Black Ship (4 page)

“So it’s quite likely Mr. Jessup and perhaps his wife know all there is to know about my forebears, in which case Daisy’ll have it out of them in no time. You may reveal the worst, Pearson.”

“It’s not so bad. More old-fashioned, really, though I have plenty of clients who still have the old attitudes. Mr. Walsall acquired the land that became Constable Circle in payment of a debt. He owned the majority of shares in a bank, which he sold when he retired, to one of the bigger banks. Barclay’s, if I remember correctly.”

“Never mind that,” Daisy said impatiently. “What about Alec’s grandmother?”

“It’s all tied together. His sister—your grandmother, Alec—married his chief clerk, against his bitter opposition.”

“I suppose he gave my grandfather the sack,” Alec guessed. Tommy nodded.

“That’s disgraceful!” Daisy burst out. “Even my mother didn’t behave as badly as that when I married Alec. Darling, we ought to reject his house and his blasted money!”

Aghast, Tommy was speechless. Madge intervened. “Daisy, don’t you think Mr. Walsall was trying to make amends when he left everything to Alec?”

“Ha! When he was already dead and it didn’t cost him anything!”

“Calm down, love. My grandparents did all right, and my mother ended up as a bank manager’s wife. You could call that a revenge of sorts.”

“Besides,” said Madge, “it would be cutting off the twins’ and Belinda’s noses to spite their great-great-uncle’s face, and he won’t even know about it.”

Daisy laughed ruefully. “True. As a gesture, it wouldn’t give the same satisfaction as throwing a bag of gold in his face. But what—” She stopped and listened. “That’s the doorbell. Who on earth, at this time of night …? Darling, you promised—”

“I told them we’d be out. Anyway, the Yard would telephone, not send someone to my doorstep. Mrs. Dobson’s getting it.”

The heavy footsteps of the cook-housekeeper were heard in the hall. Called from the washing up, she was probably wiping her hands on her damp apron as she went and tucking wisps of hair behind her ears. Soon, perhaps, they’d have a neatly uniformed house-parlour maid…. Still, Mrs. Dobson was more than capable of getting rid of unwanted visitors.

They heard the rattle of the chain, the murmur of voices, a door closing with a decided thud, then Mrs. Dobson’s footsteps again, coming to the sitting room.

The door opened. “It’s an American with a carpetbag, madam. He says you know him, you and the master. ‘Mr. and Mrs. Fletcher,’ he said. It’s pouring cats and dogs, it is,” added Mrs. Dobson, “and he’s ever so wet. Sopping wet.”

Another mysterious American visitor? “Didn’t he give his name?” Daisy demanded.

“No, madam. I ast him, and he looked behind him, sort of shifty like, and said he better not tell. So I shut the door on him.”

“Very wise,” said Tommy.

“Shall I tell him to go away, madam?”

“Heavens no!” Daisy started to get up. “I’ll go and see who it is.”

Alec put out his hand to stop her. “Stay here. I’ll go. You made friends with some pretty strange people over there.”

“So did you,” she retorted as he went out, followed by Tommy.

Alec had told her some rather odd stories about the director of the new Federal Bureau of Investigation, J. Edgar Hoover, with whom he’d briefly worked. Judging by the peculiar behaviour of the man on the doorstep, he could well be one of Hoover’s agents. He had claimed to know both of them, though, and events had prevented her joining Alec in Washington, D.C.

So much had happened in her life since the American trip that it seemed like aeons ago. But come to think of it, she had met one FBI man, and he, of all people, might conceivably turn up on their doorstep without notice, sopping wet, and refuse to give his name.

“Wait, Alec! I shan’t be a minute,” she excused herself to Madge.

“I’m coming, too. You don’t think I’d miss the excitement, do you?”

They went after the men.

Alec had his hand on the chain, about to unhook it and open the door, when he hesitated.

“What is it?” Pearson asked.

“Probably nothing. You may have read reports from America about the rise of large criminal gangs, fuelled by the vast sums to be made by evading Prohibition. It’s been in the
Times
, I think.”

“Small-time hoodlums—mostly Italian, Irish, and Jewish, aren’t they?—joining together into well-organised groups, leading to a rising level of violence. There were some pretty virulent letters about the idiocy of the Volstead Act. It’s unenforceable over here, though, nothing to do with Scotland Yard.”

“Bootlegging, no, but the violent crimes are extraditable offences. Not long ago, the FBI asked us to collar an Irish fugitive, an American with family in Dublin, and I got landed with the job.”

“Because of your American expertise? So you think someone’s out for blood because you arrested—”

“Actually, we didn’t arrest him. He got away to the Irish Free State. But—”

“Oh come on, darling,” said Daisy, reaching past him to open the door. “I bet I know who it is.” She peered through the three-inch gap allowed by the chain. The electric light was on in the porch. She saw a huddled, dripping figure of misery, who raised his head hopefully, revealing spattered horn-rimmed glasses, and lifted his trilby. “I knew it, it’s Mr. Lambert. Just a minute, Mr. Lambert!” She closed the door and unfastened the chain.

“Lambert? Who …? Oh, your watch-sheep.” Alec had not held a high opinion of Lambert even before the youthful agent had abandoned them somewhere in the middle of the United States. “I suppose we’d better take him in.” Sighing, he opened the door.

“Darling,” Madge said to Daisy, “I’m simply dying to hear all about it!”

Half an hour later, Lambert was ensconced in a chair by the fire, the damp change of clothes from his bag steaming gently, as was the glass of whisky toddy in his hand. Judging by the rate at which the latter was disappearing, he was no great devotee of Prohibition.

Daisy decided to offer coffee rather than a refill.

While the American was changing, she had told Madge a bit about their mutual adventures in the States. Subsequently, Tommy had tried, without success, to persuade his wife it was time they went home. She gazed in fascination at the American.

Alec stood leaning against the mantelpiece, tamping tobacco in his pipe, frowning down at Lambert. “All right,” he said, “now let’s hear just what exactly you’re doing here.”

“Here?” Lambert bleated. Since their last meeting, two years ago, his face had not lost its youthful ingenuousness.

“Here in London. Here in my house. Here—”

“Oh,
here!
My pocket was picked—on the boat train. Luckily,
Mrs. Fletcher’s letter was in a different pocket, so I still had your address.”

“Her letter?” Alec threw an accusatory glare at Daisy.

“Don’t you remember, sir? After … after what happened, I wrote you in care of the Bureau to apologise, and I enclosed an apology addressed to Mrs. Fletcher. She kindly wrote back.”

“So you came here because you have no money for a hotel?”

Lambert blushed. “It’s worse than that, I’m afraid, sir. The thief took my passport as well as my money, and my credentials, too.”

“You’re still with the FBI?”

The blush deepened, even his ears reddening as he sheepishly put down his now-empty glass and pushed it away. “No, sir. I’m with the Treasury Department, Bureau of Internal Revenue, Prohibition Division.”

“Then what the deuce are you doing in England?” Tommy gave the empty glass a pointed look. “Alcohol is not illegal here.”

“I know that, sir.” Turning to Alec, the hapless Prohibition agent asked, “Sir, who is this guy … er, gentleman?”

“Mr. Pearson is a solicitor—that is, a lawyer. You may place absolute trust in his discretion. Mrs. Pearson’s also, I believe.”

“Oh yes, I shan’t breathe a word.” Madge was entranced.

Lambert stood up, bowed to Madge, shook Tommy’s hand, and said solemnly, “Pleased to meet you, ma’am, sir. If Mr. Fletcher vouches for you, I guess that’s good enough for me. The thing is, I know we can’t enforce the Volstead Act here, not even for American citizens, but what we can do is find out who’s shipping the stuff to our bootleggers. Your British government says there’s no law stops us doing that.”

“Outrageous!” sputtered Tommy. “Spying on our citizens? I shall speak to my MP.”

“Member of Parliament,” Daisy explained to the American.

“Kind of like a congressman? Well, I guess that’s your right, sir.”

“But how do you do it, Mr. Lambert?” asked Madge. “Surely you can’t keep watch on every wine merchant in the country?”

“Gee whiz, no, ma’am. We’re kind of shorthanded at best. I guess it’s OK to tell you. See, the Coast Guard’s gotten itself some new ships, fast ones, and they’re keeping the black ships on the move—”

“Black ships?” Daisy queried.

“That’s what they call the rumrunners, ma’am. There’re the freighters from Europe and Canada—they’re wholesalers—and the inshore boats that pick up the liquor out at sea, on Rum Row. But the Coast Guard’s disrupting business now, forcing the ships to keep moving so they can’t meet up. The rumrunners have started using radio to arrange new meeting places, but we’re listening in, so they have to transmit in code. Some of these bootleggers, the big guys, are sending contact men over here to arrange codes. Also to figure out how to pay without the risk of the cash being confiscated if they get caught.”

“And your job is to follow the contact men?” Alec suggested.

“That’s right, sir. They’re real tough guys, though,” he added despondently, “and your Customs took away my gun.”

“I should hope so!” Tommy exclaimed. “This isn’t the Wild West, you know. Even the police are rarely armed.”

Lambert came very close to pouting. “OK I guess, if that’s the way you do things.”

“How do you propose to find these tough guys?” Alec asked.

“The embassy’s supposed to help, but the public desk was closed when I got there and I didn’t have my credentials, so they told me to come back in the morning.”

“Did you report your loss to the police?”

“Yes, sir, I walked on over to Scotland Yard and asked for you, but I didn’t have—”

“Your credentials, yes, I realise that.”

“And I guess you’re too important to disturb for a pickpocket. A bobby took a report and said they’d get in touch if
my passport was found, but I couldn’t tell them where I’d be at because I didn’t have—”

“Money for a hotel,” Daisy put in.

“You got it, ma’am. So seeing I had your address, I asked the way to your home. He gave me directions and a dime—a shilling?—for the bus ride, and here I am. I’m mighty sorry to intrude like this, Mrs. Fletcher, but I didn’t know what else to do.”

He was so disconsolate, Daisy hadn’t the heart to say anything but that he was more than welcome and she’d have Mrs. Dobson make up a bed. “I expect you haven’t eaten,” she said kindly. “If you wouldn’t mind coming to the kitchen, I’m sure Mrs. Dobson will find you something.”

Lambert followed her docilely, and she left him in the cook-housekeeper’s competent hands.

Returning to the sitting room, she sank into a chair. “Well! Still singularly lacking in eptness.”

“
Eptness
, darling?” said Madge.

“Should it be
eptitude
, do you think, like
aptitude?
”

“He’s not merely inept,” Alec snorted, “he’s incompetent. I can’t imagine how he got another government job after leaving the FBI, except that I’ve heard that Prohibition agents are exempted from the usual civil service requirements.”

“It sounds,” Tommy remarked, “as if someone didn’t want them to be too efficient! Come along, Madge, we really must be going.” The Pearsons left.

“Two unexpected American visitors within just a few days,” Daisy mused.

Surprised, Alec asked, “Have we had a visitor you haven’t mentioned?”

“No, darling, the Jessups, remember? Our neighbours-to-be. I told you.”

“None of our business.”

“Don’t you think it’s an odd coincidence?”

“Coincidences happen. Perhaps Lambert called on them, too.”

“No, it wasn’t him. I caught a glimpse of the man’s face. You don’t doubt Lambert’s story, do you?”

“Great Scott no. If I were a pickpocket, he’s just the sort of feckless-looking mark I’d head straight for. Besides, I don’t believe he has the wits to invent it.”

“True. He’ll have to have Bel’s room tonight.”

Alec sighed. “I suppose you expect me to take him with me tomorrow and sort him out.”

“After all, he did
try
to protect me in New York,” said Daisy.

The dark of the moon, and not a lamp showed on either vessel, yet Patrick could see the motor launch bobbing alongside
Iphigenia
as clearly as if they were sailing the Solent on a sunny Sunday afternoon. By the starlight reflected off the inky, satin-smooth swells, he watched the last sack lowered to the deck of the inshore boat and hastily stowed by the men below. She was considerably lower in the water than when she had arrived at Rum Row.