Authors: Nick Rennison
‘Shall we take the air?’ the tall and elegantly dressed young man asked as he approached, waving his arm vaguely in the direction of St James’s Park.
‘By all means,’ Adam replied, falling in step with his companion. They crossed Horse Guards Parade and entered the park. As they strolled along the paths through the green trees and
over the bridge across the lake, Sunman seemed disinclined to address the subject on which Adam had asked to see him. Instead he spoke lengthily and eloquently about Disraeli’s novel
Lothair
, newly published and all the literary rage. Adam, who disliked the politician’s fiction and had not read the book, grew impatient.
‘Are you able to assist me with the business of this man, Creech?’ he said eventually, breaking into his friend’s monologue about Lothair and the women who competed for his
attention. He was aware that he was being unconscionably rude but he could restrain himself no longer. Sunman glanced at him briefly but gave no other indication that he had noticed the abruptness
with which Adam had spoken.
‘A gentle word has been dropped into the ear of your acquaintance at Scotland Yard,’ he said, as the two men turned into Birdcage Walk. ‘Cumberbatch? Is that the fellow’s
name?’
‘Pulverbatch.’
‘Well, whatever he calls himself, he will not trouble you any further with impertinent questions. It has been strongly suggested to him that he would do better to share what information he
has with you rather than to treat you as a suspect in the case.’
‘I am grateful, Sunman.’
Adam was eager now to atone for his earlier impoliteness. He strove to locate a subject for discussion which his friend would find congenial. He found it in the Mordaunt divorce case, Sunman
proving a surprising and well-informed connoisseur of society gossip. They walked on into Great George Street in animated conversation. As Westminster Bridge and Parliament came into view, they
prepared to say their farewells.
‘Oh, by the by,’ Sunman said, a shade too casually, ‘it seems that the fellow Creech used to be one of us.’
‘One of us?’
‘In the service. Years ago. He was at the embassy in Greece back in the forties.’
‘But what the man was doing in Greece in the forties can scarcely have any bearing on his murder in Herne Hill in the year of our Lord 1870.’
‘Don’t know about that, old man. One or two rumours flying about.’
‘Rumours?’
‘Almost certainly nothing in them.’ Sunman, so indiscreet a few moments earlier on the subject of the Prince of Wales’s supposed
amours
, seemed unwilling to enlighten
Adam as to the nature of the rumours. ‘This fellow Creech left the service long ago. Before the war in the Crimea. Bit of a scandal, as far as I can gather. Something about being in
possession of funds that he oughtn’t to have been in possession of. You know the kind of thing I mean.’
The man from the Foreign Office looked at Adam, who indicated that he did, indeed, know the kind of thing that he meant.
‘And yet I cannot believe that the events of a quarter of a century ago have any relevance today,’ insisted Carver.
Sunman came to a halt and stood as though admiring the view of the bridge along the street.
‘You may well be right. But the feeling is that there is no harm in his death being looked into.’ The young aristocrat paused in his speech and looked around him, like a man in fear
of being overheard. ‘By someone other than Pulverbatch. In an unofficial kind of way.’
‘So any further curiosity about Creech on my part would not be frowned upon by the powers that be?’
‘Not at all, old chap. More likely to be smiled upon, I would say. The police are all very well, in their own way. But a fellow like yourself…’
‘… might find something the police couldn’t.’
‘Exactly, old chap.’
S
top here, cabbie.’ Adam rapped on the roof of the hansom with his cane and the driver drew up at the kerbstones. They had just turned into
High Holborn. Adam, who had hailed the cab outside the Marco Polo, now decided to leave it and walk the remainder of the journey to Poulter’s Court. He was about to climb down when he became
aware of sounds of disturbance further along the street. Shouts and cries and the noise of dispute could be heard amidst the usual, unending hubbub of the traffic. Up ahead, an omnibus had also
come to a halt at the side of the road and the driver was engaged in a vigorous discussion with a passing pedestrian.
The debate involved much arm-waving by both men. Was the driver touting for business? Adam wondered. It was a common enough practice amongst the busmen who were rarely willing just to wait
passively for passengers to present themselves. Yet this seemed a more personal argument. Customers already aboard the omnibus were beginning to get restless. Voices demanding that the bus get
underway again could be heard. Up on the roof, half a dozen young men sitting back to back on the knifeboard bench were all shouting down to the driver.
The pedestrian, Adam realised as he peered from his cab, was Jinkinson. Still shouting and gesticulating at the omnibus, the enquiry agent now turned away from the altercation and began to walk
back down the street. He saw the cab by the kerbstones and waved at it. His walk turned into something between a trot and a waddle as he approached. So eager was he to get into the cab that he
stumbled as he hauled himself in. With a yelp of anguish, he fell into its interior, nearly landing in Adam’s lap. He cried out in surprise.
‘I beg your pardon most profoundly, sir. I had no notion that the cab was taken. I was so anxious to remove myself from a vulgar scene.’
‘There is no need to apologise, Mr Jinkinson. I am happy to share a cab with an old acquaintance.’
‘Do I know you, sir?’ Jinkinson, settling himself on the well-cushioned cab seat, peered short-sightedly at the man he had joined.
‘My name is Carver. I called upon you in Poulter’s Court a few days since.’
There was a momentary silence and then Jinkinson spoke again, warily. ‘Mr Carver, of course. I recognise you now. I must apologise again. I cannot think how I did not see you.’ He
took out a large polka-dotted handkerchief and mopped his brow with it. He was sweating profusely. ‘My excuse must be my distress at the behaviour of those scoundrels in the
omnibus.’
‘The driver seemed angry with you, Mr Jinkinson.’
‘His anger is as nothing compared to my own.’ The enquiry agent’s outrage overcame his wariness. ‘The villain attempted to run his vehicle over me. Had I not moved
quickly, I would have been beneath the wheels.’ Jinkinson returned his handkerchief to his pocket. A trickle of sweat continued to run down his left cheek. ‘When I attempted to
remonstrate, I was met with nothing but vulgar abuse.’
‘The average jarvey is certainly one of the most dangerous men in London. And one of the swiftest to indulge in invective.’
‘They drive their chariots with all the fury of Jehu,’ Jinkinson agreed, warming to his theme. ‘The unhappy pedestrian is less than the dust beneath their wheels.’ The
enquiry agent caught Adam’s eye and then swiftly looked away.
‘However, I must not detain you with my complaints about these rogues of the highways. I shall leave you with apologies for disturbing you and seek out another cab. It has been a pleasure
to renew our acquaintance, however briefly.’ He began to shift his bulk across the seat and prepare to disembark.
‘But our meeting is most fortuitous, Mr Jinkinson.’ Adam placed a restraining hand on the investigator’s arm. ‘I was on my way to see you. I have one or two new questions
to put to you. Ones which did not occur to me when I saw you in your offices last week.’
‘I will answer them if I can, sir.’ Jinkinson stopped his shuffling across the seat. He looked uncomfortable. Although a cool breeze was blowing through the hansom, he was still
perspiring freely. ‘However, I doubt if I can help. As I said when we met before, I know little of the unfortunate Mr Creech beyond what I told you.’
‘My new questions do not necessarily concern Mr Creech. They involve a gentleman named Oughtred and a gentleman named Garland.’
Once again Jinkinson’s inability to mask his initial response to Adam’s words let him down. He struggled to replace immediate dismay with a semblance of bewilderment.
‘I do not think I know the gentlemen in question.’
‘Ah, but I think you do, Mr Jinkinson. I think that you have met with them both in the last week. I also think that it is time that cards were placed more openly on the table. Otherwise a
police inspector at Scotland Yard by the name of Pulverbatch might well come to hear of you and your recent activities.’
There was a long pause during which Jinkinson twice appeared to be about to speak before thinking better of it. He drew several deep breaths and noisily exhaled them.
‘Let us not be too hasty, Mr Carver,’ he said at last. ‘I must confess that I have not been entirely frank with you.’
‘I had suspected as much.’
‘I was not employed by Creech to locate his relative’s watch.’
‘It seemed to me unlikely that you had been.’
‘My business with him was not as trifling as I may have given the impression it was.’
‘I did not believe it could have been.’
Jinkinson began to pat his pockets, as if looking for something. Adam waited for him to speak again. After a few moments, the enquiry agent appeared to lose interest in his search. His hands
dropped to his sides and he stared glumly out of the cab window at the passing traffic.
‘You may not credit it, Mr Carver, but I have been a prodigious toper in the past.’ Jinkinson now swerved in a new conversational direction. ‘Rivers and lakes of liquor have
flowed down my unregenerate gullet.’
‘Many a man enjoys a drink, Mr Jinkinson.’ Adam was surprised by the new turn the enquiry agent’s confession had taken. He did not know quite what to say but this did not seem
to matter greatly since Jinkinson ignored his remark anyway.
‘I would be embarrassed to admit to you, sir, how many of the nights of my youth I have wasted at idle bacchanals. And the drink that was at those gatherings…’ There was a
look of the deepest nostalgia in Jinkinson’s watery eye. ‘You might have swum in it. If you’d a mind to do so.’
‘We have all of us overindulged in our time, I am sure.’
‘But those days are now gone.’ The fading dandy appeared to have forgotten that the days of which he spoke included one from the previous week. ‘I am now a man of sobriety and
self-possession.’
‘I congratulate you on your new status, sir.’
‘Like prodigious topers, however, men of sobriety and self-possession need to live.’
‘Undoubtedly.’ Adam was still puzzled by the direction in which the conversation was moving. Jinkinson had now taken hold of the lapels of his lurid yellow jacket and had adopted the
position of a courtroom lawyer about to embark on a particularly incisive address to the jury.
‘To live, a man must earn money. In the sweat of his face shall he eat bread until he return unto the ground. There is no shirking honest labour simply because he has sobered
up.’
‘Certainly not.’
‘There is more need of it. And so, when Mr Creech – God rest his soul – crossed my threshold in Poulter’s Court and offered me money to follow certain gentlemen, how
could I turn him away?’
‘How indeed? And these gentlemen were—’
Jinkinson held up his palm to interrupt. He had not yet finished his little speech, the outstretched hand clearly said.
‘How could I listen to the small voice of conscience that told me I should not? How could I turn my back on the pieces of silver the tempter offered?’
‘You could not, Mr Jinkinson.’
‘I could not,’ the enquiry agent agreed. ‘I have always been a man whom the gods of chance and fortune have shunned, Mr Carver. There’s something about me like a stone
round a drowning man’s neck. It keeps me from rising. And yet here was a gentleman offering me money – good money – to do no more than follow certain other gentlemen.’
‘And these gentlemen Creech wanted followed, they were both MPs? Sir Willoughby Oughtred and Lewis Garland?’
‘And another member of our honourable legislature, Mr James Abercrombie. I tailed all three of them, yes.’
‘Why did Creech want them followed?’
‘That, sir, was not information that was ever vouchsafed to me.’
‘Was he blackmailing these gentlemen?’
‘I decided that it was in my best interests not to ask such questions, Mr Carver.’
‘But you did follow them? The record in Creech’s notebook seems to indicate that.’
‘Oh, I followed them. On particular occasions. When Mr Creech – God rest his soul – asked me to do so.’
‘And did you discover what Creech wanted to know? You could not have followed them anywhere but on the public streets. There must have been any number of places where you could not pursue
them.’
Jinkinson shrugged. He returned to patting his pockets and this time he found the object for which he was looking. He extracted a silver snuffbox from the inner recesses of his jacket. He opened
it and offered it to Adam, who shook his head. The enquiry agent took a pinch of snuff between thumb and forefinger and inhaled it forcefully up his right nostril. He was immediately seized by a
furious coughing fit which threatened to send the rest of the contents of his snuffbox flying around the interior of the cab. Somehow he managed to wrestle the box shut, replace it in his pocket
and take out the polka-dotted handkerchief again. This time he blew his nose on it several times.
‘Excuse me, Mr Carver. Nothing like a pinch of snuff to clear the passages.’ He seemed to have entirely recovered his self-possession.
‘Did you discover what Creech wanted to know?’ Adam asked again.
‘I discovered a number of things. I discovered that Sir Willoughby Oughtred possesses more sidewhiskers than he does brains.’ Jinkinson continued to dab at his nose with the
handkerchief. ‘I discovered that business at Westminster doesn’t preclude a bit of further business in St John’s Wood. For one MP, at least, if you catch my meaning, Mr
Carver.’