‘My word,’ said the inspector. ‘What have you heard?’
‘Talk is as how there’s been a foreign bloke hiring muscle.’
‘Is that it?’ said the inspector, sweeping up the coins and moving to put them back in his pocket.
‘Foreign bloke. Blond hair. Nasty lookin’, they says. I’ve heard he’s put the wind up a few lads, and they’s not easily frightened, mind.’
The inspector and I exchanged a look.
‘You knows him?’ said Weasel.
‘We might,’ said the inspector. ‘Where is he?’
‘I don’t know, I swears. All I knows is he’s been recruiting toughs and he’s holed up somewhere in the city.’
‘How do you know that?’ I asked.
‘Stands to reason, don’t it,’ he said. ‘He’s rounding up out of work dockers and factory men. They gots homes and families to get back to, annum. Must be nearby.’
‘“Annum”?’ I said, before I could stop myself.
The inspector chuckled. ‘“Haven’t them”,’ he said. ‘“Have they not” in common parlance.’
‘Ohhhh,’ I said, feeling rather foolish. ‘Sorry.’
Weasel just looked baffled. ‘’S what I said, innit?’
‘You did, Weasel,’ said the inspector. ‘You did. What else do you know?’
‘’Bout this? Nothin’. That’s all I knows.’
‘It’s not much for four bob, Weasel. How about we call it two and I’ll give you the other two when you come up with the blond chap’s hideout?’
The inspector stood, and I followed.
‘Going so soon?’ said Weasel, a slight note of nervousness in his voice.
‘What’s the matter, Weasel,’ said the inspector. ‘Will they not be ready for us yet?’
‘I don’t know what you means,’ said Weasel, indignantly.
‘Of course not,’ said the inspector. ‘You and your dominoes partner can have our drinks. Goodnight.’
We walked swiftly to the door and out into the fresh night air.
As we walked down the street and back in the direction of the parked motorcar, I heard footsteps behind us, at least two pairs. I tapped the inspector’s arm and he nodded. I began to turn to face the men who were clearly following us, but before I could properly ready myself, they pounced.
I saw the flash of a blade in the streetlight as one of the men plunged it into the inspector’s back. I felt the tip of another knife in my own back as a large, gloved hand covered my nose and mouth with a damp rag.
I struggled for breath and then realised my mistake as I began to feel woozy. Chloroform.
The last thing I heard as I lost consciousness was another pair of running footsteps.
‘Got ’em?’ said Weasel, out of breath from his clearly unaccustomed haste. ‘Where’s my money?’
‘You were told to get both of the women,’ said a cold, vaguely familiar, German voice. ‘You failed me, Mr Weasel. You get nothing.’
I heard the thud as a boot kicked the body on the floor in frustration, then nothing more.
The effects of the drug were short-lived, but by the time I came to I was already bound and hooded, and lying on what felt like sacking in the back of a delivery lorry of some sort. After a jolting, jostling, but mercifully short journey, the lorry stopped and I was manhandled out of the back by two pairs of strong hands. They carried me into a building which somehow gave the echoey impression of being deserted, up two flights of stairs and then dropped me none too carefully onto bare, dusty floorboards. One of them pulled the bag from my head, slightly catching my hair and making me wonder for the first time what had happened to my hat. I winced slightly which earned me a gruff laugh from one of my abductors and a kick in the ribs from the other. I swore colourfully and they both laughed again. They both left the room and I heard the key turn in the lock as they closed the door.
The room was almost pitch dark with just a chink of light from the street lamp outside shining dimly through the gap in the window shutter. I wriggled a little, trying to get a little more comfortable and to give myself a better view of the room.
‘Just lie still for a moment, dear,’ said a woman’s voice. ‘When we can be certain that Tweedledum and Tweedledee are back in their lair with their beer and cheese, we’ll see about getting you untied.’
Startled to find that I was not alone, I tried to turn towards the sound of her voice.
‘Really, dear, you’ll just ruin your dress,’ she said. ‘We’ll sort you out in a jiffy, really we shall.’
‘Who on earth are you?’ I asked, still wriggling slightly but reluctantly coming to the conclusion that she was right – I really was achieving very little.
‘I’m so sorry, dear, how frightfully remiss of me. I’m Georgie Bickle, how do you do?’
‘How do you do?’ I said, automatically. ‘I’m…’ I wriggled a little more before finally giving up, ‘…Florence Armstrong. Are you all right? Have they treated you well? Everyone has been so very worried about you.’
‘Florence Armstrong… Armstrong…’ she said, ignoring my concern. ‘Of the Northumberland Armstrongs?’
I laughed. ‘No, my lady, the Aberdare Armstrongs. I’m Lady Hardcastle’s maid.’
‘Are you? Are you indeed. Why do I know that name?’
‘Perhaps you read about her in the newspaper?’ I suggested. ‘She helped the police with a few murder enquiries last year.’
‘My goodness, so she did,’ said Lady Bickle. ‘And then she went and got herself shot. I do remember now. Well I never. And what are you doing here?’
‘Wriggling for the most part, my lady,’ I said.
‘My dear, I’m so sorry. We were going to get you out of all that nasty rope, weren’t we.’
I heard, and felt, footsteps on the floorboards and then the rustle of skirts as she knelt down and started to investigate the cords around my wrists and ankles.
‘Soon have you out,’ she said gamely. ‘Whatever one might say for our captors, it certainly wouldn’t be that they’re master knotsmiths.’
True to her word, she released me within a few moments and I was able to sit up and lean against the wall.
‘But really, dear,’ she said as I rubbed life back into my wrists, ‘what are you doing here?’
‘Looking for you, my lady,’ I said.
It was her turn to laugh. ‘For me?’ she said. ‘Well, you do seem to have done rather an excellent job. Here I am.’
‘A cracking job,’ I said, looking around the bare room as my eyes became accustomed to the gloom. ‘But if I’m honest, not quite what any of us had in mind.’
She laughed again.
‘Who’s “we”?’ she said.
‘Well, there’s me, my mistress, an inspector from the Bristol police… and that’s about it. Oh.’
‘What is it, dear?’
‘The inspector. I fear he might be dead.’
She made no reply.
‘He was stabbed in the scuffle when they took me.’