Sally Spencer - Blackstone and the New World

‘Which would suggest, wouldn’t it, that the place where she works is a fairly high-class brothel?’

‘I would assume so.’

‘And when you’re running that kind of business, you want it to be in an area where your potential clients will feel safe — an area much like this one.’

That made sense, Blackstone agreed. A gentleman’s pleasure between the legs of a willing whore could be quite spoiled by the thought that, once he stepped outside, he was likely to be robbed at knifepoint.

‘You told me there were two reasons,’ he said to Meade. ‘What’s the second one?’

‘I pointed out to you the people who live on this street are all moderately prosperous. But moderately prosperous is not the same as being rich. And in New York City, if you’re not rich, you’re not powerful .’

‘So while the residents might not much like the idea having a brothel virtually on their own doorsteps, there’s not a great deal that they can do about it,’ Blackstone said.

‘Exactly,’ Meade confirmed. ‘As long as the police bribes are paid in full, and on time, the brothel’s here to stay, however they might feel. But if it was located a few blocks west of here, close to Fifth Avenue, then people like the Vanderbilts and the Astors would see to it that, however big a bribe the madam was prepared to pay, it wouldn’t stay open for even a day.’

They had reached the brothel. The front door was open, and standing in the doorway was a tall man in a frock coat and top hat.

That would be Imre, Blackstone thought.

Trixie had said the doorman was built like a brick shithouse, and he couldn’t have come up with a better description himself. And yet, even allowing for the man’s size and obvious strength, Inspector O’Brien’s righteous anger had been enough to have him worried.

There were four steps leading up to the front door, and the moment Meade mounted the first one, the doorman took a step forward himself.

‘I am afraid that we are not open, gentlemen,’ Imre said in heavily accented English.

Meade looked up at the house. Lights were blazing at most of the windows, and the sound of a tinkling piano was drifting down the hallway.

‘Looks open enough to me,’ the sergeant said.

‘It is a private party,’ the doorman told him firmly.

Blackstone, still standing on the sidewalk in partial shadow, was beginning to think there was something familiar about Imre. In fact, he was certain there was something familiar about him. But, for the moment at least, he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

Meade reached into his pocket and produced his detective’s shield.

‘I don’t really give a damn if it’s the Republican Party Convention that’s going on in there,’ he said. ‘I’m Detective Sergeant Meade of the Detective Bureau, and I’m investigating the death of Inspector Patrick O’Brien.’

‘So what?’

‘So, in pursuance of that investigation, I’d like to come inside and speak to the owner of this establishment.’

Imre took a quick step back, so that he was now clearly inside the house again.

‘Do you have a warrant?’ he asked.

‘No, as a matter of fact, I don’t,’ Alex Meade admitted. ‘But I can easily get one, if I have to.’

Imre smirked. ‘I don’t think you will find it easy at all,’ he said. ‘And without a warrant, you may not come into the establishment nor may you talk to anybody at all.’

There was a filing cabinet which occupied a good part of Blackstone’s policeman’s brain, and now one of the drawers suddenly flew open — and a single file fell out.

‘Hello, Freddie,’ he said. ‘’Ow’s tricks, me ole mate?’

‘Freddie?’ Imre repeated. ‘I do not know of whom you speak.’

‘Have you heard from either of the Wilkins brothers recently?’ Blackstone asked.

Imre peered into the gloom at the foot of the steps.

‘Is that you, Mr Blackstone?’ he asked, with a slight wobble entering his voice.

Blackstone stepped out into the light.

‘None other,’ he said grandly. ‘Let me introduce you to French Freddie,’ he continued, turning to Meade. ‘Not that he’s always been French Freddie. For a while, he was Eric the Dutchman, and before that Sven the Swede. And before even that , when he was a kid growing up in the East End of London, he was plain Horace Grubb.’ He returned his attention to the doorman. ‘As far as I can recall, you’ve never been a Hungarian before, Freddie, but then, I suppose, you must be running out of nationalities to impersonate.’

‘Listen, Mr Blackstone. .’ the doorman began.

‘With Freddie’s build, he made an ideal collector for the Wilkins brothers, who ran a particularly nasty little gang down in Whitechapel,’ Blackstone said, ignoring the doorman and talking to Meade again. ‘Then, one day, when he’d been out on his collecting round, he completely disappeared. And so, as it happened, did the bag stuffed full of money.’

‘That was really quite a coincidence,’ Alex Meade said, playing along with him.

‘Wasn’t it, though?’ Blackstone agreed. ‘A few weeks later, a body was fished out of the Thames, and it had Freddie’s wallet in its pocket.’

‘And you thought he was dead?’ Meade asked.

‘Not for a split second,’ Blackstone replied. ‘And, as a matter of fact, neither did either of the Wilkins brothers.’ He fixed the doorman with his gaze again. ‘Did you really think, even in your wildest dreams, that you could fool a couple of sharp villains like them, Freddie?’

‘I. . I. .’ Freddie-Imre gasped.

‘They put a price on your head, Freddie. Would you like to guess how much they were offering for information on your whereabouts?’

‘No, I. .’

‘A thousand pounds! Just think of that. One thousand pounds . It’s a fortune, isn’t it?’

The doorman nodded numbly.

‘And, of course, it’s much more than the amount of cash that you actually did a runner with,’ Blackstone continued. ‘But as far as the brothers are concerned, you see, what you really stole from them wasn’t their money at all — it was their reputation . And they knew that the only way to get that reputation back was by subjecting you to a particularly slow and painful death — preferably in front of witnesses.’

‘Listen, Mr Blackstone, there’s no need to-’

‘But they couldn’t kill you, could they?’ Blackstone ploughed on. ‘And why couldn’t they? For the very simple reason that they had absolutely no idea where you were. But they will know, as soon as I send them a telegram.’

‘Yer. . yer wouldn’t do that to me, Mr Blackstone,’ the doorman gasped. ‘Yer couldn’t do that to me. Yer a copper, sworn to up’old the law.’

‘But I wouldn’t have to be a copper if I had a thousand pounds in my pocket, now would I?’ Blackstone asked. ‘With a thousand pounds I could buy myself a nice little farm somewhere in the countryside and sit back while other people did all the work for me.’

‘Please, Mr Blackstone. .’ the doorman said.

‘It does seem very hard on poor Freddie to condemn him to death after he’s built up a new life for himself in America,’ Meade said solicitously. ‘Isn’t there any alternative, Sam?’

‘Well, I suppose we c ould reach some kind of deal instead,’ Blackstone mused.

‘What kind of deal?’ the doorman asked miserably.

‘You do something that I want you to do, and in return I won’t do something you don’t want me to do.’

‘How d’yer mean?’

‘We’d very much like to enter this house, but without a warrant we can’t come in unless we’re invited in. So why don’t you do that, Freddie? Why don’t you invite us in?’