CHAPTER 15 #3
“The name of a street. The backcourt where he’s holed up.”
“And you know this . . . how?”
“The bleeder came in here yesterday. Looking for Stackpole. So don’t I send for my man, and Yee follows him.”
Tennant eyed her levelly. He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out his money clip. He removed three notes and fanned them across the tea table.
“Three pounds now. Two more if your information proves accurate.”
Sal scowled. “Five quid’s not—”
“You realize I can have you arrested for withholding evidence? Come now, Sal.” Tennant tsked. “Don’t be greedy.”
She smoldered for a bit, then snatched up the bills. “Rawlings took the Blackwall ’bus clear across the Commercial Road to Charing Cross. Then he footed it to Denmark Street.”
“In St. Giles?”
“That’s right. The bloke slipped through an alley into the pokey lane behind it. Denmark Court.”
O’Malley said, “And you’ll be telling us the house number?”
Sal shook her head. “Yee wasn’t quick enough. But Denmark Court is a dead end with a handful of houses. Rawlings went into one of them.” She waved the notes at the sergeant. “For three lousy quid and two more only promised, you don’t get it on a silver plate.”
They left Sal’s and returned to the Commercial Road, where O’Malley spotted the blue sign of the Blackwall omnibus stop.
Tennant raised his hand. “A hansom will be quicker.”
After they settled into the cab, O’Malley said, “Are we thinking Rawlings has the girls stashed in a house in St. Giles and takes them on to the club?”
“It’s a convenient distance.” Tennant rapped for the cabbie’s attention and said, “Pall Mall.” When O’Malley looked at him, the inspector said, “We’ll test the route from the Topkapi to St. Giles.”
When they reached the club, Tennant asked the cabbie, “What’s the most efficient route from here to Denmark Street in St. Giles?”
The man scratched under his brim with his whip handle, considering. “Haymarket to Shaftsbury to Charing Cross Road, and Bob’s your uncle, guvnor. You’re there.”
“Take us.”
Tennant paid off the driver when they reached their destination in St. Giles.
The neighborhood was one of London’s worst rookeries, where disease and delinquency ran rampant.
Terraced brick houses leaned into each other along narrow streets.
Tennant and O’Malley passed secondhand clothing stalls, gin shops, and reeking fishmongers’ barrows, glistening with herring for a halfpenny each.
Ragged, soot-smeared children flogged limp cabbages and bits of kindling from curbside baskets.
“Sweet, suffering Jesus,” O’Malley muttered. “St. Giles is bleaker than the worst of Dublin’s slums.”
They found the alley to Denmark Court, but Tennant walked on. “Let’s not go blundering in,” he said. “Not just yet, Paddy.”
“The lane’s just wide enough for a four-wheeler to transport the girls.”
Tennant spotted a sign that read, FIRST FLOOR OFFICES TO LET, WAREHOUSING IN THE REAR.
“I wonder.... Give me a name, Sergeant. Someone with a keen eye and an iron backside who can sit all day in a records’ office.”
O’Malley grinned. “That’s Williams to the life. He always prefers parking it to legging it, and the man’s a human ferret. He’ll winkle it out if there’s something to be found.”
“Let’s get him on the property conveyance records for St. Giles. Give him a list of names. Rawlings, Sidney Allen, Charles Allingham, Doctor Scott, and Lionel Bruce.”
“You’re thinking someone owns that house on Denmark Court.”
Tennant looked around. “Have you spotted a constable on this beat?”
“We could use some eyes on the place.” O’Malley glanced over his shoulder and made a sharp intake of breath. “Mother of God. There’s the creature, now.”
Rawlings stood at the entrance to Denmark Court. He had his head down and his hands cupped, concentrating on lighting his cigar in the whipping wind. He took three long draws and flicked his match into the gutter. Then he turned right and walked away from them.
“Well, well,” Tennant said. “The man hasn’t emigrated to America after all.”
“Heading for Charing Cross Road.” O’Malley made to go after him.
Tennant grabbed his elbow. “I don’t want him to spot you. We’ve run our man to ground, and that’s enough for now. We’ll flush him out when we’re ready.”
“Rawlings is in our sights, at last,” O’Malley said. “You owe China Sal another two quid, I’m thinking.”
* * *
At the Yard the following morning, a livid Chief Inspector Clark laid into Tennant for not arresting Rawlings on the spot.
“Let me get this straight. You had the bleeding valet on a plate and let him go? By God, Tennant, the time you’ve wasted looking for the bugger, and he’s still in the wind?”
“Sir, when I brief you on our plan, I think you’ll agree to hold off on Rawlings.”
“You think so, do you?” Clark pulled out his pocket watch. “You have two minutes to convince me.”
“The plan is to bag all our birds at once. We have coppers on the spot, watching the Topkapi Club, Doctor Scott’s office on Harley Street, and the comings and goings from Denmark Court.
In addition, Constable Williams is with the local clerk-of-the-peace, searching through the conveyance records for St. Giles. ”
“For what purpose?”
“To identify a property transfer on Denmark Court, a deed that ties one of our suspects to the prostitution ring.”
“Explain how this helps us catch the sod who murdered the Riley girl and the Miller woman.”
“Thieves fall out. Once we’ve arrested them for prostitution—”
“The threat of a few months in the nick for running a brothel, and you think someone will turn Queen’s evidence and finger the killer? You’re dreaming, Tennant,” Clark sneered.
“With respect, sir, he’d face more than that. We have witnesses to kidnapping, trafficking girls from abroad, and procuring minors for prostitution. And Margot Miller’s death must be tied to these dark deeds.”
“All right, all right. Get on with it. But remember: a bird in the hand, Tennant. Don’t leave Rawlings hanging too long.” Clark snatched up some papers and waved the inspector out of his office.
Or I’ll be twisting in the breeze, Tennant thought. He hated to admit how much of his case was supposition.
But that afternoon, Constable Williams struck gold in a dusty office. Twice.
* * *
Williams unfolded two documents and spread them on Tennant’s desk.
“A beady-eyed little bugger in specs huffed and puffed about releasing the records,” the constable said. “Told him to hop it. They were wanted at the Yard.”
O’Malley leaned over the documents and whistled when he spotted the same buyer’s name on both deeds. “Our old friend Sidney Allen is after buying number two on Denmark Court. And he’s up to no good at an address across the way, at St. Giles Passage.”
Tennant picked up the second deed. “Number twenty-nine. . . it’s described as a warehousing and factory site.”
“St. Giles Passage,” O’Malley said. “Sounds like a nice, secluded spot for getting up to wickedness. And we’ll need eyes on Allen’s company on Paternoster Row.”
“And his house in Chelsea. I’ll see to it,” the inspector said. “Let’s talk to some of the local bobbies about the warehouse. Discreetly, for the moment.”
* * *
The St. Giles copper told Tennant, “It’s a printing business, guv. Been here six or seven years, I’d say.”
O’Malley said, “Anything dodgy about it?”
“Never been any trouble, as far as I know. Still, I’ve heard some grumbling along the street.”
“About what?” Tennant asked.
“They don’t employ local lads, and they keep themselves to themselves. Makes for bad feeling.” The constable grinned. “Not enough drinking in the neighborhood establishments to keep the publicans happy.”
“Anyone around these parts who might be wise about the place?” O’Malley asked.
The constable considered. “You might try the Swan. Slip the barman five shillings. Ted, by name. He knows most of the local chatter.”
They took his advice. O’Malley sank a Guinness at the pub, and Tennant bought an ale for the barman, pushing a crown in Ted’s direction. It bought him a story about the man’s brother.
“Dan’s a plumber,” he said. “They called him in to fix a leak in the printshop’s warehouse. Maybe a year ago.” The barman tapped his nose. “My brother saw a few things and told me about ’em.”
“What things?” Tennant asked.
The barman leaned in on his elbow. “You’ve heard of French postcards? Well, Dan said they’re nothing compared to what they’re printing in there.”
O’Malley made a two-note whistle. “You don’t say, now.”
Ted winked at the sergeant. “Singe off your eyelashes just looking at’em, says Dan.”
* * *
On Friday morning, Tennant read the night report about the surveillance of the Topkapi with satisfaction.
Gordie Havers from the local division had observed the club from his usual beat.
At the same time, a plainclothes constable from the Yard got closer, keeping to the shadows near the Topkapi’s back gates, listening for movement.
A third copper had idled on Pall Mall with a hansom at the ready.
Around nine o’clock, a carriage turned at the entrance and clattered up to the club; the wooden doors swung closed behind it.
When it left, the hansom had orders to follow it.
A few minutes past twelve, the detective constable stepped from the shadows, struck a match to light his cigar, and walked away. Constable Havers at the corner of Pall Mall spotted the sign and signaled the copper in the cab.
A few minutes later, a coach rolled by Havers. The following hansom kept its distance, but it had been easy to trail. As Inspector Tennant had predicted, the coachman drove directly from Haymarket to Denmark Court.
A St. Giles constable had noted the time the carriage passed him.
And a copper who looked more like a bundle of rags than a man stirred at the curb and lifted his head.
He’d watched the carriage stop at the first house on the north side—number two—and discharge its passengers.
The coachman and a guard had bundled three girls down the side of the house. Then a door slammed.
Tennant looked up from a second scanning of the report when a constable interrupted with stunning news.
Doctor Preston Scott had been found dead at his house.