FOURTEEN
Sergeant Winfield beamed with both pleasure and anticipation when he saw Blackstone enter the telegraphy office.
‘You’ve had a reply from that Sergeant Patterson of yours,’ he said. ‘Now there’s a man who really knows how to write a telegraph. He says more in twenty words than most people manage to say in a hundred. And damn intriguing words, they are, too.’
‘Could I see the-’ Blackstone began.
But Winfield was in full flow, and was not about to be interrupted. ‘I like to imagine what the writer looks like when I’m taking the message down,’ he said, ‘and I see your sergeant as a tall, pale, handsome man, a bit like a poet, with flowing black hair. I’m right about him, aren’t I?’
‘It’s certainly a quite remarkable description — and one I’m sure he’d be very happy with,’ Blackstone said, picturing Patterson’s expanding girth and thinning ginger hair. ‘Do you think that I could possibly see my telegraph now, Sergeant Winfield?’
‘Of course you could,’ Winfield said, reaching on to the desk and handing it to him.
The message was a short one, but very much to-the-point.
Body+went+missing+in+Calais+stop+Bloody+funny+business
if+you+ask+me+stop+More+on+the+three+musketeers+to+follow+stop+Archie+stop+end
‘See what I mean,’ Winfield said, tap-tapping away on his desk with his index finger. ‘Is that intriguing or what?’
It was intriguing, Blackstone thought. And Archie Patterson was quite right — even allowing for the fact that there was a war going on, it was still a bloody funny business.
‘I need to speak to the redcaps in Calais,’ he told the sergeant.
‘To check up on your missing body, no doubt,’ Winfield said.
‘That’s right,’ Blackstone agreed. ‘Is there a phone here?’
‘Well, there is — and there isn’t,’ the sergeant replied. ‘We’ve still got the connection from the old post office days, but it’s not in use.’
‘I see,’ Blackstone said. ‘Well, in that case-’
‘Now if you were a captain or a major, I’d look at you with a straight face and tell you it was a technical impossibility to reconnect it,’ the sergeant said, ‘but since you’re neither of those unpleasant beasts, I’ll stick a few wires together and see what happens.’
It took twenty minutes — and a great deal of electrical sparking — before Winfield was able to contact an operator, and another ten minutes before Blackstone heard a scratchy voice at the other end of the line say, ‘Provost Marshal’s Office, Corporal Baker speaking.’
‘This is Inspector Blackstone, of New Scotland Yard,’ Blackstone said. ‘I wonder if you could help me with-’
‘Good Lord! Inspector Blackstone! Fancy hearing from you, sir!’ the military policeman interrupted.
‘Do I know you?’ Blackstone asked.
‘I should say you do, sir. I’m Corporal Bob Baker — though in happier times, I was PC Bob Baker, a member of the finest police force in the world.’
‘The East India Docks!’ Blackstone exclaimed.
‘The East India Docks!’ Baker agreed.
It is late one night in June 1911.
Blackstone is hot on the trail of a prostitute-slasher who leaves notes next to his victims signed ‘The New Ripper’.
But this man is no icy Jack. On two different occasions, he has vomited close to the scene of his grisly crime.
Ellie Carr says this combination of violence and revulsion is indicative of a certain serious type of psychological disorder with a long Latin name, and believes he probably can’t help himself. Blackstone doesn’t care about that — his sympathy is with the victims, and any disorder the killer might be suffering from will soon be cured by the hangman’s rope.
He is crossing the dock, heading for the merchant ship on which he has been warned the murderer is attempting to stow away, when he hears the police whistle blowing.
It is not a normal measured blast, it is a frantic, panicked plea for help, and, without even thinking about it, he turns and sprints towards the distress call.
By the time he gets there, Bob Baker is already on the ground, bleeding copiously from a wound in his side, and the two drunken Lascar sailors, who are standing over him with evil-looking knives in their hands, are just about to finish him off.
Blackstone drops the first sailor before the man even knows he’s there, but overcoming the second one — who is both a better fighter and forewarned — is trickier, and by the time he goes down, Blackstone is bleeding too.
‘You saved my life that night,’ Baker’s scratchy voice said.
‘I only did what any officer would have done for any other officer,’ Blackstone replied awkwardly.
‘If it hadn’t been for you, I’d have been a goner for sure,’ Baker persisted. ‘So if there’s anything I can do for you now — and I do mean anything at all — you only have to ask.’
‘That’s good to know,’ Blackstone said. ‘And, as it happens, Bob, you might be able to help me. I’m out at the front line at the moment, investigating a murder, and-’
‘Where exactly on the front line are you?’ Baker interrupted, suddenly sounding much less enthusiastic and considerably more wary.
‘It’s a little place called St Denis,’ Blackstone replied.
‘Ah,’ Baker said, ‘so the murder you’re investigating is Lieutenant Fortesque’s, is it?’
‘That’s right,’ Blackstone agreed. ‘It appears that his body went missing in Calais, and I was wondering if you could fill me in on the circumstances surrounding the disappearance.’
‘I’m not sure. . I don’t think. .’ Baker began.
And then he fell silent.
Blackstone slowly counted to ten, then, sensing that Baker was about to hang up, he said, ‘Are you still there, Bob?’
‘I’m still here,’ Baker replied. ‘Is it. . is it really important to your investigation to know what happened to the body?’
‘I can’t say for certain — but it may be.’
Another silence.
‘I’m in your debt, Inspector, but there’s only so far I dare go,’ Baker said, finally.
‘If there’s anything you can do for me — and you do mean anything — then I only have to ask,’ Blackstone quoted back at him.
‘We need to talk, sir,’ Baker said.
‘We are talking,’ Blackstone pointed out.
‘But not over the telephone,’ Baker said firmly.
The soldier sitting on the collapsed wall close to Blackstone’s billet was doing his best to assume the nonchalant air of a man who had nowhere in particular to go, and so had decided that where he was now was as good a place as any.
He didn’t even come close to pulling the deception off. Instead, he resembled a puppy which had heard its master’s key turn in the door, and is almost wetting itself in anticipation.
It was too soon — far too soon — for Mick to be making a report, Blackstone thought. He hadn’t had nearly enough time to have done the spadework necessary to come up with anything useful.
But you can’t come straight out and tell him that, can you, Sam? he asked himself.
It would be cruel to tell him. It would quite destroy the new self-assurance which Mick had found in his role as a police inspector’s unofficial assistant. It would douse the enthusiasm which was so obviously bubbling up inside him.
No, he couldn’t tell him. Instead, he would listen to what Mick had to say, express great interest, and then gently suggest that he might find something even more relevant if he followed a slightly different line of inquiry.
Blackstone glanced up and down the street to check they weren’t being observed, then signalled that Mick should follow him into his billet.
The moment they were inside, Mick lit up a cigarette — and then started talking at nineteen to the dozen.