The Advocate's Wife (7 page)

The doctor’s inquisitive glance had rested on the photograph of Box’s father. He closed his note book, as though dismissing the subject.

‘That picture of a police sergeant, Mr Box – a relative of yours, perhaps?’

‘Yes, Dr Oake. That’s my father. Pa was a uniformed sergeant,
many years ago. That likeness of him was taken in 1864. He was shot by a man called Joseph Edward Spargo in 1875. Shot in the leg. Nothing could be proved at the time, but then this Spargo went on to murder a solicitor in Crutched Friars, and was knocked senseless by the butler, an ex-prize-fighter. Very
unfortunate
for Spargo, that. He was hanged at Newgate in 1880.’

‘And your father, Mr Box. What happened to him? Did he recover?’

‘Well, he was invalided out, sir, as you might expect. He was given a little pension, and they had a benefit for him. He’s still going strong, so to speak, at seventy-three years old.’

Dr Oake hauled himself to his feet. He put his note book back into his valise, and retrieved his slouched hat from the top of the bookcase, where he had tossed it.

‘I’d best be gone, Inspector Box. I’m keeping you from your dinner. I don’t expect we’ll meet again, so I’ll just say how very nice it’s been to talk to you today. I wish you every success with this case. It’s a mystery, Inspector. A dark mystery.’

Inspector Box hurried down the steps of 2 King James’s Rents, crossed the deserted cobbled square, and turned into Whitehall, which, by contrast, was thronging with people. A number of carriages, each guarded by a liveried groom, stood in the dusty street outside the entrance to the great Italianate building of the Home Office. A gloomy pall was beginning to spread itself over the London sky. He could taste the sour, sulphurous tang of chimney-smoke, the precursor of fog.

The Strand seethed with traffic, and echoed with the low thunder of hooves and the ringing of iron tyres. Should he whistle for a cab? No. He enjoyed walking, and this foray across the City would banish the fumes of the office. He wove his way through the press of vehicles and, crossing the wide
thoroughfare
, continued along Fleet Street.

By the time Box had reached Ludgate Hill, the fog had defined itself as something more than a mere mist. He could just make out the dull glow of the signals on the railway viaduct spanning Ludgate Hill. Should he fortify himself with a glass of stout in the King Lud? No. It would be better to press on.

It was as he hurried along the ever-busy Cannon Street that Box realized he was being followed. He felt a rather illogical surge of excitement. To be tailed like this would add a certain spice to the day. He had noticed a hulking giant of a fellow glancing in his direction as he had skirted St Paul’s Churchyard, and his professional instincts had been alerted to possible
danger. He’d wondered whether one of Gideon Raikes’s thugs had been put on his tail.

And now, the hulking man was there again, trailing a hundred yards behind him. Box felt the reassuring length of the truncheon in the special pocket tailored into his left trouser leg. Villains sometimes didn’t realize that plain-clothes policemen carried a concealed weapon –a crocus-wood truncheon, twelve inches long, with a nice leather thong at the handle….

Box began to walk more briskly through the now dense fog, and turned abruptly right into a narrow lane a few yards before the opening to Garlick Hill.

Away from the main thoroughfares, London had become a world of shadows. A church tower loomed up to his left. He entered a narrow lane, where tall, shuttered, houses stared blankly at each other across the wet cobbles. Very soon, he would emerge on to the complex of warehouses and jetties known as Syria Wharf. And there, in a long, attic office which looked like something out of the Arabian Nights, he would find Mr Anton Berg, a man well versed in the mysteries of silk and satin, and in the subtle arts of the dressmaker. Anton Berg could read garments like other people read books….

‘Help!’ It was a shrill cry, anguished and hopeless, and it was followed by a shattering of glass. The sounds came from an alley so narrow that Box’s shoulders touched its sides as he ran down it towards what he recognized as the classical sounds of brutish robbery with violence. To seize and apprehend malefactors was his vocation. He moved as swiftly now as he had done in his days as a uniformed constable. He eased the truncheon from its concealed pocket.

The alley opened out into a tiny square, and through the swirling mist Box saw the bow window of a shop, approached by a tall flight of steps between black iron railings. Painted above the window was the legend:
DAMIAN SHULBREDE. WATCHMAKER.

All thoughts of Anton Berg forgotten, Inspector Box burst into the shop. The door, fitted with a patent spring, slammed shut behind him. Yes; there was the smashed display case, the glint of jewellery, the terrified ashen-faced old man standing as though paralysed against the wall. There were two robbers, one big and
brutal, the other lithe and snarling – river-vermin, who had crawled up here from the slime of King’s Reach under cover of the fog.

At times like this, you didn’t think about the most prudent course of action: you launched yourself at the foe. Box caught the lithe, snarling man by surprise, flinging him, spitting and cursing, to the floor, and stunning him with a blow from his truncheon. A second later he was lifted bodily by the big brute, and thrown violently against the wall. The robber closed in for the kill, and Box saw his rigidly expressionless face, and his dead, emotionless eyes. This was the type who would kill as well as plunder.

With a report like a sudden gunshot, the front door was kicked open, and the hulking brute who had been following Box from St Paul’s Churchyard charged into the shop. With a roar of rage he hurled himself at the big robber, who lost his balance and fell to the floor with a sickening crash. He was up in a moment, bellowing with fury, but was immediately felled by his massive assailant. The dazed eyes were briefly enlivened by a dawning look of surprise before the man collapsed backwards on the floor, unconscious.

‘Well done—’ Box began, but his rescuer gave him no time to finish.

‘That’s enough of that, my lad! Put your hands above your head, and keep them there! Up! Up!’

Box did as he was told. He was fascinated by this gigantic man. Who was he? Who’d sent him? He wasn’t one of Percy’s lot … An ugly-looking brute! Taller even than Kenwright, with close-cropped yellow hair, and a livid scar running across his face from below the right eye to the left corner of the mouth.

The big man never took his eyes off Box as he knelt down, and produced a set of handcuffs from a greatcoat pocket. A policeman! He secured the unconscious robber’s wrists behind him, and with one hand turned the first robber over on to his back.

‘Officer,’ said Box, still with his arms raised obediently above his head, ‘if you’ll feel in the wallet pocket of my jacket, you’ll find my warrant card.’

From somewhere behind him, Box could hear the murmur of
voices, and the clatter of boots on bare boards, but he was held fascinated by his rescuer. Who was this man? Why had he followed him so doggedly to Garlick Hill? The big man’s piercing blue eyes were still fixed on Box’s face. The hand that reached into his jacket bore a heavy gold signet ring on the little finger. There was, Box noted, a smear of blood on the knuckles. The hand deftly removed his warrant card.

Box saw the big man blush deeply before handing him back his card. He lowered his arms, and accepted the warrant without comment. He would stay where he was, and see what the big man would do next.

‘Detective Inspector Box, sir, this was hardly the meeting I’d envisaged. I thought it might be you, but I couldn’t be sure. You might have been an accomplice of that scum on the floor.’

A rear door opened, and the watchmaker entered the shop, accompanied by an elderly police sergeant and a young constable. Two or three timid neighbours crowded in behind them. The sergeant, a slightly stooping man with a humorous eye, saw Box immediately, and saluted. He ignored the big man, who had crossed the room to join the badly shaken shopkeeper and his neighbours.

‘Mr Box, sir,’ he said, ‘do you remember me? Sergeant Harvey. I’ve not seen you in ages. Not since that fire at St Olaf’s Stairs. Mr Shulbrede there came running down to us in Upper Thames Street. I see you’ve floored these villains. Well done, sir, if I may say so. Let’s see who we’ve got here.’

Sergeant Harvey stooped down with his hands on his knees, and peered at the two robbers.

‘Well, well! Joseph Jenkins. And Billy “the Weasel” Whetstone. Local talent, sir: our own breeding, these two. Well, lads, you’ve met your match here, by the look of things. Jenkins, you’ve just done a stretch, and now you’ll have to go back in for ever such a long time! And you, Billy! The cart’s on the way for both of you. Anything to say, either of you? No? Well, that’s understandable.’

Box joined Sergeant Harvey, and looked down in his turn at the two sullen, defeated men, who had been fettered by the constable. The thin chains joining the anklets chinked as they squirmed on the floor. Box’s giant assailant seemed to have
shrunk to an awkward, ageing hulk. His weasel companion was quietly sobbing. What riffraff!

‘Joseph Jenkins, hey? And Billy Whetstone?’ said Box. ‘I’ll note those names, gents, and those faces to match. And perhaps you’d care to make a note of me, too? Drag them away, Constable. Here’s your station van now.’

Sergeant Harvey was leaning against the smashed display case, writing in his notebook.

‘Do you want to appear in this, Mr Box? At the Mansion House, I mean. If not, we can enrol you as a witness at the trial. There’ll be a trial, of course. These two are a bit too big for the magistrates.’

‘That’ll do nicely, Sergeant Harvey,’ said Box. ‘Put me in as a witness. I’ll send you a note at Upper Thames Street. I’m going down to Essex tomorrow, so I’d rather not appear in this row for the moment.’

The robbers were hauled to their feet, and shuffled out through the front door, where the police van was waiting. Sergeant Harvey turned at the door, and gave Box a
world-wear
y but good-humoured smile.

‘All in a day’s work, sir. “The trivial round, the common task, should furnish all we need to ask”. Whoever wrote that, didn’t have our job to do!’

Box turned from the door. The big man with the scar was talking in low tones to the shopkeeper, who was holding a watch that he had salvaged from the shattered display case. The watch-glass had been smashed, and the fingers bent.

‘My name is Damian Shulbrede, sir,’ said the elderly man, turning to Box. ‘Please accept my thanks for apprehending those desperate villains. How very brave of you! This young fellow tells me that you are a Scotland Yard inspector.’

‘That’s very true, sir,’ Box replied, ‘and now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be on my way, and this “young fellow” had better come with me! I’ll see you again, Mr Shulbrede, when this case comes to court.’

Box caught the big man’s coat sleeve, and firmly propelled him down the steps and out of the shop.

‘Now, Officer,’ he said, ‘congratulations! You’ve got a healthy
suspicion of folk that’ll serve you well. Well done! And by Jove, you can move. A regular whirlwind. I don’t think our beautiful friend back there knew what hit him!’

The fair-haired giant laughed, and delved into one of his pockets. He extracted his own warrant card, which he handed to Box.

‘You’d left King James’s Rents just minutes before I arrived, sir. I was determined to find you. A big, bearded constable told me where you’d gone, and I followed you. I’m Sergeant Knollys, sir. Jack Knollys.’

‘I don’t suppose you drink on duty, gentlemen, but you won’t be able to resist this particular infusion. It’s Turkish coffee. The brightest jewel in the Sultan’s turban! And those are genuine Turkish crenellated cups. Cream – there. Sugar – there. The connoisseur drinks it black.’

By the time that Box and his new sergeant had extricated themselves from the scene of the robbery, the fog had begun to rise, so that when they reached the end of the lane, and emerged on to the stone flags of Syria Wharf, they were able to see the great looming complex of warehouses rising up on the edge of the river-bank, and the stark inscription,
A. BERG. IMPORTER,
displayed in huge white lettering high above the ranks of windows. A creaking goods lift had taken them up to the sixth floor, and so to the offices of Mr Anton Berg.

Mr Berg poured out the coffee from a silver pot, talking all the time. His bright, shrewd eyes looked speculatively at Box, and then reached for an elaborately chased flask.

‘Yes, the connoisseurs drink it black; but I’m merely a humble cloth merchant, and you, gentlemen, are honest policemen. So we’ll have cream and sugar. A fracas, you say? And a lot of violence? Well, you must have a dollop of this sovereign
restorative
in your coffee. Napoleon brandy.’

No one, thought Box, would ever mistake Anton Berg for a ‘humble cloth merchant’. A man nearing sixty, a sinuous, prowling kind of man, with the sensitive face of a scholar, he was
dressed impeccably in a well-tailored black suit of modern cut, without tails. There was a dull sheen to the material of the suit, as though it had been tailored from some esoteric kind of satin. Gold links shone at his cuffs.

Nor was there anything particularly mercantile about his premises, which occupied the whole of the sixth floor. An outer office, manned by a stooping clerk, was succeeded by a series of solidly furnished rooms culminating in a low, airy chamber hung entirely in silk. It always reminded Box of a picture he had seen as a child of a Bedouin sheik reclining in a damask tent. There were a number of sofas with patterned silk covers and tasselled cushions, and low tables carved with Arabic script.

Mr Berg added a generous measure of brandy to each cup, and then sat back on his sofa.

‘And is there, perhaps, something that you want me to do for you, Mr Box?’

‘There is, Mr Berg. Something very much in your line, as the saying goes.’ Inspector Box gave the merchant a succinct account of the murder case awaiting his investigation in Essex, and the emphasis placed in the local police report on the green silk dress. He was conscious of his new sergeant’s air of absorbed interest in what he was saying. Did Knollys know anything about him? Anything about the various cases that had brought him to inspector’s rank at the early age of thirty? Knollys didn’t look like a policeman. He looked like a well-dressed but dangerous ruffian….

Mr Berg sipped his coffee thoughtfully, and then smiled, revealing a number of gold teeth.

‘“Silk”! And what, pray, do they mean by that? “Silk”? You might as well say “cloth”, for all that means. I’ve got at least eight different silks here, of the type used in ladies’ dresses. What does this Essex policeman mean? Peking Tissue? Foochow Lion’s Breath? And “green”-does he mean China green? Vat-dyed? Look!’

Berg made a disconcerting dart to the door, and disappeared into the adjacent room. They could hear the whirring of a roller as a length of cloth was pulled free. When Berg returned, both men gasped in awe. The merchant had quite unselfconsciously
draped himself in a swathe of blue and gold silk that seemed to pulsate with life and colour. He moved from side to side, and they saw delicate images of flowers and leaves spring to life in the changing light from the tall warehouse windows. Berg flung himself down on his sofa, and spread the gorgeous material out across his knees.