Detective Watters Mysteries

Chapter 4-1

Duff placed the rope on Watters’ desk. “It’s a length of a foreganger, according to the foreman of Wilson’s rope maker’s yard.”

“A foreganger? What the devil is a foreganger?” Scuddamore asked.

Duff smiled, happy to educate his colleague. “A foreganger is the line that attaches a whaling harpoon to the much heavier whaling line. It’s flexible,” Duff twisted the rope in his hands, “and sufficiently strong for the whale not to snap it.”

“Who do we know with a whaling connection?” Watters asked.

“Mr Muirhead,” Scuddamore replied at once.

“Coincidence? Or not.” Watters poured himself a mug of tea. “Mr Mackay ordered us to leave the scuttling aside,” he reminded, “but we’ll keep it in mind, gentlemen.”

Scuddamore opened his notebook. “I spoke to everybody in the close,” he said.

“Paraphrase your notes.” Watters sipped at his tea. “I don’t want chapter and verse, only the main points.”

“Yes, Sergeant. All the people in the close knew about the empty house. They told me that about twenty prospective tenants had viewed the house, including one man who they said was very shifty and one tall police officer.”

“Lieutenant Kinghorn, who does not exist,” Watters said quietly. “I suspect that was our cracksman, posing as a policeman.” He finished his tea and placed the mug on his desk. “Get back to work, lads. Check the pawns, ask about anybody pawning jewellery or watches, and see what you can discover about this cracksman. There are few such skilled men in Scotland, and we know this cracksman didn’t work alone. Somebody will know something, either about the disposal of the stolen goods or the preparations for the robbery. Ask, probe and question, boys. Keep pushing, and something, or somebody, will break.”

Watters held the foreganger, his only tangible link between the robberies and the scuttling. He had heard that some detectives solved cases with a flash of inspiration. In his experience, such things did not happen. He solved murders and thefts through patient, inch-by-inch investigative work and understanding how the criminal mind worked. He would tour his network of informants and see what they knew and build up the evidence slowly and carefully. Finishing his tea, Watters rose from the table.

“Is that you off again, Sergeant?” Lieutenant Anstruther asked.

“Yes, sir.” Watters reached for his hat and cane.

Anstruther towered over him, threatening because of his height, although he seemed to avoid Watters’ gaze. “I’m also investigating some robberies, Sergeant. If you find anything significant, let me know. We can pool our results.”

“Yes, sir,” Watters was surprised to find Anstruther so cooperative. “That’s an excellent idea.”

Anstruther took a step back. “So far, we’ve had little success.”

“We’re in the early stages, sir,” Watters said. “I’ll let you know if we find anything significant.”

* * *

The men hunched around a battered circular table, talking together as they sank their pints. “This beer is like old bilge water,” the bald headed-one said, wiping the froth from his lips.

“I’ve tasted better black strap in Shanghai,” a squat, pock-marked man commented, half-emptying his glass in a single draught.

“You lads won’t be wanting any more then,” the third man was taller, with a scar running down his face and the remnants of an army tunic on his back.

“You’re not getting out of paying your whack that easily,” the bald man said and jerked his chin as Watters stepped into the public house. “Here’s trouble. That man’s a bluebottle as sure as my name’s Dan.”

“Aye, the tall man said, “who stole the donkey, eh? Who stole the donkey?”

The three watched as Watters entered. “Well, Betty,” Watters leaned over the bar as Arbroath Betty washed the glasses in preparation for the evening’s trade. “You know everything that goes on in Dundee.”

“Some things, Sergeant Watters,” Betty agreed. She looked up, with her broad face suspicious. “What are you looking for this time?”

“Information about the theft at Sinclair the jewellers,” Watters said.

“Oh, that,” Betty said offhand. “Look around you, Sergeant. Does this look like the sort of establishment a cracksman would use? She indicated the three men at the circular table. “My customers are dockers, Greenlandmen, Baltic seamen, labourers and shipbuilders. I don’t deal with upmarket folks like solicitors, merchants and cracksmen.”

Betty’s public house sat on Dock Street and was usually busy with seamen and maritime workers. She had renamed it Betty’s Welcome, with the name painted in scarlet letters on a yellow background and presided over her customers from a raised floor behind her bar.

“People talk, Betty,” Watters said, “and you listen. Has anybody said anything that you may have inadvertently overheard?” He produced half-a-crown and held it up between finger and thumb.

“I hear many conversations,” Betty said. “Most of them lies about ships with fast voyages and bigger lies about faster women.”

“Did you hear about Sinclair’s robbery?” Watters allowed the coin to slip down his thumb until he closed his fist on it.

Betty eyed Watters’ hand. “I may have,” she said.

“What might you have heard?” Watters turned his back to view the customers. The three men at the circular table quickly looked away, with the scarred man snorting with laughter.

“Who stole the donkey, eh?” The bald man muttered to the contents of his glass.

The scarred man grinned and began to sing.

“When I was a little boy, and so my mother told me,

That if I didn’t kiss the girls, my lips would grow all mouldy,”

Betty shook her head. “I heard it was a foreign gentleman who done it,” she said.

Watters raised his eyebrows. “What sort of foreign gentleman? Tell me all you heard, Betty.”

“I heard he come from overseas,” Betty said. “Germany, France, Austria or some such place.” She screwed up her face. “Aye, that was it, Austria.”

“Who said that?” Watters asked, returning his attention to Betty while keeping his fist closed. He tried to imagine why an Austrian cracksman would rob a jeweller’s shop in Dundee when Edinburgh, Glasgow or even London offered much more prosperous targets.

“I don’t know,” Betty put out her hand hopefully, “but that intelligence is worth a half-dollar, surely?”

“He came from overseas, did he?” Watters placed the silver coin on the bar, then clamped his hand back on it. “You know more than you’re telling me, Betty.”

“What I told you is worth half a crown.” Betty insisted.

Watters removed his hand, and Betty scooped the coin into her apron. “There was one of yours involved,” she said.

“One of ours?”

“A bluebottle,” Betty explained. “A policeman.”

Watters’ heartbeat increased. “I know that the cracksman pretended to be a policeman.”

Betty turned away. “If that’s what you choose to believe.”

Watters sighed and fished a florin from his pocket. “Money’s tight, Betty and I’ve got a new mouth to feed.”

“That’s not my affair,” Betty said. “You should learn to keep it in your trousers.”

“Tell me about this policeman.”

“Show me your silver,” Betty countered.

“Goodbye, Betty,” Watters spun the florin in the air. “Thank you for your intelligence.”

Betty watched the silver coin as Watters adroitly caught it. “The cracksman was working with the bluebottle,” she said, “and with a third man.”

Watters tried to keep the concern from his face. “I see,” he said. “Does this policeman have a name?”

“Of course, he has a name,” Betty held out her hand for the florin. “Everybody has a name.”

“Do you know this policeman’s name?”

“Kinghorn,” Betty clutched the coin triumphantly. “Lieutenant Kinghorn.”

“Thank you, Betty,” Watters walked away, knowing what he had learned was very disturbing.

The three men at the table watched Watters leave, with the scarred man continuing with his song.

“I found myself a Yankee girl, and sure she wasn’t civil,

I stuck a plaster on her arse and sent her to the devil.”

“Who stole the donkey?” The bald man asked as his companions cackled with laughter. "Who was it, eh?”

What b****y donkey? Watters wondered.

What b****y donkey?* * *

Eddie the Cabbie shook his head. “I don’t know nothing about a foreign cracksman, Mr Watters. I never heard anything.”

“There were at least two of them, and possibly three.” Watters stood at the cab’s nearside front wheel, looking up as Eddie sat on his driver’s seat at the stance. The waterman, whose job it was to water the horses, hovered out of earshot. “One might have been foreign, and the other could have been a policeman.”

Eddie shook his head once more. “That means nothing to me, Mr Watters. I’ve never heard the lads mention any foreigners in town. None except the German merchants, and they’ve been coming here for years.”

“How about the robbery at Sinclair’s?”

“Oh, I heard about that, Mr Watters,” Eddie said.

“Tell me what you heard.”

“The cracksman broke in from the house above,” Eddie removed his bowler hat to scratch his thinning hair. “I heard that right enough.”

“Did you get a name, Eddie? Anything I can use?”

Eddie glanced around the cab stance as if he thought the waterman could hear his conversation. “I heard the cracksman was a ticket-of-leave man who had returned before his time.”

Watters lifted his head. A ticket-of-leave man was a convict who a judge had ordered transported to Australia, served part of his sentence, and gained limited freedom. If he returned before he completed his full sentence, the authorities would send him back to finish his stretch, often with a few years added. “The cracksman came from overseas, then,” he said.

“Yes, Mr Watters,” Eddie said. “I suppose he did.”

Watters fished another shilling from his pocket. “Thank you, Eddie.” The cracksman came to Dundee from Australia, which made much more sense than an Austrian criminal in Dundee. Watters nodded; that was a valuable piece of information. Now he had one more regular informant to see, and then he would try the prostitutes.

Swinging his cane, Watters strolled beside the docks, watching the ships getting ready to sail. The worst of the winter was behind them, and as soon as the northern ice eased, the vessels for Riga and other Baltic ports would slip out of the Tay. The whaling fleet was also preparing for the season, ensuring the hulls were double planked to resist the pressure of the Arctic ice, the metal bow plates were in place, and the internal bracings sufficiently strong. The shouts of sundry mariners came to Watters’ ears, reminding him of his time at sea with the Royal Marines.

“Jim, my friend!” Watters shouted as he saw Jim brushing down a horse outside a stable.

“Mr Watters,” Jim started at Watters’ approach. “I never saw you coming, Mr Watters or I’d have come to meet you.” He looked around furtively. “I’m meant to be here, Mr Watters. I’ve started a new job as a groom. I’m trying to keep inside the law now.”