Blackstone and the Wolf of Wall Street (5 page)

‘And how wide are the shafts?'

‘Not wide enough for a man to crawl down, if that's the direction your thoughts are moving in, Mr-Scotland-Yard-Man.'

Blackstone looked around the room. All it contained was a bed, a dressing table and a wardrobe.

He opened the wardrobe. There were at least a dozen suits hanging from the rail. He ran the edge of one of the jackets between his thumb and finger. The material felt expensive to him – but then, what did he know?

‘Would you say this is a good quality suit, Alex?' he asked his partner.

Meade gave the jacket a cursory glance. ‘From the cut, I'd say that it comes from Jackson Brothers,' he said. ‘Which means that it's not just
good
quality, it's the
best
.'

Blackstone took the suit out of the wardrobe, and held it up in front of himself.

Big Bill hadn't acquired his nickname just because he was important in the business world, he decided. The man these suits had been made for had to be at least six feet three tall and with a barrel of a chest.

‘If he really never left this place, as you say, why did he need so many clothes?' Alex Meade asked Flynn suspiciously.

‘Now you wouldn't be accusing me of purveying you untruths, would you?' the local inspector replied, deceptively lightly.

‘Wouldn't I?' Meade challenged. ‘Well, what makes you think—?'

‘No,
of course
he's not accusing you of anything like that,' Blackstone interrupted. He turned to Meade. ‘We used to have district officers in British India who, even when they were alone and in the middle of the jungle, would still dress formally before they sat down to dinner. Maybe Mr Holt is cast in the same mould.'

‘Maybe he is,' Meade admitted, reluctantly.

Another half-smile flitted across Flynn's face. ‘You're a great one for the diplomacy, aren't you, Mr Blackstone?' he asked.

‘Whenever possible,' Blackstone agreed.

He took hold of the wardrobe and heaved it to one side.

‘What are you looking for now?' Flynn asked. ‘The entrance to a secret tunnel?'

‘That's right,' Blackstone replied.

Not that he expected to find one, any more than he had expected the ventilation shafts to be wide enough to accommodate a man. The position of the Pinkertons' bodies had pretty much ruled out any method of entry other than the obvious one – but he had learned from experience that the point at which the solution looked
so
obvious that there was absolutely no need to check it out, was
precisely
the point at which it
should
be checked out.

There was nothing behind the wardrobe but a blank wall, and a single tap with his knuckles was enough to reassure Blackstone that the wall had not been recently disturbed.

There was one more room – the bathroom.

‘I expect, coming from England, you'll be a stranger to inside plumbing,' Flynn said.

‘Now just hold on there a minute!' Meade protested angrily. ‘Inspector Blackstone is a guest in our country, and—'

‘It's all right, Alex,' Blackstone said soothingly. He turned to Flynn. ‘You're quite right, Inspector. In London, the house I board in has a single tap in the back yard and an outside privy which it shares with several other houses.'

‘Worse than I thought,' Flynn mused, then continued, in an obvious attempt to bait the Englishman. ‘Do they pay you so badly in New Scotland Yard that that's the best you can afford?'

‘No, they don't. But I use most of my salary for other purposes.'

‘And what purposes might they be?'

To help keep the orphanage running, Blackstone thought.

‘That's really none of your business, now is it, Inspector Flynn?' he said aloud.

Flynn gave him another half-smile.

‘As hard as I'm trying, you're making it difficult for me to dislike you, Mr Blackstone,' he said. ‘Is that deliberate?'

‘Yes,' Blackstone told him. ‘I'm a graduate of a charm school.'

Flynn's smile widened, and then was gone. ‘Well, I imagine that before I leave you alone to root around like pigs in the forest, there'll be some questions you'll be after asking me,' he said.

‘A few,' Blackstone agreed. ‘Did the Pinkerton Detective Agency have the
sole
responsibility for guarding Mr Holt?'

‘It did.'

‘And who chose which guards would be assigned here?'

‘Pinkerton's New York City office.'

‘So Holt himself had nothing to do with it?'

‘Nothing at all. The Pinkertons don't work like that. You tell them the job you want doing, but you don't tell them
how
to do it.'

‘Do the agents live somewhere on Coney Island, or do they travel in from the city every day?'

‘They live on Coney Island – in the grounds of this very house. Holt had a row of cottages specially built to accommodate them.'

‘And how many agents are there?'

‘Six.'

‘So they worked three eight-hour shifts?'

Flynn shook his head. ‘They worked twelve-hour shifts, with one pair resting. And before you say anything else on the subject, I'd agree with you that,
under normal circumstances
, twelve hours
is
far too long for any man to remain vigilant.'

‘But not in
these
circumstances?'

‘Exactly. Think about it – the only way to get into the suite is through the guard room, and the only way to get into the guard room is through that steel door. A trained monkey could have done the job them Pinkertons were doing.'

‘So what went wrong
last
night?'

‘Ah, there you have me,' Flynn admitted. ‘I think I'd have to say that if Cody and Turner let the kidnappers in, it could only be because they were working hand in glove with them.'

‘And the moment the kidnappers were inside, they murdered Cody and Turner because they were the weak link in the chain?'

‘Well, exactly. You'd agree with that, would you?'

‘It's a possibility,' Blackstone said.

But, in truth, he'd already decided it was more than that – because Flynn was right and there was
no way
that the kidnappers could have got in without the cooperation of the guards.

‘What time did Cody and Turner report for duty last night?' he asked.

‘Eight o'clock.'

‘And the bodies were found by the next shift, when they reported for duty at eight in the morning?'

‘No, they were discovered by Fanshawe, the butler, when he brought Holt's breakfast tray down at seven o'clock.'

‘Did the next shift turn up for duty at the usual time?'

‘Yes, they did.' Yet another half-smile from Flynn. ‘Now why would you ask that question? Are you wondering how deep the conspiracy runs? Has it started to cross your mind that the other guards might have been involved in it as well?'

‘No,' Blackstone said firmly.

‘No?' Flynn sounded surprised. ‘And why hasn't it? It's a reasonable assumption.'

‘No, it isn't – and you
know
it isn't. If all the guards were involved in the conspiracy, then all the guards would be dead.'

Flynn stroked his chin. ‘Your mind seems to run on the same lines as mine, Mr Blackstone,' he said. ‘And since I happen to have a very
good
mind, that means you'll probably do as well on this case as anybody could – myself included.' He paused for a moment. ‘But I wouldn't like you to take that as meaning that I don't still resent you robbing me of my investigation.'

‘Understood,' Blackstone said.

‘So would you now like to have a word with the two guards yourself?' Flynn asked.

‘Indeed I would,' Blackstone agreed.

The two Pinkertons who had reported for duty at eight o'clock were waiting for Blackstone and Meade in the butler's parlour. Both men were in their mid-thirties, and exuded an air of competence which suggested that, should trouble arise, they would know how to deal with it.

Their names, they said, were Brown and White.

‘People think we're playing some kind of joke when we tell them that – but we're not,' the man who had introduced himself as White said. ‘They really are our names.'

‘Tell me about Cody and Turner,' Blackstone said.

‘Cody was a pretty regular guy – one of the boys,' White said. ‘We're gonna miss working with him.'

There was an awkward pause, then Brown added, ‘Turner did his job.'

‘But you didn't like him?'

‘We didn't really
know
him,' Brown said. ‘He was a Holy Joe. Belonged to the Salvation Army.'

‘No, he didn't,' White corrected his partner. ‘He belonged to
some kind
of religious army, but it wasn't the
Salvation
Army.'

‘Anyhow,' Brown said, brushing aside the correction as an irrelevance, ‘Holy Joe didn't drink, didn't smoke, didn't gamble, never looked at a woman apart from his wife . . .'

‘He was a royal pain in the ass,' White said. Then he looked guilty, and added, ‘Sorry, shouldn't speak ill of the dead.'

‘But even if Turner
was
a royal pain in the ass, were he and Cody, in your opinion, both good Pinkerton men?' Meade asked.

‘Hell, yes, two of the best,' White said. ‘They'd never have been given an important job like this one if they hadn't been.'

‘Did Cody and Turner get on well with Mr Holt?' Blackstone asked.

White looked puzzled, and Brown said, ‘Get on well with him?' as if the phrase had no meaning for him.

‘Get on well with him,' Blackstone repeated patiently. ‘Did they, for example, ever complain about the way he spoke to them?'

‘Spoke to them?' Brown echoed.

‘They didn't
speak
to Mr Holt,' White said. ‘And neither do we. Mr Holt's the guy on the other side of the door. We maybe get a glimpse of him when we're admitting one of the PPEs—'

‘PPEs?' Meade interrupted

‘People Permitted to Enter. But a glimpse was as much as we got.'

‘So you've never been inside the study?'

‘Hell, no!'

‘And yet that's precisely where Cody and Turner were murdered.'

‘You've gotta be wrong about that,' White said. ‘Maybe that's where their bodies were found, but my guess is that they were killed in the guard room and dragged in there later.'

‘If they'd had their throats cut in the guard room, there'd have been blood all over the floor – and there isn't,' Blackstone said grimly. ‘But there
is
blood on the polar bear rug in front of the desk.'

‘I don't believe it,' White said stubbornly.

‘Maybe their killers got the drop on them, and forced them into the study at gunpoint,' said the more pragmatic Brown.

‘And how were their killers ever
allowed
to get the drop on them?' Blackstone asked. ‘How do you think they even managed to get through the steel door and into the guard room?'

‘Hey, just what are you suggesting?' Brown demanded.

‘You know what I'm suggesting,' Blackstone countered.

Brown shook his head emphatically. ‘It can't be true,' he said.

‘What can't be true?' White asked, the slower of the pair, obviously perplexed.

‘He thinks Ben Cody and Holy Joe Turner were in on the kidnapping,' Brown explained.

White's hands bunched up into fists. ‘If you weren't a cop, I'd take you outside and beat the living shit out of you,' he growled.

‘But he
is
a cop,' Brown said, placing a restraining hand on his partner's shoulder. ‘Listen, Mr Blackstone, there's bad apples in every barrel, so I'm not going to try and tell you that there've never been any in the Pinkertons. But Ben Cody's not one of them. My kid got sick last year, and when I ran out of money for medicine, Ben lent me some. Lent me some! Hell, there was no
lending
about it – he refused to let me pay him back!'

‘And I may not like him much, but I'd trust Holy Joe Turner with everything I own,' White said. ‘Jesus, the guy don't care about money – he gives most of his wages to this religious army of his.'

‘So how
did
the kidnappers get past the steel door, and into the guard room?' Blackstone persisted.

‘There's gotta be some way you ain't thought of yet,' White said in what was almost a mumble. ‘Some way that didn't involve Ben and Holy Joe.'

But Brown said nothing. Instead, he fixed his eyes intently on the floor – as if he were watching the drama of his own crumbling faith in human nature being played out there.

FOUR

T
here were two carriages coming up the approach to Ocean Heights, and though it was unlikely they
were
actually racing each other, the speed at which they were moving certainly gave that impression.

‘That'll be
Mr
George and
Mr
Harold,' Inspector Flynn said.

‘You know them, do you?' Blackstone asked.

‘There's not an official or businessman on Coney Island who
doesn't
know them,' Flynn replied. ‘They're important people round these parts – and you'd better not forget it.'

‘
Know
them, but don't
like
them,' Blackstone guessed.

‘I was scarcely more than a babe-in-arms when my family left Ireland,' Flynn said, almost reflectively. ‘I've got uncles and aunts back there who I don't even remember, but there's two figures that are burnt into my brain. One of them was the landlord – the
English
landlord.'