The Tick of Death (4 page)

‘Noses, sir?’

‘Noses. And walks away without anyone noticing a thing. Doesn’t that tend to confirm that the Clan-na-Gael is as knowledgeable about police matters as you or I or the Commissioner himself?’

‘I’m afraid it does, sir.’

‘At least we understand each other. Now, if you will come with me, I shall show you the other discovery of which I spoke.’

Jowett lifted his bowler hat from the stand, blew off a layer of dust, and led Cribb out of his office and downstairs. In the Yard outside, they negotiated the debris and made their way to a grille situated at the foot of a wall, out of view of the crowd. A black bag was resting on it.

‘We put it where it could cause the least damage,’ Jowett explained. ‘No one here knew whether it was liable to explode, you understand. However, Colonel Martin himself came out to see it during the night and he has pronounced it harmless. You may examine it if you wish.’

Cribb crouched beside the bomb—for the charred end of a fuse protruding from the bag left no doubt of its identity. He felt inside and took out a piece of brass tubing, into which the other end of the fuse was inserted, and secured by a nipper. Fortunately the fuse had gone out before the flame reached the fulminate. He felt the bag’s weight. Six or seven pounds, he estimated—quite enough to reduce a sizeable building to rubble. He tipped the dynamite out on the ground at his feet. From the corner of his eye, he noticed Jowett’s shoes take a long step backwards. Without looking round, he picked up one of the cakes of dynamite and examined it. Atlas Powder: a standard six-ounce disc.

‘It looks as though the dynamiters have given up the clockwork method of detonation, sir,’ he told the Inspector, who remained just within earshot. ‘Fuses may be dangerous to use, but they’re clearly more successful. I wonder what stopped this one from working.’

‘A small boy, if my information is correct,’ said Jowett. ‘He saw the thing smouldering and stamped it out with the heel of his boot, resourceful lad. Then he drew it to the attention of a constable on duty in the Square.’

‘The Square? Which square was that, sir?’

‘Trafalgar, no less. The bomb was quietly fizzing at the foot of Nelson’s Column, beside the Landseer lion that looks towards St Martin’s. These people will stop at nothing, Cribb. Nelson’s Column—imagine!’

Cribb declined to imagine. It would take more than seven pounds of Atlas Powder to shift Nelson from his perch. The lion might have looked a little the worse for the experience, he was ready to admit.

‘The prospect leaves me speechless, too,’ Jowett went on. ‘Would you believe that the constable who found the thing brought it over from Trafalgar Square in a hansom? When he arrived I was engaged in conversation with Inspector Littlechild, of the Special Branch, assessing the damage to the
Rising Sun
over a glass of porter that the landlord had most civilly provided. The devastation around us weighed heavily on our minds, Cribb, for when the fellow stumbled in carrying the black bag and muttering something about an infernal machine, we moved as one—straight behind the counter on our knees with the barman. It is a long time since I was constrained to do anything so undignified. After a minute’s precautionary interval, we prevailed upon the constable by signals to convey the bag out of the
Rising Sun
and deposit it on the grille here. We were not in a position to know that the bomb was no longer active, you appreciate.’

Cribb stood up. Jowett’s self-justifying held no interest for him. It was time the conversation changed. ‘What’s your reason for bringing me here, sir?’

‘Eh?’ The directness of the question—coming as it did from a mere detective-sergeant—produced the effect on Jowett that infernal machines did. He took a step backwards.

Cribb leaned towards him. ‘I appreciate the gravity of the situation, sir, and I can see that what has happened here has a certain bearing on what we talked about three weeks ago, before I was sent to Woolwich. But if you’ve had Colonel Martin, the Inspector of Explosives, here, what’s the purpose of sending for me? Three weeks don’t count for much in experience of bombs, sir.’

‘Granted. That is all you are going to get, however,’ said Jowett, recovering his poise. ‘You will not be returning to the Arsenal. Your services are otherwise required. It is manifestly clear, is it not, that the Clan-na-Gael must have been in possession of privileged information to carry out last night’s detestable work?’

‘Looks like that, sir.’

‘And who do you suppose provided them with such information?’

‘I can’t imagine, sir,’ said Cribb. It was not strictly true. A possibility had stirred in his brain the moment he saw the devastation in the Yard.

‘Can’t you? I can. I am not so confoundedly sentimental. You know as well as I which member of the C.I.D. has been drinking with Irish-Americans.’

‘That was weeks ago, sir.’

‘Do you suppose we have not been following his movements ever since? Constable Bottle of the Special Branch was assigned to that duty before you left for Woolwich—a first-rate man, I might add. We set him up in rooms in Paradise Street, so that he was able to maintain a continuous vigil. He gave us a comprehensive written report on your encounter with Thackeray at London Bridge—and afterwards in
The Feathers.
’

‘Waste of paper,’ said Cribb. ‘If you’d asked me, I’d have told you all you wanted to know, sir.’

‘Possibly,’ said Jowett, without much conviction. ‘That is of small account now, however. I think you should know, Cribb, that when I arrived here in the early hours of this morning and took in this unbelievable scene, my first action was to send a telegraph to Bottle, demanding an immediate account of Thackeray’s movements in the last forty-eight hours. The message was not delivered because Bottle was out of his rooms.’

‘At that time, sir?’

‘My own reaction exactly. I therefore sent a second message to Paradise Street police station to establish the whereabouts of Constable Thackeray. I was informed by return message that he was absent without permission, having failed to report for the midnight roll-call in the section-house. The news did not surprise me. It matched the information about Bottle. It was reasonable to assume that Thackeray’s disappearance was not unconnected with the outrages here and in St James’s Square, and that Bottle was on his trail.’

Jowett paused. Cribb waited expressionlessly.

‘In that, I was mistaken. A message arrived from Thames Division shortly after four o’clock. A body was taken from the river in the early hours of this morning in Limehouse Reach. Special Branch have already identified it as Bottle. A bullet had penetrated his brain.’

CHAPTER
4

THAT SAME AFTERNOON FOUND Cribb marching purposefully out of West Brompton Station and along Seagrave Road in the direction of Lillie Bridge, the metropolitan venue of athletic sports and bicycle-racing. Some fifty yards along, he took out his watch, checked the time, and turned left into a public house. As he had anticipated, the bar was thick with customers, many dressed as he was, in morning suit and black silk hat. He took his tankard and settled inconspicuously at a table near the skittle-alley. Four men in shirtsleeves and striped trousers were engrossed in a game, one, he noted with satisfaction, similar in build to himself.

He sipped his beer. The sequence of deductions that had brought him here had required an agonising effort of concentration. Secretly, he envied the easy, irresistible logic of sixpenny-novel detectives, and would have liked to employ it in his own investigations. But now that Thackeray had disappeared, he was hard put to it to summon two consecutive thoughts. Irregular as their association over the past five years had been, slight as the confidences were that they had exchanged, the two of them had achieved an understanding that ran deep. When Jowett had blandly assumed Thackeray had some part in the bombing of Scotland Yard—his second home—Cribb’s anger had risen like the head on the beer. It had sunk at the news of the disappearance; dispersed altogether when he learned of Constable Bottle’s death.

At length, he had decided to introduce some discipline into his thinking by making a list of the particulars Thackeray had given him about the Irish-American customers at
The
Feathers.
Most notably, the man Malone. It was a curious vignette: a ‘barge-horse of a man’ over six feet in height, with manicured finger-nails and calloused palms smelling of methylated spirit. Generous with his money, too; you had to be, to buy rounds of whisky at ninepence a tot. What was a rich American doing getting his hands blistered like that? A manual occupation could safely be discounted. Regular work with the hands would have hardened the skin beyond the stage of blistering. This was surely the purpose of the methylated spirit: to toughen soft skin in readiness for unaccustomed use, a precaution widely employed by amateur oarsmen. Could the muscular Mr Malone be a sportsman then, the stroke, perhaps, of some all-conquering American university crew bound for Henley? In plain truth it seemed unlikely. The training of American crews was reputed to be so rigorous that any Yankee oarsman must have developed palms like boot-soles before coming to England. No, if Malone practised manly exercises at all—and, confound it, there was
something
familiar about his name—it had to be a less demanding pastime. Punting? Pulling on a punt-pole certainly produced blisters, but it hardly seemed an adequate occupation for a human barge-horse. He had to think of a sport that employed a generous physique in a manly fashion, yet could be indulged in so occasionally that blistered hands resulted.

It was, of course, throwing the hammer. Cribb reached this confident conclusion by way of basketball, cricket, hockey and hurling. The last was an engaging possibility, except that to his knowledge not a single hurley had been put to use on the English side of the Irish Channel. It did, however, direct his thoughts to sports with strong Gaelic associations, of which hammer-throwing most emphatically suggested itself. All observant readers of the sporting press knew that Irish-Americans were as dextrous with sixteen-pound hammers as Englishmen with umbrellas.

A visit to the
Referee
offices in Fleet Street to study the files had provided the confirmation Cribb wanted, a series of references in the column
Athletic Intelligence,
beginning in February.
‘The four members of the Gaelic American Athletic
Club presently visiting this country,’
said the most recent,
‘are
expected to attract a large concourse to Lillie Bridge on Saturday
next, when they appear in the London Athletic Club sports. If
their appearances to date have not been marked by the universal
success which has attended American visitors in previous seasons,
the public will have noted that they have been rounding into form
of late and may be expected to give a good account of themselves on
Saturday. Creed, the hundred yards man, we are reliably informed
has clocked 10 seconds several times in training recently, and on
this form is unlikely to be troubled by Wood and Cowie, the pick
of the home runners. In the high jump, P. Shanahan may have to
repeat his leap of 5 feet 11 inches at Craydon last week to defeat
Colbourne, the Inter Varsity Champion. Of the two American
hammer-throwers, Devlin looks the likelier to win again,
although T. P. Malone, a veritable Goliath in stature, threatens
to project the implement out of the ground and into Lillie Road if
he can but master the trick of turning in the circle.’

A shout from the end of the skittle-alley heralded an interesting throw. Seven of the nine pins had fallen. Cribb watched as the player retrieved the ‘cheese’ and returned to the mark to aim at the remaining skittles. It wanted considerable strength to dislodge so many, for they weighed seven pounds each. He was broadly-built and carried himself well for a man past fifty. An ex-athlete, Cribb decided. The second throw knocked aside the nearer of the standing pins, but altogether missed the other, on the extreme right of the diamond-shaped platform. By chance, however, the upended skittle made contact with another after it had left the platform and bounced back with just sufficient force to topple its mate.

‘A single!’ declared the thrower in triumph. ‘Set ’em up for another throw, partner. I’ll floor ’em this time.’

‘Wait a moment, Holloway.’ The man whose build resembled Cribb’s put up a restraining hand.

‘What’s the matter? It’s a bloody single. Nine pins down. I’ve got a chance for the double.’

‘Eight down, old fellow. The last one doesn’t count.’

‘What do you mean, doesn’t count? It was a fair lob.’

‘Fair lob,’ repeated the thrower’s partner, a small man in his sixties, who was better at standing the skittles up than knocking them down.

‘The lob was fair, yes, but it only accounted for one of the pins. The other doesn’t count.’

‘It
does,
Carter,’ said the big man, petulantly. ‘The first pin rebounded on to the platform and knocked the other bugger off.’

Cribb got to his feet. ‘Possibly I can render some assistance, gentlemen, as a detached observer, who knows something about the game. That is, if you would like an adjudicator.’

‘Most civil of you,’ said Carter thankfully. ‘What do you say, gentlemen?’

Holloway and his partner exchanged dubious glances.

‘For Heaven’s sake! This afternoon we’re timekeepers and judges ourselves,’ said Carter. ‘Surely we are willing to submit to the decisions of a referee in our own competition?’

Cribb was appointed by a consensus of nods and mutterings.

‘And we’ll stand you a drink at the end,’ Carter bounteously suggested. ‘Now, sir. We await your arbitration over the matter of the last throw. Were both pins fairly knocked down, in your judgement, or was there an infringement of the regulations?’

Holloway stood hugely among the fallen skittles with his thumbs hitched in his waistcoat, awaiting the verdict. Everyone looked expectantly towards Cribb.

A contingency he was quite prepared for. ‘Before I settle the question, gentlemen, I must ask you, as your referee, whose set of rules you favour, Cassell’s or Bohn’s. On Cassell’s authority, the final knockdown would be regarded as a foul, whereas Bohn would undeniably allow it. In the circumstances,’ he went on, without pause, ‘I propose that you commence a fresh game under my authority. The rules are as practised in the
Ratcatcher
in Victoria Street, namely three sets of three throws for each player, no follow-throughs across the line, all knockdowns to count, except those perpetrated by a cheese or skittle after it has left the frame, and all the pins to be reset if anyone succeeds in flooring them with his first or second lob.’

To have continued arguing about the last skittle after such a categorical exposition of the rules would have done no credit to anyone. Honour satisfied, the game commenced in earnest, Cribb first casually removing his morning-coat and hooking it on the hatstand next to the one he had already marked as Carter’s. Things were happening as well as he could wish.

Victory went to Holloway and his partner by 42 points to 37. ‘Time for another game?’ asked Cribb, as he wiped the blackboard clear. ‘You’re officiating at the sports this afternoon like me, I gather. When do we report, do you remember?’

‘By ten minutes past two,’ said Carter, consulting his watch. ‘Yes, there’s time. Set them up, Holloway, and I’ll fetch a drink for our referee. We’re on beer, sir. Will that do? We’re all still drinking, I take it?’ He moved to the bar.

‘Damned chalk,’ Cribb remarked to Holloway’s partner. ‘Gets all over your clothes if you ain’t careful.’ He showed him a set of dusty fingers and crossed towards the hatstand. There, he sedulously smeared chalk around his jacket pocket as he felt for a handkerchief with his right hand. His left, still scrupulously free of dust, simultaneously transplanted a large rosette with the word
Official
on it from Carter’s lapel to his own.

He returned to the blackboard, rubbing both hands with his handkerchief. Carter arrived with a tray of drinks, and the skittles restarted. This time the result was reversed. Holloway’s partner was quite unable any longer to pitch with sufficient force to disturb the pins.

‘That’s it, gentlemen,’ Cribb announced. ‘Thirty-eight points wins. All square, and no time for a decider. We shall have to be reporting.’ He walked to the hatstand and removed the jacket with the rosette. ‘Yours, I think, Mr Carter.’

Carter put it on and immediately sensed something wrong. He patted the pockets and looked at the lining. ‘I don’t think it is mine. Look, here’s some chalkmarks by the pocket. Must be yours, sir.’

‘I do believe it is,’ said Cribb, waiting in his shirtsleeves. ‘That must be yours on the peg, then. I thought you said you were an official. Don’t you have a rosette like the rest of us?’

Ten minutes after, he was marching across the centre of the Lillie Bridge arena, Carter’s rosette still prominently displayed on his chest. Any stirrings of conscience he may have had about the acquisition were stilled by the certainty that Carter
sans
rosette would gain admission to the ground. They had all promised to stand by the poor fellow at the entrance for officials and competitors, before Cribb had felt obliged to go on ahead, since he was sure to be required for the hammer throw. As he pointed out, it was always the first event on the programme.

For a mecca of healthful competition, Lillie Bridge was oddly situated, wedged between a railway marshalling yard and a fever hospital. The turf itself was overlain with a thin coat of soot. The track, of black cinders, and the several hundred silent, dark-suited, bowler-hatted spectators on the terracing, completed a distinctly sombre panorama. A hearse would not have looked out of place there.

The hammer-circle, in the interests of public safety, was sited on the side of the ground farthest from the stand where the spectators were gathered. The arrangement suited Cribb. Three hammer throwers were flexing themselves nearby, but for the present he concentrated on the two officials standing by the circle in conversation. Their reception of him was critical to the outcome of the afternoon.

They turned on hearing his approach, both barrel-shaped figures of no great height, with decidedly bad-tempered expressions on their faces. He was reminded of Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

‘What part do you propose to play in this pantomime?’ said the first.

‘This
is
the hammer throw, is it not?’ said Cribb. The safest answer to a question like that was another question.

‘If it isn’t, this is a damned peculiar place to stand every Saturday,’ said the second. ‘I don’t know why you’re here. The two of us have managed tolerably well for the past three seasons without assistance.’

Regulars—what wretched luck! On an inspiration Cribb answered, ‘It must be on account of our Transatlantic Cousins. They have difficulty in understanding our rules for hammer-throwing, I believe.’

‘So do I, by George,’ said the first. ‘The rules are changing all the time. Wasn’t more than four years ago we allowed ’em unlimited runs. They started over there somewhere and came spinning past here like teetotums. It was in the lap of the gods which got thrown farther, the hammer or the man. More than one of the crowd got picked off by badly aimed hammers, too. Serve ’em right—they only came to watch because it was comical. You don’t get that class of person now that it’s all done from seven-foot circles. There’s still an element of danger, mind. Where did you intend to stand?’

‘I thought I might make myself useful by retrieving the hammers,’ said Cribb. That would put him in the front line, but it promised to be less suicidal than standing by the circle to check the movements of the throwers’ feet.

‘Very well. Keep your wits about you, though. This isn’t cricket, you know. There’s no credit given for catching them before they land.’

Cribb formed his mouth into the token of a smile and started watchfully along the margin of the throwing area. He was determined not to take his eyes off the hammer-circle so long as he was within range. The throwers were practising their turns, keeping a firm grip on their hammers and rotating like whirling Dervishes.

He took up a stance on the bicycle track, in line with the second official, who positioned himself rashly in the very centre of the arena. Presently there was a shrill whistle-blast from the first, a vigorous brandishing of a Union Jack, and one of the throwers stepped into the circle, spat into the palm of each hand, swung the hammer several times through an axis above his head, brought it lower, turned his body with it and let go.

It thudded into the turf some thirty feet from Cribb. The second official hurried towards it and marked the spot with an iron pin with a pennant attached. Cribb took hold of the wooden shaft of the hammer and disinterred the metal head by a series of jerks. The movement dislodged his silk hat and sent it careering across the grass. ‘For Heaven’s sake,’ said the second official as he returned it to him, ‘let’s endeavour to preserve a modicum of dignity, old fellow. There’s enough antics going on at the other end, without you and me setting up in opposition.’