‘Thank you very much for coming,’ Inspector Fletcher began, ‘and thank you for agreeing to answer our questions about your lives before you came here. This will be useful in our investigation.’
There was usually a murmur of dissent from the silkmen at this point. The old gentlemen didn’t like being called out to the police station at ten o’clock in the morning. They didn’t like change to their routines in any shape or form. They didn’t like having to give details of their earlier lives. The sergeant had given it as his opinion that any of them with criminal records or other misdemeanours in their past were hardly likely to tell a police Inspector and a sergeant just yards away from the cells.
‘I am going to ask you a series of questions,’ Fletcher went on. ‘All you have to do is to tell me the answers.’ For once the Inspector’s pauses and hesitations worked to his advantage. The old boys had more time to take in what he was asking. ‘First, this is just for the record, could you give us your full name — that means all your Christian names if you have more than one — and your date of birth.’
Sergeant Donaldson was scribbling furiously in his notebook. He was to remark later that all of them could manage their names but about three of the silkmen were having trouble remembering their birthdays. They would stare blankly at the wall and scratch their heads. The Inspector waited.
‘If you can’t remember your precise date of birth, the year will do,’ he said, wondering if the whole exercise was going to come to nothing, defeated by the ravages of time and old age’s ability to wipe out people’s memories. Two out of the three who had forgotten the exact date managed to tell him the year. The third, Number Four, Bill Smith, known as Smithy, with his shock of white hair, gave up.
Inspector Fletcher took them through the names of their parents, the names of their wife or wives, if such were still alive, which he doubted, and the names of any children and where they were now. He asked for details of the jobs they had held and the places where they had lived. Had any of them, he asked, ever been employed by the government in any way? The post office perhaps? Most important, he said, what was the name and nature of their last job before they came to the Jesus Hospital.
Most of the old men were slow and suspicious, trying to remember some post they might have held thirty or forty years before. The sergeant took pity on them. He had a father the same age as these men, after all. This, he felt, was asking too much of the old boys, reminding each and every one of them how mentally frail they had become and the things they could no longer remember. When they had finished, they sat patiently in their places waiting for the Inspector to dismiss them. He had one last request for them all. ‘Thank you very much,’ he said. ‘My final inquiry does not relate to any of you, but I would like you to tell us anything that Abel Meredith may have said to you about his year of birth or his parents or his own family, if he had one, and any jobs or positions he might have mentioned to you. And one other question’ — this, in fact was the point of the entire exercise, heavily disguised under a cover of personal information — ‘did Abel Meredith, Number Twenty, ever ask you to go with him on a journey, to London perhaps, or maybe even abroad?’ Most of the old men looked blank at this point. Most of the information they gave was of little value, but in two cases the answers to this final question were pure gold.
Number Six, Colin Baker, said he had gone with the late Abel Meredith, Number Twenty, to Hamburg for a few days three months before. They had stayed at a modest hotel and seen the sights of the city and its many drinking establishments. Number Twenty had paid all the bills.
‘Were you with him all the time?’ asked Inspector Fletcher.
‘I don’t understand,’ said Number Six.
‘Was there ever a time when you were left on your own? When Abel Meredith, Number Twenty, could have gone to a meeting or something like that?’
There was a long pause while Number Six marshalled his thoughts. Sergeant Donaldson thought he might be about to fall asleep.
‘There was something strange, I suppose, now I come to think about it. It was on our first morning there, just before nine o’clock. I remember that because they had an enormous clock in the dining room where we were having breakfast. Not that you can get a decent breakfast in Hamburg, even the Jesus Hospital can do better than them. Anyway, Number Twenty, says he is just going to look for an English paper. I sat there trying to eat some disgusting cheese and a smelly sausage or two. Number Twenty came back after twenty minutes or so and said there were no English papers to be had. I suppose he could have met somebody in that time. I never thought about it.’
The Inspector and the sergeant exchanged meaningful glances but made no comment. ‘Did you get the impression that he had been there before? Was he able to speak to the natives in German?’
‘Well,’ said Number Six, ‘they certainly knew him at the hotel. I’m sure he’d been there before. And he could certainly jabber on to the locals in their ridiculous language, though I’m not qualified to say how good he was.’
That was all. Colin Baker, Number Six, the man with the wooden leg, could remember no more. Any attempts to obtain more details of this strange holiday were met by a shake of the head and a plea to be allowed to go home.
The other nugget came from Pretty Billy, Number Sixteen, who told of going to London for a day with Abel Meredith the month before he was killed. They had gone to an address in central London where Meredith said he had to see a man about some business to do with his investments. He, Number Sixteen, had been parked in the saloon bar of the Three Horseshoes, virtually next door.
‘Number Twenty left me with two large glasses of port, I remember that now,’ said Pretty Billy. ‘I don’t normally like port but I just fancied it that day. Isn’t it strange how these whims come over you!’ Number Sixteen sank back into a reverie of past port.
‘How long before he came back?’ asked Sergeant Donaldson gently.
‘What was that? Where was I? I see, how long before he came back. Half an hour? Both my glasses were empty by then and I was looking forward to another. But that was not to be. Not that day, anyway. Number Twenty was in a furious temper. “Bastards, bastards,” he kept saying to himself over and over again. He didn’t speak a word to me all the way back to Marlow. Then he went straight to the Rose and Crown and didn’t come out till closing time. I don’t think I can remember any more, Inspector.’
Number Sixteen was the last man to be interviewed. Inspector Fletcher scribbled a rapid telegram to Powerscourt with the news of Hamburg and the meeting in London and sent Sergeant Donaldson off to dispatch it. He leant back in his chair, considering the relevance of the German mission, when a stout constable knocked on the door and headed straight for him.
‘Sorry, sir,’ he began, ‘it’s that woman, sir, the one at the Elysian Fields, sir.’
‘What woman? What are you talking about, for God’s sake?’
‘Sorry, sir, it’s the lady who goes up to Sir Peregrine’s quarters, sir, the suite on the first floor. Constable Jones has apprehended her, sir, on her way out. She’s waiting to talk to you now, sir.’
Inspector Miles Devereux was waiting to meet James Ibbotson in a private room at the Midland Grand Hotel at St Pancras Station. Ibbotson was the managing director ousted by Sir Peregrine from his post at a leading insurance company some years before. The Inspector’s reporter friend Sammy Wilson had not only located the man, but had set up the meeting here today. Ibbotson was a short, nervous fellow, with a fancy waistcoat and very small eyes.