India Black and the Gentleman Thief Read online

  “Murder!” she yelled. She looked at us frantically and scrambled for the door. She wrenched it open and stumbled down the steps to the pavement. “Help! Murder!” She staggered off in the direction of the square, shrieking.

  “What should we do?”

  French shrugged. “Nothing. As loudly as Mrs. Sullivan is screaming, she’ll have the local constable here in a few minutes.”

  Mentioning the police had its usual effect upon me. “We can’t stay here and wait for the peelers to show,” I said, horrified. “Mrs. Sullivan may buy the carriage accident and the friends of the colonel routine, but I don’t relish being questioned by an inspector as to the depth of my acquaintance with the deceased.”

  “Hmm. I see your point. That could be awkward. Why don’t you duck out the back and down the alley? I’ll tell the inspector that I’ve sent you home as you’ve suffered a terrible shock. If he’s a gentleman, he won’t press the issue. If he’s not, I’ll pull rank on him.”

  “Splendid idea,” I said, and it was, but not, unfortunately, a timely one. For at that moment Mrs. Sullivan pelted into view with a constable on her heels.

  • • •

  I did not care for Inspector Allen. Nor, I believe, did the inspector care for me. He sauntered behind my chair with his hands in his pockets, a matchstick dangling from his lips.

  “So, you are a cousin to Major French?”

  The parlour had become an interrogation room. French and I were closeted there with the inspector and his sergeant, who had taken a chair in the corner and produced a notebook from his pocket to record my lies. In my defense (as if I need to provide one), French had lied first. He’d taken one look at Allen and decided that the inspector would have to find out by himself about Lotus House, the bill of lading and the reason for our appearance at the house on Milner Street. I didn’t blame French for determining that Allen would get no assistance from us. I’d pegged the inspector at first sight as a pompous, dim-witted, vainglorious toad. Perhaps it was the suit. Only music hall performers should go about in checked suits. Maybe the inspector aspired to the acting profession or sang in a quartet on the weekends. In any event, he had a nasty little mustache that he smoothed constantly, as if stroking a pet mouse, and a sly, knowing manner that would have played well on the stage as he delivered a double entendre and winked at the audience.

  Nor was my impression of the inspector improved when he insisted on treating French and me as suspects. Allen had already put French through the mill, despite French’s military rank and his relationship to the prime minister, which he had trotted out immediately. Allen affected to be unimpressed. Then he’d turned on me.

  “And you say you are Mr. French’s cousin.” He said it blandly enough, but there was a trace of smugness all the same. I resisted the urge to paste him in the mustache.

  “Yes, I am, as Mr. French has already informed you.”

  Allen’s lips twisted around the matchstick in a smirk of outstanding proportions. “Really?”

  I remained mum. I wasn’t going to be provoked by the impudent fellow.

  “On which side of the family?” asked Allen. What an infernal nuisance he was.

  “Maternal,” said French. “And that will be the last question we answer regarding family matters.”

  Allen shrugged. I doubt the fellow would know when he was defeated and those types of policemen are the worst. This one might prove to be a real thorn in my side.

  “Had you met Colonel Mayhew?” The inspector directed the question at me, having already ascertained that French had run across Mayhew at some army doings and had promised to pay a call on him sometime.

  “I had not. He was an acquaintance of my cousin.”

  “I see.” The tone was both disbelieving and impertinent. Allen sauntered from his position behind my chair and leaned against the wall, chewing the matchstick with grinding patience. He shot his cuffs and crossed his arms, staring at French.

  “Is there any particular reason you chose to visit the colonel on a Sunday? It’s an unusual day and an unusual hour for a social call.”

  The inspector might not be as dim-witted as I had thought.

  “I’ve already explained this to you, Inspector. I remembered that I had promised Francis I’d drop round the next time I was in London.”

  “Was the colonel a religious man?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose it didn’t occur to me that he might have gone to services. If he’d been out, I’d have left my card. I plan to return to the country this afternoon.”

  Allen looked at him gravely. “And no doubt you forgot that most people are off to church on Sunday as a result of that blow to the head you suffered during the carriage accident. Tell me, sir, where did your accident occur?”

  I hastily revised my opinion of the chap. This Allen was shaping up as a formidable foe.

  “The accident occurred on the road,” said French, coldly. “Where carriage accidents usually do. And my driver will be well soon.” I could see that French was regretting his invention of an accident to explain our injuries, but we could hardly divulge the truth.

  “At what time of day did the incident occur?” Allen asked politely, but there was an undercurrent of skepticism that sounded ominous.

  “Saturday afternoon,” said French. “Will you be requiring an affidavit?”

  Allen laughed heartily. “Me, sir? Doubt your word, sir? I’m just asking as a matter of course. Getting it all straight in my head, as it were. Who was where and at what time. You know, investigating the crime, sir. I didn’t mean to cast aspersions on your statement, sir. Not at all.” He simpered behind the matchstick.

  “I should hope not,” said French, sounding very posh and arrogant. Good for you, I thought. No need to let this little bugger put us on the back foot with his questions. When you’ve got the trump card of social status, you may as well lay it on the table at the beginning of the game.

  French stood up, clapped his hat on his head, and proffered me his arm. “Now, if you don’t mind, I shall take my cousin away from here. She’s suffered a terrible shock.”

  I tried to look faint, which wasn’t all that difficult as I recalled the horror upstairs.

  “If you have any other questions, you may leave word for me at the prime minister’s office,” said French. “I collect my mail there most days.”

  Ooh, that was a palpable hit, and Allen acknowledged as much with a faint smile.

  Out in the open air, the smell of Sunday roasts wafted over the street and the pavement was busy with families returning from various houses of worship. The activity at Mrs. Sullivan’s drew a great deal of attention of the English sort—a surreptitious glance in the direction of the house, a whispered confab between husband and wife, and a shushing of excited questions from children. Murder may have been done, but it would be unseemly to appear excited about it in public. Mind you, these same folk would be rushing out the door for the evening papers tonight, but respectable people did not exhibit too much interest in this sort of thing. It would be socially unacceptable to be caught staring at French’s bruised eye or my swollen lip.

  The averted eyes and hushed voices were as unnerving as Allen’s questions, and I sighed with relief when we’d turned the corner and French found a hansom.

  “To the War Office,” French told the driver, and we settled in for the journey.

  “I think the inspector has us in the frame for the colonel’s murder,” I said. “If he asks around, he’ll soon find that Major Lachlan French doesn’t have a cousin named India Black or a driver named John, and that yours truly owns a first-class brothel on St. Alban’s Street. He’ll be back to ask us how we got these injuries. Count on it.”

  “I’m sure he’ll nose around. It is his job, after all. But I’ll ask the prime minister to have a word with the Home Secretary, who’ll have a word with Allen, and that will be t
he last we see of the inspector.”

  “Thank God. That suit was blinding.”

  French laughed. “It was horrible, wasn’t it?”

  I shared the laugh, but not French’s confidence that we’d seen the last of Inspector Allen. I had the feeling that underneath the clownish exterior was a dogged huntsman, who would be reluctant to lose two perfectly good suspects just because the British prime minister told him we were off-limits. But I set aside such thoughts and concentrated on the matter at hand, namely my personal safety. And French’s, of course.

  “I suppose Mayhew told those chaps that he’d sent the bill of lading to Lotus House and that’s why they paid us a call.”

  French scowled. “Of course he did. They flayed the man alive. When I catch those buggers—”

  “You mean you’re going after them?”

  “If you had seen what they did to the poor sod . . . ” His voice trailed away.

  “They must have visited the colonel while Mrs. Sullivan was at her sister’s,” I observed.

  “No doubt,” said French. “I expect the colonel made a great deal of noise. They wouldn’t have dared torture him like that with the landlady in the house.”

  “I doubt they’d scruple at killing Mrs. Sullivan if she’d been there. These blokes are cruel.” I recalled the metallic tang that had assailed my nostrils, and the pattern of blood drops across the walls. That had been enough to turn my stomach, and French had seen the worst of it.

  “That bill of lading was important enough for those men to savage Mayhew. We need to find out why.” French had a distinctly Old Testament air about him. I could see he was in the mood to smite someone.

  “We do?” I asked. “I mean, I’m not keen on being thrashed in my own house by thugs and normally I’d chase them to the ends of the earth just to give them a good walloping, but these fellows aren’t your average villains. Look what they did to Mayhew.”

  “All the more reason for us to find them.”

  I should have been pleased to be included in this vigilante party and I did feel a momentary burst of pleasure that French considered me as capable of hunting down these ruffians as he was. But the prospect of tangling with a pack of murderers with a fondness for knives was somewhat daunting. Still, the colonel hadn’t deserved to die like that and I could understand French’s feelings.

  “I suppose you consider it your duty to track down these men, and we’re going back to the War Office to find out more about Mayhew.”

  “Yes. The bill of lading might relate to a personal matter, or it might be connected to Mayhew’s work. I don’t think Mrs. Sullivan is in a fit state to answer any questions at the moment and even if she is, Allen is there. We’ll start at the War Office and see what we can find out about the colonel.”

  I like to think that I’m an intelligent woman and know when to leave well enough alone, but the truth is I’m damned inquisitive and congenitally stubborn and have never learned to turn the other cheek, especially when it’s bruised and swollen.

  “Very well. Let’s run these fellows to earth and find out what’s so bloody important about that bill of lading.”

  French looked sideways at me. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to sit this one out?”

  “I should say not. Look at my lip. Those bastards will pay for this. No one splits India Black’s lip and lives to boast about it. And don’t looked so concerned, French. I have a rapier and a revolver and I know how to use them.”

  “These fellows are rather skilled with blades, India. I suggest you forgo the sword and use your Webley Bulldog.”

  “There is a certain satisfaction in plugging a bastard with a bullet.”

  “Yes, I noticed that you rather enjoyed yourself when you shot me.”

  “I did derive some pleasure from that exercise.” Primarily because I’d been furious to learn of French’s engagement from our mortal enemy, the Russian Ivan. I did not want French to know this, of course. Better to send him off on a false scent, so I waved a hand airily and said, “Of course I wouldn’t have shot you if I’d known you were my cousin.”

  FOUR

  The lads at the War Office were stupefied to learn that Colonel Mayhew had joined the great heavenly choir and henceforth would not be spending the Sabbath at his desk down the hall. French spared the youngsters the details of the killing, which was just as well as I didn’t have the heart to hear them myself, but the word “murder” sent them into a swoon and it was difficult prying any information from them. I had never seen French in his role as major, and I confess to feeling pleasantly stimulated by his stoic demeanour and air of command. If he’d only been wearing a uniform I might not have been able to restrain myself, but as he was still wearing his crumpled suit from the night before his virtue was safe for the moment.

  While I’d been thinking about how splendid French would appear in the No. 1 Dress Uniform of the Forty-second Regiment of Foot, he’d been informing the clerks that we would be in the colonel’s office. I fear for England, I really do, for if a major in street clothes and a whore can waltz into the War Office and sift through a fellow’s belongings with nary an objection, our country’s secrets might as well be published in the newspapers. It must have been French’s plummy vowels that paved the way for us. We took advantage of the lax security and hurried off to Mayhew’s compartment to plunder his desk.

  The colonel’s office was fastidious. There was a pile of official documents stacked neatly on one corner, a writing pad perfectly flush with the edge of the desk and a pen lined up precisely above the center point of the pad. I wondered if we’d find a ruler in the colonel’s effects.

  “Hurry,” said French. “It might occur to those young idiots out there that we have no business in here.” He picked up the stack of papers and paged through them rapidly. I opened a drawer and discovered an astonishing variety of forms.

  “How does the army find time to fight?” I asked. “There’s enough paper here to bury a regiment, after it had been properly equipped, armed and fed, of course.” I contemplated a life spent counting buttons and bayonets and shuddered.

  “I say, what do you think you’re doing? This office is restricted.” The speaker was a diffident, owlish fellow with pale blue eyes that bulged disconcertingly in a round, flushed face. He sported the insignia of a captain on his sleeve.

  French straightened from his perusal of the colonel’s desk. “I’m Major French of the Forty-second, seconded to the prime minister’s office. Who are you?”

  French’s recitation of his credentials had had the desired effect. The captain blinked.

  “I am Captain Bernard Welch. In the absence of Colonel Mayhew, I am in charge of this department today.”

  “Well, Captain, you may not have heard the news yet but you will soon. Colonel Mayhew is dead. I was asked to look into the matter.” French was running a pretty bluff, but as he had no official standing in the investigation of the colonel’s death I figured it wouldn’t be long before someone who did would meander along and start asking difficult questions.

  Captain Welch’s mouth had flopped open, almost resting on his chest. He stared at French in disbelief. “Dead? What has happened? Has there been an accident?”

  “The colonel has been murdered.”

  I hoped the rest of our military lads were made of sterner stuff, for the captain swayed and had to grasp the back of a chair for support. “Good Lord,” he whispered. “Murdered, you say? When? Why?” His flushed cheeks had grown pale.

  “He was killed last night, or early this morning. It’s your last question that interests me. You say you’re in charge here.” French brandished a sheaf of paper from Mayhew’s desk. “I gather that the colonel was responsible for the supply of provisions to our troops.”

  The captain swallowed. “Yes, sir.”

  “And you work for him?”

  “I do, sir. I mea
n, I did. I handled all the correspondence, draughted orders for his signature, traveled with him on depot inspections and that sort of thing.” The captain was regaining his composure as he spoke. “I do apologize, sir, but I must ask you again what you are doing here. You said you represented the prime minister. Why isn’t this matter being handled by Scotland Yard, or military authorities? And you, ma’am? May I ask why you are here with the major?”

  French smiled approvingly. “I can see you’re an astute fellow. You must have served the colonel well. You’re quite right to wonder why I’m here, and why I am accompanied by this young lady. Her presence is an accident. Mine is not. But I’m afraid I cannot tell you anything more about the prime minister’s interest in the colonel’s death. A matter of state security, you understand, which I am not at liberty to disclose. Scotland Yard will be along directly to sort out the criminal matter. In the meantime, I must ask you some questions.”

  It’s a good thing the army spends a fair amount of time hammering the duty of obedience into its recruits, for French’s crisp tone and assumption of authority overrode Captain Welch’s suspicions.

  “What can you tell me of Colonel Mayhew? Was he a solitary man? Did he have friends here at the War Office?”

  The captain gave that a think. “He was a quiet fellow, sir. I know he lived alone, because he mentioned his landlady once or twice. Just in passing, sir, nothing inappropriate. The colonel was a great one for the rules, sir. God help the sergeant who turned in a jumbled report, or didn’t complete a form properly.”

  “And his friends?”

  “None that I know of, sir, but then I wouldn’t. I saw him here at the office, that’s all.”

  “Was he a pleasant man? A difficult man?”

  The captain shrugged. “Pleasant enough. As long as you did your job he had very little to say to you. If you didn’t, well, the colonel could have a sharp tongue.”

  “A professional soldier, then, and not a sociable fellow.”