Carver's Quest Page 24

  ‘I ’ad no choice,’ he said, mustering what dignity he could. ‘There were nothing else but that Turkish filth to be ’ad. I deserved a good smoke before we sailed.’

  ‘That was not how the professor saw matters, but I am sure that he has now had time to forget – or at least to forgive – your misdeeds. More than two years have passed since we departed from Salonika.’

  Quint looked less certain that his theft of the tobacco was now consigned to the realms of history.

  ‘So, we’re off to Cambridge, are we?’ he said. ‘And what are we a-going to do when we gets there?’

  ‘There are questions to ask the erudite professor. Including, of course, the question of the mysterious Euphorion of whom we have heard so much.’

  ‘ ’Ow the devil we going to get there?’

  ‘You speak as if I were proposing an expedition in search of Dr Livingstone. We have only to look in Bradshaw to discover the times of the Cambridge trains. And now, if you please, Quint, I would be grateful if you would cease your questioning and allow me to enjoy these excellent devilled kidneys you have provided.’

  ‘If that’s what you wants,’ the manservant said, although clearly he continued to harbour nothing but doubts about the wisdom of an excursion out of town.

  ‘It is,’ his master replied, and turned his attention exclusively to his breakfast.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Fast, ain’t it,’ Quint said, peering out of the carriage window as the Hertfordshire countryside raced past.

  ‘On some railway journeys the delays are such that you rid yourself entirely of the restless spirit of the age. But on the London to Cambridge run…’ Adam left his sentence unfinished, thinking that the speed of the train spoke for itself.

  ‘What we doing exackly, charging out of town like this?’ Like most Londoners, Quint was deeply suspicious of the world beyond its streets and thought that all that life offered could best be enjoyed within hearing distance of Bow Bells.

  ‘We are heading, I hope, in the direction of enlightenment.’

  The grimace on Quint’s face suggested that he thought they were unlikely to reach their destination very easily.

  ‘I ain’t so sure why we need enlightening. Why don’t we just turn our backs on everything and go back to taking sun-pictures of old buildings like we was doing before?’

  ‘The train is slowing. We are coming into a station,’ Adam said, leaning forward in his seat and peering ahead. ‘Royston, I think.’

  The train was indeed arriving in a station. The first-class carriage in which Adam and Quint were travelling juddered and came to a halt at the platform. A man and a woman, well-dressed and prosperous-looking, approached the carriage door but stopped when they saw it was already occupied. Adam raised his hat politely. The man did the same and reached for the door handle. The woman, who was gazing at Quint with the kind of appalled fascination that visitors to the Zoological Gardens bestowed on the monkeys there, tugged swiftly at his arm.

  ‘We shall look for another carriage, Henry,’ she said, and the two moved further up the platform.

  ‘I’m disappointed in you, Quint.’ Adam was accustomed to the effect his manservant often had on his social betters and felt no need to make any remark on the couple’s behaviour. ‘Two men are dead. We cannot just carry on as if nothing had happened.’

  ‘We ain’t got no real business with dead men, though. We just had the bad luck to find ’em. Why’n’t we leave it to Pulverbatch to lay hands on whoever killed ’em? He’s already got that Stirk cove.’

  ‘Mr Stirk could not have killed Jinkinson. Even the inspector recognises that, since he was holding him in custody at the time I was stumbling across poor Jinks. And, despite what Pulverbatch says, Stirk is about as likely to be the murderer of Creech as I am. As the Archbishop of Canterbury is.’

  ‘What we planning on doing then?’

  ‘We are doing more than planning, Quint. We are already turning our minds to the curious events that have overtaken us.’

  With another judder, the train began to leave the station. ‘Let us consider what we know and what we can deduce. And a few leaps of deductive reasoning are surely acceptable.’ Adam settled himself deeper in his seat. ‘When I sat beside him at the dinner at the Marco Polo, Creech spoke to me of a manuscript. Of a manuscript which, he claimed, holds a great secret. A secret which rests in the hills of Macedonia. He wanted my assistance to discover the secret. A week later, you and I made our way to Herne Hill to visit Creech.’

  ‘But he was already croaked.’

  ‘Croaked, indeed. And when we found Creech, we also found a notebook.’

  ‘It was me what found it,’ Quint pointed out.

  ‘As you say, you were the man who laid hands upon it and let no one try to take the credit from you. However, the importance of the notebook lies not so much in the identity of its finder as in what it contained.’

  ‘Jinkinson’s name. And word of all them comings and goings by the toffs.’

  ‘In addition, there was the word “Euphorion” written in the middle of one of the pages in Greek script.’ Adam had slipped further and further down the seat until he was almost staring upwards at the roof of the carriage. ‘So, Jinkinson was employed by Creech. For purposes not yet entirely clear.’

  ‘ ’E was gathering all the juicy titbits so’s Creech could rook the toffs.’

  ‘That seems most likely, I grant you. In the light of what we now know about Lewis Garland’s relations with the actress in St John’s Wood, Lottie Lawrence. But it is not certain. The purposes may have been connected, for all we know, to the great secret. Anyway, I go to see this Jinkinson. I beard him in his Lincoln’s Inn den.’

  ‘And ’e says, “I ain’t never ’eard of this Creech gent. You’ve got the wrong cove altogether when you come calling on me.”’

  ‘He says almost exactly that. But, of course, we do not believe him. We give no credence whatsoever to his evasions and mendacities. We follow him through the streets of the city and find the proof that he has been misleading us. We see him talking to Sir Willoughby Oughtred and Mr Lewis Garland. Not gentlemen usually to be found in Jinkinson’s social circle.’

  ‘Toffs,’ said Quint, who had evidently taken a great liking to the word.

  ‘Exactly. But, after a few days, our quarry eludes us. He disappears.’ Adam had made a steeple of his fingers, resting his hands on his chest, as he continued to gaze upwards. ‘Despite this setback, we are men of resource. We refuse to believe that, even in the dark morass that is London, a man can simply disappear. We ask questions of those who knew him. We follow his trail through the streets of the city. We make enquiries of those who know him.’

  ‘I find his tart,’ Quint said.

  ‘You find Ada,’ Adam acknowledged. ‘She will tell us nothing of the whereabouts of her ageing paramour but she does mention the fact that he has been talking of how his future fortunes may depend on a foreign fellow named, she believes, Yew Ferrion. Eventually, thanks to my encounters with the oleaginous Elisha Dwight, we track Jinkinson himself down.’

  ‘And then ’e gets croaked as well.’

  ‘Very true, Quint. The poor man is murdered by the river, even as I am slipping and sliding in the mud no more than a few dozen yards from where he meets his wretched end.’ Adam remained silent for a moment, still resting back in his seat, before hauling himself into a more upright position. ‘When I found Jinkinson on the riverbank, he had about his person a card. The word “Euphorion” was inscribed on it just as it was in Creech’s notebook. Euphorion, I am certain, is the name of a Greek writer. In the absence of any other thread to guide us through the labyrinth, it is reasonable to assume that the manuscript of which Creech spoke was a manuscript of a work by Euphorion.’

  ‘Sounds right enough to me. Who’s this Euphorion cove, though?’

  ‘As I say, I cannot be certain that my memory is not playing me false but I seem to recall, from the dim distant days when I read
such things for fun, he wrote poetry.’

  ‘What’s there going to be in a load of old Greek poems?’ Quint asked with some contempt. ‘What’s a poet going to know as nobody else did?’

  ‘Rem acu tetigisti, Quint.’

  ‘Ain’t no point you speaking that Greek bollocks at me.’

  ‘Latin.’

  ‘Latin. Greek. Don’t make no odds. It’s still double Dutch.’

  ‘Rem acu tetigisti. “You hit the nail on the head.” In colloquial translation.’

  ‘Why you don’t just speak the bleeding Queen’s English like the rest of us, I don’t know.’

  ‘The benefits of an expensive education, Quint. I cannot let it go to waste. Besides, I know how much it irritates you.’

  Quint merely grunted.

  ‘That old beggar Fields’ll know more about Euphorion, will he?’

  ‘Correct, Quint. If by “that old beggar Fields”, you mean Thomas Burton Fields, the much esteemed and admired Professor of Greek in the University of Cambridge; my mentor in the study of the classical civilisations; the leader of the expedition into European Turkey which did so much for both our fortunes. Hence our journey out of town on this bright and beautiful morning. We must hope that Professor Fields can answer some, at least, of our many questions.’

  Quint grunted again and, settling deeper in his seat, closed his eyes as if to sleep. Adam took a copy of Swinburne’s Poems and Ballads from his pocket and opened it. He began to read but it was soon clear that not even the verse in that daring volume could hold his attention. His eyes kept straying from the page to the passing landscape and then to the recumbent figure of Quint, sprawled in the seat opposite.

  ‘Tell me more of what you know of Pulverbatch, Quint,’ he said eventually, casting Swinburne’s lyrics aside.

  ‘He’s a downy one,’ Quint said, reluctantly opening one eye.

  ‘So you remarked when first we encountered the inspector. But I need more information than that. Where does he stand in the Scotland Yard hierarchy, for example? What is the extent of his powers? I noticed that man Pradd at the lodging house knew his name. And feared it.’

  Quint opened his other eye and sat up.

  ‘Pradd knows what side his bread is buttered. I reckon Pulverbatch answers only to “Dolly” Williamson. And “Dolly” answers to no one but the top nob himself.’

  ‘Dolly Williamson? I do believe Pulverbatch spoke of him when we met one another at the Cat and Salutation.’

  ‘Chief Inspector Frederick Adolphus Williamson to the likes of you and me. Head of the detective force at the Yard.’

  ‘He’s the real power in the land, is he?’

  Quint nodded.

  ‘And Pulverbatch is his man?’

  ‘That’s what I hear. That’s why he goes strutting about like a crow in a gutter.’

  Adam stared up at the luggage rack above his head as if in search of enlightenment there. Presumably it was Williamson to whom Sunman or someone else at the Foreign Office had spoken on his behalf. That explained Pulverbatch’s willingness to share so much information with him on the night Jinkinson had died. But it did not explain everything about the inspector’s behaviour.

  ‘I cannot yet understand why the inspector is so convinced that Stirk is the killer,’ he said eventually.

  ‘It’s the easiest answer, ain’t it?’ Quint replied.

  Adam raised a querying eyebrow.

  ‘Pulverbatch is like a bleeding gravedigger, right,’ his manservant went on. ‘He’s up to his arse in business and ’e don’t know which way to turn. ’E can’t get any kind of ’andle on ’oo done for Creech. And old Dolly Williamson is screaming at ’im to get someone behind bars for it. So ’e picks up an old lag like Stirk and pins it on ’im.’

  ‘Would Pulverbatch do something so reprehensible, do you suppose?’

  ‘Of course he would,’ Quint said, sounding as if he could scarcely credit his master’s naivety. ‘’E just wants things sorted so Dolly ain’t giving him an ’ard time.’

  ‘Perhaps you are right, Quint.’

  ‘Course I am.’

  ‘But, if it is the case, then Jinkinson’s murder makes the inspector’s life more difficult. The two killings must be linked and Stirk was in custody at the time of the second.’

  ‘Pulverbatch’ll put his ’ands on somebody else for doing away with Jinks. Mark my words. Probably that noddy of a barman.’

  Adam didn’t like to admit it but it did look as if Quint might be correct. He picked up the volume of Swinburne poetry again and leafed through its pages, but his mind was elsewhere.

  ‘I still cannot see exactly how far Garland and Oughtred and Abercrombie have been implicated in all this,’ he said, after a moment.

  ‘They were in that book of Creech’s, weren’t they? Like three jolly butcher boys, all in a row. ’E was fleecing ’em. All three of ’em.’ Quint sounded like a man willing to brook no argument. ‘And when one of ’em ain’t too keen on being fleeced no more and blows ’is brains all over ’is furniture, then up steps old Jinks to take ’is place. And then, bugger me, if ’e ain’t sent off to make worm food as well.’

  ‘Well, Jinkinson did more or less admit that he was extorting money from them.’

  ‘And that toff Garland I saw with ’im, ’e more or less owned it. When you met ’im. A penny gets you a pound old Jinks was croaked by one o’ them three.’

  ‘Hold hard, Quint. Your horses are racing away with you. For a start, at no time did Garland state unequivocally that he was being blackmailed. He merely said that Creech was a blackmailer.’

  ‘There you go.’ Quint shrugged as if the point was too obvious to pursue further.

  ‘Quod erat demonstrandum, you reckon. Creech was a blackmailer. He knew all three men. Ergo, he was blackmailing them and one of them killed him. Jinkinson took over the blackmailing business. Ergo, he was killed for the same reason. A reckless leap or three in the deductive process, Quint old chap.’ Adam tucked Swinburne back into his pocket. ‘We must not make a Procrustean bed of our theories and force the facts to fit them.’

  ‘I ain’t making any kind of a bed. I’m jest telling you what’s likely to ’ave fallen out.’

  ‘If Creech was squeezing his old schoolfellows till the pips popped out,’ Adam said, ‘what secrets did he know about them?’

  The manservant shrugged again. ‘Tarts,’ he said. ‘Tarts is at the bottom of these affairs. Nine times out of ten, anyways.’

  ‘Well, a nymph of the bedroom was almost certainly involved in Garland’s case. Jinkinson told me that he was a regular visitor to a pied-à-terre in St John’s Wood. Mr Moorhouse said that the lucky lady was the actress Lottie Lawrence. I doubt if Garland would have wanted word of his fair friend to circulate widely.’

  ‘Or reach them as voted for ’im.’

  ‘True. Accusations of adultery seldom assist a promising political career. So Garland may well have been vulnerable to a blackmailer who knew of his visits to St John’s Wood. But I doubt if Sir Willoughby is a man for the ladies, Quint.’

  ‘He may not seem one for chasing after Haymarket ware. But there ain’t no telling just by looks,’ Quint said. ‘What about this Abercrombie cove?’

  ‘James Abercrombie. Another MP. I’ve seen him occasionally at the Marco Polo. Moorhouse even introduced us earlier this year.’

  ‘ ’E the sort to be gallivanting with the tarts?’

  ‘As you say, Quint, it’s difficult to know from the mere look of a man. He’s out of town at present. Out of the country, as far as I can gather. Unlike Oughtred and Garland, who are members of the Marco Polo on the strength of one journey made decades ago, Abercrombie is a man who has genuinely travelled to the ends of the earth. Twenty years ago, he went to the gold diggings in Ballarat.’

  ‘That’s in convict land, ain’t it?’

  ‘It’s north-west of Melbourne, yes. Abercrombie spent six months there. From what I have found out, it was the making of him. When he went to V
ictoria, he was nearly forty and had failed in every venture he’d ever undertaken. When he came back, he was a rich man. He bought an estate in Norfolk, married an earl’s younger daughter and entered Parliament as a Palmerston supporter after the war in the Crimea. He’s been there ever since. However, he’s a restless man. He spends part of each year travelling Europe and the Levant. Interestingly, he has journeyed at least once into the areas of Turkey in Europe we know from our own adventures. He is thought to be somewhere in that part of the world now.’

  Quint sat scratching his head, like the caricature of a man deep in thought.

  ‘Maybe ’e’s got some secret from the diggings ’e don’t want known,’ he said at last. ‘Maybe Creech got to ’ear of it and was rooking ’im on the strength of it. Maybe ’e killed a man for his gold.’

  ‘A moment ago you said a tart would be at the bottom of it.’

  Quint thought again. ‘Could be a tart from down under that come looking for him. On the grounds that ’e was the gent that first ’ad ’er. And set ’er on the downward path. Maybe it’s Ada.’

  ‘What a sensational imagination you are developing, Quint. A respectable and wealthy MP with murder in a distant land on his conscience. Young women of lost virtue travelling across the world to confront their seducers. You should be supplying plot lines to Mr Collins or Miss Braddon.’

  ‘Well, it’s possible, ain’t it?’

  ‘Anything is possible, Quint. But we have met Ada, have we not? I don’t think she much resembles a vengeful maenad from the Antipodes, do you?’

  ‘Whatever one of them is.’ Quint was reluctant to relinquish his theory but he could see that the young girl in Holywell Street made a poor candidate for a leading role in it. ‘She ain’t too likely to be from convict-land, though.’

  ‘No, she isn’t.’ Adam drew a silk handkerchief from his pocket and began to polish a button on his waistcoat. ‘Anyway, did we not decide we knew the man who ruined her?’

  Quint, who had assumed that the conversation was at an end and was about to close his eyes once more, looked unimpressed.