Black Ship (27 page)

“Can’t you ‘have a word’ with both of us at once, and save time?” Jessup asked, the first sign of annoyance or impatience he had shown.

“I’d prefer to see you one at a time,” Alec said firmly.

“Oh, very well. We’ll go upstairs. We each have an office up there. Patrick, lock the street door before you come up. This way.”

He led the way through the door at the back. It opened into a room furnished like a gentleman’s den, with comfortable leather chairs and an antique writing table, but with wine racks where one might expect bookcases. On the desk, the usual blotter and a brass inkstand were supplemented with a tantalus and a tray of gleaming glasses of various shapes and sizes. On the right-hand wall hung a Cézanne still life featuring a bottle, a glass, and a bunch of grapes. Straight ahead, a solid-looking door with bar and bolt as well as a lock probably led to a yard or alley. The left wall had stairs going up and a door that, no doubt, opened on steps down to the cellar.

This must be where favoured customers were invited to consult the Jessups about the replenishment of their cellars, or the provision of drinks for wedding breakfasts and other parties.

“This will do very well,” Alec said, stepping behind the desk, to Mr. Jessup’s obvious displeasure. He turned to Patrick. “Would you be so kind as to take DC Piper up to the offices? Do you have keys to any locked desks, cabinets, or cupboards?”

“Yes, but …” The young man looked to his father.

“And the safe?” Alec cut in before Jessup could respond. “I assume you have a safe?”

“What the deuce is this?” Jessup demanded. “What business do you have going through our papers? This is a private partnership!”

“Have you something to hide?”

“Of course not, but—”

“Then I may assure you that anything DC Piper may see will remain entirely confidential. Your son may stay with him and make sure everything not pertaining to our enquiries is left just as it was found. Until he comes down to see me, at which point you can go up.”

“Oh, very well!” Exasperation changed to gloom as Jessup added to Patrick, “Your mother’s already told Mr. Fletcher about our sales to America.”

“Which, as you need not remind me,” Alec said tartly, “are not against English law.” In one way, it was a relief not to have to serve the warrant. It would undoubtedly have engendered ill feeling—
more
ill feeling. On the other hand, Jessup’s acquiescence to the search after a brief and natural protest suggested they would find nothing useful here.

Alec nodded to Piper, who preceded Patrick up the stairs.

Alec sat down behind the desk. Jessup hesitated, then reluctantly subsided into one of the armchairs facing him. Ross had unobtrusively brought in a straight chair from the main shop. He set it near the door, behind Jessup, where he could take notes without being observed.

“Tell me about Castellano,” Alec invited.

“Castellano? That’s the man you say has been murdered?”

“Mrs. Jessup didn’t tell you his name?”

“She didn’t catch it when you mentioned it to her. She told
me she recognised the photograph you showed her as an American who came to the house and was extremely unpleasant to her. He didn’t give his name at that time, or subsequently.”

“He returned, then. To the house, or here?”

“To the house. In view of his rudeness, I had given orders that he was not to be admitted. If he wanted to do business with the firm, he went the wrong way about it. Had he been an emissary of my American customer, I’d have been notified in advance of his intention to visit us. As it was, I did not meet him, nor had I any intention of doing so.”

“Tell me about your transactions with America, and why you sent your son there.”

“There’s really nothing in it. The firm has been dealing for many years with a chap in Boston, the owner of a drinking establishment. Not our usual sort of customer, admittedly, but we simply continued the relationship with his son. The fact that it’s now against the laws of his country is his lookout. I see no harm in supplying superior products to the wealthy elite of America when their alternative, I gather, is what they call ‘moonshine.’ I’m sure you’re aware that improperly distilled alcohol can be deadly.”

“Yes, indeed. I can see that, regarded in the proper light, you’re a public benefactor,” Alec said with only the merest hint of irony.

Unexpectedly, Jessup grinned. “That’s a good line. I must remember it.”

“You’re welcome to it. So, everything was running along smoothly, I take it. Why Patrick’s travels?”

“Everything ran smoothly because the American government wasn’t putting enough money into enforcement. It stands to reason, as half of them probably enjoy a good whisky as much as anyone. Then last year, President Coolidge talked them into voting more money for the Prohibition people and more ships for the Coast Guard. Perhaps you’ve heard of the Anglo-American Liquor Treaty?”

“Yes.”

“That made things more difficult, too, especially as they’ll impound British ships outside the new twelve-mile limit. Even before the change, when it was three miles, they took the
Tomoka
five miles offshore. Well, to cut a long story short, they started intercepting our ship-to-shore messages. I approached a certain brilliant cryptographer of my acquaintance—being very familiar with certain parts of the Continent, I was able to be of some assistance to our government during the War—and he provided me with a suitable code—”

“Not Dr. Popkin, by any chance?”

Jessup looked at him suspiciously. “What my friend did was not against the law, even in America, I believe.”

“No, no, it’s just that I’ve had cause in the past to ask for his help.”

“As a matter of fact, it was Dr. Popkin. He gave me what I needed. My customer didn’t want the information sent in the post, for fear of its being intercepted. My son, having missed the War, was eager for adventure.
Et voilà.
”

“Patrick went ashore in America to deliver the code in person?”

“Since that was the point of the whole exercise … He met an agent of our customer, not the man himself. He’s a banker with political ambitions and steers clear of personal involvement.”

“Will you give me his name?”

“I will not.”

Alec nodded. “Or that of his agent?”

“No. In any case, Patrick is fairly sure all the names he was given while in America were aliases, so they would be useless to you.”

For the moment, Alec let the question lie. He doubted the principal’s name would be helpful, but any others, real or aliases, though meaningless to him, would be worth trying on the New York police.

“I assume the business is profitable.”

“Very. Enough to risk losing a cargo now and then, though we’ve been lucky in that respect.”

“Yet you were not interested in hearing whatever business proposition Castellano had to set before you,” Alec said sceptically.

Jessup was clearly perturbed by the return to the subject of the murder, but he quickly recovered. “After his behaviour to Moira, it was out of the question. But if you want a more businesslike reason, we are a small family firm. Taking on more American business would seriously stretch our resources.”

“I’d have thought with such an unpleasant character hanging about, you’d at least want to know what he was after. You could have arranged to meet him in the garden, so that there was no chance of his encountering your wife again.”

“I dare say I could have. I didn’t.”

“Or perhaps you sent Aidan in your place.”

“Certainly not.”

“Why did Aidan leave so suddenly last night?”

Shaken, Jessup said, “He … It wasn’t sudden. He’d been planning the trip for some time. He always goes about this time of year.”

“And it was so urgent, he left within an hour of his brother’s return?”

“He … I don’t know. I wasn’t watching the clock.”

Alec let a moment’s silence point out the irrelevance of this statement. Then he snapped out, “Where did he go?”

“North!” Jessup took out a silk handkerchief and wiped his forehead. “To see customers in the North.”

“Which city? Where did he take the train to?”

“What does it matter? He wasn’t going to stay there. He has to travel all over the place.”

“Which city?”

“I don’t know. York, I think. I’m not sure.”

Anywhere but York, then, Alec thought. He had been hoping he wouldn’t have to arrest any of his next-door neighbours,
but if he didn’t, after this interrogation, he’d never be able to face them again. Momentarily, his mind wandered. How long did he have to live in his great-uncle Walsall’s house to satisfy the terms of the will? He couldn’t remember Pearson specifying a term.

Alarmed by his silence, Jessup said, “Perhaps it was Newcastle.”

Alec wondered whether, if he maintained a ominous silence, Jessup would gradually run through all the major northern cities he could think of except Aidan’s destination. It wouldn’t do to underestimate him, though. He wasn’t so rattled that he wouldn’t catch on quickly and throw the actual place into the list.

“Give me the names of customers he has to visit.”

“Aidan took the records of their names and addresses with him.”

“Mr. Jessup, I find it quite impossible to believe that you don’t remember the names, at least, of customers sufficiently valuable to warrant one of the firm’s principals travelling hundreds of miles to call on them at their homes.”

“That’s Aidan’s side of the business. I deal mostly with our suppliers. I dare say I can remember one or two names if I put my mind to it.”

“Please do so.”

He came up with four surnames, all of such banality that they probably encompassed several thousand families in the northern counties alone. Besides the Dalton already mentioned by Mrs. Jessup, there were a Fisher, a Richardson, and a Parsons. Alec thought he was telling the truth, if not the whole truth, but it wasn’t much help. He could only hope Ernie Piper’s search of the files would be more fruitful.

“Why are you so anxious to keep Aidan’s whereabouts from me?”

“I’m not!” Jessup blustered defensively. “Why should I?”

“That’s what I’d like to know. Anyone would think you didn’t care whether we caught a vicious murderer who killed as close to your home and family as to mine.”

“Aidan is not a vicious murderer!”

“In that case, he may have vital information that will lead us to the right man—if we get it in time.”

“I don’t know where he is.”

“All right, you don’t know where he is. Let’s see if he mentioned where he was going to his brother as they passed in the doorway. Ross, escort Mr. Jessup upstairs, please, and bring Mr. Patrick down.”

Ten minutes
after Tom Tring and DC Ardmore left the house, Elsie came into the office and told Daisy that Mrs. Jessup was asking for her, “and in such a state she is, madam, she don’t seem to know whether she’s coming or going. She’s waiting in the hall…. I wasn’t sure … considering …”

“Oh dear! I’ll come right away. Show her into the sitting room, please, Elsie. You’d better bring in the sherry. And brandy, perhaps.”

She rolled the paper out of the typewriter. It was a nuisance stopping in the middle of a page. Either one left the paper in and afterwards it curled up and never quite flattened or one took it out and could never put it back in exactly the right spot. Fortunately, this wasn’t part of an article, just her notes on Alec’s investigation, so there were no messy carbons to cope with and it didn’t matter if the lines didn’t match up properly.

Before she went to join her unexpected visitor, she powdered her nose. Mrs. Jessup was always so immaculately made up.

Considering …? she thought as she crossed the passage to
the sitting room. What exactly had Elsie meant by that? Had her sister told her the Jessups were under siege, or were the abominable Bennetts already at work with the rumour mill? Their binoculars had probably been trained on the Fletcher and Jessup front doors for hours. Daisy wondered whether Miss Bennett had come home by now, and whether they had decided on their story.

In the sitting room, Elsie was lighting the fire. Mrs. Jessup stood at the window, the curtains parted slightly with one hand, staring out, though she surely could see only her own reflection.

“Mrs. Jessup?”

Moira Jessup turned. She looked quite composed. Either she had pulled herself together or the parlour maid had been wildly exaggerating. “Good evening,” she said. Was there a tremor in her voice?

The fire flared up. Elsie departed. Mrs. Jessup came over to the fireplace and held out her hands to the flames.

“It’s a chilly night,” she said. “I’m so sorry to intrude at such an awkward hour.”

“Not at all. Is there something I can do to help?”

The smile was definitely shaky. “I’m seeking sanctuary. I find it quite intolerable to stand by while those policemen rummage through all our belongings.”

“I’m not exactly the best person—”

“On the contrary. You make me feel there must be some sanity in all this. You remind me that it’s not a whim, not sheer persecution, that the police have some reason, however inscrutable, for what they’re doing to my family. I don’t know what they’re looking for, or why, but if
your
husband is in charge, it must make sense, somehow.”

Daisy was at a loss for words. All she could say, weakly, was, “Won’t you sit down?”

Elsie came in with a tray of drinks. Mrs. Jessup gratefully accepted a b and s. Daisy, who didn’t like sherry and didn’t feel the need of brandy, was impressed that Elsie—she really was a
jewel of a parlour maid—had thought to bring her own favourite aperitif, Cinzano. She poured herself a drop of vermouth with lots of soda water and then sat down opposite Mrs. Jessup.

“The police can’t just search wherever they feel like it,” she said tentatively. “It’s against Magna Carta or something. They have to persuade a magistrate that they have enough evidence to justify a warrant.”

“But what evidence can they possibly have against my boys? What makes your husband so sure it was … murder?”

“He won’t tell me. Did they show you the warrant?”