I wanted to ask some more questions, but I had already asked one too many, so I hung up. I wanted to ask if the late William Wordsworth Batts’s mother hadn’t once been married to one William Wordsworth Curnutt, locksmith, and had divorced him years ago, taking her son with her. I wanted to ask whether she hadn’t remarried and given her son the surname of her new husband. I wanted to ask those questions, but I didn’t really need to because the still gray eyes of William Wordsworth Batts, ne’er-do-well, that had stared out at me from underneath the open lid of the marble piano had been just like those equally still gray eyes of William Wordsworth Curnutt, locksmith, that had stared up at me, sort of upside-down, as their owner had lain propped up against an old anvil, dead of a broken neck.
I sat there in the Mirabelle until ten, dawdling over coffee and wondering about the dead father and son and wondering, indeed, if they were father and son, and if they were, what they had been up to, and why were they now both dead. After three cups of awful coffee, I still didn’t know, so I paid my bill, crossed the street, walked another hundred yards or so, and entered Shields, A Gambling Emporium.
Shields was a club, of course, as are all the gambling hells in London. At one time, tourists could join any of them for a pound or so. They still can, but they have to wait a while, forty-eight hours, I think, before they can lay their money down. I don’t know who thought up this rule, or why, or even when, but I assume it was passed to give London’s other fun purveyors a crack at the tourist dollar, or mark, or yen, before they fell to the croupier’s rake.
William Deskins, the man from Bunco, didn’t look much like a gambler or a tourist as he leaned against the bar, a glass of beer at his elbow. Instead, he looked like a cop who wanted to go home, but couldn’t, because he had to wait for some idiot who was always late.
The man at the door said, “Good evening, Mr. St. Ives,” and didn’t bother to ask for any membership card, which I didn’t have. I wasn’t particularly flattered that the man remembered me. He should. He was the dealer that I had tipped twenty pounds.
“Cagle around?” I said.
“Yes, sir. Would you like to see him?”
“In a few minutes,” I said and moved over to the bar.
“Hello, St. Ives,” Deskins said. “I thought you might turn up.”
“Ah, Inspector Deskins. What brings you out on a foul night like this?”
“I’m not an inspector and it’s a nice night.”
“It was just something that I’ve always wanted to say. I’ll buy you a drink.”
Deskins shook his head. “You’re the odd one, you are, St. Ives. But I’ll take your drink.”
I ordered two large whiskies from the bartender and after Deskins had tasted his, he said, “Ever hear of a chap called William Wordsworth Curnutt?”
“Should I?”
“Perhaps. Somebody broke his neck for him this afternoon. Over in Hammersmith.”
Deskins was staring at me over his drink. I decided not to say anything. There wasn’t anything to say yet.
“Billie Batts, you remember, got his throat cut in Highgate this morning. Guess what Billie Batts’s full name was.
“William Batts,” I said.
“William Wordsworth Batts.”
“You’re trying to tell me, in your own wonderful way, that there’s some connection between the two.”
“They were father and son.”
“Why the different surnames?”
“Billie Batts’s old mum left Curnutt years ago when Billie was only a kid. She divorced him and married a chap called Batts. He legally adopted Billie and gave him his name.”
“How long have you been waiting here?” I said.
Deskins shrugged. “Half an hour, perhaps.”
“You haven’t been waiting half an hour just to tell me this.”
“You in a hurry?”
“I’ve got some money to win.”
Deskins nodded. “You know where I’ve been earlier this evening?”
“Where?”
“Over in St. James’s Square having a bit of a read.”
I had to think about it. “The library’s there,” I said after a moment. “The London Library.”
“It’s hard on the eyes,” Deskins said, and rubbed his as though to prove it.
“My column,” I said. “You were reading my column. I’m flattered that you read it. I’m even more flattered that the library would have it.”
Deskins nodded. “I read some of the ones you wrote while you were here in London.”
“That was a long time ago.”
“You had a nice light way of putting things.”
“Thank you.”
“But you wrote about some right bastards, didn’t you?”
I nodded. “Mostly.”
“Half of the ones you wrote about are inside now.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“The other half should be.”
“Probably.”
“You wrote a couple of columns that I liked especially.”
“Oh? Which ones?”
“About Tick-Tock Tamil. You remember Tick-Tock?”
I nodded. “I remember him.”
Deskins smiled at me over his drink. “Old Tick-Tock could flog a gold watch if anyone could. But you know something?”
“What?”
“We never got a complaint. Not one. Tick-Tock was a clever bastard, he was. He never really sold them, you know. He made his victims think that they were stealing them from him and when they found out that they’d been had, well, they were too ashamed to do anything about it. But you wrote all that, didn’t you, except that you changed Tick-Tock’s name.”
“That was the deal.”
“The only thing you didn’t write about was Tick-Tock’s partner, the chap who supplied him with the watches.”
“Tick-Tock wouldn’t tell me who he was.”
“His name was William Wordsworth Curnutt. Billy Curnutt. Locksmith. Family man. Forger. Churchgoer. Father of the late Billie Batts and dead himself of a broken neck at fifty-one.”
“Well, you’ve had a busy day, haven’t you?”
“After I left the library, I began thinking about it. I got to thinking that there’s something that connects you with it all, St. Ives. You were out at Highgate this morning where Billie Batts got his. You once wrote a column or two about Tick-Tock Tamil who was once the partner of Billie Batts’s old dad — who’d just died of a broken neck. And then there’s Eddie Apex and the Nitry brothers and God knows what you’re seeing them about. But somehow, it’s all connected, isn’t it?”
“I don’t see how,” I said.
“Well, I couldn’t either so after I left the library I decided to drop round and see Tick-Tock to find out whether he might know something. Tick-Tock lives in Paddington, you know.”
“Does he?”
“He’s always lived in Paddington. He was born there. For the past six months he’s been living someplace where he shouldn’t and they’ve been trying to get him out, but he’s got the law on his side, so there he stays and pays damn all rent. So I thought I’d drop round and chat him up a bit. But guess what I found?”
“What?”
“No Tick-Tock. He’d cleared out.”
“Just when you needed him.”
“That’s right. Just when I needed him.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Oh, not really. I’ve got another good lead.”
“What?”
Deskins put his glass down on the bar. “I’ve got you, St. Ives, and I’ve also got the feeling that you’re all I’m going to need. Thank you very much for the drink.”
Chapter Twenty
The twit dealt. That’s how I still thought of Robin Styles, the overly elegant young man who just might possibly be worth a few million pounds or so within the next few days or weeks, providing I got his sword back for him.