The Limehouse Text (7 page)

Then we were alone. A half hour before, the room had been full of people, but now it had an empty, forlorn aspect.

Barker heaved a sigh. “This is not good,” he said. “If I engage my solicitor for Ho, it shall only confirm his guilt in the eyes of Henderson. He shall have to spend a few days in custody. But then, it won’t be the first time Ho has been in jail.”

We turned off the gas and made our way to the stairs. The Guv lit one of the naphtha lamps. It was not a time to be taking chances.

B
Y THE TIME WE GOT BACK TO OUR OFFICES, IT
was five thirty, by the tolling of Big Ben around the corner.

“Are we done, sir?” I asked. A great deal had happened since my less-than-brilliant decision to follow Miss Winter’s cab this morning. I had been in several public conveyances and would like nothing better than a good, stationary easy chair.

“One more place, I think. What would you say to a visit to the Café Royal?”

“The Café Royal? Are you serious?” Barker was not the type of person who frequented fashionable restaurants and evening establishments.

“I am always serious, lad. You know that.” He raised a hand and a moment later, a cab glided to a halt in front of us.

Ten minutes later, we pulled up in Regent Street and alighted. I had always wanted to stop at the Café Royal but had never had the money and the time together. The Royal catered to the arts crowd. The arbiters of next year’s tastes in literature, art, fashion, and thought were here, and one could rub shoulders, sometimes quite literally, with famous men. Mr. Whistler came here, as did Oscar Wilde. I had to wonder what would bring Barker to such a place.

I looked about the room at the gilt fittings, the pantheon of immortals painted on the ceiling, and the mirrored walls, which gave the room added depth. Almost every table was full. I saw one shaggy-looking fellow arguing volubly with another man. Barker stood in the doorway, inevitably drawing attention to himself, then slowly, he reached up and touched the side of his nose. Recognizing it as a signal, I glanced about, to see if it was returned. It was, but in the most unlikely of places. A group of wags were seated upon the crimson velvet benches staring at the figure that is Cyrus Barker. While his comrades laughed, one reached up and touched the side of his nose. He rose and went toward the back to consult with one of the waiters, who wore long white aprons over black waistcoats and trousers. Then he continued out of the room.

Barker raised his chin and I immediately followed the dandy, the Guv after me. We went into the next room, past the entrance of a Masonic temple, of all things, then down a spiral staircase to an anteroom, occupied by one other person, a large burly man who was leaning back with his head against the wall, sleeping. His lips formed an O under his mustache and he was, in general, an uncouth-looking creature.

“I hope you do not mind,” the dandy said. “There is nothing as unaesthetic as an enquiry agent, and I have a reputation for taking my frivolity seriously. I had to tell my friends you were bailiffs, like our friend here.”

“As hard as you try,” Barker rumbled, “I doubt you could create a debt your father could not repay. Forbes, this is my assistant, Thomas Llewelyn. Thomas, the Honorable Pollock Forbes. Speaking of paying, Pollock, how do we stand on credit? Do I owe you or do you owe me?”

Forbes ran a finger along his chin as he reflected. He had the longest, thinnest fingers I have ever seen. He was a casual looking fellow, in the latest style from Savile Row, a lounge suit. Despite the name, it looked expensive. “I believe I’m in your debt, old man, and it’s not the kind the pater can pay off. What are you working on?”

“I have a case involving a book stolen from a Chinese monastery. The Chinese government and the Foreign Office are hunting for it. The latter is represented by Mr. Trelawney Campbell-Ffinch.”

“Campbell-Ffinch. I haven’t heard that name in ages,” he said, fluttering a hand at a waiter in the hall. “Lonnie was in my house at Cambridge, a few years ahead of me. He’s always been a bully and a frightful bore. Chumley, bring us a bottle of the Veuve Clicquot, there’s a good chap.”

The waiter, who had appeared silently at my elbow, glided off as quietly as he came. Something about Forbes’s inflection made me pause, and then it came to me. Like Barker, he was a Scot. Detective work was one of those occupations like engineering that seemed suited to the Scottish temperament.

“You’ll like it, I think,” he said, referring to the wine. “The Royal has one of the best cellars in the world. To tell the truth, I didn’t know Lonnie was in London again. He’s like a bad sailor, always being posted farther and farther east. Something big must have occurred to have them dare bring him back. Is any of this in my line?”

“It has international repercussions,” Barker said, “but I do not believe any heads shall roll, save for one fellow’s, who has been killing people to get the book.”

“Where?”

“The East End,” the Guv stated. “Limehouse.”

“Isn’t that where…. Oh, yes, I see it now. Your late assistant was mixed up in this, was he not?”

“He was.”

The waiter arrived with the Clicquot and opened it with a ceremonial pop. I had never tasted pink champagne before. It was sweet and tickled my nose.

Barker emptied his glass and set it back on the table. “Very nice,” he pronounced. I knew for a fact that he did not care for wine of any sort and I doubted he could tell a Dom Pérignon from a third-rate Italian table wine.

Pollock Forbes coughed discreetly behind his hand. “So what exactly would you like me to undertake?” he asked.

“I would like to know when Campbell-Ffinch arrived in London again and if he was summoned. I want to learn how he has been spending his free time and with whom. His knuckles are swollen. I believe he may have been fighting recently.”

Forbes extracted a short pencil from his pocket and recorded the questions on his cuff. “Got it. Anything else?”

“Have you ever heard of a Mr. K’ing?”

“The Chinaman? Of course. I hear his name often. ‘Lost ten quid to Mr. K’ing at puck-a-poo,’ ‘Lost fifty poun’ at mah-jongg to that blighter K’ing.’ I gather between the gambling parlors and the opium dens, he’s doing all right for himself.”

The snoring fellow in the corner had awakened and even now, they were setting his meal before him: game hens with
pomme frites.
I had heard the cooking here was as good as any restaurant in Paris. All the French political exiles ate here and why shouldn’t they? Even if the food were not superb, there was the authentic decor, as if a slice of Versailles like a three-layered cake had been set down in the middle of London.

“Stay for dinner?” Forbes asked, as if reading my thoughts. Barker pondered it as his fellow Scotsman refilled his glass. The Guv tossed it down again like so much well water and shook his head.

“No, we must be going.” He turned to me. “What’s wrong, lad?”

“Nothing, sir,” I grumbled.

Barker took my remark at face value, but I must have caught Forbes in mid-breath, setting him coughing behind his hand. It was then that my instinct or training took over: the coughing, the sunken skin around his eyes, both signs of illness.

We took our leave, after Forbes promised he would look into the matter. I wondered if he was a plainclothes policeman working sub rosa, as I understood the Royal was a haven for refugees and anarchists. But, no, he was too genuine, too imaginative, too aesthetic, to use his word. We passed out into Regent Street again and stood at the cabstand.

“He is consumptive, isn’t he?” I asked.

Barker nodded slowly. “Yes. Very good, Thomas, but then, you are familiar with the symptoms, are you not?” He referred, of course, to my late wife, Jenny, who had wasted away of the disease while I was in prison. A shudder went down my back. The memory had been dredged up too quickly, before I’d had a chance to prepare myself.

“How advanced is his condition?”

“He’s had it at least three years. His father is the laird of Aberdeenshire and chief of the Clan Forbes. Pollock is the oldest son and due to inherit, but he shall not survive his father. He’ll not be getting his threescore and ten, I ken.”

“Is he some sort of…enquiry agent?”

“Not as you or I know it,” he said. “Forbes once said we would split the city between us. He would take the West End, I the East. To be more precise, he looks after the aristocracy. When they get into a spot of trouble—blackmail, perhaps, or a scandal—they come to him. He takes care of them better than they deserve. He is a walking
Burke’s Peer-age.
He can tell you line by line the honors and lineage of England’s most powerful families. It occupies him, I think. He cultivates a flippant exterior, but behind it lies one of the best brains in London. His father does not understand, poor fellow—keeps trying to order him back—but he will not go, not until the very end. I imagine that seeing what he shall miss must be far too painful.”

“It is abominable, sir.”

“Yes, well, we can merely play the hand we are given, lad. Cursing the Dealer is a waste of breath.”

“So, how do you work together, if one of you moves among the upper class and the other among the lower?”

“Cases are not so simple, lad. They overlap and when they do, we help each other. Do you recall the case I had you dictate on the day you were hired? The one involving William Koehler?”

I thought back to that day almost a year before. “It was a blackmailing case, was it not?”

“Aye. Koehler was a petty blackmailer living beyond his means in the Albany, where Forbes has chambers. He dealt in letters of a revealing nature and was quite successful. In lieu of payments, sometimes he would demand letters of introduction or invitations to balls and soirées, which in turn led to opportunities to find more letters. Forbes kept an eye on him until his rise was getting too high. He was a good-looking scoundrel and had begun to woo a certain aristocrat’s daughter. Forbes decided to act, particularly when Koehler began to threaten an MP. We thought it best that the letter warning him off came from me, and I supplied the services of James Briggs, a retired prizefighter, to act as protection. Briggs is awfully good at frightening people away.”

I thought Barker not so bad at it himself. Were I a criminal, I would not like to receive one of those icily polite letters informing me that I had come under the private enquiry agent’s scrutiny.

A hansom cab arrived and we climbed into it.

“One final thing, lad,” Barker said.

“Yes, sir?”

“Dummolard’s restaurant is only a few streets away. There is a rivalry between our chef and the Royal. You know how Etienne gets when he is slighted. You would do well not to mention our little visit here.”

I
AM GOING OUT AFTER DINNER, LAD,” BARKER
said to me over the coffee and cheese that evening.

“Are you going to see Miss Winter, sir?” I asked, knowing I was breaking a rule: do not ask Barker where he goes during his free time.

The Guv cleared his throat in disapproval. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I am.”

“Might I go with you, sir? I’d like to apologize to her for tossing her maid into Limehouse Reach and for chasing her away.”

My employer considered the request for a moment, stroking his chin in thought, but then he shook his head decisively. “I had better go alone. She keeps a high temper, and brooks no assaults on her dignity. It is in your best interest to let her cool a bit before you speak to her.”

Barker slid off in that way of his, and the next I knew, the front door was shutting behind him. Mac disappeared into his sanctum factotum, closing his door with equal finality. Harm was sleeping off a bowl of braised chicken livers he’d eaten, awaiting his master’s return while perhaps dreaming of his recent adventures in Limehouse. That left me alone, bored, and uncomfortable in the cast. I was convinced it was an instrument of torture from the malignant mind of Dr. Quong. A gentleman certainly couldn’t go anywhere in it, not to the theater or even the music halls. I looked ridiculous in my cut sleeve and plaster cast. Even going down the street to the Elephant and Castle for a pint, I’d have to endure remarks at my own expense. It was not worth the effort. Perhaps, I thought, there was something in the library I could read.

I went in, circumambulating the chair by the back window that overlooked the miniature pond, and went in search of entertainment. The choices were few, I fear. Barker preferred heavy tomes with impossibly long titles and eschewed the sort of frivolous novels that I came in search of. I sat down and looked about. It was a case of books, books everywhere, and not a thing to read.

The thought occurred to me that in most of our cases, the Guv had provided me with materials to study, but he had neglected to do so in this one. Since he had not, I thought I might collect some of my own. Surely there was not a better place in London for such materials than in the personal library of an Orientalist.

The first book I came across concerned Chinese pottery. Somehow, I didn’t think that would play a major part in this investigation. Eventually, I discovered a series of small books privately printed in Shanghai that were translations of the analects of Confucius, the
Tao-te Ching,
and something by a fellow named Mencius. It looked like enough material to keep me occupied until bedtime.

A few pages into the analects, I found something interesting. Barker’s personal copy had found its way into the downstairs library, complete with his favorite passages underlined. The publication date was 1877. Had he bought the book in China, or had he purchased it more recently in London? For a moment, I considered whether to read it or to give it to Barker in the morning. Then I decided the library was fair game and sat down again to try to make sense of the book and possibly the man who had read it before me.

The first thing I learned was that Confucius was a Latinized version of the word for “Master.” The second was that he was not a sage living in a cave somewhere as I had thought, but an inspector of police in China during the sixth century
B.C
. who was concerned with bettering society in his district. The third was that he was not interested in creating a religion but in practical solutions to problems for the here and now or, rather, the there and then.

Confucius saw contemporary society in his time as divided into two groups, a gentleman class and a peasant class. He believed that if gentlemen studied rigorously and committed themselves to ruling with compassion and wisdom, society would run more smoothly. I noted that Barker had underlined all the analects that had to do with how a gentleman behaves, such as:

“The gentleman must be slow in speech but quick in action.”

“In his dealings with the world the gentleman is neither for or against anything. Rather, he is on the side of what is moral.”

“The gentleman is easy of mind, but the small man is always anxious.”

What I had before me appeared to be a plan for how Barker was conducting his life, at least since he came to England. That left me scratching my head. Wasn’t Barker a Christian? Was he influenced by both? Even as I was getting closer to the core of the man, I was coming up with more questions than answers.

Having got through most of the analects, for the book is short, I turned to Lao-tzu and got mired right away. The words were translated into English, but the meanings were almost gibberish. With my clouded Western mind, I could not make head or tail of it. How does one make sense of statements like: “Though the uncarved block is small, no one in the world dare claim its allegiance”?

As for Mencius, he was one of Confucius’s students. I might have understood him better had I begun with him first. Instead, I found myself reading a phrase once, going on to the next, not making sense of it, and going back to the first. I was tired and my brain could not hold any more Oriental philosophy. Like a man of wisdom, I went to bed.

The next I knew, I was awakened by a loud report from the room below. I opened my eyes and tried to focus. It sounded as though there was a fight going on. I heard a cry and threw back my covers, yanked open my door, ran down the steps not two feet ahead of Barker, who had come down from the upper floor in a nightshirt and dressing gown. When we reached the ground floor, we found the back door wide open and Harm disporting himself in the dark of the garden, running in circles and barking as if to say, “What larks!”

We hurried into the study and found Mac on the floor, clutching his leg and moaning. The smell of gunpowder hung in the air. His trusty shotgun lay beside him, and it took but a moment to deduce what had happened. Barker’s butler had interrupted a burglary attempt and had been shot in the leg in the course of it.

Harm came bounding in, all energy and excitement, and went so far as to bark at us as if we were complete strangers. Barker bent and put his hand on Mac’s shoulder.

“Do not try to get up. Thomas, bring a towel.”

I dashed into the kitchen and seized the first cloth I could find. The Guv used it to make a tourniquet around Mac’s leg to stem the flow of blood. When he was done, he said, “Tell me what happened.”

Mac lay on the wooden floor, propped up on his elbows. He was pale and grimacing from the pain. “A sound of papers being moved about woke me up, sir. I knew it couldn’t be you or Mr. Llewelyn, else I’d have heard you coming down the stairs. I took the shotgun I always keep under my bed, threw open the door, and charged into the study, but he came out of nowhere. It was as though he was invisible. He bent my arm down, forcing the gun to discharge into my leg.”

“Did you get a good look at him? Was he Oriental?”

“I really couldn’t say, sir. He was crouched and came up under my gun.”

Barker let out a grunt in exasperation. I don’t suppose anyone had dared storm the citadel of his private home before. It was unthinkable, like Mount Olympus having its silver nicked.

“We must get him into bed and call Dr. Applegate,” he told me.

Barker and I attempted to lift Mac up from the floor, but the butler gave such a cry of pain that even I felt sorry for him. For once, the Guv was at a loss as to what to do. He managed to get hold of Dr. Applegate by telephone and the latter agreed to come over, telling us not to move the patient but to make him comfortable. Comfortable, to Barker, meant slapping a pillow under his head and grilling him for the next twenty minutes over and over again on events that took all of about twenty seconds to occur.

I suppose I’ve been rather hard on Dr. Applegate. I have strong views on the medical profession, due perhaps to the loss of my wife, and nothing that has occurred since then has changed my view—that for all our science, we are merely one step away from bloodletting and witch doctors. Applegate has a chilly bedside manner and a pinched face, as if chronically dyspeptic. For all his skills and his willingness to come the few streets from his own private house to Barker’s, he lacks a cheery countenance. One feels that if one passed on under his care, he’d merely nod sagely and move on to his next patient without a second thought.

Dr. Applegate eventually arrived and clucked his tongue over the patient. He then called for bandages and alcohol and began pulling the pellets from Mac’s wound. A half hour later, the three of us carried Mac to his bed.

It was my first glimpse into Mac’s private sanctuary, an odd combination of cleaning supplies and homey touches. There were antimacassars on the chairs, beaded lamp-shades, and a photograph of a dour Jewish couple who must have been his parents. I saw a bookcase against one wall and, being something of a bookman, I made my way over to it. There were a few serious Jewish texts, Mrs. Beaton’s
Book of Household Management,
and some Jane Austens along with a Brontë or two, but the majority of the titles were of a Gothic turn. The novels of Mrs. Braddon were much in evidence, as was Wilkie Collins, Horace Walpole, the American Poe, and the Baroness Orczy. Jacob Maccabee was a secret romantic, and though this was too good a card to waste, it would be unsporting of me to use it now, when my opponent was down. I helped them try to make him comfortable.

Dr. Applegate gave Mac a walloping dose of morphine that knocked him out as stony cold as a mackerel in Billings-gate. Afterward, the doctor put on his top hat, wrapped his scarf around his neck, told Barker to expect the usual bill, and left.

It was then that I realized I had been wasting the last half hour. I had been studying the room and watching the doctor as he went about his business, when all the time I should have been watching my employer. Had I done so, I would not have been surprised by his next statement.

“We are at war,” he said.

“Sir?”

“There has been a killer in this house. He has murdered nearly a half dozen people, by my estimate, and he came here tonight prepared to kill again. Never in the five years that I have lived here has anyone dared to enter my home unbidden. He knows my reputation, I have no doubt, and yet he has found it of little consequence.”

Perhaps it was a trick of the light, but the yellow from the gas lamps in the room actually penetrated Barker’s black spectacles enough for me to see the glint of his eyes. They looked like small flames, and it gave him a hellish aspect. I wondered if the killer of Quong had seriously underestimated my employer, or whether this unknown person was his equal in dangerous matters. He had killed several people now, after all. What does such power do to a person’s soul?

“What shall we do, sir?” I asked.

“We must prepare. This is a siege, lad. He may try again tonight.”

“Forgive me, sir, but why didn’t you just give the book to Scotland Yard or the Foreign Office and have done with it? We have nothing like their manpower.”

Barker gritted his teeth, as resolute as I have ever seen him. “Because Quong left it for me to give it to whom I choose. Here.” He picked up the shotgun and broke it open before handing it to me. “The shells are on the table.”

I had never used a shotgun, but I didn’t want to lower myself in the Guv’s eyes. I put two shells in the barrels and closed the gun, wondering what I was to do with it. Barker moved into the library and took out a brace of dueling pistols, loading them with powder and ball as if he had done it a thousand times.

“It is possible,” he said, “that the killer has not left the grounds. There are many places where a man can secrete himself in the garden. Let us reconnoiter.”

Somehow, reconnoitering had been left out of my education. I followed him out into the garden, hoping I cut a more formidable figure than I felt. It was freezing and I was clad only in my nightshirt. I hadn’t even had time to put on my slippers. As for Harm, he took the opportunity to show off, barking at shadows, at the goldfish in the pond, at any sound that carried on the wind.

Barker lit an Oriental lantern with a vesta and we began to look around the garden counterclockwise from the back door, taking in the kitchen garden, the Pen-jing area, and the rockery. We crossed the stone bridge, icy cold under my bare feet, skirting the training area, where I had been tossed down more times than I cared to remember. We bypassed the staggered stone path and invaded the potting shed. The Guv was very thorough, even studying the roof.

We stepped out of the gate, where a cold wind fresh from Spitsbergen was blasting down the alleyway. There was no one about, nor any evidence of anyone, yet I knew the killer had been down here within the hour. Where, I wondered, does a murderer disappear to in residential Newington?

Back inside his half-acre garden, my employer closed the moon gate with a finality and gave it a shake, just to make sure it held. We passed the suspended gong and climbed the two steps to the open pagoda. Barker made a very close inspection of the bathhouse, the largest structure in the garden, looking anywhere a man might hide. We crossed the bridge again and then walked the boardwalk that circled the enclosed pond. The Guv even shone the lantern across the water.

“Surely you don’t think he’s hiding in the pond. It’s nearly freezing,” I said.

“There are some men I have known who trained in frigid water,” he answered, “and some who use the sheath of a sword as a breathing straw, remaining underwater for several minutes.”