a doggerel poem about the Tranby Croft affair and the Prince of Wales’s affection for Lady Frances Brooke. His version of the tale reflected rather better on Gordon-Cumming than on the heir to the throne or his friends.
Tellman stopped and listened for a minute or two, and gave the man a threepenny bit, then crossed the street and went on his way.
What did the blackmailer want? Money, or some corrupt action? And there had to be more to it than merely Slingsby’s body, even if it were believed to be that of Albert Cole, or Balantyne would never submit. The answer to those questions must lie with Balantyne. He would do as Pitt had told him and investigate the General more thoroughly, but he would be highly discreet about it. And he would tell Gracie nothing. His face burned at the thought, and he was surprised and angry at how guilty it made him feel that he would be keeping it from her, after he had given her his word, at least implicitly, to help.
He pushed his hands deeper into his pockets and strode along the pavement with his shoulders hunched and his lips in a thin line, the smells of rotten wood, soot and effluent catching in the back of his throat.
He began early the following morning by looking again at what he knew of Balantyne’s military record. He needed to know something of the man in order to understand his weaknesses, why he might have created enemies and who they would be. According to what little Tellman had learned by following him since the discovery of the corpse in Bedford Square, he was a cold, precise man whose few pleasures were solitary.
Tellman squared his shoulders and increased his pace along the footpath. He was absolutely certain there was a great deal more to learn, more that was actually relevant to the blackmail and whoever had moved the body of Josiah Slingsby and left it on the General’s doorstep. Perhaps as far as the law was concerned it did not matter a great deal. Tellman had arrested and charged Wallace with the murder. But blackmail was also a crime, whoever the victim was.
He did not want to speak to officers, men of Balantyne’s own background and situation in life, who also had purchased their commissions and would close ranks against enquiry as naturally as against any other enemy attacking the quality of their comfortable, privileged lives. He wanted to speak to ordinary soldiers, who would not be too arrogant to answer him man to man and to praise or criticize with honesty. He could speak to them as equals and press them for detail, opinion, and names.
It took him three hours to find Billy Treadwell, who had until five years before been a private in the Indian army. Now he kept a public house down by the river. He was a thin man with a large beak of a nose and a ready smile with crooked, very white teeth, the middle two of which were chipped.
“General Balantyne?” he said cheerfully, leaning on a barrel in the yard of the Red Bull. “Well, Major Balantyne as ’e were then. ’Course, it’s goin’ back a fair bit, but yeah, I remember ’im. ’Course I do. Wot about it?” It was not said aggressively but with curiosity. Years in India had burned his skin a deep brown, and he seemed not to find this extraordinary heat wave in the least uncomfortable. He narrowed his eyes against the reflection of the sun on the water, but he did not look for shade.
Tellman sat down on the low edge of the brick wall that divided the yard from the small vegetable garden. The sound of the river was a pleasant background just out of sight. But the heat burned his skin, and his feet were on fire.
“You served with him, didn’t you? In India?” he asked.
Treadwell looked at him with his head a little on one side. “You know that, or you wouldn’t be ’ere askin’ me. Wot about it? Why fer d’yer wanna know?”
Tellman had weighed in his mind how to answer this question all the way there on the steamer he had taken up the river. He was still uncertain. He did not want to prejudice the man’s answer.
“That’s hard to say without breaking confidences,” he said slowly. “I think there’s a crime going on, and I think the General might be one of the intended victims. I want to stop it happening.”
“So why don’t you just warn ’im?” Treadwell said reasonably, glancing over his shoulder at a steamer as it passed close to shore, wondering if it might be likely custom.
“It isn’t that simple.” Tellman had prepared himself for that. “We want to catch the criminal as well. Believe me, if the General could help, he would.”
Treadwell turned back to him. “Oh, I believe that!” he said with feeling. “Straight as a die, ’e were. Always knew where you stood with ’im … not like some as I could name.”
“Strict for law and order, was he?” Tellman asked.
“Not special.” He gave his full attention now, business forgotten. “ ’E’d bend the rules if ’e could see the reason. ’e understood that men ’ave got ter believe in a cause if yer asking ’em ter die for it. Just like they gotter believe in a commanding officer if they’re gonna obey ’im w’en they don’t see the reason why ’e gives an order.”
“You don’t question an order?” Tellman said with disbelief.
“No, ’course not,” Treadwell answered disdainfully. “But some yer obeys slow, like, an’ some yer trusts.”
“Which was Balantyne?”
“Trust ’im.” The reply was unhesitating. “ ’e knew ’is job. Never sent men ter do summink as ’e couldn’t do ’isself. Some men leads from the back … not ’im.” He moved over and sat on the barrel top, settling to reminisce, squinting a little in the sun but ignoring its heat. “I ’member once when we was up on the Northwest Frontier …” There was a faraway look in his eyes. “Yer’d ’ave ter see them mountains ter believe ’em, yer would. Great shining white peaks ’anging over us in the sky, they was. Reckon as they was scrapin” oles in the floor of ’eaven.”
He took a deep breath. “Anyway, Major Balantyne was told by the Colonel ter take a couple o’ score of us an’ go up the pass an’ come down be’ind the Pathans. ’e were kind o’ new at the Northwest. Didn’t reckon much ter the Pathans … Major Balantyne tried ter put ’im right. Told ’im they was some o’ the best soldiers in the world. Clever, tough, an’ din’t run away from nuffink on God’s earth.” He shook his head and sighed wearily. “But the Colonel, ’e wouldn’t listen. One o’ them daft bleeders wot won’t be told nuffink.” He looked at Tellman for a moment to make sure that he was following the story.
“And …” Tellman prompted, shifting his feet uncomfortably. He could feel the sweat trickling down his body.
“So the Major stood ter attention,” Treadwell resumed. “ ‘Yes sir,’ ‘No sir,’ an’ took ’is orders. Then as soon as we was well out o’ sight o’ the post, ’e said in a loud voice as ’is compass was broke, an’ gave orders to go about-face, an’ followed ’is plan ter come at the Pathans from two sides at once, an’ instead o’ standin’ our ground, ter keep movin’… just a couple o’ rounds o’ shot, an’ then, while they was still workin’ out which way we was comin’, we was gone again.” He looked at Tellman narrowly.
“Did you win?” Tellman was caught up in spite of himself.
“ ’Course we did,” Treadwell said with a grin. “An’ the Colonel took the credit for it. Was as mad as all ’ell, but couldn’t do nuffink abaht it. Stood an’ listened ter them say wot an ’ell of a clever feller ’e was, an’ thanked them fer it. ’Ad ter, didn’t’e?”
“But it was the Major’s idea!” Tellman protested. “Didn’t he tell them, whoever was in charge?”
Treadwell shook his head. “Yer never bin army, ’ave yer?” There was pity in his tone, and a certain kind of protective-ness, as of the world’s innocents. “Yer don’ show up one o’ yer own, even if ’e looks for it. Loyalty. The Major’d never a’ done that. One o’ the old sort, ’e were. Take wot comes ter ’im an’ never complain. I seen ’im so wore out ’e were near droppin’ ter the ground, but ’e jus’ kep’ goin’. Wouldn’t let the men down, yer see? That’s wot bein’ an officer is abaht, them wot’s any good. Yer always gotta be that bit better’n others, or ’ow could they foller yer?”
There was a bellow of laughter from the open door of the public tearoom.
Tellman frowned. “Did you like him?” he asked.
To Treadwell it was an incomprehensible question.
“Wot d’yer mean … ‘like ’im’? ’e were the Major. Yer don’ ‘like’ officers. Yer either love ’em or ’ate ’em. Yer like’ friends, fellers wot yer marches beside, not them as yer follers.”
Tellman knew the answer before he asked; still, he needed to hear it in words.
“Did you love or hate the Major?”
Treadwell shook his head. “If I din’t see yer face, I’d reckon you was simple! In’t I just bin tellin’ yer, ’e were one o’the best?”
Tellman was confused. He could not disbelieve Treadwell; the light in his eyes was too clear, and the amusement at an outsider’s failure to grasp what was so plain to him.
