Ring of Terror (12 page)

‘And if they refuse?’

‘They lose the job. Which is why Anna went on as a boy. She reckoned that Solomon would tumble to it sooner or later, but meanwhile she is pocketing her pay – which, as sweat-shop pay goes, is fairly generous.’

‘And you think we ought to make it clear to Mr Solomon that we consider his terms of employment irregular.’

‘I think it is our duty to do so.’

‘How did you propose to set about it?’

‘I hadn’t worked out all the details.’

‘What would be suitable,’ said Joe thoughtfully, ‘would be a boot in the crutch. That would keep him quiet for a week or so. Anyway, more fun than watching an empty house. Lead on.’

Brownsong Court, when they found it, proved to be an enclosed square in the Spitalfields area, south of the market. The approach to it was a narrow cobbled lane called Brownsong Passage. The whole area seemed to have been taken over by the Jewish fraternity. On the left, as they approached down Stratford Road, they passed the Jewish school and a modern synagogue. In Brownsong Passage, the right-hand side was lined with tiny shops that sold old clothes, sewing-machines and religious medallions. The left-hand side was occupied by the double frontage of Solomon Enterprises. Before tackling this, they looked into the square. On the right and on the far side, it was lined by one-storey houses, each of which seemed, from the boards at the front doors, to be the residence of half a dozen different families. To the left, behind Solomon’s spread, stood a branch of that monument to Jewish industry, the great Ghetto Bank.

‘Shonks’ corner,’ said Joe.

Luke found nothing to disapprove of. Like most Jewish quarters it was neat, functional and, after the recent heavy rain, clean. ‘Better than most Gentiles’ corners,’ he said.

The front door of Solomon’s shop was opened by the proprietor himself. Luke, who had expected a Jew in a greasy gaberdine, rubbing his hands together and smiling in a placatory manner, was taken aback to be confronted by a thickset dwarf, wearing a dark, well-cut suit and a scowl. When they had identified themselves as policemen, the scowl disappeared, to be replaced, as he understood the business they had come on, with a smile of seemingly genuine amusement.

‘Come in,’ he said. ‘Come in. Feel free to question all my boys and girls. They make up stories, you understand, to intrigue each other. They will have nothing to tell you that will embarrass me. Of that I am sure. Enlighten me. Who has made this preposterous accusation?’

This was difficult. He could hardly say, ‘One of your girls who was dressed as a boy,’ so he was forced to fall back on generalities. He said, ‘I have heard it from many sources.’

‘Indeed,’ said the dwarf. ‘But you know what girls are. As I said, they like to spread romantic tales. Me, I have no time for such frippery. I work as hard as they do. Or harder.’

By this time they were through the entrance hall and were looking into the two big rooms beyond. In the left-hand room, a number of men were working with sewing-machines. In the right-hand one, separated from it by a partition, twenty or more girls were sewing and pressing. When they peered through the door in this partition, most of the girls looked up and most of them smiled. None of them looked oppressed.

‘My happy family,’ said Solomon, beaming at them. ‘Though I fear that soon they may have less cause to be happy. Soon I shall be forced to close down part of my business. Maybe I shall retain one of these rooms and work only from the other one. I am being driven out by the large operators. I employ twenty or thirty workers. They use two or three hundred. With mass production they can afford to lower their prices. In the end, maybe, I shall have to close down both rooms.’

Luke decided to terminate what was turning out to be an unproductive visit. In an endeavour to maintain some part of the initiative, he said, ‘I may be back with some questions for you later.’

‘I shall always be glad to see you,’ said Solomon with a warm smile, as he closed the door behind them. When the door was shut the smile was shut off, too.

‘Didn’t get much change out of him, did we?’ said Joe. ‘Could be true about those girls. I mean, that they made the running, not him. It’s a funny thing about girls. I’ve noticed. The idea of having it off with a dwarf or a cripple or someone like that seems to titubate them. Do I mean titubate?’

‘I think you meant titillate.’

‘That’s right. Titty-late. Just the word I had in mind. You remember one-legged Jack, back at Bellingham. Girls round him like flies round a jam pot. ‘Ullo, who’s this?’

They had turned out into the main road and were passing the frontage of the synagogue, when the door swung open and a white-bearded man erupted from the door. He grabbed Luke by the arm, dragged him across the pavement and said, ‘You are of the Government, yes. Then you will do something quickly. Before worse occurs.’

He pointed to the spot where the forecourt in which they were now standing bordered on the road and Luke saw that water had flowed out of the two storm drains in the gutter and had formed a pool. It was clearly the residue of a much larger pool, almost a lake.

‘Come and look,’ said the old man. He had such a firm grasp of Luke’s arm that Luke could not have thrown him off without hurting him. When they got into the synagogue he could see that the flood, before it receded, had entered the building and covered a section of the floor.

Luke said, ‘Must have been the rain last night. Unusually heavy.’

‘Never before has such a thing happened. Rain we have had, yes. Storms, yes. But never before a flood. Our building is precious to us, you understand. We cannot stand idly by and see it ruined.’

With the idea of getting away Luke said, ‘I’d better report this to the sanitary authorities. They’ll know what to do.’

This qualified assurance seemed to satisfy the old man, who smiled for the first time, and said, ‘That is well. You will make a report. Something will be done. We are proud of our synagogue. It must not be damaged. Noble, is it not?’

Looking about him Luke saw an oblong, uninspiring interior, the only remarkable feature of which was the great window which filled the east wall. ‘A masterpiece indeed,’ said the old man. ‘It is the work of Elias Kazan. You will have heard of him, of course.’ Luke felt that it was safe to nod. ‘You will observe the motif. In the centre is the Prophet Moses, in his glory. At his feet the spirits of the damned, who are in Purgatory. Along the top, ten great benefactors and scholars. On the left you can see the blessed Chasdal ibn Shaprut and next to him the learned Johan ibn Janach. I could tell you the story of each one. My name, by the way, is Werfel. Joshua Werfel. I have the charge of this congregation.’

‘You are its pastor?’

‘I am its Rabbi,’ said the old man with a smile. ‘At your service.’

‘I’ll keep in touch with you,’ said Luke. ‘And when we have a moment you shall tell me the story of your window. Meanwhile, I must hurry away. I have much to do.’

One of the things he had to do, he realised, was to deliver his weekly report to Wensley. It was already a day late. He had written most of it the night before. He decided that he would hand it over as it stood, since their expedition that morning did not seem to have produced anything of importance.

When they reached Leman Street they were told that Wensley was in conference. He would see them as soon as he was free.

Wensley had known and admired Sir Melville Macnaghten since the days when Sir Melville was Chief Constable of the CID and he himself a detective sergeant. The admiration was mutual. Wensley’s subsequent promotions had been well earned, but it had done him no harm to have a friend at court. ‘A thoughtful man’, Wensley had once called Sir Melville and he was demonstrating his thoughtfulness at that moment by coming to Wensley’s office to confer rather than getting him up to Scotland Yard. He knew how busy the Clapham Common killing, added to his other preoccupations, had made his subordinate. He had brought Hubert Daines with him.

He said, ‘I wanted you to hear, at first hand, what he has been telling me.’

Daines said, ‘Our troubles stem, as usual, from the Tsar. A tiresome creature. If only he would stop swinging from left to right and right to left like a demented pendulum, we might know where we stood. One moment his troubles come from the moderates on the right, who want a constitutional government. The next moment from the revolutionaries of the extreme left. The main plank in
their
programme is the assassination of the Tsar, along with most of his ministers, and then, a constant source of irritation to him, there are the
émigrés,
particularly the ones who have reached this country. Protected by our well-known tolerance, they sit here like a line of rooks croaking out anti-Tsar propaganda. The Minister of the Interior, Peter Stolypin, is said to be temporarily in favour because he has promised to organise a series of outrages here in London that will force our government to come off the fence.’

‘Which they’re closer to doing than you might think,’ said Sir Melville.

‘The Opposition, I’m told, has already prepared a draft bill calling for the return of
émigrés
to their own country. In fact, it doesn’t need a bill. It could be effected by an Order in Council under the Aliens Act. The Cabinet is said to be spilt, but it wouldn’t take much to move them. If the anarchists’ recent plan to bomb the Lord Mayor’s show – aborted at the last moment – had come off, that would almost certainly have tipped the balance.’

‘So,’ said Sir Melville, ‘what do you think, Fred?’

Wensley, who had contributed nothing to the discussion so far, pondered for almost a minute. Then he said, ‘You ask for my opinion. So be it. What I think is that two very able men have been sent here to organise trouble. Casimir Treschau, or Trautman, and Janis Silistreau, who calls himself Morrowitz. Both well known in Russia. Treschau as a chemist, Silistreau as a poet. And if I had the smallest shred of evidence that they’ve committed, or were planning to commit, any criminal acts, I’d ask you to send them straight back where they came from.’

‘But you haven’t?’

‘Not yet. So far, they’ve kept clear of law breaking. It’s all secondhand. Organised for them by that bullying lout and gang-boss, Molacoff Weil. Recently, I hear, he’s been enlisting a regular private army, mostly young Russians newly arrived, who can’t get jobs and would starve without the pittance he doles out.’

‘Armed?’

‘No. They don’t normally carry arms, but I’m certain he’s got a cache tucked away somewhere that they can draw on. So, if trouble comes we’re going to find ourselves facing guns and bombs with wooden truncheons. There’s only one answer. We shall
have
to arm the police.’

‘The idea has been put to Winston more than once. He says it’s un-English.’

‘That’s his Liberal principles,’ said Daines. ‘With a capital “L”. They’ve become very marked since he crossed the floor of the House.’

Wensley said, ‘And it isn’t just a hard core of young toughs that we’re up against. Half the
émigré
population are passively on their side. They act as spies, informers, keepers of safe houses, hiders of arms and ammunition. What they’re best at is keeping their eyes open. I can’t leave my own office here without the news getting straight back to Weil’s crowd. There’s a man runs a fish stall at the High Street corner and another one who seems to spend most of his daylight hours sitting outside his shop at the south end of the street. I’ve no doubt they’ve got ingenious methods of passing the word to other watchers.’

‘But this is intolerable,’ said Macnaghten. ‘If a police officer can’t move about his own manor without spying and harassment—’

‘They don’t harass me,’ said Wensley with a grin. ‘They know better than to try anything like that. And I’ve got a very simple answer. I’m planning to shut my office here for the time being and move down to one of our other stations. Probably the one at Poplar. That area is full of sailors, who don’t love the Russians. If trouble’s coming, I like to operate from a firm base.’

‘And you really think,’ said Macnaghten, ‘that it will be the sort of trouble which will be difficult to handle.’

‘If I could arm my men, I’d handle it easily enough. Once Weil and his gang have been stamped on, the opposition will crumble.’

Macnaghten said, ‘I’ll put it to Winston, but he’s not an easy man to argue with.’ As he got up he added, ‘There was one other matter, Fred, and I apologise for raising it, knowing how busy you are, but I’ve had Sir Hector Durrance round my neck lately. It seems that his son, Lance, got involved in a street brawl which ended with his being charged. I’m not clear whether it’s breach of the peace or whatever. It could be worked up into something serious and if it ends in a prison sentence it will affect his future career. The witnesses are two of your men.’

‘Pagan and Narrabone. I heard about it.’

‘And it isn’t just Sir Hector. It’s his wife. Her father’s Viscount Rawley and he’s got a lot of pull in political circles. I’ve got so much on my plate at the moment that I’d like to clear this extra bit off.’

Wensley, who had a good deal on his own plate, said, ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

When his visitors had gone he sat for a few moments, thinking. He was busier at that moment than he could ever remember being. Two time-consuming matters had come together. The killing of Leon Beron on Clapham Common was exciting increasing interest. It had the dramatic touches calculated to appeal to the press and the public. The apparently motiveless murder. The laceration of the dead man’s cheeks. Above all the fact that it had coincided with the Sidney Street siege. Was there any logical connection between them? Had Beron been killed not because he had betrayed his Russian accomplices, but to prevent him from betraying them? And as a warning to anyone who might feel inclined to talk? It was just the sort of pre-emptive strike that would appeal to a trained anarchist.

When Luke and Joe were shown in, he pushed the other papers on one side and picked up their report. He said, ‘Those two letters you found in the Triboff house. They were in Russian. I see that you’ve translated them into English in your report. That sentence, “When you go to your workshop”, I wonder if you can remember what the word was in Russian.’