Lethal Pursuit

by Will Thomas

  “But he can’t,” I said. “The Kaiser is late to the table. Most of the globe has been divided already. Germany owns Alsace-Lorraine and a few bits of arid land in Africa. They would have to go to war to get what they want.”

  “Don’t think the Kaiser hasn’t considered it. I hope his advisors can talk sense into him. He can rattle his saber as much as he wants, but he must not draw his blade or there will be bloodshed. A blade always cuts both ways.”

  “I was not aware that Germany was so fond of cold steel. It is an old-fashioned weapon.”

  “The Mensurite academies represent the more nationalist and traditional families of Germany, harking back to before Bismarck’s unification. Old families, old money. I’m sure Wilhelm will call any liberal or unionist activities plots designed by Jews and Roman Catholics, both of whom are below contempt in his eyes.”

  “I suppose handing their manuscript over to the Vatican would be considered adding insult to injury, then.”

  “Without doubt, Thomas. Regardless of his personal politics, the Kaiser will do anything to appease his patrons. They are the backbone of his supporters.”

  “You are certain, then, that it is the Germans?”

  “I am not. There are nationalists and university fencing traditions all over Eastern Europe. There are old families with too much money who give it to men that tickle their ears. However, it is Germany alone that longs for a relic or icon on which they can legitimize their claims. We should move forward on the assumption that Germany is behind Drummond’s death, but maintain the ability to change our minds should further information contradict it.”

  “Agreed.”

  Returning to my desk, I took a sheet of paper and began to set down what the ambassador had said precisely, while I still had it in my mind. The work took perhaps ten minutes. It had been a discouraging meeting. Once I was done I took the Hammond typewriting machine and prepared to put a piece of paper into it.

  “B’lay that, confound it!” the Guv cried. “Out. Take Jenkins along. Buy him an early pint or two. I must think and I cannot do so with that racket!”

  There was a gasp of wonder from our outer office. A pint in the afternoon? And possibly another after? Jenkins could hardly believe his luck.

  “If you wish,” I said, feeling ill-used.

  I donned my coat and hat, my gloves and muffler, and ushered Jenkins out the door. We headed south on Whitehall Street. The sun was shining, but generating little warmth. It takes some work to get the Guv in such a mood, although it is not unheard of. Under normal circumstances he counsels patience. Physician, heal thyself, I thought.

  We turned in at the former gates of Scotland Yard, then left into the Rising Sun, Jenkins’s sanctum. I bought each of us a pint of stout. Everyone knew Jenkins there and no one knew me, so he slipped away and left me to myself. Brooding is contagious, and I had definitely caught whatever Barker had. Seeing him up against it was disheartening.

  The Guv needed an hour or two, I reckoned, making it the perfect day for book hunting. I had money in my pocket and time to waste, so why spend time in a public house? I left Jenkins in his element and stepped out into the cold, my mind buoyed. Yes, a book was just the thing.

  Then a boy ran headlong into me, asked if I was Thomas Llewelyn, and on being told I was, pushed a note into my hand. Blast, I thought. Reaching into my pocket, I flicked a sixpence in his direction. He caught it and evaporated.

  The note read:

  Red Lion. Come if you can. Urgent.

  The Red Lion was a public house at the foot of Whitehall, not far from Westminster Bridge. I debated whether to return to our chambers and deliver the note to the Guv. The urchin had placed it in my hand, however, and addressed me by name. Was it a trap? Possibly. However, it was the “Come if you can” that puzzled me. It implied that the sender knew me. There was no order, no threat. Should I go, Barker would simply note that I was overlong in returning.

  My sword cane was in my hand. It was midday and I would be fully visible in Whitehall Street for most of the way. I read the note again. It was harmless enough, I decided. I would risk it. The thoroughfare was free of blue coats or suspicious persons as I walked along, swinging my stick. No satchel at all, chaps, I thought, just a man out for a stroll. I reached the pub without so much as a scratch and stepped inside.

  A chair squeaked. I turned my head and saw one turned away from the door. I looked about, seeing if there was a more promising lead forthcoming, but there wasn’t. I ordered and took my pint of nut-brown ale to the table where a man sat in the chair that was turned away.

  “Terry,” I murmured in greeting.

  Detective Inspector Terence Poole nodded. He was an old friend of ours, but that friendship had come to him at a cost. We had grown too friendly and that familiarity with a pair of enquiry agents had damaged his career. In theory, there was an invisible line separating private agents such as ourselves from the Met. We were not to congregate, to have a pint together as we were, or to socialize during the evening. His promotion from inspector to detective inspector moved him out of our kin, but from time to time we’d receive a surreptitious card or a message from him. Seeing him face-to-face now, I realized what a risk he was taking. Should anyone who knew us both walk through the door, Poole might find himself in a spot of trouble. Another spot, that is.

  I looked away and sipped my ale. Two unacquainted men jammed into the corner of a busy London public house.

  “I hear congratulations are in order,” he said in a low voice. “On your marriage and promotion, I mean.”

  “Thank you,” I replied. “However, I assume this subterfuge is not merely to pat me on the back.”

  He smiled. When I first met Poole back in 1884, he wore long Dundreary whiskers of a ginger color. Now they were gone, replaced with a regulation mustache. I understand the need to have officers look clean scrubbed and neat in their uniforms. It breeds solidarity and a sense of trust in the middle classes. It also made it more difficult to distinguish between officers. Gone were the homely black beards of the rural constabularies. The younger men who had joined the Met clean shaven had begun to grow mustaches either to appear older, to achieve positions, or to look like one of their fellows. One could sell mustache wax by the pint at the Yard these days.

  “What have you done now?” Poole asked, glancing about.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The commissioner is in a lather. Barker’s done something to tread on his bunions.”

  “That’s not difficult,” I said. “The man is a bunion himself.”

  Poole buried a smile in his pewter mug. “There must be something.”

  “No, I don’t think so. We’ve been busy, but I wasn’t aware we were treading on anyone’s toes.”

  “What about now? Anything stirring?”

  “I can’t discuss our current case.”

  “Ahhh,” he purred.

  “Ah, yourself.”

  “Animal, vegetable, or mineral?”

  “I said I can’t discuss it and I mean it.”

  Poole nodded as if it were a foregone conclusion that I would break the silence and lay it all before him. I might have at some time, but now I was part of an agency, not a mere hireling. Like Poole himself, I had to toe the line.

  “We are … working for the government.”

  “Same here,” he said. “The pay is rubbish, isn’t it?”

  “Scotland Yard is out of it, I understand.”

  Poole nodded. “Probably best, then,” he said. “We’re not begging for work. My caseload would choke a draft horse.”

  “Good,” I answered.

  Poole took a gulp of his pint and waved for another. “It’s almost comical, isn’t it? Munro and Barker. The two of them are stubborn Scotsmen obsessed with their work. The same work. And yet the two despise each other.”

  “I wondered what caused such hostility,” I said.

  Pool gave me a strange look. “You’re joking, aren’t you?”

 
“No,” I said. “Why?”

  “You don’t know, then?”

  “What are you on about?”

  “Oh, this is too rich. I could barter with this for all the information you possess.”

  “Look,” I told him. “If you’re going to tell me, then tell me. If not, don’t leave me dangling on the hook.”

  “Oh, it is tempting,” he said, trying not to chuckle. “I’d make you promise to keep me informed, but it was difficult and dangerous enough for me to meet you here. If the commissioner knew I was still Cyrus’s friend, I’d be sacked.”

  “Look, Terry, I cannot reveal anything on this case. Sworn to secrecy and all that. If I could, you’d be the first to know.”

  Poole nodded and began his second pint. “I understand. It was just too good a fly to drop in front of you.”

  He took a long, slow sip. I don’t know which he savored more, the ale or keeping me waiting.

  “Well?”

  “Oh, very well. Munro was the johnnie who turned down Barker’s request to become a constable years ago when he first came from China. He didn’t care for your Guv’s curriculum vitae, since it was not provable without traveling to Peking and questioning the Imperial government. Then there was the matter of Cyrus’s spectacles. I believe Munro actually demanded that he remove them, which, of course, he refused.”

  “I see.”

  “Things rolled downhill from there, I hear. The commissioner is known for his temper and your guv’nor is not known for his amiability. There was an argument, which became a shouting match, and either Cyrus marched out or was thrown out. Which it was depends on who tells the story.”

  “I’d like to have been there.”

  “I, as well. I was a newly minted inspector at the time, relegated to far-off Wimbledon. I only heard about it later. You know how policemen will talk. No one knew Barker from Adam, of course, but there was no love wasted on Munro among the men. He never had that knack for making himself well liked. Too much of the bully in him. He never remembers your name, unless you are on his list of the Great Unfavored. I should know, I’ve been on that list for years. He’s put me on every rotten duty in London, but I won’t quit. I’ve got a wife and a pension to consider.”

  “How is Mrs. Poole these days?”

  “Cracking.”

  “So, is that all? Between Barker and Munro, I mean.”

  Poole smiled again and took another long pull at his pint. “From what I’ve been able to piece together, Barker left in a towering rage. Munro had been, well, Munro, I suppose. Cyrus was walking north when he came to Craig’s Court and noticed the private detective signs fluttering in the breeze. One of the offices was to let.”

  “Number 7.”

  “Precisely. He purchased the building on the spot. It took him less than two hours to track the estate agent and fill out the proper forms. It took less than two weeks to furbish and furnish the place, hire Jeremy, and open his doors. With no experience whatsoever, beyond some story about keeping the Empress Dowager from getting poisoned. Have you heard that one?”

  “I have.”

  “Can you imagine it? Most of the detectives in Craig’s Court are former police officers. This fellow swans in with no experience but plenty of money, buying the prime office in the street. They were inclined to hate him, naturally, which they did until they heard about his row with Munro. Then they became sympathetic. Some even helped him along a little. They—we—even suggested he place a large hoarding over the entrance, THE BARKER AGENCY, so that every time Munro took a hansom north in Whitehall he had to pass that blasted sign and recall that he was responsible for it.”

  “If you had been in Munro’s shoes, would you have given him the situation?”

  “Good Lord, no. He was unsuitable in every way. He doesn’t take orders, he never does anything the same way twice, he tends to ride roughshod one minute and forgive like a saint the next. Your Guv is one of the most nonconformist men in London, and I don’t mean his faith. He’d have been sacked within a week.”

  “So, Munro was right about him.”

  “Yes, but he needn’t have been so shirty about it. The man has no tact.”

  “How did he come to be commissioner, then?”

  “James Munro is relentless and tenacious. When the Irish Special Branch was created, it wasn’t very popular. He begged for it, wheedled, connived, if you will. The Met learned early that it is best to let him have his way. He’ll find a man’s weaknesses and exploit them. He’s actually a good judge of men, which is necessary in his work, and to be truthful, he’s not a bad administrator. He knows how to deal with government agencies and can genuflect to both donors and aristocrats. Everyone above him admires him. Every man below him despises him. But then, I’ve never worked under a commissioner I’d care to have a pint with.”

  “So when did you first meet the Guv?”

  “There was a murder in Wimbledon. A multiple murder. I was investigating it when I found him questioning a witness. Who was this bizarre fellow in his long leather coat and dark spectacles? As I said, we at the Yard have no love for private agents. Anyway, I sent him off with a flea in his ear. Afterward, every witness I spoke to admitted they’d spoken to him already, generally the day before, which I took to mean that he was a day ahead of me. He has a particular camaraderie with the lower classes. You know, buy the man a pint, ask him about his family, and commiserate about his worthless job. Barker’s the opposite of Munro. Everyone below him respects him, and he feels no need to impress his superiors because, frankly speaking, he doesn’t find them particularly superior.”

  He took another pull of his pint. I wondered if he was going to have a third and what kind of work he’d be fit for after three drinks.

  “I ran into Cyrus again in much the same manner as I did the first time. The thought to give him an earful occurred to me, but instead we began talking. He explained that he’d been hired by the family of one of the deceased women. The murders occurred at a small dinner party. Two couples, both young, butchered like pigs, they were. Blood everywhere, knife marks in the table, broken crockery.

  “There was an escaped murderer in London at the time who was known to have been born and bred in Wimbledon. He still had family there. Tracking him down was my priority, but as I spoke with Barker, he revealed what he had learned: one of the murdered women had recently had a baby. Apparently, the other had been trying for some time to conceive, but had miscarried. Not once; three times, it was. Cyrus talked to me about the emotional, nearly physical need of some women to have a child. They might do anything to have one. How can a gruff fellow like him have such insight into the mind of a woman?”

  “I’ve wondered that myself,” I said.

  “Without even seeing inside the house, or having permission to visit the bodies, he put forth a theory. Mrs. Pangley had snapped during the dinner, possibly after the other, Mrs. Lee, had gushed about her child. She’d stabbed Mr. Lee with a dinner knife, then Mrs. Lee, but in the struggle with her, she had been stabbed, as well. A mother will do anything to protect her child, which at that moment was upstairs in the nursery. Mr. Pangley, who must have been completely astonished, tried to get his wife to leave, but she wasn’t about to go anywhere without that infant. So, it was good-bye to her husband.

  “After that, it would have been a simple matter for her to climb the stairs, take the baby, and leave. It was a young family with no servants, and the nanny had left for the night. Mrs. Pangley made it to the stairway, but was bleeding heavily from her wound. We found a trail of blood to the stairs. She never reached the top step. Nobody knew what happened until neighbors heard the baby crying, the only being alive in the house.

  “The wounds and the story matched the truth. Cyrus gave all the credit to me. He hadn’t been hired, he said, to solve the case for the general public, but merely to satisfy Mrs. Lee’s family. They were horror-struck at the tale, of course, but defending her child while she herself was dying was just the sort of thing the young
Mrs. Lee would do, they said. Can you imagine two young ladies in their finery, stabbing each other with knives over the best china?”

  I absorbed that thought for the next minute, or tried to. It wasn’t easy. “And you and Barker became friends after that?”

  “Of a sort, I suppose. I was loath to open myself more fully to him, but as we began to know each other, I trusted him. We helped each other on at least three more cases and were partially in competition on five others. He invited me to dinner at his home, and before I knew it, we were mates.”

  “Until you were caught.”

  “Right. Stopping by at his offices too often was my fault. I’d been moved to ‘A’ Division and he was just round the corner. It was noted by the other inspectors, your chambers being so close to Whitehall Street. They peached on me to my superiors. They might not have cared a whit, but Munro did. He threatened to sack me, instead demoting me and transferring me to Ipswich. Ipswich, can you believe it? Nothing happens in Ipswich. People die naturally in their beds there. When a string of burglaries led to a murder, I used Barker’s methods and, to my astonishment, solved the case. As luck would have it, the victim was the son of an MP. I was made a detective inspector on the condition that I did not make use of a certain private enquiry agent again.”

  “You haven’t spoken to him, then?”

  He laughed. “Of course I have. I’m merely more devious about it now, like speaking to his assistant streets away from Scotland Yard.”

  “Not his assistant. His partner.”

  “Yes. You do realize how fortunate you are, don’t you? You were a former felon without a situation six years ago. You’ve done well for yourself.”

  “No,” I said. “Mr. Barker has done well by me. I’ve improved, but not to the level of being a partner in the agency. Look, let us change the subject. Do you believe Munro is involved in this matter?”