Carver's Quest (29 page)

‘I received information that a gentleman whom I was anxious to meet might be staying here at the tavern. When I entered the place, Mr Brindle introduced himself to me.’

Pulverbatch nodded slowly. He seemed to be turning over in his mind the veracity or otherwise of Adam’s tale.

‘This man Brindle is known to you, is he?’ the young man asked.

‘Oh, yes, we know Jabez Brindle down the Yard.’ The inspector paused and picked up his glass from the table once again. He tilted it slightly and examined it as if there might be
more beer in it that he had somehow missed. Satisfied at last that there was no more drink to be had, he replaced it on the bar table. ‘Want to know what we know of him, Mr Carver? I’m
supposed to tell you all I know, now ain’t I?’

Adam indicated that he was.

‘Well, for one thing, he’s a bit of a student of the four kings is Mr Brindle.’ Pulverbatch mimed the dealing of cards. ‘Bit of a dishonest student, in fact.’

‘A card sharper?’ Adam was surprised. ‘Surely someone with your position at the Yard has more important tasks to perform than preventing some tuppenny ha’penny rogue from
cheating at whist?’

‘True, Mr Carver, true.’ The inspector sounded satisfied that Adam had recognised his status in the force. ‘But there’s a bit more happening at the Cat and Salutation
than a few dodgy hands of cards. There’s goods going in and out of the place as shouldn’t be going in and out.’

‘But that must be the case with any number of the public houses in this part of London, I would have thought.’

‘There’s some rummy places along the river, that’s for sure, sir.’ A tiny puddle of beer had spilled onto the table. Pulverbatch dipped his finger into it and began to
trace out patterns on the wood with the beer. ‘The sort of places a gent like yourself shouldn’t go.’

‘Perhaps you are right, Inspector,’ Adam acknowledged. ‘And yet it was the Cat that was attracting your attention. Even before a
corpus delicti
was
established.’

The policeman rubbed his hand across the table, obliterating the liquid shapes he had been creating. He looked up at Adam, beaming with delight.

‘Never met a man with such a mouthful of half-crown words at his disposal as you has, Mr Carver,’ he said. ‘It’s a treat just a-sitting and a-listening to you. Even when
I ain’t got the first notion what you’re talking about. Which, right now, I ain’t.’

‘I was simply curious, Inspector,’ Adam said, holding to his line. ‘You seem to have had your eye on Brindle’s pub long before any crime other than cheating at cards was
committed. Before the body was found.’

‘Oh, that’s easily explained, sir. As I said, there’s business going on in the Cat that shouldn’t be going on. Brindle works for a bit faker, passing dud coins into
circulation. Not that we can ever catch him at it. He’s up to every dodge you can think of – and plenty you can’t – is Jabez Brindle. Not to mention, we’re pretty
certain the faker’s got a man inside the Yard.’

‘He’s corrupted one of your officers?’

‘As the song says, sir, “There’s sure to be a bobby as is ready for a bob.” Not all of us are able to resist the lure of filthy lucre.’

Pulverbatch now rested his hands on the table like a pianist about to begin playing. He was looking closely at his fingers splayed across the wood. For a moment, it looked to Adam just as if the
inspector was counting them to make sure he had the correct number.

‘I’m sure you’ll excuse me for asking, Mr Carver,’ the policeman said, after a pause. ‘All part of my job and no offence intended. Not to you nor to those friends
of yours.’

‘None will be taken, Mr Pulverbatch.’

‘I have to know what you’ve a-been doing since we last had the pleasure of exchanging our thoughts about the world.’

Adam sighed. He had been expecting this but, weary as he was, he felt barely able to satisfy the inspector’s curiosity. He wondered where to begin his story and what to omit from it. He
looked across at Pulverbatch, who was still examining his fingers. He decided to tell something of what he knew about Jinkinson without revealing how the enquiry agent’s name had first come
to his attention. The inspector listened to the story without interruption, nodding to himself from time to time as if Adam’s narrative merely confirmed what he had already suspected. When it
came to an end, he leaned back in his chair. He blew the air from his mouth like a small boy attempting to whistle for the first time.

‘I thought that Jinkinson might have something to do with Creech’s death,’ Adam said. ‘That is why I followed him. And why I endeavoured to find him once he had
disappeared.’

‘Very interesting, Mr Carver, very interesting. All these fine gents that friend Jinkinson was seeing.’ The inspector ran his hands through his hair as he spoke. ‘But I
don’t reckon as how he could have anything to do with the murder out at Herne Hill. I showed you the man we collared for that one, sir.’

‘I regret to say this, Mr Pulverbatch, but I have no confidence that you have the right man behind bars.’

‘Oh, it was Ben Stirk as shot Creech, all right.’ The inspector’s confidence remained undented. ‘Although, I suppose this Jinkinson fellow might have put him up to it.
Who shot Jinkinson, though? That’s the question.’

Pulverbatch gazed into the middle distance like a philosopher contemplating a particularly knotty problem in metaphysics.

‘So, remind me again,’ he said eventually. ‘Where did you say you was last night?’

‘With Mr Garland.’

‘Ah, yes. In the Palace of Westminster, no less. And the night before?’

‘Visiting Sir Willoughby Oughtred.’

Pulverbatch nodded again. ‘And what about the night before
that
? I don’t remember as how you mentioned that night.’

‘Quint and I went to Holywell Street.’

‘Holywell Street?’ Pulverbatch sounded surprised. ‘Full of Jew clothesmen and nasty bookstalls, ain’t it? What would a fine gent like you be doing in Holywell
Street?’

‘We were looking for a young woman named Ada.’

‘Ah, a whore,’ the inspector said, as if all was now clear to him.

‘Ada is a young lady who has fallen into misfortune,’ Adam said. ‘We were interested in her because she was acquainted with Jinkinson.’

‘And did you find her?’

‘We did, but she did not know where Jinkinson was.’

‘But this reverend, this Dwight gent, he
did
know.’

‘He gave me the name of this tavern. Soon after I arrived here, Jinkinson turned up. When he saw me, he ran.’

‘And got himself shot in the mud for his troubles. Now, who might have been a-chasing poor Mr Jinkinson, I wonder?’

‘Can the landlord of this place not throw some light on the mystery?’

‘We won’t get anything out of Brindle. No point even attempting it, Mr Carver. Might just as well try and roast snow in a furnace.’

‘What about the barman? The one who turned up with the lantern. He must have followed me out onto the bank. Did he see nothing?’

‘Toby, you mean?’ Pulverbatch looked doubtful.

‘Is that his name? Yes, I seem to remember Brindle calling him that.’

‘Well, we’ve asked him, of course. But old Toby’s attic ain’t exackly well-furnished, if you take my meaning, Mr Carver.’ The inspector tapped the side of his head
as he spoke. ‘He’s a bit of an innocent abroad, sir, an innocent abroad. And he thinks the sun shines out of Brindle’s fat arse, if you’ll pardon the indelicacy. Brindle
could send him out to buy a pennyworth of pigeon’s milk and all he’d ask for would be the glass to put it in.’

‘So there is nothing to be gained from interrogating the barman?’

‘No, there’s no point in talking to a soft Sammy like him. You might just as well try and teach a pig to play on the flute.’

‘So, the landlord is a villain and the barman is a dunce. Where does that leave us, Inspector?’

‘Difficult, ain’t it? Brindle won’t tell us much about what happened here in the Cat. He lies just for the fun of it. And, other than your good self, the only witness
we’ve got to anything as happened by the river is about as sharp as the corners on that there round table.’

‘We appear to be stumped, then, Inspector.’ Adam stared at the mud caked on his trousers. He was so exhausted that he could think of little but his own fireside at Doughty Street and
a large glass of brandy and water.

‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that, sir. There’s a little life in us yet. A few paths we can stroll down to see what’s at the end of ’em.’ Pulverbatch, Adam thought,
continued to sound appallingly cheerful. ‘Now, one of the few things Brindle is saying is that this man Jinkinson was renting a room here in the Cat. He says as how Jinkinson come here to
drink. Used to drink a lot, the late gentleman did, according to Brindle. “I’ve seen him so grogged he was down in the street and lapping the gutter.” Those was his exact words, I
seem to recall.’

Pulverbatch paused, as if he expected Adam might say something.

‘The room’s up those stairs over there.’ The inspector gestured through to the billiard room where a rickety flight of stairs disappeared upwards. ‘Now, as I say,
Brindle’s got as many faces as a churchyard clock. I’d trust him about as far as I could fling a bull by its tail but I’m not sure he’d lie about that. Why should he?
Ain’t no crime in renting out a room. So what say you and I go and take a peek in Mr Jinkinson’s hidey-hole?’

Adam was about to reply when, behind the inspector’s back, the door to the bar opened and a boy of about twelve entered. He began to make his way furtively towards the body on the
billiards table. Adam merely gazed at the scene and could hardly bring himself to draw Pulverbatch’s attention to the intruder. There was no need.

‘Hook it, you young prig,’ Pulverbatch roared over his shoulder. ‘Ain’t nothing here for the likes of you. If I sees you still there when I turn round, you’ll be in
quod before you can remember what your name is.’

The boy made a gesture of contempt in the policeman’s direction, but deciding that discretion, in this instance, was definitely the better part of valour, he beat a swift retreat.
Pulverbatch remained in his seat, his hands still resting on the table. Adam was left to wonder how he had known the boy had come into the bar.

‘Always the same with a dead body and young cubs like that,’ the inspector said. ‘Like a honeypot for bees. They always wants to take a look.’

With a sudden sigh, Pulverbatch lifted his hands from the table-top and hauled himself to his feet. Adam, his limbs now aching from his exertions by the river, did the same. The two of them made
their way into the adjoining room, skirted the billiards table with its white-sheeted burden and climbed the stairs to the next floor.

Two doorways opened off the first-floor landing, one to the right and one to the left. Without hesitation, Pulverbatch opened the one on the right. The room they now entered was surprisingly
spacious. It had no floor covering other than a small square of drugget in the middle.

The bed stood behind a dirty chintz curtain in one corner. The only other item of furniture was a battered chest of drawers in the opposite corner, above which hung a small looking glass in a
chipped gilt frame. The inspector went over to it. He began to pull out the drawers one by one, peering into them.

‘What does Brindle say of Jinkinson?’ Adam asked, now determined not to surrender to his tiredness. ‘Why did he offer him refuge?’

‘According to him, he was acting like the Good Samaritan did.’ Pulverbatch continued to examine the contents of the chest of drawers. ‘Him in the Bible as picked up the man by
the roadside and dusted him down and took him home to heal his wounds.’

Adam pushed the chintz curtain to one side and sat down on the bed.

‘So Jinkinson came to him in trouble and Brindle, out of the goodness of his heart, said to him, “I have a room above my tavern, my good man. For the payment of a small sum per week,
you may have the use of it.” ’

‘That’s about the size of it, according to Brindle.’

‘I don’t think that can be what happened, do you, Inspector? Mr Brindle does not seem the type of man to do things out of the goodness of his heart.’

Pulverbatch paused before he slid the final drawer back into place, a smile playing briefly across his face. He was clearly amused by the possibility, however remote, of Brindle acting with good
intentions. But his expression hardened once again.

‘Lord love us, Mr Carver,’ he said. ‘We both know gammon when we hear it, and that’s pure, unadulterated, one hundred per cent gammon. Brindle had some other reason why
he was a-helping Jinkinson. And it weren’t one the Good Samaritan would have recognised.’

* * * * *

‘I ’ope you ain’t goin’ to believe everything that shark Pulverbatch tells you.’ The remark emerged from the darkness outside the Cat and
Salutation as Adam left the pub to make his way back to Doughty Street. It was followed by the substantial figure of Jabez Brindle, who trundled into the light still shining from one of the
ground-floor windows. ‘’E’d lie as soon as look at you.’

The fat man looked as weary as Adam felt but he was still grinning gamely. His ugly little white terrier was still at his heels even if it seemed to have lost much of its earlier aggression. It
made no attempt to bite at Adam’s ankles but stood cocking its head towards its owner as if listening for what he might have to say.

‘That is more or less what the inspector said of you, Mr Brindle.’

‘Thought ’e might. Pot calling the kettle black arse, if you ask me.’

The publican was wearing a battered chimney-pot hat which wobbled unsteadily on his head. He reached up to right it and then seized Adam by the arm. The young man tried to shake him off but
Brindle’s grip was like a vice. He began to guide Adam away from the Cat and Salutation.

‘Which is why,’ Brindle added, ‘I thought as ’ow it might be useful for you and me to have another chat before you went back west.’

The steps of both men echoed across the cobbles. It was well after midnight and the only other person in sight was a street scavenger who was standing under a gas lamp and ladling manure into
his cart.