Mad About the Boy? (33 page)

Rackham returned the picture to its envelope. ‘His name's Youri Gerasimov and he frequents – or frequented – the Paradise Club. That's what made me wonder if there is anything going on there. We've had him for armed assault. He attacked a fellow Russian with a knife about a year ago, but the fight was split up and he ended up with a caution. So that's the man who was at Hesperus, is it?'

‘That's right. He terrified the wits out of Lord Lyvenden. Bill, I want to find out a bit more about the knife he had.'

‘The knife which was used on Lord Lyvenden?' asked Ashley.

‘That's right. I'd like to know where it came from. Is there a suitable shop where this bloke could have bought it from? It could come from anywhere, I know, but I wonder if there's anywhere likely near the Paradise Club?'

‘There might be.' Rackham stood up and took a Kelly's Street Directory from his bookshelf. He spread the book open. ‘It's off Soho Square, isn't it?'

‘That's right,' said Haldean. ‘Lacey Street.'

The telephone on his desk rang. ‘Excuse me,' said Rackham briefly, and picked it up.

Haldean and Ashley could see his face change as he listened to the tinny voice on the other end. ‘Right! I'm on my way. Get some men and the surgeon as fast as you can. Tell them to meet us there. We'll be inside.'

He slammed the phone down triumphantly. ‘We've got Smith-Fennimore! We had a break with an informer. We might've known where he'd be. He's in the Paradise Club.'

‘Let's go in my car,' said Haldean urgently. ‘I know where the club is. I'll drive.'

‘What about your arm?' asked Rackham, making for the door.

‘Damn my arm. What do you need the surgeon for?' he asked as they hurried downstairs.

‘The informer said he's in a bad way.'

Haldean shot the Spyker out of Scotland Yard, threading his way in frustration through the London traffic. They arrived in Lacey Street in record time.

Rackham climbed out of the back of the car. ‘We're first to arrive. I'm not surprised, the way you drove. I say, Jack, look across the road. I think that might be the shop you're looking for.'

Across the street stood a small fishing tackle and gun shop. Haldean shook his head impatiently. ‘Never mind that now. Here's the club. Is it locked, I wonder?'

He put his hand to the door. It swung back.

‘Watch yourself,' warned Rackham. ‘We don't know who's inside.'

Half expecting to be challenged, the men filed into the building. No sound came from the club. The reek of stale tobacco and the sickly smell of spilled alcohol met them. Like all places that are meant to be seen at night, the Paradise Club seemed unreal in the daylight. It was tawdry enough in the evening, but with a superficial glitter that could pass for glamour. By day the ugliness showed through the cheap and grimy furniture.

‘What a dump,' said Ashley in disgust.

They were beginning to think the entire club was deserted, when Ashley noticed a door leading from the cloakroom that gave on to an enclosed stairwell. ‘This looks like the entrance to the attics,' he said. ‘We might have better luck upstairs.'

Rackham stopped at the doorway and picked up a little glittering syringe, handling it carefully with a handkerchief.

They turned as the street door opened. Dr Crimmond, the police surgeon, and three constables under the charge of a sergeant came in. Rackham handed the syringe to the doctor. ‘Have you any idea what that's been used for?'

‘Not until it's analysed,' said Dr Crimmond. ‘It's an unpleasantly suggestive thing to find though, isn't it?'

They walked quietly up the stairs, hearing no sounds apart from the traffic in the street outside. The stairs opened on to a landing off which ran four rooms, containing old boxes and various bits of junk: broken lights, decrepit chairs, an antiquated piano. A thick layer of dust, tracked through by footprints, covered the bare floorboards.

At the end of the passage, a door stood partly open. Rackham pushed it back and gave a triumphant cry. ‘Here he is!'

Malcolm Smith-Fennimore lay unconscious, hands and feet tied, under a window at the far end of the room. His breathing was slow, quiet and shallow and his face was slicked with sweat. The doctor, followed by Haldean, pushed his way through and knelt beside him.

Haldean was appalled as he took in the extent of Smith-Fennimore's injuries. A dark, ugly bruise ran across his dirt-smeared forehead and temple, and his shirt sleeves had been ripped open, exposing ominous marks on his forearms. ‘What on earth have they done to him, Doctor?'

The doctor glanced up briefly. ‘Those are cigarette burns from the look of it. The swine really had it in for him.' He lifted up Smith-Fennimore's eyelids and nodded. ‘Pupils contracted. Just as I thought.' He glanced at Inspector Rackham. ‘This man's been poisoned with one of the opiates. Morphine or heroin, I should imagine.' He opened his bag and, taking out a little bottle, started to prepare a syringe.

‘What's that?' asked Haldean.

‘Strychnine,' replied the doctor, briefly. ‘It's a stimulant.' He pinched a piece of skin on the inside on Smith-Fennimore's arm and plunged the needle home. ‘All we can do now is wait.' The doctor sat back on his heels. ‘He's pretty far gone, though. It's going to be touch and go. Let's get him untied.'

The rope round Smith-Fennimore's wrists and ankles was too tight to be undone, so they cut him loose with Rackham's penknife. The doctor cleaned the wounds on his forehead and arms. Smith-Fennimore stirred and groaned.

Haldean settled down beside the unconscious man, taking one of the cold hands in his own, seeing where the rope had bitten into the flesh of the wrists. Smith-Fennimore coughed, and, rolling his head to one side, retched. Haldean and the doctor held him until the spasm was over, then sat him up, supporting his back.

‘Treat him gently,' warned the doctor. ‘We have to get him on his feet but he mustn't make any sudden movements.'

Smith-Fennimore blinked wearily round the room, then focused on Haldean. ‘Jack! I thought you were dead.' He reached out and grasped his arm feebly. ‘Jack, thank God you're not dead. I didn't want you to die.'

‘We've been worried about you,' said Haldean in a voice that wasn't quite steady.

‘Have you?' asked Smith-Fennimore, faintly. He put a hand to his face. ‘My arms are sore.'

‘Cigarette burns,' said the doctor laconically, pleased with his patient's recovery.

‘I remember now. It was pretty beastly.'

Dr Crimmond looked up as a noise sounded in the street. ‘That'll be the ambulance we sent for.' He nodded at a policeman standing near the door. ‘Go down and tell them where we are.'

‘No,' said Smith-Fennimore, weakly. ‘I want to go to Hesperus. I want to see Isabelle.'

‘You're going to hospital,' said the doctor firmly. ‘You'll be as right as rain in a couple of days, but I want you to receive some proper treatment and you need to be under observation tonight. And no questions until tomorrow,' he told the watching Inspector Rackham.

The ambulance men lifted Smith-Fennimore on to a stretcher and, with Dr Crimmond in attendance, carried him down the stairs and into the ambulance.

‘Can I come with you?' asked Haldean.

The doctor shook his head. ‘There's nothing you can do,' said the doctor. ‘He'll be all right now. We're going to the King Edward's. He's in good hands.'

Haldean shook his head irritably, but climbed into the ambulance beside Smith-Fennimore, and took his hand. ‘I've got to be off now, old man,' he said softly. ‘I'll ring the hospital to see how you are. All the best.'

‘All the best,' repeated Smith-Fennimore, answering Haldean's tentative smile with the ghost of a grin. ‘Don't worry.' His eyelids flickered shut. ‘Lord, I'm tired.'

The ambulance drove off. Rackham heaved a sigh. ‘I think we got to him just in time. What do you want to do now?' He gestured across the road. ‘We could go and have a word with your gun-shop man and see if that's where Gerasimov did buy his knife.'

Haldean shook his head. The sight of Smith-Fennimore had shocked him so much he was finding it difficult to put his thoughts in order. ‘No,' he said eventually. ‘You'll have to do that, Bill. You're official. You can ask questions. I can't.'

‘Fair enough,' said Rackham cheerfully. ‘Buck up, Jack. You heard what the doctor said. He's very sound, Dr Crimmond. Your friend'll be fine. I suppose we'd better get back to the Yard. You need that translation, apart from anything else. After all, that's what you came for.'

‘Yes,' agreed Haldean dully. ‘Yes, I suppose it is.'

It was gone ten o'clock before they finally arrived back in Stanmore Parry, after what, with Ashley at the wheel, seemed like a horribly slow journey.

As he drove the car into the stable yard at Hesperus, Ashley looked at Haldean's strained face with concern. His eyes were haunted and he had said little on the way back. The trip to London had taken it out of him all right. ‘Are you sure you want to be around tonight?' he asked. ‘You look as if you'd be better off in bed rather than sitting on the beach in the cold.'

‘And miss out?' said Haldean with an attempt to summon up his old spirit. ‘Don't be silly. Besides that, I couldn't sleep. Not now.'

‘Well, if you're sure.' Ashley climbed stiffly out of the car, glad to stretch his arms and legs once more. ‘I'll walk from here. Nothing much should happen before three or so, but we want to be in position long before then. Meet me at the station at one and we'll walk down to the beach together. I know I can rely on you not to say a word.'

Haldean walked into the house. He hoped there was something to eat. He hoped he wouldn't have to face too many questions. The last hope went unanswered.

Haldean lowered himself from the grassy overhang to the sand below, and found a little hollow set into the bank where he could sit unobserved from above. There was a scrambling noise and Ashley joined him.

‘I've got the men sorted out,' said Ashley in a low voice.

Haldean glanced up and down the dark and apparently deserted beach. ‘They're well hidden,' he whispered. ‘You'd never guess they were here.'

‘That's the idea,' agreed Ashley. ‘I think we've got a good hour before anything happens, so we can relax a bit. How was Hesperus?'

Haldean pulled a face. ‘Mixed. Everyone was glad to hear about Smith-Fennimore. Charnock was twitchy.'

Ashley grinned. ‘I bet he was.'

Haldean hugged his knees, watching the moonlight catch the waves in drops of silver before rippling out in surf. ‘Bubble and Squeak Robiceux have gone home, by the way. Now the inquest is over they haven't got any reason to stick around. Lady Harriet and Mrs Strachan have pushed off too. Lady Harriet announced that now Arthur had been arrested there was no reason for her to stay. Mrs Strachan didn't say an awful lot but folded her tents and stole away.'

‘Technically they're within their rights, of course,' said Ashley. ‘I hope we've got addresses for all of them.'

Haldean nodded. ‘Aunt Alice has. She didn't say as much, but it was obvious she wasn't sorry to see the back of either Lady Harriet or Mrs Strachan. How's Arthur, by the way?'

‘Captain Stanton? I saw him this evening. I couldn't help liking him. He's pinned a lot of faith on you. Look, Haldean, I know what you believe and I'm inclined to agree, but I'd be a lot happier if Captain Stanton could actually tell us what happened. I'd like to think of a way to jog his memory.'

Haldean wriggled back in the sand. ‘It'd help Arthur, certainly. What I'm really interested in is seeing what Bill Rackham turns up about this knife of Gerasimov's. That'd show us whether we're on the right lines.'

‘And that'd be a relief,' said Ashley. ‘Not that I honestly doubt it.'

They sat in silence in the darkness, watching the full moon make a dancing path on the black, lapping water. ‘The sea's high, isn't it?' said Haldean eventually.

‘It's high tide at three. We're coming up to the spring. They'll need it to get the boat in.'

Haldean shivered. ‘I wish they'd get on with it. This waiting's awful.'

Ashley grinned and relaxed back against the sandy earth. ‘That's nine-tenths of proper police work. We've traced the ins and outs of this operation. It's been going on for months now. You can't expect them to hurry just because we're here.'

It was nearly an hour later and the moon had moved across the heavens before another sound broke into the rhythmic murmur of the sea. It was the deep chug of a ship's steam engine. Haldean screwed up his eyes as the shape of the headland across the bay seemed to alter. He watched, fascinated, as the dark bulk of a ship loomed close into the shore. The engine was silenced, then there was the rattle of an anchor chain, followed by voices and splashes as two boats were lowered from the ship.

From the road behind came the creak of wheels and the clopping of hooves. Above their heads rose a sudden whisper of voices, quickly hushed, and the noise of footsteps coming down the cliff path. Haldean and Ashley shrank back into the deep shadow of the overhang as a few loose pebbles scattered past them. The two boats drew nearer to the shore, the sound of the oars in the rowlocks and the grunt of the stroke clearly audible across the water.

Two men jumped lightly from the grass on to the sand. Haldean caught sight of their faces in the moonlight. One was the white-haired Slav he had seen on the night of the ball. The other was Alfred Charnock. The men went down to the sea's edge to meet the boats and help pull them on to the sand.

A few yards further along a man led a horse pulling a wagon heavily laden with rectangular boxes down the gentle slope on to the beach. ‘That's Burrows,' muttered Ashley in Haldean's ear.