by Will Thomas
“From whom?” Barker asked.
We stepped out onto the platform and watched a train speed by, heading toward Kensington. The tunnel was momentarily full of smoke.
“Israel Zangwill,” I replied. “Remember, he used to be a reporter for The Jewish Chronicle. Much of his writing was political.”
“Do you know where this Mr. Morris lives?”
“Yes, his publishing press is in Hammersmith,” I answered. “A mansion called Kelmscott House.”
“A writer in Hammersmith?” Barker asked.
“Stranger things have happened, I’m sure.”
We arrived in Hammersmith thirty minutes later, that bastion of middle-class morality.
Kelmscott House was a mansion of Georgian brick at its least imaginative, a brick box held together by English ivy. I’d have thought Morris would have chosen something stylish.
I had suggested to the Guv that more people were having telephones installed these days and we should consider calling those we wished to question. His response was that he preferred to catch them unprepared and doing mischief. There is some logic in that, I suppose.
A seedy-looking butler answered the door at Kelmscott House and led us through a dusty house, most of the wall space taken up with paintings or lengths of tapestries Morris had designed. There was a painting over a fireplace that I recognized as a Burne-Jones. I nodded my head at it.
“Mrs. Morris,” I murmured. “First name, Jane. A celebrated model of her time. That is, the 1860s and ’70s.”
Barker grunted, either docketing the information or rejecting it as irrelevant. We passed through an iron-studded door that appeared reclaimed from a medieval keep.
“Mr. Baker and Mr. Lelland, sir,” the butler said. I let it pass. We had been called worse.
The room looked as if it had been damaged by an anarchist’s bomb. The mantelpiece, the chairs, the floor, were littered with books, lengths of fabric, half-finished speeches and poems, busts of famous men, and objets d’art. Each of them would do a study proud if properly presented and cared for, but most of the poor fellows were facedown on their noses or being used as paperweights. Papers drifted in the corners like leaves. In the very center sat the man himself.
“May I help you, gentlemen?” Morris asked. He looked like he had just woken up from a nap, disheveled and gruff.
Stepping forward, I presented him with a card from my waistcoat pocket. I have them tailored to hold business cards.
Morris reached out a hand and took it. He was very nearly as much of a mess as his room. His silvery hair and beard looked as if no comb or brush could penetrate them. There was something almost biblical in his appearance, a modern prophet, save that he was stuffed into a brown suit, and one bootless foot was resting on a chair.
“Sit, gentlemen,” he said, studying our card. “Private enquiry agents?”
The Guv and I looked about for a place to sit, but it was impossible. Every chair was piled high with stacks of books and papers so precariously perched that one touch would either tip the chair or knock the stacks of papers and books onto the floor, so we remained standing.
“Yes, sir,” I replied. “We have been safeguarding the tsarevich of Russia while he is here at the royal wedding. There have been threats and at least one attempt on his life.”
“Mr. Morris, we understand there have been protests about the upcoming wedding of the prince by the Socialist League,” Barker said, taking in our host. “Are you involved in any such demonstrations?”
“I understand that demonstrations have been organized and are now occurring around London, but I have not been personally supervising them. It’s my gout, you see. I rarely leave the house unless it is to visit my press, which is just down the street.”
“I see,” Barker rumbled. “Who would be in charge of such demonstrations, then?”
“This person or that might have made the decision to hold an event, but it would be Eleanor Marx who organized and implemented the plan. She is the drive behind the movement these days. She’s Karl’s daughter, you know. Karl Marx. He wrote The Communist Manifesto, which we consider our Magna Carta, so to speak.”
“What is a Communist, and how does that compare to a Socialist?” Barker asked.
Morris scratched his mane of hair and considered the question.
“It’s rather complicated,” he answered, “but if I were to boil it down to its essence, I would say that Socialists believe in helping the poor and meeting their needs, while Communists want all moneys shared between everyone in society, regardless of sex, race, or occupation. They want to eliminate aristocracy. None in particular, just in general.”
He pointed toward a photograph nearly buried on his desk, of an equally bearded wild man, but with a sterner look. The image seemed familiar, and it took a moment to recall who it was. It was Marx himself. I thought I recognized him. He used to have a desk and table near mine in the Reading Room of the British Museum. He was probably writing his manifesto then.
“That is certainly revolutionary,” the Guv said. I had no doubt I’d discover his personal opinions later.
“It’s time for a revolution,” Morris answered, warming to his subject. “The monarchy has been unsuccessful in feeding and caring for its own people, as a two-minute walk in Whitechapel at any time of day will tell you. Her Majesty is willing to spend three million pounds to impress the world and keep the colonies in subjugation, but it is blood money. How many infants will die this winter from diphtheria and whooping cough?”
“Which are you, sir,” the Guv asked. “A Socialist or a Communist?”
“More the former than the latter,” the poet/printer/painter/playwright/publisher said. “I believe in the tenets of the Communist teachings of the manifesto, but it seems impractical because of man’s basic foibles and selfishness. What incentive, for example, would a man have to work hard if he would receive the same salary for being lazy?”
“I see,” Barker murmured. “And which group constitutes the largest of the protesters and demonstrators?”
William Morris sighed. He leaned back in his chair and repositioned his aching limb.
“Neither, I’m afraid.”
The Guv gave me a look of exasperation. A good shaking was being considered if this famous man was not more forthcoming.
“Anarchists, sir,” he finally answered. “The majority of the Socialist League is no longer strictly Socialist. We have been o’erwhelmed. Great Britain is the only country willing to take them in.”
“Anarchists,” my employer rumbled, savoring the word. Here was an ideology he understood. He had once moved among them in Paris in order to stop their plans. He still had the letter A scar burned into his shoulder, an initiation of a secret organization.
“They’re not all bad,” Morris replied. “But they’ve been through pogroms and other trials and driven from their countries. They have reason to be angry.”
“But not reason to harm a future sovereign or a visiting monarch.”
“Ah,” Morris said, shaking his head. “But you see, many of the anarchists—the largest part of them—are from Russia. It was the government’s Cossacks who destroyed their houses, killed their families, and drove them out of Russia. Russians have long memories, Mr. Barker. Something as trivial as moving to a different country would not change how they think or act after so much suffering.”
The Guv crossed his arms, which always makes him look larger than he is, if such a thing is possible.
“Are you suggesting I let the Russians settle their own differences in public in the middle of a royal wedding?”
“Good heavens, no,” Morris replied. “Mr. Barker, it is vitally necessary that you and whomever you are working for stop the threat. If the tsarevich is shot, the government and possibly the citizenry shall blame London’s Russian population. There will be blood in the streets, gentlemen. That’s what will happen.”
“Then we must see that Nicholas remains safe.”
“And Prince
George while we’re at it,” I inserted. “His bride, as well. Any assassination would throw the country into turmoil.”
Barker cleared his throat, a signal he was changing the subject. “Could you tell me, sir, what Miss Marx’s opinions are regarding the change of position of the Socialist League?”
Morris took a drink of the dregs of a cold cup of tea at his elbow. “When last we talked, oh, three months or so ago, I believe, she was on the fence. As famous as I am, and as many issues of Commonweal have been published with my editorials, I am expendable. Eleanor, however, is the daughter of the founder of Communism. Her leaving is unthinkable. Therefore, she must compromise.”
“If Miss Marx is holding the society together,” Barker asked, “who is trying to tear it apart? Is there anyone who is banging the drum, either against the wedding or the tsarevich’s arrival? Who is the most vocal critic?”
“That would be Kazimir Chernov. He’s a dyed-in-the-wool anarchist from Moscow. It is rumored that he had a hand in the assassination of Alexander the Second. He escaped and fled to France, but he made enough of a nuisance there that the Sûreté suggested he leave the country or cool his heels in prison.”
The Guv crossed his arms and looked grave. “I thought I knew most of the prominent anarchists in Europe, but I haven’t heard of him.”
“Well, I wonder if perhaps he exaggerates,” Morris admitted. “I don’t know, but he is a firebrand. He has attracted more members to the League and converted some of our more conservative members. I suspect he has reached the point where he has to do something to prove his abilities, to show that he is more than a braggart. I certainly believe him capable of doing something that will put himself in jail and cause the Socialist League to disband, something more than putting up placards. I know the man carries a pistol. I’ve seen it myself.”
“Do you know where this man Chernov lives?”
“In the middle of one of the worst warrens in Spitalfields,” Morris replied. “It’s in Woodseer Street, off Brick Lane.”
The Guv nodded. “I know it.”
Barker had begun pacing, or attempted to. He brushed a stack of books with his elbow and sent it all slipping sideways like a stack of cards. Morris did not bat an eye.
“We are familiar with that kind of gentleman,” the Guv said.
He placed the emphasis on the last word as if he was being generous with the term. “I presume he has little money.”
“Not a sou.”
“Do you think him likely to have access to a rifle?”
“Not if he owned it,” Morris said. “He’d have pawned it for cheap beer by now.”
“No doubt.”
“The man’s a menace. As for the rest of the League, they support my movement financially.”
There it is, I thought. My movement. He was proud of what he had done years before, but now it had been wrested from his hands. He was too old, put to pasture. I’m sure that must rankle.
Barker bowed. We had run out of questions, and Mr. Morris, the Great Man of Art and Poetry, had run out of answers. We rose and bowed, and the butler led us outside into a dissolute-looking garden. Barker stopped and began pruning a rose bush with his bare hands, twisting the faded roses and removing them. He hates a thing undone.
“I have a hard time imagining Mr. Morris on the roof of Kensington Palace with an air gun,” I said.
“Mr. Llewelyn, I imagine he knows several men just waiting to kill the tsarevich.”
The Guv was right, I had to admit.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Barker and I were back in our offices; I to transcribe some of my shorthand scribbles into typed notes, he to play a kind of chess with London as the board and humans as chess pieces. He was so deep in thought that he didn’t hear the clacking of my Hammond typewriting machine or the sound of a visitor.
Jenkins looked pleased with himself as he brought the salver in with a card upon it. His small world had been restored to normal. I envied the fellow, rather, and not for the first time. He led a simple life, uncomplicated and satisfying to him. Isn’t that all a man requires?
Barker took a glance at the card and stood immediately. I did as well, but only because he did.
“Colonel, come in,” he said as Waverly crossed the threshold into our chambers. “Would you have a seat, sir?”
“It is good to see you gentlemen again,” the colonel replied. “I hope I didn’t overtax you with my little inquisition yesterday. I have come with good news.”
The colonel was smiling at us. When he last saw us he chewed our private histories as a beaver does a log. Now his expression was nearly beatific.
Barker frowned. Like me, he became suspicious when someone smiled. Anything could happen. Sadness and anger we could brace for, deal with, but smiles? In our business we don’t trust smiles. Generally they are masking something.
“Mr. Barker, I am here to tell you that Her Majesty’s government would like to present you with the Order of British Merit. Not only have you saved the lives of two princes, but you helped England avoid what could have become an international incident.”
“Would you care for a cigar, Colonel?” the Guv asked.
Waverly took one from the proffered box. After lighting it, he turned back in my direction and blew smoke above my head.
“Mr. Llewelyn, it is not the government’s policy to offer such an honor to so young a person. However, the palace shall decide upon some sort of medal or honor for you, as well. Do not believe we will leave you without a suitable recompense for your heroic service. You well deserve one. I understand the assassin was in your very arms when he was shot.”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
I’ve said it before. Our bodies are simple mechanisms. Several stimuli will produce the same response. I suddenly felt as if someone had thrown a bucket of water down my collar. Me? A medal? Me, Tommy Llewelyn, the coal miner’s son? Won’t Rebecca be excited?
“Well, Mr. Barker, what say you?”
“It is a great honor, Colonel,” the Guv said, sitting down in his chair. “I am flattered. However, I cannot accept.”
Waverly blanched. “Cannot accept?”
“I did not save the life of Prince George and I did not protect the tsarevich for more than ten seconds. That hardly deserves an OBM. Thomas was in the thick of it both times. Give it to him if he wishes.”
The colonel sat back, looking winded. Then he looked at me. “What say you, young fellow? It’s unprecedented, but would you care for an OBM?”
That old rascal. Cyrus Barker, I mean. He knew I couldn’t accept a medal if he didn’t. It would be bad form. Perhaps at one time when I was in prison, I might have grasped for all I could attain, but I had been living with my employer for going on ten years and had unknowingly adopted his way of thinking.
“Thank you, sir,” I answered, “but no. It is indeed an honor, but I fear I must refuse.”
The words tasted like ashes in my mouth.
“You see, Colonel, it is helpful in our line of work to be as anonymous as possible,” Barker explained.
“I understand. But, hang it, it’s a great honor, Mr. Barker!” Waverly insisted.
“It is indeed, but you must realize that when we protected the prince and the tsarevich, we had no idea they were royalty. We were merely looking out for fellow citizens. I only recognized Nicholas when he stood at my elbow.”
Waverly pointed a finger at him. “But your lives were in danger. Admit it!”
The Guv put out his cigar in the large glass ashtray upon his desk. “I do, sir, but our duties frequently place us in danger, as you might surmise. A twelve-month does not go by in which one of us is not shot.”
“Or stabbed,” I said.
“Or blown up,” he continued. “We had these offices repaired just a year ago.”
“Well, I never,” Waverly replied.
“Our agency should always be here to safeguard Their Majesties whenever it is required. Mr. Llewelyn and I have worked years to make
private enquiry work an acceptable profession, free from the taint of the underworld. It is why we opened our doors in Whitehall Street, in the shadow of Scotland Yard itself. To protect the royal family is our duty and our pleasure. It is also our business. I am certain you will warrant there isn’t another agency like ours in London.” Barker knitted his thick fingers together on the glass top of his desk. “Please do not think that we are slighting the government in any way, Colonel Waverly. We are proud to live and work in this city and to call ourselves Londoners.”
“Then accept the honor, Mr. Barker!” Waverly insisted.
“Alas, I cannot,” the Guv answered. “I try to avoid the fanfare of public recognition in my work. An image of myself in the newspapers, for example, would reveal my identity in some circles and hamper my work.”
The colonel blinked. Barker might as well have spoken Urdu as far as he understood the words.
“And anyway,” the Guv continued, “as you are aware, Mr. Llewelyn has a criminal record—trifling as it is—which would preclude such an award. Is that not correct, Mr. Llewelyn?”
I rose a brow, unable to reply.
“Well,” Waverly blustered. “Yes, both of your pasts are shady, but together the palace thought we could push it through.”
“You need not bother on our accounts,” the Guv said. “Now, was there something else you required?”
“Required?” the colonel parroted.
“Did you have any more questions for us?”
“No, I—”
Barker stood, came around the desk, and shook his hand. “Then you’ll appreciate we have work to do. The wedding hasn’t even started and we have much to do. But it has been a pleasure talking with you again.”
He put a hand on the old soldier’s shoulder and steered him into the waiting room. Her Majesty’s equerry could find his own way into Whitehall Street. I followed him out into Craig’s Court and watched him go. It felt as if he were taking my precious medal away with him.
