“Frobisher will bring Maddox to justice,” Gwendolen said. “I’m sure of it.”
Due process, Nellie thought. The dry meal of affidavits and witness statements. The slow grind of the courts. And at the end of it, Maddox might be convicted, but equally he might not. Justice should be swift, not slow. It should be a knife in the heart. The black wings of retribution crushing Maddox in their righteous embrace. Nellie was feeling rather perky for a woman so under siege.
* * *
—
“Visitor for you, sir,” the desk sergeant said. “I put him in your office. He was waiting on the doorstep first thing.”
The dog was sitting on his chair, its face just visible above the desk. For a moment Frobisher imagined it was going to give him orders, but then it jumped down and ran towards him, propelled by its whirring tail. Frobisher picked the dog up and buried his face in its fur and sent up a small prayer of thanks to a God he didn’t believe in.
* * *
—
“Off out, sir?”
“Yes. I have good news to convey to someone,” Frobisher said.
“Well, he’s got a spring in his step today,” the desk sergeant said to Cobb when Frobisher had gone, the dog trotting happily in his wake. “Cherchez la femme, as we used to say in the war.”
“Share what?” Cobb puzzled.
“The women,” the sergeant explained. “Share the women. And we did, believe me, son, we did. I caught the clap twice out at the Front.”
Cobb blushed. He hated that kind of talk.
* * *
—
Frobisher went first to Gwendolen’s flat. There was no answer to his ring and the club below was closed, and he was wondering where she might be when he saw her approaching along the street. “I have good news,” he said, and she said, “Walk with me.”
“We shouldn’t be seen together. It will raise suspicions.”
“Too late, suspicions are already raised. I told Nellie about our deception. And I am still alive, as you can see. What is your good news?”
He skimmed over the river rescue—he didn’t want her to think that he was boasting about his heroism to her. Skimmed, too, over how near to death he and Freda had both been, but nonetheless she stopped in her stride and touched his arm and said, “How brave you were.”
It didn’t surprise Gwendolen that Freda had styled herself as the mysterious Miss Fay le Mont, it was the kind of silly name that she would employ. “I’m relieved she is alive, but where is Florence? And why would your Sergeant Oakes want Freda dead? Do you think she has evidence against Maddox? Could Freda be our evidence? If we found her?”
So many questions he had no answer to. （It was true, she would make an excellent detective.） And then at that moment an extraordinary coincidence, for he had spotted the man himself. Maddox on foot and in a hurry. “That’s him, that’s Maddox,” Frobisher whispered to Gwendolen.
“Oh,” she whispered back. “I imagined the devil, but he’s quite good-looking.”
Frobisher frowned at her. Compared to himself?, he wondered.
They followed him for several minutes—until, in fact, he reached the entrance of the Sphinx.
“Shall we pursue him inside?” Gwendolen said.
“No, we’ll wait until he comes out and see where else he goes.”
But after ten minutes, when there was no sign of Maddox exiting the club, an impatient Frobisher said, “I’m going in. I have an itch to arrest him today. Evidence can be found later.”
“You’re acting on impulse, Inspector.”
“About time, probably.”
“I am coming in with you.”
“No.”
She did, of course.
* * *
—
The art of war, for Nellie, was simple. No attrition for her. You simply cut off the head and watched the body wither. Without Maddox leading them, his makeshift army would be as clueless as beetles and would quickly dissolve back into the dark places they had crawled out of.
She knew that Maddox would not expect her to surrender easily, he would be expecting a battle royal from her. He would be expecting the Coker defences to be up, for Nellie to have marshalled her troops—the Frazzini gang and any other roughs that she could tempt out of the East End to come to her aid. He would be expecting a wily Niven, and Gerrit with his fists, and an arsenal behind the bar of the Sphinx. He would be expecting at best a rout, at worst a fighting retreat. What he wouldn’t be expecting was Edith.
* * *
—
“Hello? Is anyone here?” It was daylight outside, but the underworld of the Sphinx was illuminated only by a dim light emanating from somewhere near the bandstand. Maddox disliked the atmosphere in the Sphinx at the best of times, now it seemed ominous. He was not a superstitious man though and he raised his voice. “Hello? Edith, are you here?”