Southern Africa.’

  ‘Don’t see what one thing’s got to do with the other,’ the Chancellor said. ‘Or am I just being stupid?’

  Yes, you are being stupid, the expression on the Minister of War’s face said—but the look was only there for a split second, and then was gone.

  ‘The two matters—the war and the arson attacks—are very closely related, my dear chap,’ he said, ‘as I’m sure you will appreciate yourself—if you take a second to think about it.’

  ‘Will I?’ the Chancellor asked, mystified.

  ‘There is no doubt about it,’ Lansdowne assured him. ‘But perhaps to save time, I should spell it out a little more clearly.’

  The other members of the Cabinet nodded, some trying to indicate by their expressions that while they understood, it might be wise to make it clearer for the benefit of their dimmer colleagues.

  ‘There are two key elements to winning any war,’ Lansdowne said. ‘The first is to have a large, well-trained army—’

  ‘We already have that,’ the Chancellor interrupted. ‘And it’s costing the Exchequer a fortune.’

  ‘…and the second element is to ensure that the army is adequately supplied,’ Lansdowne continued, as if the other man had never spoken. ‘We are still in the process of shipping out men and materiel to Southern Africa, and I would not like to see that supply route disrupted in any way.’

  ‘And how do you think it might be?’ the Chancellor asked. ‘In any number of ways,’ Lansdowne said.

  ‘For example?’

  ‘For example, the arsonist may choose to attack the docks next. Or the arsenal.’

  ‘Is that likely, do you think?’ the President of the Board of Trade wondered, sceptically.

  ‘I don’t know,’ the Minister of War confessed.

  ‘Well, then?’

  ‘But I simply do not wish to run the risk that it might happen.’ The Minister of War turned his head slightly, so that his next remark was made directly to the Prime Minister. ‘Pay the blackmailer. A hundred thousand pounds is a great deal of money, as has already been pointed out, but once we have our hands on the Southern African mines, we should be able to extract gold worth that much in a year—two years at the very most.’

  ‘Can you guarantee that?’ asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was still doing the figures in his head.

  The Minister of War shrugged. ‘In mining, as in politics, there is never a guarantee.’

  ‘As far as politics is concerned, that is not strictly true,’ the Chancellor countered. ‘If I need to raise taxes to cover a hundred-thousand-pound hole in my budget, I guarantee that we will lose the next election.’

  ‘As we would certainly lose it if the war started going badly,’ the Minister of War responded.

  Tempers were becoming strained, and it was time to step into the breach, the Prime Minister thought.

  ‘Does anyone else have an opinion on the matter?’ he asked. ‘Who is in charge of the investigation to hunt down the arsonist?’ the President of the Board of Trade asked.

  The Prime Minister looked quizzically at the Home Secretary.

  ‘The case is being conducted by an Inspector Blackstone,’ the Home Secretary said.

  ‘And is that the same Inspector Blackstone who saved the Queen’s life a year or two ago?’ the President of the Board of Trade asked.

  ‘He was certainly instrumental in saving her life,’ the Home Secretary answered cautiously.

  ‘Well, then, I think we can leave the whole matter in the hands of this estimable policeman,’ the President of the Board of Trade said.

  The Minister of War snorted in disgust. ‘You cannot put the fate of our foreign policy in the hands of one man,’ he said.

  ‘Why not?’ the President of the Board of Trade asked. ‘If one man can disrupt it, then surely one man can prevent it being disrupted.’

  ‘I think it might be best to put the matter to the vote,’ the Prime Minister said. ‘All those in favour of paying the blackmailer, please raise one hand.’

  The Minister of War raised his hand as instructed, and saw that it was the only one which had been lifted from the table. ‘All those against,’ the Prime Minister said.

  A positive forest of hands were lifted.

  ‘The mood of the meeting seems to be very clear,’ the Prime Minister said. ‘The Cabinet has decided, almost unanimously, to put its faith in Inspector Blackstone.’

  The Chancellor of the Exchequer—regarding a day on which he had saved money to be just as valid as a day on which he had raised some—smirked.

  The Home Secretary, on the other hand, looked distinctly worried, despite having helped to vote the motion down.

  And the Minister of War’s face had turned almost black with rage.

  ‘You should learn to take your reversals in better part, Lansdowne, old chap,’ the President of the Board of Trade said.

  ‘Oh, should I?’ the Minister of War replied tartly. ‘Well, we’ll see whether or not you can all be quite as sanguine about the situation the next time the arsonist chooses to strike.’

  9

  Good Queen Bess had been on the throne of England when the Dutch sloops had first begun to supply London with that most popular of Cockney delicacies, the eel. And—save for the occasional interruption to the trade brought about by periods of war between the two countries—the Dutch had continued to provide eels ever since. Thus, the small ships now anchored in the Thames off the Billingsgate Fish Market differed only slightly from the ones that William Shakespeare himself might have obse
rved from the doorstep of his theatre, three hundred years earlier.

  The sloop anchored nearest to the fish market that night—a favoured position, since it would be the first to be unloaded in the morning—was named the Golden Tulip. It was captained by a big-bellied Dutchman who went by the name of Hans van Diemen, and who—as Big Ben chimed two o’clock, a little further down the river—was standing on the deck of his craft, smoking his pipe and gazing across the dark water.

  His gaze was not a merely idle one. It was, in fact, very intent, and the object of that gaze was two bobbing lights, which his eyes had been following ever since they left the shore.

  He knew what the lights signified. They were warning lights on the bows of two small skiffs, and the watermen in charge of those skiffs were slowly making their way towards the Golden Tulip.

  Watermen, as far as the captain understood it, were licensed only to carry passengers whose business was on the river, but these two had a very different—and even more slippery—cargo in mind for that night.

  The racket they were involved in was both good for them and good for the people who dealt with them, Captain van Diemen reflected, as he took another pull on his pipe.

  In less than thirty minutes, the watermen would be returning to the shore with their boats loaded down with eels. In another couple of hours, their illicit cargo would have already been divided up amongst a dozen or more costermongers, who would be calling out to passers-by that they had on their barrows the freshest eels anyone could ever hope for. And an hour or so after that, all evidence of any wrongdoing would have been eaten.

  As a result of this simple process, he himself would make a little money, the watermen and costermongers would make a little money, and the costermongers’ customers would get their eels at a more-than-usually-reasonable price. No one suffered, save for the owners of the cargo and the management of Billingsgate Market—and they could easily afford to stand the loss.

  The two skiffs had now drawn level with the sloop. Looking down, the captain could see that each boat contained only one man—which meant harder work rowing, but a bigger space for cargo.