‘On his last night there?’ he repeated.
‘Before he goes on his short journey,’ Blackstone explained.
But that was no explanation at all, Johnson thought.
‘The man will be going on a short journey, will he?’ he asked.
‘A very short one,’ Blackstone agreed. ‘It can’t be more than twelve yards from the condemned cell to the gallows.’
TWO
The first-class passengers, whose carriages were already waiting in attendance on the dockside, were the first to disembark. They did so at a slow, stately pace (as suited their exalted position), and were seemingly unaware of the inconvenience this caused the second-class passengers who, once they had finally disembarked themselves, would be forced to rush towards the cab rank in order to secure one of the waiting vehicles.
Blackstone did not mind the delay. He had spent six days at sea, in a cabin which, while it would no doubt have horrified the people who were used to plush staterooms, had seemed perfectly adequate to him. He had enjoyed his food and the sea air, and — even more importantly — he had enjoyed the leisure.
Six days of doing nothing! He couldn’t remember when he had last spent six whole days doing nothing, because he was too good a copper to rest while crimes were being committed — and crimes were always being committed.
He had, he now admitted to himself, even been half-expecting that there would be a murder on the ship in the mid-Atlantic, because it somehow didn’t seem quite right that he should be allowed this treat. But there had been no murder, and now he felt more rested and relaxed than he had in years.
He chuckled softly to himself, as his mind drifted back to that morning, only a week earlier, when Sir Roderick Todd had summarily called him to his office.
It had been some time since Blackstone had been commanded to appear before Todd, and he hadn’t minded that one iota.
He didn’t like the man. Todd was both a complete idiot and an opium addict, though the inspector was not sure which of those had come first. He was, moreover, a terrible snob, who would almost rather have had cases go unsolved than have the solution come from an ex-army sergeant who had been brought up in an orphanage — and who clearly did not think, as he was supposed to, that the sun shone out of the assistant commissioner’s backside.
‘Do you remember a villain called James Duffy?’ Todd demanded, by way of greeting.
Blackstone grimaced at Todd’s use of the word ‘villain’. The AC had used it to show that he was a hard-nosed copper who lived and breathed the London underworld, whereas the truth was that the closest he got to it was the occasional view from his carriage window.
‘Yes, I remember him, sir,’ Blackstone said. ‘Ran a brothel in the East End, and just to keep his girls in line, he’d cut off one of their heads now and again. I arrested him, and he was sentenced to hang, but then some silly bugger in Pentonville slipped up, and he managed to escape.’
‘I have long believed that he fled to America, and now I appear to have been proved right,’ Todd said.
Long believed, Blackstone repeated silently to himself.
Proved right!
The assistant commissioner, Blackstone suspected, had never even heard Duffy’s name until that morning, and now he was trying to create the impression that if the man had been tracked down, it was entirely due to his own efforts.
‘Yes, it appears the police department in New York City has detained a man who might well be Duffy,’ Todd continued. ‘But there is a problem.’
How he liked to pad it out, Blackstone thought. How much the assistant commissioner loved the sound of his own voice.
‘A problem, sir?’ he said.
‘That is correct. They are not prepared to extradite the man until they’re sure he really is Duffy.’
‘Then we should send them a set of his fingerprints, sir.’
‘We’re talking about colonials, here,’ Todd said, a sneer entering his voice. ‘We’re talking of people who speak English — just about — but are otherwise completely backward.’
It was clear that Todd had never read Mark Twain, Nathaniel Hawthorne or Herman Melville, Blackstone told himself.
‘Is that right, sir?’ he asked. ‘Backward?’
‘Indeed. And a prime example of this is that the American so-called police forces don’t use fingerprinting.’
‘In that case, sir, I don’t see how we’ll ever be able to prove whether it’s Duffy or not.’
‘Of course you don’t,’ Todd agreed. ‘But, you see, I do. I know how to use my brain, Inspector — which is why I’m sitting behind this desk and you’re standing in front of it.’
‘I knew there had to be some reason for it, sir,’ Blackstone said. ‘Thank you for explaining it to me.’
Todd looked at him suspiciously. ‘Are you being insolent, Inspector? Or, perhaps, in the interest of strictest accuracy, I should say, are you being insolent again?’
‘Of course not, sir,’ Blackstone assured him.
‘Good,’ Todd said. ‘Would you now like to hear how I’ve solved this problem to which you see no solution?’
‘If you wouldn’t mind, sir.’
‘The New York Police have agreed that if one Scotland Yard officer can personally identify the man as Duffy, that will be sufficient cause to extradite him. And that officer, Inspector Blackstone, will be you.’
‘You want me to go to America, sir?’
‘Good Lord, but you do catch on quickly,’ Todd said sarcastically. ‘You sail from Liverpool the day after tomorrow.’
‘First class, I take it,’ Blackstone said, before he could stop himself.
Todd glared at him. ‘You’ll be travelling second class,’ he said. ‘And you can thank your lucky stars you’re even doing that, because, if it wasn’t for the need to uphold the dignity of Scotland Yard in the eyes of the travelling public, I’d have booked you into steerage, with the rest of the riff-raff.’ He glanced up at the clock on the wall. ‘I assume you have no questions.’
‘Well, sir, I was wondering-’
‘Good, because I’m a busy man, and I’ve already spent more than enough time on this minor matter. You can go, Inspector.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ Blackstone said.
He had almost reached the door when he heard Todd say, ‘Actually, there’s one question I’d like to ask you.’
Blackstone turned around again. ‘Yes, sir?’
‘Are you a good sailor, Inspector?’ the assistant commissioner asked.
‘I’m afraid not,’ Blackstone replied. ‘I think I must have been at the back of the queue when they were handing out sea legs.’
Todd permitted himself one of his rare smiles. ‘Excellent,’ he said.
Blackstone had lied about the sea legs, of course, but it had been a lie with a purpose. Because if Todd had even suspected that he would enjoy the trip, the assistant commissioner would have done his damnedest to make sure somebody else — anybody else — was sent instead.
It was as Blackstone was walking down the gangplank that he first noticed the man standing directly in his path. He was a young man, not more than twenty-five or twenty-six. He had a straw boater on his head and was dressed in a white linen suit, which matched his white bow tie. In his hands, he held a large piece of cardboard, on which he had written — in impeccable script — the words ‘Inspector Blackstone, New Scotland Yard’.