by Will Thomas
Fifty pounds! What could a family in the East End do with fifty pounds? It could feed them for a year. It could buy them clothes and shoes. It could provide them a better dwelling. Children could go to school. It was a sum so large that the children could barely imagine the amount.
“After she is found and one of you is the winner of this prize, the rest of you have two options. One, you can keep the whistle with my compliments. Or you can turn it in at seven Craig’s Court in Whitehall for a pound note. Is that perfectly clear?”
“Clear as a pane-less window,” one of the boys cried out.
“All right, gentlemen and lady,” Barker said. “I will see you tomorrow. I wish you all good hunting.”
* * *
A half hour later we entered our offices again. Within a minute Barker was in his chair, turned around away from me.
“Ah, Thomas. Sit down. We have much to discuss.”
“We do?”
“Most certainly.”
I sat, mystified. “Now, you’ve worked here several years and are approaching your second year as a partner. The question I would ask is, are you satisfied?”
“Satisfied, sir?” I asked.
“You are now unfettered and can do as you like,” the Guv replied. “Some money is due you. You have your own house, a wife. What shall you do now?”
“Now?”
“Stop repeating the last word I say. The blot is off your record. You can return to university. You could be a professor, a barrister, even a doctor if you wish. You could dawdle for a few years and write another book of poetry. You could travel and see the world, take your wife to Rome or Athens. For a time, at least, the world is your oyster. So, what shall you do?”
I nearly repeated the last word again, but recovered myself.
“What do you mean, sir?”
“If it is your wish, I shall buy you out. You need not continue in so dangerous a situation. I’m sure your wife is keen for you to retire from enquiry work.”
“But who would help you, sir?”
“Oh, I’d find another assistant, of course,” he replied. “Mac has wanted the position for nearly ten years.”
“But you need him at home. You’ve said so dozens of times.”
The Guv nodded. “Aye, but you won’t be living in Newington anymore. We both knew that would happen eventually, anyway.”
We did, but it ached a little to hear it from his lips.
“I never asked to retire, sir.”
“True, but you’ve never been in such a position before,” he said. “All doors have been closed to you until now. Now they stand open for you. What shall you do?”
“I would never leave the agency,” I stated. “It is my life.”
“One can change one’s life if one has the wherewithal. Consider the matter.”
“Excuse me,” I said, “but you are beginning to sound like the colonel.”
“Am I? Discuss it with Mrs. Llewelyn and get back to me. Take a day to consider it.”
“No need,” I replied. “I’m not going anywhere. Who wouldn’t want to work in a place with a royal warrant?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
As promised when we met, Barker and I brought Jim Hercules into our bar-jutsu school for a private bout that evening. We had dinner at the Clarence and met in our antagonistics school at seven o’clock. He looked about our little establishment with approval.
“Good solid mats, mirrors, barbells, medicine balls, Indian clubs … You’ve got it all here, gentlemen.”
“If you’re going to do a thing,” the Guv replied, “don’t scrimp on details.”
“You can change there in the locker room, Mr. Hercules,” I said. “And there is a water closet in the back.”
“You can just call me Jim, sir,” he said before retiring to the locker room. “I don’t stand on ceremony.”
“Are you boxing today, Mr. Llewelyn?” Barker asked while our client was changing.
“He didn’t come here to box me, sir, and I don’t have anything to prove. You are the one with the reputation to uphold.”
“Andrew taught you how to box, if you recall,” the Guv said.
“I do. But not to a professional level.”
“As you wish.”
I doubted Jim practiced boxing regularly. He was relying on latent skills. My partner outweighed our guest by a stone at least and his fighting style was unknown to Jim, a combination of English and Chinese boxing. While Barker was fully versed in the Marquess of Queensbury Rules, he rarely used them since Brother Andrew had been a bare-knuckle champion. Still, Jim had shoulders like cannonballs and lean hips. He could move quickly and he was a few years younger than the Guv. It would make for an interesting match.
Jim came out of our small locker room in a pair of silk drawers and boxing gloves. I began to doubt that he was out of shape. His stomach looked like it could stop a bull. He was in his element and would put up a fight. His limbs were smooth and relaxed. He looked like a panther on the prowl.
Barker went to change while Jim began to punch a hanging bag. The rhythm of his punches was as steady as a steam engine. I reckoned that just one would tear off my head. I told myself this would be a friendly match but I began to wonder if that was wishful thinking.
Barker returned wearing a pair of loose black trousers and canvas shoes. He’d traded his spectacles for a pair of goggles with gray lenses. His body was a mass of tattoos, scars, and burns. There was a dragon on the inside of one forearm and a tiger on the other. A slash of scar tissue dimpled his shoulder and a triangle surrounded with Chinese calligraphy was on his left breast. There was a circular brand mark on his biceps. I could see that Jim Hercules found him interesting as an opponent.
“Mr. Hercules, you wanted to spar with Andrew McClain’s boxing partner. Here I am.”
Hercules nodded and then surged forward, but it was only to tap gloves. Both men stepped back and came in again to begin. Barker managed to lay over a halfdozen punches at Jim’s head. He was testing his opponent’s strengths and weaknesses. So was I. Hercules had almost six more inches of reach. Also, the Guv preferred to box bare-knuckle, but such a fight would be brutal. Men have died in bare-knuckle fights, which is why they were now illegal. Barker wasn’t comfortable with his hands restricted in regulation sixteen-ounce boxing gloves. He had dozens of techniques, but only when his hands were free.
A blow by Jim caught him in the shoulder, which then scraped across his head. A fist tried to reach his stomach, but could not get past Barker’s elbows and thick forearms. Then Hercules gave him a solid punch on the nose. Cyrus Barker stepped back and held a glove to his face to see if claret had been spilt. It hadn’t. The fight continued.
A dozen blows were traded and parried, with no obvious damage to either party. Then Hercules snaked a fist in and tried another blow at Barker’s head. The Guv parried it with a casual flick upward, then struck a spot the ex-boxer didn’t expect in the tender skin under his arms, where nerves crisscross leading to the arms and hands. It wasn’t expected here, but then Barker wasn’t trained in England, and only learned boxing after meeting Brother Andrew. Hercules jumped back and shook his arm, grimacing, but was soon back for more.
I was half concerned one of them would kill the other and half wishing I had the foresight to sell tickets. This was some doings any sportsman in London would attend, if it weren’t clandestine. Hercules connected with a hook punch to Barker’s head and a minute later received a blow to the chin which snapped his head back.
Jim began to circle him, looking for an advantage. Barker was not the sort to move about. His feet were solidly planted. This didn’t work to his advantage. Hercules caught him in the kidneys and the Guv hissed through his teeth in pain.
“Warning!” I cried.
“Yes, sir,” Jim said.
He danced around, then aimed another punch at my partner’s head. Barker rose his gloves just high enough that Jim got under and slammed a fist into his stomach. I knew it was a mi
stake. I’ve delivered fifteen kicks in a row to the Guv’s stomach and he never bats an eye. It was like punching a skillet. It also set him up for another blow. Barker’s right hand dropped to his belt and I knew what was coming. The Guv’s arm hinged at the elbow, came around in a circle horizontally, and caught our guest on the cheek with the edge of his glove. Jim’s eyes rolled up into his head and he swayed sideways and fell onto the mat. Barker shook his hand. It was a risk he had taken. That move can easily break bones in the hand.
Hercules lay crumpled on the ground while I came over to inspect him, it being my duty to examine those who fought my employer and to scrape them off the mat afterward.
“You haven’t killed him, I’m glad to say,” I observed. “It’s difficult to get paid after you kill a client.”
Barker sat on the mat, looking sore and exhausted. “Check his pulse.”
It took me a minute or so to find it. “Steady enough.”
“Let us get him in a chair.”
I lifted and dragged him to a chair. His eyes still hadn’t aligned.
“Are you with us, Mr. Hercules?” I asked.
“I’m here,” he said.
He was stout, I had to give him that.
“Tell me, sir,” Barker said. “When were you going to tell me you were working for your government? Or is it ours?”
Our client smiled, revealing the blood in his teeth.
“Smart,” he said. “Didn’t I say he was smart, Mr. Llewelyn?”
“You did.”
“That was a thing of beauty: that punch. I’ve never seen anything like it. When did you learn to box?”
“In Canton, under the tutelage of a doctor named Wong.”
“I’d like to meet the man.”
“I’ll ask one more time,” Barker demanded. “Which government are you working for? American or English?”
“Both, actually,” Hercules admitted. “I was recruited by the Military Information Department after I was hired by the tsar. The Home Office is still concerned about Russia as a longtime enemy, while the United States is concerned about a possible attack across the Bering Strait, to a territory called Alaska. Apparently they’ve had a gold strike.”
“You’ve been supplying them both information.”
“I have. I’ve watched the tsar and his family for years. I go back to Washington every summer to report and send dispatches to the Home Office every month or so. No one knows the MID and the Home and Foreign Offices are using information supplied by a Negro.”
“I’m sure you were a fine asset.”
“How’d you guess I’m a spy?” Jim asked.
“I am naturally suspicious,” the Guv said. “I had an operative following you just in case.”
“The devil you say. I can spot a man a hundred yards away.”
“I assumed that,” the Guv continued, “so I sent a woman.”
Jim Hercules burst out laughing. “Don’t that beat all? Perhaps I was too smart for my own good when I hired you.”
“If you intended to hoodwink me, yes, you were. Now, sir, I’ve been patient. Please tell me why you enlisted my services.”
“The truth?”
“The honest truth, Mr. Hercules.”
Jim bit the laces on his gloves and slid his hand out, then untied the other lace. “The god’s honest truth was just as I said it was, I just didn’t tell you all I know. No one, sir, no one cares about that boy. The Okhrana doesn’t. They hope he is assassinated so the grand dukes will fight between themselves for power and line their pockets in the process. Scotland Yard is concentrated on keeping the public safe. The Home Office wants the wedding over and done with and the palace has more than enough ambassadors and sovereigns for three royal weddings. Nobody cares about Nicky but the queen herself, me, and the two of you. I’m occupied with keeping my friend calm and out of trouble and Her Majesty is hosting a family reunion. That leaves the two of you. Are you up to the task?”
Barker looked at him for a moment. He still hadn’t changed and a towel was thrown over his shoulders. “You have no family of your own, do you, Mr. Hercules? No wife or children?”
“I am a lifelong bachelor. I didn’t plan it that way, but there you are.”
“And Nicholas’s father is tsar of all Russia and disappointed in the son he had.”
“That is true, Mr. Barker,” Jim admitted. “He thinks his son is weak and spoiled by his mother.”
“You are a second father and mentor to him and he comes to you for advice. Often you are the only one he will listen to. Likewise, Nicholas is the son you never had. You came to care because no one else did. You saw the man he might become if he were being properly looked after.”
“He’s a dark horse, but if I can keep him alive through this damned wedding, he might prove himself yet.”
“Is the Military Information Division aware of your friendship with Nicholas beyond the news you send along?”
“No. If they knew, they’d order me out of Russia at once. Then who’d protect that boy? I’ve got to care about something. The U.S. ain’t my home anymore, and all I have to do all day is see to the safety of the imperial family. I’m not bragging when I say I do a pretty good job. But this, this wedding, this assassin, it’s too much for one person. I came to you because he needs help and I needed people I could trust. I need you fellows to do the very best you can.”
“We will,” the Guv said. “That I promise you.”
I nodded.
Hercules stood up, a little wobbly on his pins.
“You’ve got a fine right hook,” he said.
“And you’d have given Andrew a fine match, sir,” Barker said. “He would have liked to meet you.”
“Thank you, Mr. Barker,” he answered. “I have to go wipe my eyes. I’ve got sweat in them.”
When he was gone, I turned to my partner.
“Do you believe him?” I asked.
“I don’t know him. But he’s openly admitted to being a foreign spy.”
I sat on a bench, picked up an iron dumbbell, and began curling it.
“He’d have to be a very good actor to put on a scene such as the one we just witnessed,” I said.
“Aye, but the man was recruited because of his talent, as well as his position.”
“True,” I said.
Curl four, curl five, curl six.
“Either he’s telling the truth or he’s lying.”
Barker rose a brow. “Brilliant logic, Mr. Llewelyn. And?”
“And there is no way we are able now to say which it is. We’ll have to decide later, unless we find the answer first.”
“He said one thing in his favor,” the Guv remarked. “He did not think of America as his home. I suspect he is considering throwing over his duties as a spy and becoming a Russian citizen.”
“To protect Nicholas?”
“I assume so. We can’t know at this point.”
Hercules came out in his suit, the jacket thrown over one shoulder.
“Thanks for the match, Mr. Barker. I ain’t never seen boxing like that. I may have to find an Asian in Saint Petersburg willing to teach me some Chinese boxing.”
“You are welcome to visit our school should you ever return,” the Guv said.
“I’d like to think that Andrew McClain would say I had talent, but you beat me handily.”
“Every boxer must understand that there are men who can best him. It is humbling, which is never a bad thing and encourages more training. I have my limits as well.”
“I must get back, gentlemen, but there’s something new afoot that you should know. There’s going to be a ball tonight. Nicky suggested the royal family give one and they were caught out. They felt they could not refuse him.”
“A ball,” Barker said, with a look of distaste on his normally expressionless face.
“Worse,” Jim said. “Far worse. A nightmare, in fact. It is to be a masked ball.”
Barker shook his head. The government had lost all reason, kowtowi
ng to the son of the tsar, scurrying to meet his every whim.
“The task has been given to Lord Haslemere, whose life will likely be tossed on its ear. Can you believe the chaos, the cost for a costumed ball? I didn’t hear about it until last night.”
“I suspect it’s all so Nicholas can have a tryst with his mistress behind the elephant palms,” I said. I turned to my partner. “We must prepare.”
“I believe there is a domino mask in the back room, Mr. Llewelyn. That and a proper evening suit is all that a gentleman requires. Unless you prefer to go as Harlequin or Pierrot.”
“No, sir,” I replied.
The Guv was speaking about the lumber closet, which contained fifty hats as well as cloaks, coats, boots, gloves, and even a false beard or two. But those were for professional purposes. A masked ball was frivolous.
“I was able to convince Nicholas that the two of you might come in handy at the ball,” Hercules said.
“Handy?” the Guv asked, turning to me as some kind of translator.
“Helpful,” I answered.
“Ah.”
“Of course, he told the Okhrana that it was his idea, not mine.”
Barker smiled, which always looks like a dog baring his teeth. “Have you used this connection to the tsarevich before?”
“A time or two,” Hercules admitted.
“Would you say that the gentleman is suggestible?” I asked.
“He’s little more than a youth,” Barker growled. “And is here in this country without a proper wet nurse.”
“Oh, he’s got one,” Jim Hercules replied. “It’s called the Barker and Llewelyn Agency.”
“That’s grand,” my employer said, a bitter tone in his voice.
“Well, gentlemen, you did accept the case. Or enquiry.”
“Where will the ball take place, sir?” Barker asked.
“At Lord Haslemere’s house by Regent’s Park.”
An impromptu masked ball with the tsarevich conniving with his mistress and an assassin lurking in the shadows. Just another typical day at the Barker and Llewelyn Agency. Warrant pending.
