Sally Spencer - Blackstone and the New World

‘The boss will have my guts for garters if I do anyfink like that,’ the doorman protested.

‘No, she won’t,’ Blackstone said dismissively. ‘But the Wilkins brothers would. They’d have your guts flying from a flagpole — and if they did it just right, you’d still be alive to see it.’

The doorman bowed his head in defeat.

‘Please come inside, gentlemen,’ he said, almost back to being Imre the Hungarian count again.

The door to the main salon led off the hallway. It was slightly ajar and Blackstone caught the briefest glimpse of three naked girls — who were entertaining their invisible audience by playing leapfrog — before Imre ushered them onwards.

The hallway itself was decorated with thick crimson wallpaper, its plushness relieved, every yard or so, by a piece of French Second Empire furniture or a gilded mirror.

‘Now this is what I call a brothel,’ Meade said, perhaps in an attempt to compensate for his earlier blushes.

Imre led them into a small parlour which was slightly less flamboyant than anything else they’d seen so far.

‘If you wouldn’t mind waiting here, gentlemen, I’ll see if Madam is available to grant you an audience,’ the doorman said, stepping back into the hallway and closing the door behind him.

Meade looked at Blackstone quizzically. ‘Did these Wilkins brothers of yours really put a price on his head?’ he asked.

Blackstone shrugged. ‘Not as far as I know. I actually believed someone else had drowned Freddie and stolen the money. And so, I assume, did the brothers. And even if they had put up the money, they’re in no position to pay it now — as Freddie would know if he read the English papers.’

‘They’re in prison?’

‘They were in prison, after I arrested them towards the end of last year,’ Blackstone said. ‘But it was a very short stay indeed — it usually is when you’re hanged.’

The door opened again, and a woman, who could only have been the madam, entered the room.

She was in her mid-to-late forties, Blackstone guessed. She had a huge bosom, which must have been a great asset to her while she was working her way up the ranks, but now merely provided a steady income for someone employed in the corsetry industry.

The woman smiled warmly at them. ‘I am Mrs de Courcey,’ she said. ‘And you are. .?’

‘Detective Sergeant Meade, and my colleague from England, Inspector Blackstone.’

‘An Englishman!’ Mrs de Courcey exclaimed. ‘How utterly charming. Do take a seat, gentlemen.’

They sat.

‘I’d like to ask you-’ Meade began.

‘Before you ask me anything, I would like to apologize for the behaviour of my doorman,’ Mrs de Courcey interrupted. ‘Despite his size, he is a very gentle soul, and though he may have appeared rude to you, I’m sure that was not his intention. He sometimes forgets that he is no longer a Hungarian count,’ she continued in a lower voice, as if imparting a great secret, ‘and that he has now risen to an even higher station in life — that of a free American citizen.’

The pretty little speech had been aimed solely at impressing Meade, Blackstone thought. And it had worked, because the sergeant looked as if he were now struggling against the impulse to jump to his feet, stand to attention, and salute an invisible flag.

It was interesting, too — though hardly surprising — to note that Freddie had not revealed to his employer that his fake identity had been tumbled by the copper from London.

‘What Imre should have said to you is that members of New York Police Department — and their guests — are welcome in this house at any time of day,’ the madam said earnestly, but then, with just a hint of lasciviousness entering her voice, she added, ‘ or night .’

Despite his best intentions, Meade’s face had coloured slightly — and the madam had intended that, too.

‘We need to know what was on that piece of paper you gave to Inspector O’Brien,’ Meade said in a rush.

Mrs de Courcey arched an eyebrow. ‘To whom?’

‘To Inspector O’Brien,’ Meade repeated. ‘He was the policeman who visited you on Tuesday.’

The eyebrow remained arched. ‘May I ask what it is that leads you to believe that?’

‘We have information.’

‘And who informed you?’

‘I’m afraid I can’t say.’

Mrs de Courcey sighed. ‘One of the many drawbacks to being a successful business woman in this city is that one does tend to acquire enemies,’ she said regretfully. ‘There are even some people, you know, who are so jealous of my good fortune that they will do anything — including telling outrageous lies — in an effort to bring me down.’

‘We don’t think it is a lie,’ Meade said.

‘And I am telling you, with my hand on my heart — ’ Mrs de Courcey paused to slowly rub her ample bosom — ‘that the gentleman in question was never here.’

Meade was even less in command here than he’d been when he was dealing with Senator Plunkitt, Blackstone thought. The woman had stirred up his patriotism, then embarrassed him with sexual innuendo, and the result was that now he was being far too soft on her.

‘You need to get one thing straight,’ the Englishman said harshly. ‘We’re here looking for Inspector O’Brien’s killer. That’s all we’re concerned with, so we have no interest at all in nailing a woman who, however elegantly she speaks, is no more than the madam of a whorehouse.’

Mrs de Courcey looked outraged. ‘I. . I’ve never. .’ she began.

‘Shut up and listen,’ Blackstone ordered her. ‘You have two choices. The first is to tell us what you told Inspector O’Brien, and we’ll leave it at that. The second is to refuse to tell us, but that would be a mistake, because when we find out what it was ourselves — and we will find out — we’ll be coming after you.’

By a truly valiant effort, Mrs de Courcey had recovered most of her composure and now she turned to Meade, smiled, and said, ‘We Americans pride ourselves on being direct, and we tend to see the English as reserved. Yet so often, it’s quite the reverse, don’t you think?’

But the spell she had cast over Meade had been broken.

‘Doesn’t matter how he chose to say it,’ the sergeant told the madam. ‘What’s important is that what he said was quite true. You do only have two choices.’

‘No, I don’t,’ said Mrs de Courcey, who had not quite given up the battle for Meade’s soul. ‘Although,’ she added softly, ‘you’re quite right that those would be my choices if things had happened as you say they did. But, you see, they simply did not. This Inspector O’Reilly of yours-’

‘It’s O’Brien , as you know very well,’ Blackstone snapped.

‘This Inspector O’Brien of yours never came here, so I could not possibly have given him an addr-’

Then Mrs de Courcey fell silent.

‘An address?’ Blackstone asked, pouncing on the word. ‘Who said anything about it being an address you’d given him?’

The woman still said nothing.

‘You’d like to take back the words if you could, wouldn’t you?’ Blackstone taunted. ‘But it’s too late now.’

‘What else could it have been that I was supposed to have written?’ Mrs de Courcey demanded, and her voice was suddenly coarser. ‘A love poem from the whore to the cop? Instructions on how to cure the clap? It has to be an address — only I didn’t write nothin’!’

‘We could arrest you, you know?’ Meade said.

‘Grow up, sonny!’ Mrs de Courcey said contemptuously. ‘But do it somewhere else — ’cos I want you out of my knocking shop right now!’