‘Have you heard from either of the Wilkins brothers recently?’ Blackstone asked.
Imre peered into the gloom at the foot of the steps.
‘Is that you, Mr Blackstone?’ he asked, with a slight wobble entering his voice.
Blackstone stepped out into the light.
‘None other,’ he said grandly. ‘Let me introduce you to French Freddie,’ he continued, turning to Meade. ‘Not that he’s always been French Freddie. For a while, he was Eric the Dutchman, and before that Sven the Swede. And before even that, when he was a kid growing up in the East End of London, he was plain Horace Grubb.’ He returned his attention to the doorman. ‘As far as I can recall, you’ve never been a Hungarian before, Freddie, but then, I suppose, you must be running out of nationalities to impersonate.’
‘Listen, Mr Blackstone. .’ the doorman began.
‘With Freddie’s build, he made an ideal collector for the Wilkins brothers, who ran a particularly nasty little gang down in Whitechapel,’ Blackstone said, ignoring the doorman and talking to Meade again. ‘Then, one day, when he’d been out on his collecting round, he completely disappeared. And so, as it happened, did the bag stuffed full of money.’
‘That was really quite a coincidence,’ Alex Meade said, playing along with him.
‘Wasn’t it, though?’ Blackstone agreed. ‘A few weeks later, a body was fished out of the Thames, and it had Freddie’s wallet in its pocket.’
‘And you thought he was dead?’ Meade asked.
‘Not for a split second,’ Blackstone replied. ‘And, as a matter of fact, neither did either of the Wilkins brothers.’ He fixed the doorman with his gaze again. ‘Did you really think, even in your wildest dreams, that you could fool a couple of sharp villains like them, Freddie?’
‘I. . I. .’ Freddie-Imre gasped.
‘They put a price on your head, Freddie. Would you like to guess how much they were offering for information on your whereabouts?’
‘No, I. .’
‘A thousand pounds! Just think of that. One thousand pounds. It’s a fortune, isn’t it?’
The doorman nodded numbly.
‘And, of course, it’s much more than the amount of cash that you actually did a runner with,’ Blackstone continued. ‘But as far as the brothers are concerned, you see, what you really stole from them wasn’t their money at all — it was their reputation. And they knew that the only way to get that reputation back was by subjecting you to a particularly slow and painful death — preferably in front of witnesses.’
‘Listen, Mr Blackstone, there’s no need to-’
‘But they couldn’t kill you, could they?’ Blackstone ploughed on. ‘And why couldn’t they? For the very simple reason that they had absolutely no idea where you were. But they will know, as soon as I send them a telegram.’
‘Yer. . yer wouldn’t do that to me, Mr Blackstone,’ the doorman gasped. ‘Yer couldn’t do that to me. Yer a copper, sworn to up’old the law.’
‘But I wouldn’t have to be a copper if I had a thousand pounds in my pocket, now would I?’ Blackstone asked. ‘With a thousand pounds I could buy myself a nice little farm somewhere in the countryside and sit back while other people did all the work for me.’
‘Please, Mr Blackstone. .’ the doorman said.
‘It does seem very hard on poor Freddie to condemn him to death after he’s built up a new life for himself in America,’ Meade said solicitously. ‘Isn’t there any alternative, Sam?’
‘Well, I suppose we could reach some kind of deal instead,’ Blackstone mused.
‘What kind of deal?’ the doorman asked miserably.
‘You do something that I want you to do, and in return I won’t do something you don’t want me to do.’
‘How d’yer mean?’
‘We’d very much like to enter this house, but without a warrant we can’t come in unless we’re invited in. So why don’t you do that, Freddie? Why don’t you invite us in?’
‘The boss will have my guts for garters if I do anyfink like that,’ the doorman protested.
‘No, she won’t,’ Blackstone said dismissively. ‘But the Wilkins brothers would. They’d have your guts flying from a flagpole — and if they did it just right, you’d still be alive to see it.’
The doorman bowed his head in defeat.
‘Please come inside, gentlemen,’ he said, almost back to being Imre the Hungarian count again.
The door to the main salon led off the hallway. It was slightly ajar and Blackstone caught the briefest glimpse of three naked girls — who were entertaining their invisible audience by playing leapfrog — before Imre ushered them onwards.
The hallway itself was decorated with thick crimson wallpaper, its plushness relieved, every yard or so, by a piece of French Second Empire furniture or a gilded mirror.
‘Now this is what I call a brothel,’ Meade said, perhaps in an attempt to compensate for his earlier blushes.
Imre led them into a small parlour which was slightly less flamboyant than anything else they’d seen so far.
‘If you wouldn’t mind waiting here, gentlemen, I’ll see if Madam is available to grant you an audience,’ the doorman said, stepping back into the hallway and closing the door behind him.
Meade looked at Blackstone quizzically. ‘Did these Wilkins brothers of yours really put a price on his head?’ he asked.
Blackstone shrugged. ‘Not as far as I know. I actually believed someone else had drowned Freddie and stolen the money. And so, I assume, did the brothers. And even if they had put up the money, they’re in no position to pay it now — as Freddie would know if he read the English papers.’
‘They’re in prison?’
‘They were in prison, after I arrested them towards the end of last year,’ Blackstone said. ‘But it was a very short stay indeed — it usually is when you’re hanged.’
The door opened again, and a woman, who could only have been the madam, entered the room.
She was in her mid-to-late forties, Blackstone guessed. She had a huge bosom, which must have been a great asset to her while she was working her way up the ranks, but now merely provided a steady income for someone employed in the corsetry industry.
The woman smiled warmly at them. ‘I am Mrs de Courcey,’ she said. ‘And you are. .?’
‘Detective Sergeant Meade, and my colleague from England, Inspector Blackstone.’
‘An Englishman!’ Mrs de Courcey exclaimed. ‘How utterly charming. Do take a seat, gentlemen.’
They sat.
‘I’d like to ask you-’ Meade began.
‘Before you ask me anything, I would like to apologize for the behaviour of my doorman,’ Mrs de Courcey interrupted. ‘Despite his size, he is a very gentle soul, and though he may have appeared rude to you, I’m sure that was not his intention. He sometimes forgets that he is no longer a Hungarian count,’ she continued in a lower voice, as if imparting a great secret, ‘and that he has now risen to an even higher station in life — that of a free American citizen.’
The pretty little speech had been aimed solely at impressing Meade, Blackstone thought. And it had worked, because the sergeant looked as if he were now struggling against the impulse to jump to his feet, stand to attention, and salute an invisible flag.
It was interesting, too — though hardly surprising — to note that Freddie had not revealed to his employer that his fake identity had been tumbled by the copper from London.
‘What Imre should have said to you is that members of New York Police Department — and their guests — are welcome in this house at any time of day,’ the madam said earnestly, but then, with just a hint of lasciviousness entering her voice, she added, ‘or night.’
Despite his best intentions, Meade’s face had coloured slightly — and the madam had intended that, too.