Wobble to Death (17 page)

‘You’re in charge, then. See that nobody connected with the race leaves this Hall for any reason. Understand?’

‘Right, Sergeant.’

Cribb turned to Thackeray.

‘Jacobson’s the man we want. Mr Herriott, where’s his lodgings?’

‘Old Street. Over the “Three Ships,”’ answered the pro-moter, in a dazed voice.

‘Come on,’ said Cribb urgently. ‘If he’s only got half an hour on us we’ll catch up with him there.’

CHAPTER
17

The cabby had been promised double pay if he made good time. The vehicle lurched alarmingly as the horse was whipped towards Islington High Street. Inside, the two fares were jostled too much for a prolonged conversation.

‘What if he ain’t there?’ Thackeray managed to get out.

‘Too bad. We must take the chance,’ Cribb answered. ‘Reckon he’ll make for a station after he’s been home.’

There was no vehicle to compare with a hansom in slipping through streets thick with traffic. Soon they were rattling south along Goswell Road towards St Bart’s, worming between growlers, buses, drays and barrows that loomed out of the patchy fog. The experience must have been unnerving even for the driver—and he was in the safest position, perched high at the rear. Thackeray gripped the handrail until his knuckles whitened. He tried to focus on the horse’s back rather than the obstacles hurtling towards them through the mist.

The hospital, a taller, darker mass, appeared ahead. The cab turned, its chassis groaning in protest, into Old Street. ‘There’s the pub!’ shouted Cribb, above the racket of hooves and wheels. He looked up through the glass trap in the roof, but the cabby was already steering across the road towards ‘The Three Ships’. How they escaped collision with a knifeboard bus being drawn at speed from the other direction, neither passenger knew.

‘Wait here, for God’s sake!’ the sergeant called out as they jumped to the pavement and crossed to the entrance. Idlers around the door looked up in surprise at the urgent com-mand. Somebody obviously needed his drink.

The public bar was doing a brisk trade for a Saturday. As Cribb weaved a route to the counter there were several half-formed threats, but something about his manner cut them short. Thackeray remained at the door; Cribb’s figure was better suited to side-on progress than his.

‘One moment, landlord.’

Cribb’s voice was more insistent than any of the pleas around him for refills.

‘Sir.’

‘Police business. You’ve a man living over these premises, I believe.’

The licensee was a pale, rabbit-like man. He almost dropped a full glass at hearing Cribb’s announcement.

‘That’s right, guv’nor. Mr Jacobson. I haven’t seen ’im for a day or two.’

‘Not at all today?’

‘No guv. But I’m busy, as you can see. He may be up there now, for all I know. The door’s round the back. Up the iron staircase.’

Cribb forced a passage towards the back exit and found the stairs. He was up them three at a time, and knocked hard at the frosted window, trying to peer through. There was no reply. Instinct told him Jacobson was not inside hiding. He clattered down, ran across the yard and round to the front of the building, surprising Thackeray by opening the bar door and hauling him outside.

‘Not there.’ Cribb was at a loss.

Putting his unhappy morning out of mind, Thackeray acted with inspiration. Twenty yards up the street, at the entrance to another bar, was a barrel organist, playing a gen-uine shoulder-instrument supported on a pole. The consta-ble barked in his ear, above the wheezing intake of air and ‘Champagne Charlie’.

‘D’you see a man call a cab out here this last half-hour? Probably carried a case.’

‘Eh?’ The musician inclined his head to Thackeray, con-tinuing to turn his grinding-handle.

Thackeray repeated the question, and produced a coin from his pocket. It was an instant aid to the man’s hearing. ‘Quarter of an hour back I saw the gent from upstairs come down with a case. Couldn’t get no ’ansom. Took a four-wheeler ’e did.’

‘Did you hear where he was making for?’ bellowed the constable, slipping the hand into his pocket again.

‘Matter o’ fact I did.’ The organist waited until the sec-ond coin was in his hand. ‘The station, ’e said. Fenchurch Street. Reckon ’e was going east.’

They turned to their cab. The driver was by the horse, chatting with a passer-by and swinging his arms for warmth. ‘Right driver!’ Cribb called imperatively. ‘Fenchurch Street—and get this beast at the gallop!’

They clambered aboard. The whip cracked above their heads and the pursuit began anew. A right turn into City Road and a long, hard chase towards Moorgate. By the Artillery Barracks they had to swerve to miss a cat’s meat barrow parked at the roadside. The road was badly pot-holed. If the horse had stumbled anywhere the detectives would have been pitched straight out of the front. But the cabby kept up the reckless canter, even encouraging the ani-mal with bloodcurdling bellows. Police, the passengers had said they were. They should have their gallop.

The City was quiet, or he would never have taken them down past the Bank and up Lombard Street. But the fog was thicker here and in the narrower street he had to rein and come into line behind a coal cart. Its rate was agonisingly slow. At Lime Street he turned left and cantered between the tall buildings, taking a chance on the narrow passage being clear. Along Fenchurch Avenue, into Billiter Street, and they were back in Fenchurch Street, ahead of the cart. A wave of the whip, a shrieking turn, and they were in the station approach, rattling across cobbles.

‘We’ll be back!’ Cribb shouted. He sprinted into the booking-hall, darted his eyes across the scene, and made for the stairs. Thackeray was not far behind.

The main area of the station was almost deserted, but it was two or three minutes before they discovered this, for the fog had cut visibility to twenty yards or so.

There was only one train waiting, and that was not attracting many passengers.

‘Where’s this one bound for?’ Cribb asked a porter, neat in monkey jacket and corduroys.

Weighing up the sergeant as second-class, no more, the porter jerked his thumb at a board behind him and moved away.

‘Tilbury. Come on, Thackeray.’

They bustled past an indignant ticket collector with a peremptory ‘Police.’ Then they began checking the car-riages, small, four-door affairs with oil lamps alight inside them. It was not a long train, and in three minutes they were by the hissing tank engine.

‘Got away, Sarge,’ Thackeray sighed, producing a hand-kerchief to mop his forehead.

‘When did the last train leave?’ Cribb shouted to the driver and fireman, who leaned in some interest from their cab.

‘From this platform, you mean—’ began the driver. ‘Hey! Git off that bloody line!’

But Thackeray was away. He had glimpsed a fast-moving figure on the opposite platform and taken the straighter route in that direction. He clambered up the other side and set off in pursuit. His speed was a revelation.

Cribb too bolted along his platform, wishing he had a police-rattle to sound the hue and cry. Thackeray was out ahead on the other side of the train, but Cribb could not see whether he was gaining on the runaway figure. He reached the ticket barrier and brushed past the irate official in time to see the constable still running hard. An instant later the fog swallowed him.

Cribb made for the same direction. Ahead, he heard the constable thudding down the stairs towards the booking-hall. Then a shout and the sound of someone falling. A scuf-fle ahead, and two figures wrestling at the foot of the stairs. ‘Lay off him, Thackeray,’ Cribb ordered, when he was near enough to assist.

‘All right—I’ll give no trouble.’ The voice was Jacobson’s. ‘The money’s all here in the case.’

‘Must have lain low as we walked past his carriage, Sarge. I saw him getting up on the other platform,’ explained Thackeray with some pride.

‘As pretty a piece of arresting as I’ve seen. Fine work, Thackeray. Now, Mr Jacobson. We’ll get you back to the Hall, I think. I’d like to see who’s winning that race.’

The drive to the Hall with Jacobson was reassuringly sedate. Cribb hired a ‘growler’ and ordered the driver to take his time—a superflous instruction as things turned out. In the City even the street-lamps were obscured by the fog. Drivers of hansoms were compelled to walk leading their horses. Nothing could move at a faster rate than they dictated. The delays greatly disturbed Thackeray. More than once he got down from the four-wheeler and strutted along the line of traffic in front, looking for a cause of the hold-up.

‘We’ll be deuced lucky to make the Hall by ten, at this rate,’ he complained as he climbed aboard again.

Cribb was disturbingly serene. His usual sense of urgency was absent and this made Thackeray uneasy. The constable had relished Jacobson’s capture as a taste of action after days of patient questioning. But had it helped the main inquiry? Wasn’t it just a diversion, like Harvey’s sabotage of O’Flaherty, that the local force should have dealt with?

Jacobson sat in silence, staring through Cribb. He did not want to talk, and the sergeant made no approach. But his presence was inhibiting. If he was a vital witness, or the killer—and why else should they take custody of him?—it would be disastrous to discuss the case. So Thackeray per-sisted in his agitated excursions while the others waged silence on each other.

The carriage reached Islington High Street a few minutes after nine o’clock. The isolating barrier of fog had muffled all sound, but now there was shouting immediately outside. The carriage halted on the fringe of an ugly, jostling mob. Cribb opened the door with difficulty, settled the fare, and, taking a tight grip on Jacobson’s upper arm, guided him towards the Hall entrance. But it was there that the crowd was converging. They were people who had been refused admittance. Every seat, every standing place, a harassed offi-cial was trying to explain, was taken. Nobody else would be allowed in.

This was a challenge almost designed for Thackeray. He put thumb and forefinger between his teeth and produced a whistle worthy of the Regent’s Park parrot house. A police helmet could be glimpsed at the entrance, and Thackeray exchanged a signal with its wearer. Then, to surprisingly few protests, a passage was cleared from both sides of the crowd. Cribb, with his prisoner, and Thackeray with the prize money slipped through and into the Hall.

‘Get this man to the police office and see he’s kept there,’ Cribb ordered Thackeray at once. ‘And be discreet,’ he added, touching a finger to his lips. ‘I’ll return the money.’ ‘Who shall we see after that, Sarge?’ Thackeray asked. ‘There’s precious little time left.’

‘Don’t propose seeing anyone,’ Cribb told him, with a glance that infuriated him, it was so expressionless. ‘Not till after the race is over, any rate. There’s time to enjoy it, Thackeray. Chance to take a look at some pukka foot-racers— not station platform performers.’