Carver's Quest (10 page)

‘I think he’s safe enough from the attentions of the police,’ Adam said. ‘I doubt very much if there is anything to connect Jinkinson to Creech other than the notebook
and we have that.’

‘Ain’t we telling Pulverbatch about it?’

‘No, Quint, we are not.’ Adam had hauled himself into a more conventionally upright position in his chair. ‘I have thought long and hard about this and I have decided that we
shall continue to pursue investigations of our own into Creech’s death. In parallel with those of the police, but quite separate.’

Quint stared at his master with an unreadable expression. ‘Well, don’t ask me to be the one to give Jem Pulverbatch the news we’ve been ’olding back on ’im,’
he said, after a short silence.

‘The responsibility is all mine, Quint. You are merely a humble manservant obedient to his master’s every wish.’

Quint grunted.

‘Yes, I know,’ Adam went on. ‘The idea of obedience to
any
of my wishes is an alien concept to you. But how is Pulverbatch – or any other policeman – to
know of the extent of your habitual recalcitrance?’

‘I ain’t got the first notion what you’re talking of,’ Quint said.

‘But you are content that we should pursue our enquiries?’

The servant nodded.

‘Good!’ Adam clapped his hands together and leaped from the chair. ‘So we are left to confront the puzzle of Jinkinson and what he knows and does not know. Why was he so
unforthcoming?’

‘He was probably trying to work out what you was after. And whether there was any tin to be had out of helping you.’

‘Possibly.’ Adam sounded unconvinced. ‘In that case, he must have decided I had no tin to offer since he was exceedingly unhelpful. But I thought he was more scared than
anything else. Maybe of the police. Maybe of somebody else.’

‘Course he was scared. As I say, nobody wants his name spoke in the same breath as a dead man.’

‘No, it was more than that, Quint. Jinkinson knows something that I should like to know.’

‘He ain’t about to tell you, though.’

‘Most certainly not. Which is why I propose to follow him when he leaves his office tomorrow and see whether or not his actions reveal more of the truth than his words.’

E
ight o’clock the next morning found Adam once more in the vicinity of Lincoln’s Inn Fields. It was a surprisingly cold morning for
June and he was shivering from the icy breeze that was blowing along the street. To his left, a small platoon of labourers from one of the gas companies had arrived to dig up the road. The men were
shouting cheerfully at one another as they unloaded their tools from the back of a cart. From where Adam was standing, he could just see through the arched entrance that led into Poulter’s
Court. A minute earlier, Jinkinson had descended his staircase in company with his boy assistant and the two were now engaged in some kind of spat. Simpkins was pointing back up the staircase and
gesticulating. Jinkinson aimed a cuff in the direction of his clerk’s head but missed by a good foot. With a shouted instruction which Adam could not hear well enough to interpret, he set off
down Serle Street in the direction of the Strand and Fleet Street. The boy returned to the office. Jinkinson was clearly in good spirits. Once again he was dressed to stand out from the crowd in a
mustard-yellow jacket and chequered trousers. For a man who had drunk so fully and so freely the previous day, he seemed remarkably cheerful. It was difficult to believe, Adam thought, that he was
not suffering the pains of a hangover, but he showed no obvious signs of it. Nor were there indications of the fears that Jinkinson had showed when told of Creech’s murder. A night’s
sleep seemed to have dispelled them. There was an unmistakeable spring in his step. He was not actively twirling the ivory-knobbed stick he was carrying as he walked, but he had the air of a man
who would do so at any moment. Adam followed him at a discreet distance. Jinkinson showed no sign that he suspected or feared that anyone might be tailing him. Two urchins, amused by the colour of
his jacket, pestered him as he walked, but he waved them amiably on their way.

From Serle Street he turned into Carey Street. Outside the door of a pub named the Seven Stars he stopped briefly, as if contemplating early morning refreshment. Instead, he crossed the road and
walked into Bell Yard. There were few people about and Adam was no more than ten yards behind his quarry, but Jinkinson seemed still to be oblivious of his follower. Emerging onto Fleet Street
opposite Middle Temple Lane, both pursued and pursuer were suddenly caught up in the bedlam of a London crowd as they turned towards Ludgate Hill. Traffic, funnelled through the bottleneck of
Temple Bar, had come to a halt. Adam looked swiftly to his right where Wren’s stone edifice squatted in the middle of the highway. Pedestrians, squeezed under its side arches, jostled past
one another. A light, perhaps a gas lamp, could be seen in the room above the central archway, which was an office of Child’s the bankers. He turned his attention once more to his quarry.
Jinkinson had wasted no time in pushing his bulk through the crowds and Adam soon feared he would lose sight of him. He made his own way through the press of bodies, elbowing others out of the way
before they elbowed him. As he walked on, the source of the chaos became clearer. There was another obstruction further up Fleet Street and the road had become a tangle of stalled vehicles.
Omnibuses, cabs, horses and carts, waggons and drays had all come to a halt and their drivers, shouting and cursing, added their own contributions to the city’s unceasing roar. There was no
clear way across the street. Over the heads of the jostling men and horses, Adam saw Jinkinson dodging into one of the innumerable alleyways that branched off Fleet Street. For the moment, he was
unable to follow him.

Eventually, Adam pulled himself free of the crowds and reached the spot where Jinkinson had disappeared. He was temporarily uncertain which way to go. Either side of a tobacconist’s shop,
two narrow lanes ran in parallel. Which one had the man taken? Adam had little time to decide. He chose the right. The roar of the traffic was left almost instantly behind. He had gone no more than
twenty yards down the alley when another obstruction appeared. A boy, barefoot and filthy, stood in his path. He held out a hand so black with dirt that mustard and cress could have been grown in
it, and begged for ‘Just a ha’penny, sir.’ The boy’s clothing was astonishingly threadbare. He looked as if he had simply crawled naked through a pile of disintegrating rags
and trusted to chance that some of them would attach themselves to his body. Only a handful had. Adam moved past him but the urchin followed, still calling for his halfpenny. Adam stopped and
reached into his pocket for a coin. He held a penny in his hand so that the boy could see it.

‘Did a gentleman in yellow pass this way?’

The boy grabbed for the penny. Adam moved his hand. The boy turned a grubby and sulky face up at him. Then he pointed to another, even narrower, alley, which branched off the first. Adam had not
even noticed the entrance to this second alley.

‘He went dahn there,’ the boy said.

‘Thank you. The penny is yours.’

The boy snatched it from Adam’s hand before he had finished speaking and ran off. Adam turned into the second passage and found, to his surprise, that it doubled back on itself. Within
moments, he was once more on Fleet Street. What was Jinkinson doing? Adam’s first thought was that the enquiry agent had observed his follower and was attempting to shake him off but, as he
looked up Fleet Street towards St Paul’s, he saw the man still ahead of him. Jinkinson was loitering outside a barber’s shop, standing beneath its red-and-white striped pole and peering
intently into its window. Eventually he moved on and Adam was able to continue his pursuit. Passing the barber’s, Adam looked briefly into the window himself but he could see nothing more
interesting than a sign which advertised shaves at a penny and haircuts at twopence.

Jinkinson, twenty yards in front of him, suddenly dodged into the traffic that trundled towards Ludgate Hill. For a moment, Adam was seized by the mad thought that the man had decided to commit
suicide by casting himself beneath the passing vehicles. However, it was almost immediately clear that Jinkinson was an experienced London pedestrian. The cries and shouts of enraged drivers
drifted back to where Adam was standing, but Jinkinson, showing unexpected agility in one so fat, had glided through the traffic and had safely reached the other side of Fleet Street. Now, to the
astonishment of his pursuer, he turned back towards the Strand and began to walk purposefully in that direction. Perplexed, Adam stood on the pavement opposite, jostled by the crowds and wondering
what to do. He decided that he had little choice but to follow Jinkinson’s example and cross through the traffic. Slipping between two cabs that had been forced to a halt, he evaded a cart
piled high with baskets of fruit heading in the other direction and gained the far side. Jinkinson was still in sight but marching briskly into the distance. Within a couple of minutes, both the
enquiry agent and his pursuer were past Middle Temple Lane and heading towards Westminster.

Jinkinson was now in a hurry. He increased his pace as he made his way down the Strand. He came to a halt briefly outside a London and Westminster Bank. Adam thought for a moment he was about to
enter it, but the enquiry agent had no such intention. After looking down at his shoes and rubbing first one and then the other on the backs of his trouser legs, he hurried on. He crossed the
entrance to Villiers Street and made his way past the French Renaissance frontage of the Charing Cross Hotel. Adam, still some twenty yards to his rear, was hard pressed to keep his quarry in sight
as he walked into Whitehall. Jinkinson’s stride had become unmistakeably purposeful. Within ten minutes he was in the middle of Westminster Bridge. There he halted and, leaning against the
railings, looked down into the waters of the Thames below. Adam also stopped. Standing to one side of the flow of pedestrians across the bridge, he watched a man in a charcoal grey morning suit and
top hat approach the enquiry agent. Jinkinson turned to greet him.

Even at a distance of fifty yards, Adam had no difficulty recognising the newcomer. Although he had never been introduced to him, he knew the man by sight from the Marco Polo. It was Sir
Willoughby Oughtred. From where he was standing, he could see that Jinkinson and the baronet were already deep in conversation. They made an incongruous couple, one plump and yellow-waistcoated,
the other tall and formally dressed. He could not, of course, hear anything of what they said but Jinkinson looked to grow increasingly excited. After a minute or two, he was waving an arm and
seemed to be pointing across the bridge in the direction of the Clock Tower. Oughtred responded by leaning forwards and prodding the agent three times in the chest. He then turned on his heel and
began to walk back towards the Palace of Westminster. As he passed Adam, the young man feigned extreme interest in the river and the curious patterns of the railings reflected on the water, but he
need not have bothered. Oughtred, who looked furious, had no eyes for anybody around him. He marched on in the direction of Parliament Square and was soon lost to sight amidst the other
pedestrians. Adam glanced back at Jinkinson, who had remained on the bridge. He decided he had seen enough for one morning. Hailing one of the many cabs that patrolled the area, he headed for
home.

* * * * *

For the next five days, Jinkinson made few excursions from Poulter’s Court without someone at his heels. The following morning it was Quint who stood near the archway and
waited for the enquiry agent to emerge on his business. From that day onwards, he and his master divided the duties between them. On four of those days, Jinkinson did little but stroll through the
streets that ran between High Holborn and the Strand, like a nobleman touring his estate. He nodded amiably to passing acquaintances and stopped to engage many of them in lengthy conversation. On
several occasions, Jinkinson sang as he walked. He had a deep baritone voice and he always sang the same tune, treating his fellow pedestrians to an aria from an Italian opera Adam half recognised
as the work of Donizetti. Was it, he wondered,
Lucia di Lammermoor
? The plump investigator peered from time to time into shop windows on his travels and rarely passed a public house
without venturing inside to sample its ale. He chose to spend little time in the offices off Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Only on the afternoon of the fifth day did he demonstrate any sense of
purpose. It was Quint who was loitering near Poul-ter’s Court when Jinkinson emerged at around three o’clock, and it was Quint who followed him down to the Strand. Back in Doughty
Street, he reported his news to Adam while preparing a supper for himself of cold meats, bread and ale.

‘It wears a man out, following old Jinks. Never was such a bugger for walking. And talking. Gawd, how ’e can talk. Gassing away at everybody he meets.’

‘He’s certainly a man of eloquence when given the opportunity.’

‘’E’s like a sheep’s head. All bleeding jaw.’

‘True enough, Quint. But what did he do today apart from jawing?’

‘Well, ’e sets off from Poulter’s Court. Going at a good lick. Not like the other day when he was moochin’ around like the bleeding Duke of Seven Dials. Off he goes down
Chancery Lane with me a short ’op behind ’im. Into the Strand we goes and we ends up outside that pub on the corner of Fountain Court. You know the one?’

Adam indicated that he did.

‘’Ere we are, I thought. Ain’t that just plummy?’ Quint spoke with bitter sarcasm. ‘’E’ll be in here the rest of the day and half the night and, by
stop-tap, he’ll be as drunk as a rolling fart. But, no, this is one pub he ain’t going into. ’E stops outside. In fact, he moves round the side of the pub and stands leaning
against the wall in the court.’

‘Unusual, indeed, for our man to resist the lure of liquor. Was he waiting for someone, I wonder?’