by Will Thomas
“How should I know, since you will not tell me of it?”
“Sorry.”
“Just tell your employer—your partner—to be extremely circumspect. The commissioner is an old rascal and he has all of the Metropolitan Police behind him. Expect a visit. Thanks for the drinks.”
“Drinks?”
“You’re the new partner. I’m but a lowly working man.”
He was off. It had been good to talk with Poole again. I’d missed him and I’m sure the Guv felt it even more keenly than I. I paid the publican and left.
There were four empty glasses on the table at Jeremy Jenkins’s elbow when I returned to the Rising Sun. However, I realized that he could drink twice that in two hours and that this was him being abstemious. I bumped him on the elbow and nodded my head toward the door. He readily rose from his chair. I tossed some coins on the bar and we left.
“The Guv is keeping a tight lip these days, Mr. L.,” he said. “What’s a-going on?”
I filled him in, believing he needed to know.
“Is this gonna change how we work?” he asked.
“I wish I knew.”
When we arrived in our chambers, Barker was sitting as he was before, still resting his leg on the corner of his desk, still staring out the window, though the snow had stopped. I was doffing my coat and hanging my muffler on a peg when I saw the blood. There was only a splash, a little more than mere drops. It was in front of his desk, having missed his Persian rug by half an inch.
I looked at the Guv. There was a cut in the sleeve of his coat, near the shoulder. No obvious bloodstain was visible. I turned my head. Beside Barker’s faded coat of arms, one of his claymores was missing. No, not missing, I realized; it was on the table below it, streaked with blood.
“Gave as well as got?” I asked. That was a question he often asked me after a bout.
He smiled. He rarely smiles and when he does he looks like a wolf baring his teeth.
Turning my chair to the desk in the middle of the room, I sat and faced him.
“Why do I think getting Jenkins and me out of the building was a ploy to flush someone out of the bushes?”
“I am not responsible for what you think.”
“By the way, greetings from Terry Poole.”
“Ah!” he said, removing the injured limb from the desk. “Terry. What is he about these days?”
“He brought a warning. Apparently, Commissioner Munro is after your scalp.”
Barker glared at me, or I assumed he did. Behind those black spectacles, it’s hard to tell.
“Well,” he replied at length. “The man’s welcome to try.”
CHAPTER TEN
An hour or so later, the Guv sent me to get the latest edition of The Times. So far, nothing had been printed about Drummond’s death. Barker wanted to know when the funeral would take place so he could see who would attend. We frequent a newsstand in Charing Cross Road. I purchased a copy and returned, clutching my bowler in the chill wind. No one has ever accused me of having second sight, but something told me I was being followed.
“’Ello, Gormless,” a voice said in my ear.
I jumped away and glared. There was a thin fellow beside me, rather young, in a top hat and suit, but no overcoat. I was wary of young men, thinking them Drummond’s pursuers. This one lifted his head enough for me to see under the brim of his hat, and when I did, he tipped me a wink.
“Oh, no,” I said. “Tell me it isn’t so. Vic, you old muck snipe, I hoped you were dead.”
Soho Vic was one of the earlier banes of my existence. He was an errand boy, or an organizer of errand boys, who arrived at odd moments, always managing to insult me, go through my pockets, and steal Barker’s guest cigars. I hadn’t seen him in a year or two at least. He’d not only grown like the proverbial weed, he’d somehow acquired a reputable suit and hat. When I last saw him, he was barefoot in all kinds of weather, and wore loose trousers held up with rope.
“Foozler,” he countered.
“Rat bag.”
“Gibface.”
“Lackwit.”
He waggled his eyebrows. “Like old times, init? Fancy running into you. I’m on the way to your Guv’s chambers.”
“Where have you been all this time?” I asked.
“Push sent me to a tutor. Taught me to read and write proper enough to become a clerk for a solicitor in Cheapside.”
“You mean there is someone on earth stupid enough to hire you?”
“Half days,” he said, ignoring the insult. “I still run me messenger lads. Your master said he wants ter see me.”
“It must be a mistake, Stashu. No one wants to see you.”
Soho Vic was not his actual name. Stanislieu Sohovic was born in Poland and brought to London as an infant. What happened to his parents I never heard, but when I first met him he was a kind of half-pint Fagin, watching over a warren of dirty mud larks who kept things together by delivering messages, picking pockets, and whatever else was necessary to survive. I would have warned Barker about having a soft spot for hard-lucks if in fact I was not one of them. Stashu was the diminutive of Stanisleiu. He loathed it, therefore I used it.
Vic opened the door to our chambers and removed his hat with a grand gesture, then closed the door against me when I entered. I struggled in.
“As I live and breathe,” Jenkins said. “If it isn’t the tyke! Good to see you, Vic.”
“Mister Jenkins, you are a sight! Haven’t aged a day since we last met.”
I gauged Soho Vic was about seventeen now. His hair was combed, his face washed, and someone had actually wiped his pug nose.
“Vic!” Barker boomed.
Soho Vic liberated a cigar from a box on Barker’s desk and threw himself into a chair.
“So, what’s the situation, Push?” he asked the Guv.
“I wondered if you would like to make some money, Vic.”
“I’m not averse. What do I has to do?”
“Due to matters I cannot discuss, I shall be sending and receiving a good deal of information here in Craig’s Court for a time. I need some reliable couriers. How many of your lads are up to such work?”
“Ten or fifteen, I’d say.”
“What would be necessary in order to make someone choose one of your lads over any others to deliver messages in Whitehall?”
“A clean suit and shoes for each of them. No gloves or overcoats. We’d have to fight to keep them.”
“Done. What else?” Barker asked from the recesses of his wing-backed chair.
“A place to stay. P’rhaps with piped water. Suits don’t go with dirty faces.”
The last I saw Vic’s face it was none too clean. How a few years can change a person. Or Vic, for that matter.
“Done again.”
“’Ere now, this is too easy. You want summat in return.”
Barker nodded. “I do.”
“Spit it out, then!”
“Very well. I want you to give up your other endeavors for a little while. No more dipping. No more snaking.”
Dipping was picking pockets, of course, and snaking was climbing in through windows and chimneys in order to unlock doors for a professional thief. These were criminal activities, of course, but when you’re cold and starving, you’re not exactly particular.
Soho Vic shook his head. “That would put us too much in your debt. We’d be dependent on you. Go all soft. You’ve already got us reading and writing. There’s plenty of work here, but a like number of boys doing it. What’s to stop us from getting our hats handed to us?”
Vic bit into the end of the cigar, then lit it from a striker on the desk.
“Organization,” my employer said. “Fifteen boys delivering messages regularly, impressing the clerks in Whitehall, ready to stand together if one of you is threatened.”
“I get it.”
“I’ll act as a reference.”
“No, thanks, Push,” Vic said, holding up a hand. “Your name is not exactly wh
at it once was.”
“We’re going to change that, you and me.”
“You’re up to something,” Soho Vic said.
“Up to my neck,” Barker admitted. “And it’s barely started.”
“And I imagine you’re keeping Witless here in the dark.”
He grinned at me. Someday I was going to stuff his throat with those teeth. All the same, he was probably right.
Soho Vic swiveled his head in my direction. “Is this on the level?”
“If it’s Cyrus Barker, you know it is,” I said, shrugging my shoulders.
“I’ll think about it,” he answered.
“Don’t think too long,” my employer said. “There are other boys who would jump at the chance. I offered this to you first because we’ve had a business arrangement in the past.”
“Right. I’ll let you know. Lots to think about. Some of these messenger boys in Whitehall have scrabbled hard to get where they are and won’t take kindly to having the likes of me waltzing in and taking over.”
“I didn’t promise it would be easy,” Barker said. “I need someone with determination.”
“A ‘lean and hungry look,’” I supplied.
“I forgot what a prat you are,” Vic told me.
“Dung beetle.”
“Lick-spittle.”
“Guttersnipe.”
“Enough!” Barker growled. “Mr. Jenkins, will you come here a moment?”
I heard the chair squeak in the next room. Presently Jenkins tottered in, looking mildly suspicious. We are called by our last names either when we are in trouble, or when we are about to be asked to do something we don’t wish to do. Neither is a happy prospect.
“Sir?”
“I need you to arrange for food and lodging for Vic and his boys for a few days.”
“Naw,” Soho Vic said, his voice scornful. “We can feed ourselves right enough.”
Jenkins pinched his lips together in worry. “How far away shall they be?”
“I want them in Lambeth, near Waterloo Bridge,” Barker said. “Find a reliable land agent on the south side of the river. A temporary property for a dozen, mind. Near a pump.”
“When, sir?” Jenkins asked.
“Now.”
“I’m off, then,” he said, and he was.
Soho Vic knocked on Barker’s desk. “Here, I didn’t say I’d accept the offer.”
“You’ll accept it. The tips here would be double those in the East End.”
“We’d have to knock some heads, show people we won’t take nothin’ off no one.”
Vic looked at me, as if I could help him make such an important decision. He was but seventeen in spite of his bravado. I nodded. We both knew the Guv was a man of his word.
“Gotta go,” he said. “Things to see, people to do. Ta, Push. See yer later, Fopdoddle!”
“Not if I see you first,” I called.
When he was gone, I crushed the end of his cigar in an ashtray.
“This is getting expensive,” I noted casually, though I knew Barker could purchase a half-dozen such residences.
“Along with the information the Knights Templar receives, there is a substantial amount of money provided by wealthier members of the organization, and a certain amount of speculation. Only for sanctioned use, of course.”
“Are we up to this, sir?” I asked. “This sounds like a large endeavor, even for you.”
“Mr. Humphrey next door might be willing to deal with the financial matters.”
“You mean the president of Cox and Co. Bank? He’s a member of the Knights Templar?”
“Yes, of course.”
“I thought so. How large is this organization exactly?”
“I cannot say,” the Guv replied.
“You’re helming an organization and you don’t even know how many members you have?”
“Oh, I know how many, lad, but I cannot say. You are not one of us.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I genuinely believe that those we question should have the courtesy to wait patiently for our arrival. True, we had not set an appointment, and also true that they did not know us from Adam, but that was mere negligence on their part. They should have known, or so I explained to the Guv. He merely sighed from deep within his broad chest.
“‘Landgraf Johann Valentine von Arnstein,’” I read from the Home Office’s list of suspects. “‘Austrian citizen with no clear purpose.’ Was ist ein Landgraf?”
A wheel of our hansom cab dipped into a pothole, and Barker seized the leather-covered door in front of us.
“You are the scholar, lad, not I.”
“Let’s see … Graf is some kind of noble. A count, I think. So a Landgraf would be a count who owns lands. Extensive lands, perhaps, or borderlands. In either case, he is an aristocrat. It’s an odd thing about aristocrats—”
“They feel little need to answer questions put to them by mere private enquiry agents.”
“Precisely,” I said.
Count Arnstein was not at the Austrian embassy, neither was he at Brown’s Hotel in Mayfair. The desk clerk would not tell us where he was, but a concierge, with two of my guineas snug in his pocket, informed us that the fellow was riding in Hyde Park. It seemed unreasonable to be riding in such weather. It just solidified my opinion that most aristocrats are inbred. Eventually, we tracked the suspect to his lair in an indoor pen that was part of the famous stables. I was going to speak to him but I was distracted by the absolutely gorgeous bit of horseflesh he was putting through his paces.
“My word,” I said, coming to the gate. “Is that an actual Lipizzaner?”
The count nodded to me. He wore a dark coat and a low helmet of black velvet.
“I never thought I’d live to see one. Is he Spanish Riding School trained?”
“He is,” Arnstein said in a low voice, as he had the horse actually walk sideways, hoof over hoof.
“The Habsburgs owned Austria and Spain four hundred years ago,” I replied. “As I recall, the Spaniards brought six Moorish horses to Vienna and those six eventually sired the entire strain.”
“They did.”
He removed his helmet as he spoke. The man was perhaps forty, with short curling hair and side whiskers, and a lean face. His lower lip protruded from under his upper; it was the famous, or infamous Habsburg lip, common to many of that ancient and powerful line. Europe was littered with paintings of his ancestors. I was trying to recall if any of the Holy Roman emperors had been seen on a white charger when I was stopped as the man struggled to get off the horse. The count had only one arm, the sleeve pinned to the shoulder. Bad luck, I thought.
“Can I help you, gentlemen?” he asked. His accent was far stiffer than the German ambassador’s. I tried to picture a bloodthirsty monarch, but this fellow did not measure up.
“Count Arnstein,” said Barker. “We are enquiry agents.”
“Detectives, you mean?”
“Indeed. We have been hired to search for a missing manuscript and your name has been mentioned. Have you heard of such a thing?”
“Thin strips of dark leather, written in Greek?”
“You know them?” I asked.
“I should say so,” he told me. “I found them.”
“Found them?”
“Discovered them, rather. I own a curio shop in Palestine. Often I purchase items from the residents: coins and relics, potshards, that sort of thing. I also dig for them myself. It does not require sound limbs to do the work, if one has the money to hire workers.”
“Do you work for your government?” the Guv asked.
“Franz Joseph is my cousin, but I am not employed by them otherwise.”
We stepped into a locker room where the man laboriously began to change. I wanted to help him but it would have been an assault on his dignity, I think. Luckily, there was one of those wooden frames that remove boots to help him get them off. We backed away to give him his privacy. He came out ten minutes later, looking dapper.
> “We appreciate your speaking to us, sir,” Barker said.
“I have a meeting in three hours and nothing else to occupy my time. Also, I have never spoken to a detective before, let alone two. It is cold here, however. Perhaps we can meet at my hotel for some sherry.” He turned and called to a man waiting nearby. “Boy!”
The man came running but he was not less than sixty.
“Rub the horse down for me. Feed him the hay we brought and half a sack of oats, no more. Then blanket him and put him in his stall. With fresh water, mind.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We have a hansom waiting, if you will share it,” the Guv said.
As if by some miracle, the sun had reclaimed the heavens when we came out. One felt safe removing one’s gloves. Hyde Park was glittering in the sunshine, and one would not wish to be anywhere else. As if by mutual agreement, the Guv and I turned away while Arnstein climbed slowly into the cab.
“You need not accommodate me, sirs,” he said. “I get where I need to go, if a trifle more slowly.”
“As do I, sir,” Barker replied, indicating his brace.
Within fifteen minutes, we were ensconced in a lounge at Brown’s, three stuffed leather chairs facing a generous fire. A few minutes later, our sherries arrived. Neither Cyrus Barker nor I like sherry, but sharing a drink with someone can open channels between you.
“For whom do you work, Mr. Barker?” Arnstein asked.
“I’m afraid my client prefers to remain anonymous.”
The count smiled. “That does not seem quite fair if I am to answer your questions.”
“True,” my employer admitted. “Let me put it this way. Part of my search is to answer my own curiosity. I have not been officially retained to track down your manuscript.”
“Ah, but you see, it is my manuscript no longer. I sold it to the German government and have been duly paid. If they lost it that is not my concern.”
“You delivered the manuscript to Berlin?” the Guv asked.
“No, to Vienna. An envoy of the Kaiser met me along with a scholar who verified the authenticity of the material. Then we traveled to my bank and placed the amount in my account.”
