Adam picked up a brass letter opener in the shape of a miniature sabre from his desk and slit open the letter. He began to read it.
‘This is from the stunner who visited us the other week, Quint. And left us so abruptly.’ Adam read on in silence for but a moment. ‘This is extraordinary! She wants to meet me again: “… affairs to discuss of consequence for both of us.” And — even more extraordinary — she is suggesting that we meet in Cremorne Gardens.’ Adam waved the letter in front of Quint’s nose.
‘It’s signed “Emily Maitland”. Which I thought at the time was a curious name for a lady who was so obviously from the Continent.’
Quint only grunted in reply, as if both her suggestion of a meeting place and the name she was choosing to adopt merely confirmed suspicions he had held of the woman from the moment he had opened the door to her.
‘Cremorne Gardens, though!’ Adam looked at the letter again, half expecting to see that he had misread the name of the place where Miss Maitland was proposing to meet him. ‘Does she not know the place? A single lady arranging to meet a single gentleman by the dancing platform at Cremorne Gardens. Does she have no care for her reputation?’
‘Maybe she ain’t got none.’
Adam ignored Quint’s comment.
‘Perhaps, as a visitor from abroad, she has no notion of the impropriety of meeting a gentleman alone in such a place.’
‘Who can tell wiv a foreigner?’ Quint said. It was very clear that the unfathomable ways of those unfortunate enough not to be English held little interest for the manservant.
‘I shall accept her invitation, unconventional though it is. The letter has come from Brown’s Hotel, which is presumably where she is staying. I shall write back to her there and agree to meet her as she requests.’
‘What about the telegram?’
‘Ah, I had almost forgot it.’
Adam unfolded the telegram the boy had delivered. Its wording was as laconic as such messages tended to be. He showed it to Quint: ‘New developments Creech killing. Request immediate attendance Room 311 Scotland Yard. Pulverbatch.’
‘The detectives at the Yard keepeth not the Sabbath day, I see,’ Adam said.
‘You going to join ’em?’ Quint asked.
‘Curiosity dictates that I must. But, equally, I must first rid myself of these pestilential clothes of yours and take a bath.’
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
A sergeant ushered Adam into Room 311. Inspector Pulverbatch was sitting at a large, baize-covered desk in the middle of what proved to be a comfortably furnished office. On the wall behind him was a portrait of the queen, looking much younger than the middle-aged widow of Windsor she had become. Little more than a girl, she nonetheless stared down at the inspector with an air of faint disapproval. Carver approached the desk.
‘How are you today, Inspector?’
A touch liverish, Mr Carver, if truth be told, but I have news as makes a dicky liver seem a trifle. You got my telegram, I’m reckoning.’
‘I did, indeed. And hastened to follow your instructions and present myself here at the Yard.’
‘Not every day as I send out a telegram to all and sundry in a case. But, with a gent like yourself, I thought I’d make an exception.’ Pulverbatch, beaming with self-satisfaction, now looked anything but liverish. He seemed in the peak of health.
A gent like myself?’
A gent who has been making his own enquiries. On the sly, you might say, if you was so inclined.’ The inspector continued to smile broadly. ‘Not that I am so inclined. But I’d hate to think of you toiling away at your investigations for no reason, Mr Carver.’
‘I am not sure that I take your meaning, inspector.’
Adam was wary in his reply. How much, he wondered, had the police officer learned of his recent activities? According to Sunman, a gentle word had been dropped into Pulverbatch’s ear that he should share information with him, but there was no reason to believe that the inspector would relish doing so. However, Pulverbatch seemed to have decided to adopt an attitude of benevolent bonhomie. He wagged his forefinger at Adam in mock admonition.
‘I ain’t such an ass as anyone can ride me, Mr Carver. I know you’ve got friends in higher places than what I get to visit. But I also know what you’ve been a-doing of late. I know you’ve been speaking with that fat fool Jinkinson. Much good it’ll do you.’ The inspector settled his hands comfortably on his embonpoint. ‘Because I know one more thing. I know the man as killed your friend Creech. So you can stop ferreting around like Paddington Pollaky on the case.’
‘I’m not certain that I could say Creech was ever a friend,’ Adam said. ‘And I know of Mr Pollaky and his private enquiry office only through the newspapers. But I am delighted to hear that you have learnt the identity of the murderer.’
‘We’ve not just learnt about the villain,’ Pulverbatch declared. ‘We’ve got him. Got him sitting in a room not five yards from where the two of us is having this little chat. Clanking his cuffs and brooding on his misdeeds.’
‘I congratulate you, Inspector.’
Pulverbatch inclined his head, as if to demonstrate a modest conviction that congratulations were entirely in order.
‘I don’t mind admitting it to a gent like yourself, Mr Carver, who won’t hold it against a man, but there’ve been times in the last few days when I’ve been well and truly fogged.’
‘We have all been fogged, Inspector.’
‘That’s as may be, Mr Carver, but I’m the man as is paid not to be fogged.’ The inspector leaned across the desk and pushed a pile of papers to one side. He took a small pistol from his pocket and placed it on the green baize. ‘And I’m happy to report that I ain’t fogged now.’
‘That is the murder weapon, is it?’ Adam looked at the small gun with distaste.
‘That is, indeed, the pistol as blew out a portion of the poor gentleman’s brains. We found it in a hedge further down Herne Hill.’ Pulverbatch picked up the pistol. He pointed it briefly in the direction of the ceiling and then replaced it on the desk. ‘Don’t look much more than a toy, do it?’
‘And what about the man who used it? You say you have him in your custody?’
By way of reply, the inspector stood up and beckoned Adam to follow him. He made his exit from Room 311 and walked along the corridor outside. Adam was just behind him as he opened a door into another, smaller room where a uniformed constable stood guard over a shabbily dressed man, sitting at a desk. At a gesture from the inspector, the constable left the room. The man behind the desk stared vacantly into the middle distance. There were two other wooden chairs in the room and Pulverbatch, waving Adam into one, settled himself into the other. He pushed it back on to its rear legs and pointed across the desk.
‘This is the cove as killed Mr Creech. This is Thomas Benjamin Stirk, of Monmouth Street, Seven Dials. Take a bow for the gentleman, Stirk.’
Adam looked doubtfully at the man who sat in cuffs opposite him. Stirk was round and red of face. He was wearing a dirty fustian jacket and a pair of dilapidated flannel trousers which might once have been blue. At the inspector’s words, he ceased gazing into the air and concentrated on his two visitors. He nodded cheerfully at Adam, who turned to look at Pulverbatch.
‘He’s a lot like a winter’s day, ain’t he?’ the inspector remarked. ‘Short and dirty.’
‘He seems… ’ Adam was unsure what exactly to say. He was still trying to work out how much Pulverbatch knew about Jinkinson. Did he know about the blackmail? Was he aware of the notebook with the names of Garland and Oughtred and Abercrombie in it? Of Euphorion? He realised that the inspector was waiting politely for him to finish his sentence. ‘He seems rather a mild sort of fellow for a murderer, Inspector.’