It turned out to be more than twice that long; a nasty accident snarled Tilden Way only a mile or so from the brewery. Constables were busy taking statements from those in a condition to give them. Red lights flashing, an ambulance sped off with a couple who weren’t. Wreckers labored to pry apart the vehicles that had come together. Firemen spread sand on spilled paraffin.
Bushell drummed his fingers on his thigh as they crawled along. They’d got trapped in traffic before they discovered how bad the wreck ahead was. “Nothing we can do but wait,” Stanley said. Bushell grudged every second that sped past; he knew he had none left to spare.
Once past the wreck, Sergeant Kittridge practically flew to the brewery, a large brick building with advertising signs painted on all four sides:
JOSIAH STANAGE CO.
PROUD BREWERS OF BALD EAGLE ALE, YANKEE STOUT, AND FREEDOM BEST BITTER.
“Bilgewater,” Kittridge declared. Bushell didn’t know whether he meant the political sentiments proclaimed by the brand names or the quality of the beers produced inside those walls. The rich, nutty odor of malted barley clogged the air. Stanley laughed. “You can get a buzz just breathing,” he said, and inhaled deeply.
A guard in a red-coated uniform that looked a lot like a RAM’s stood in front of the entrance. “Help you gents?” he asked, adding, “And you, ma’am?” a moment later.
Bushell and his male companions flashed their badges. As had often happened before, their display of glittering metal blinded the guard to the fact that Kathleen bore no such talisman. The not-quite Redbreast touched a forefinger to the bill of his cap in a not-quite salute and held the door open so the newcomers could enter the brewery.
A series of questions to employees within led them to Stanage’s office. Bushell would have guessed that to be on the topmost floor, so the magnate could look out a window and savor the view - or perhaps just watch lorries hauling barrels of nice, profitable beer off to be quaffed. Instead, though, Stanage quartered himself in the basement. His secretary, a gray-haired woman who looked even sterner than Sally Reese, glared at people with the temerity to interrupt her typing. “No, you can’t see Mr. Stanage now,” she snapped, and started clattering away at a letter once more.
“It’s urgent,” Bushell said, showing his badge again.
“I don’t care,” the woman said. “You still can’t see him.” She paused. He got the idea she hoped he’d shout at her, so he didn’t. Faint disappointment in her voice, she went on, “Reason you can’t see him is, he’s not here.”
Samuel Stanley grunted. Bushell had heard that same sound of surprise from a soldier hit by a rifle bullet: it was the sound you made before you felt the pain. He already felt it, and asked, “Well, where is he?”
Maybe he’d been wrong. Maybe Stanage had decided to get out of town. But the secretary said, “He’s up in Georgestown, across the river. There’s a gathering of commercial travelers today.” She sniffed in loud, sharp disapproval. “Excuse for a pack of nasty men to get together, tell filthy stories, and pour down the demon rum, if you ask me. I’m a good Christian woman - I’ve told Mr. Stanage as much, right to his face I have.”
Bushell didn’t doubt it. He knew a first bit of sympathy for Phineas Stanage. Stifling it, he said, “Where is this gathering being held?”
“I told you: in Georgestown.” When that wasn’t enough to send Bushell on his way, she grudgingly pawed through a file cabinet. “Here we are: the Worshipful College of Victuallers” - she pronounced it as it was spelled, not the right way - “at 427 Amritsar Way. Ugly name for a street.”
“Thank you for your unsolicited opinions,” Bushell said. He hadn’t more than half turned before she was pounding away at the typewriter again.
They got back into the battered blue Reliable that Kittridge was driving. Bushell pulled out his pocket watch. “It’ll be after one o’clock when we get there,” he said unhappily. “Less than two days now before His Majesty’s yacht comes into the harbor.”
“Less than half a day from the ransom deadline the Sons set when they took The Two Georges,” Kathleen added, even more unhappily.
“If they were going to ransom it, we would have heard by now,” he said, and hoped he was right. “They have something else in mind. They must.”
“Burning it in front of the All-Union Art Museum, for instance,” she said. “You were talking about that before, and I’ve feared something like it all along.”
He shook his head. “I don’t think they’d throw over the chance at fifty million pounds for the sake of a gesture.”
“They’re fanatics,” Kathleen said bleakly. “What do fanatics care about money?”
The steamer rolled onto the Long Bridge as Bushell answered, “Of course, a lot of the Sons are fanatics. But the leaders of this scheme are plenty shrewd. Fifty million would let them pay for any number of outrages. If that’s not what they’re after, then they have good reason to think they can get something more.”
“Or, of course, they might be holding off the ransom demand to the last possible moment to give us less chance to set a trap for them,” Samuel Stanley said. Bushell nodded. It wasn’t how he read the situation, but it was far from impossible.
Traffic on the bridge slowed down as the steamer neared the checkpoint on the Maryland shore. “Bulk tobacco?” a green-uniformed inspector asked Kittridge. Maryland had a hefty tobacco tax; Virginia didn’t. The revenue inspectors searched motorcars at random to discourage smuggling. Kittridge showed his badge. The inspector nodded, drew back, and waved him through. Kittridge reached into the glove box for a map to guide him to Amritsar Way. They got to the Worshipful College of Victuallers at 1:07. Toby Custine pointed to the building across the street: an Independence Party headquarters. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?” he said.
Another steamer that had seen better days came down Amritsar Way from the opposite direction and parked in front of the headquarters building. A burly man with a beard that didn’t quite cover his scar got out of it. “That’s Major Williams,” Bushell and Stanley said together. Kittridge pulled over to the kerb. Everyone got out of the motorcar he was driving. Lieutenant Custine called to Williams and his companions. “What are you people doing here?” Williams demanded. “You come to shake down this place, too?” He jerked a thumb toward the Independence Party building.
“No, we’re after Stanage at the victuallers’ hall,” Bushell answered, pointing toward his own target.
“Had some luck, did you?”
“I should say so!” Williams boomed. “The stinking Sons hadn’t a clue we were coming, not this time. Now I’ve got clues - so many of ‘em, I wish I could be four places at once.”
“Same here,” Bushell said. “What’s going on with the charming Independence Party people? They aren’t in the habit of going out on a limb.”
“Well, they bloody well have now, or at least this batch of ‘em has,” Williams said. “All sorts of lovely correspondence between them and proved Sons about it and how they were going to exploit it - not a word of what it is, worse luck, or where it is, either, but I’ve drawn my own conclusions, and now I’ll see if I can’t get these people to color ‘em for me.”
“Sounds like what I’m doing with Stanage and his crowd.” Bushell thumped Williams on the shoulder.
“Let’s go get ‘em.” He had another thought: “If we make arrests, we’ll take ‘em to the Georgestown gaol. The less we alert the powers that be, the better.”
“Right,” Williams said. “Colonel, I wasn’t sure anything was rotten in Denmark till I went out this morning. Now - I don’t want anyone over you getting wind of any of this.” He laughed, down deep in his throat. “If you hadn’t been the one who put me on to it, I wouldn’t tell you about it, either.”