This was a bit boring and there was no real investigation and no real mystery. Theo nly nice, good thing was that the woman and the girl saved themselves; yes, they did need the police or the fire-fighters to take them to safety, but they wouldn’t have found them on their own.
This story has John Wade as the river cop: he’s smart enough but doesn’t do much. A normal cop, who has to follow the investigation step by step, without any genius hunch.
At the beginning of the book, we’re told of the India Rubber Men ( or, in Italy, la banda dagli occhi ciechi, the gang of the blind eyes). They’re a group of robbers who wear rubber gloves and gas maks, and it seems like Wade will have to find them. By the river there is also a club called Mecca. Golly Oaks and his wife own it, and it’s usually filled with sailors or river thieves.
Mrs Oaks has a bad attitude, while Golly is quiet and passive. They have a girl living thre, Lila Smith, who calls them aunt and uncle even though they aren’t. Wade often sotops by to see her and talk to her.
Things start slowly: Wade sees a woman falling in the river, it’s not clear to me if she fell by accident or voluntarily. Anyway, Wade saves this Anna and sees that she’s desperately clutching an old photograph of a child. She seems mad, but Wade recognizes Lila Smith in the child. Then one inght he sees a man taking Lila to dinner, both well dressed.
This was never cleared satisfactorily: why did he take her out every once in a while? Like, one dinner every year?
Raggit Lane is a man who wears too much perfume, buys stolen goods from Mama Oaks and works for the old man.
Wade is very curious and tries to spy on them but can’t hear anything. He can only follow them.
After dinner, the man drove her to a house. After a short while Lila came back out with her usual poor clothes and with Mama Oaks. When Wade checks the house, it does not look lived in, bu then he sees three Chinese men entering, and when they go away one of them is killed by the others because he wanted to go to the police.
Anna sees Captain Aikness ad grabs him calling him by another name, but when the police takes her away, Lord Sinifor sees her. She calls him Tommy and he follows them and pays to get her out of jail.
Wade sees the captain and knows he’s the man who takes Lila out once a year.
Wade consults with Elk on everything.
Wade sees Lila at the club. There’s a new girl calling her Miss. Lila tells Wade that she’ll go to school to learn, and that she’ll be fine, but she adds that she doesn’t like those dinners. The man acts kin to her, but she’s very scared of him.
Raggit Lane’s role in this book seems just to try and kill Wade, and he tries a lot, but he fails every time until he’s arrested.
Wade is both curious and suspicious about people’s involvement with this Anna and he talks to Lord Siniford. He also talks to Golly, after hearng of a man singing. Wade warns both that should Anna die, they’d be locked up right away, and this is the only reason why Anna reaches the end of the book alive.
Investigating this Lord, it turns out that he gets his money as an old lady’sonly heir. Her only daughter apparently died, the lawyer is sure of it, Wade thinks otherwise. So, the child ‘died’, the lady left the money to him but only a bit at a time, he’ll get the rest after her 21st birthday.
Anna is sure the child is alive, Wade strongly suspects the child to be Lila, and Lord Siniford plans to marry Lila because of it.
Golly and some men try to kill Wade, and he gets out alive only because of a warning by Lila that she heard them talk about ventilation, so he wears a gas mask.
Another time when men are waiting for him at the club, she stops him, and he’s only injured. She hurriedly takes him away on a boat.
Lila is put with a sergeant’s wife; Wade wants her safe, but at some point she’ll be taken away after drugging the woman, with the assistance of Mama Oaks so that Lila would go willingly. Wade arrests Mrs Oaks because of this, and just when he thinks she’ll talk, she dies, poisoned.
Lord Siniford is found dead as well, because captain Aikness thinks of marrying her himself.
At this point it appears he might be the big boss, especially after his old boat is found. Inside there were jewels and stull, lots of it.
He has Lila locked in a cabin, but she’s not scared because Golly is there, and she grew up with him, thinking him a good man. It’s soon clear that Golly thinks of marrying her himself, she’s worth a lot of money and is a young and pretty girl.
Golly puts Anna in Lila’sroom to keep her quiet, thinking her mental and therefore harmless. Golly is the big boss, he let his wife act al bossy around people to look passive, but she knew him and was scared of him. He ordered to poison her. He has lots of money already and a house in South America or something, but he’s very vain and greedy. He plans two big robberies and to sail away with the girl, but Anna and Lila start a fire and manage to get out on the roof, so that the police can see them and Wade takes them away.
The robberies go well enough, but before he can sail away, his ship is destroyed, bombarded by the police, I guess, and only Golly comes out alive, only to be hanged later on.
The end.
It was adventurous, and probably more realistic than many other stories because the investigation moved so slowly without the cop having a ‘hunch’ out of nowhere or stuff like that.
It was also a bit boring though, because not much happened after all.
ITA la taverna sul fiume
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