Lethal Pursuit

by Will Thomas

  “How much were they willing to pay?” I asked.

  “I would rather not say, but it was a princely sum. I anticipate the German government will attempt to retrieve the payment, but my solicitor assures me that I am in the right, legally. Nevertheless, I am here.”

  Barker pulled himself deeper into the overstuffed chair, and I watched as the fire flickered in his reflective lenses. He managed to sip the sherry without making a face.

  “Why are you here, Count Arnstein, if you have no need of the manuscript any longer?”

  The count leaned forward as if we were coconspirators.

  “I am buying a dam, gentlemen. Or rather, commissioning one. My homeland may not be known to you. It is Styria, in Southern Austria. During the spring thaw each year there is flooding, some of it quite severe. My little country is not as prosperous as when my family ruled Europe. It was fortunate that I made my discovery when I did. It may be our only chance to build the dam at all.”

  “Surely you could find engineers in your own country.”

  “Not on this scale. The ones I met were very much immured in the eighteenth century. The Germans refused me for obvious reasons and my people have no wish to be beholden to the Swiss. You English have a reputation for dams and earthworks. I thought I would try here with the famous Major Pennycuick. His dam in Madras is a marvel, I’m told.”

  I raised my shoulder a little to let the Guv know I’d never heard of the chap. In my defense, engineering marvels are not the first thing I hunt for in The Times. I prefer The Idler, anyway.

  “How came you by the manuscript, Count?” Barker asked.

  Arnstein moved forward, more animated than I had seen him before.

  “I have been consumed with biblical excavation since I was first taken to Palestine by my father when I was a youth. He, too, was interested in Old Testament sites. There is so much still to be found! There is Solomon’s tomb, for example, or some sign that his father, David, once lived. An undistinguished building in Jerusalem might contain the Upper Room where Christ dined with his disciples. Palestine is a treasure trove!”

  “Surely your health must make your work difficult,” I said.

  “I am a different man under a hot Palestinian sun,” he replied. Set me down in a dig and I shall climb about like a monkey. Perhaps if I had lost this limb I might have missed it, but I was born without it and I make do to accomplish anything.”

  “The manuscript, sir,” Barker repeated from the depths of his chair. “How did you come by it?”

  “My curio shop is in the Old City. There we clean and authenticate what we find. Meanwhile, the shop also purchases discoveries and items sold by locals. This may include tomb robbers. Sometimes it is difficult to tell them from the general population. I should like to tell you I made the discovery of the manuscript myself, but I’m afraid it came in the front door. Two boys, no more than seventeen, found a cave while searching for a leather ball. The manuscript was in the bottom of a pot that was cracked but still sealed. I quickly saw how important the slips—that’s what we called them, slips—might be.”

  “How do you know it is not a forgery?” I asked. “I mean, if anyone could spot one, I’m sure it’s you, but how do you know?”

  “Three ways, Mr. Llewelyn. First, one painstakingly studies the words in the text. Then one examines the fragments under a microscope. We had the boys lead us to the actual cave where we found shards, but no other slips. Then we consulted a translator from the University of Athens, under secrecy, of course.”

  “You said three ways. What is the third?”

  “It is by understanding how forgers work. A letter wrong and our Greek friend would pounce upon it like a cat on a mouse. Any attempt to use oil paint or India ink would be revealed under my microscope. One must be scrupulous or lose one’s reputation. There are others clawing for my position, you see.”

  “You say the Germans pay well,” Barker rumbled.

  “Oh, yes. The manuscript would legitimize their claim as a modern imperialist nation. Everyone in Jerusalem knew of it. Old fragments and fakes were brought out like an old whore in a new dress, hoping to impress the Berliners. The Kaiser himself wants something to prove his own fitness to rule, a sign from on high, if you will. He wants a new bauble to impress everyone. He is a child in adult’s clothing.”

  “What of Franz Joseph?” I asked. “Does he have no need for such a manuscript?”

  “He would rather drink champagne and be cosseted by Viennese society than concern himself with religious scholarship. However, we are cousins and good Catholics, so I will not quarrel.”

  “Ah,” Barker mused, looking into the fire.

  “Do you think you will find it?” Arnstein asked.

  The Guv shrugged his brawny shoulders. “Who can say? It is somewhere. People are looking for it. I might as well follow the herd. Perhaps fortune will shine upon me.”

  “I believe it might.”

  The count finished his thimbleful of sherry and poured another.

  “I miss the food from home,” he said.

  “Viennese food?” I asked. “Weiner schnitzel and sauerkraut? Sacher torte?”

  He shook his head. “Too rich for me. I prefer a humble Beuschel myself, and perhaps a Kolatsche.”

  “Is the dam vital to your country?” Barker asked.

  “A town was destroyed last spring after the thaw. A church that stood for a millennium was gone in a day. It is already too late for this year, but perhaps it will be finished for next year.”

  Barker nodded.

  “My father was banished, you know. To be sent to Styria was to be an exile from Vienna and the Court. It would not do to have close relatives intriguing about you. However, my father came to love Styria. I was born there and know little else. Vienna glitters, but the stars over Graz sparkle like diamonds.”

  “Very poetic,” the Guv replied.

  “You are a practical man, Mr. Barker.”

  The count moved to pour more sherry into my employer’s delicate glass, but Barker put a rough hand over the rim.

  “Where do you suppose the manuscript is now?”

  “I have no idea and I don’t especially care. My only concern is that the Germans are not successful in their suit and that they don’t blame the Catholics.”

  He stood and nodded before walking away.

  “Conclusions?” Barker growled in my ear, a bass note.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I cannot understand aristocrats. When a fellow tells me Franz Joseph is his cousin, I don’t know how to respond. He’s just a chap as I am, I suppose, but I can no more understand a man coming to London to buy a dam than he can a convict becoming a private enquiry agent.”

  “You were never really a convict.”

  “Oh, no? There are scars on my fingertips from picking oakum.”

  “I’ll trade your scars for mine, laddie,” Barker said, smiling.

  “I’ll keep mine, thank you. Why did he bother speaking to us at all? Is he that well mannered? We’ve been given an airing once or twice by a duke who doesn’t like us meddling in his private affairs.”

  “More than twice. There is nothing to force them to even answer Scotland Yard’s questions.”

  “Count Arnstein was forthcoming about how the manuscript came into his possession,” I noted. “Unfortunately, there is no way to corroborate any of his statements.”

  “Aye,” said the Guv.

  “He may never have even been to Jerusalem. I did see curio shops near the bazaar during my honeymoon, but he could just as easily find a map in the British Museum or a guidebook to Palestine and pretend to know what he’s talking about.”

  Barker pushed the tiny glass of sherry farther away on the table as if he would be contaminated by it.

  “I envy you your recent visit, Thomas. I was there once, on my way to England, but could only stay half a day. I could have spent a month there. I suppose excavating ancient treasures is like enquiry work in some ways. A man can get
caught up in the work and never leave. To possibly unearth one important find in a lifetime, a scroll, a carving, an ancient village, would be enough to make the heat, the flies, and the solitude all worthwhile.”

  He was staring deeply into the fire now, but he was far away. There it was again. He’d been cast out by his own church for supporting Charles Haddon Spurgeon in his disgrace. Now Barker was adrift, unable to find a church that followed his tenets and envious of those who found spiritual refuge.

  “Let’s be on, Thomas, before you fall asleep.”

  Irascible, that’s what he was. I was awake, for the most part.

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  We stepped out into the thaw again. There were patches of dead grass pushing up through the melting snow. I could no longer see my breath.

  I would take Rebecca to the zoological gardens in Regent’s Park, I decided, if the weather turned fair in a few days. Our marriage was still new, and I felt I needed to entertain and impress her. I wondered how she was, sitting in her house, taking visitations from her crowd of Jewish brides, young and old.

  “Let us walk, Thomas.”

  We strolled through Hyde Park, one hand on our sticks, the other in our pockets, as if there were not a manuscript hidden somewhere, as if it were a Sunday afternoon and we had nothing better to do than take the air.

  “So, when, sir?” I asked, jumping puddles to reach an omnibus in front of the palace gates.

  “When what, Thomas?” he asked.

  “The manuscript, sir. When are we taking it to Calais?”

  “Whenever it suits me,” he said, as he stepped onto the omnibus. “Stop asking.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  We were not long in our chambers when a man entered with a constable. Then another constable, and another, and another. By the time they had all arrived, there were six of them. The Guv sat back in his chair and regarded our visitors.

  “So many?” he asked.

  “Barker, you’re under arrest,” said Commissioner James Munro of the London Metropolitan Police.

  “You’re going to need a few more men, I think,” I said.

  He scowled. “You, too, Llewelyn.”

  “Then you definitely need more men.”

  “Of what are we accused?” Barker asked.

  “Never you mind. You’ll answer questions in the investigation room.”

  “I could answer them here as easily as there.”

  Munro stepped back, ready to wave the constables to take us. He was a stocky fellow in his mid-fifties, with a dark mustache and graying hair cut short on a bullet-shaped head. He frowned. He always frowned, every time I’ve ever seen him.

  Barker sighed and rose from his chair. Of the six constables, three looked ready to attack, while three others seemed more likely to retreat.

  “There is no need for that. Come, Thomas. May we be allowed to take our coats?”

  The men watched us carefully, as if we would pull pistols from our pockets. I drew it out, wrapping my scarf carefully into my coat, then donned my rabbit-lined gloves, merely to irritate Scotland Yard.

  A constable came forward and took the Guv’s arm. Cyrus Barker seemed to swell, then, the menace of him, the protean danger that he could cause. Everything around him became a weapon, from the hat rack to a book on Jenkins’s desk. I’m not sure if one could kill someone with a book, but if it were possible, the Guv could do it. Then just as easily, he diminished, and became just a man, a normal man, if one did not know better.

  “Shall we go?” the Guv asked. “Jeremy, inform our solicitor.”

  “Righto,” Jenkins said from behind his desk. I’m certain Munro’s entrance had woken him from his chair. On one hand, he’d had no sleep; on the other, his waiting room had just been invaded, and there was nothing he could do about it.

  A pair of constables held my arms on each side, but I still managed to stop at our waiting-room desk.

  “Quite the watchdog,” I said.

  Our clerk smiled, with a hint of mischief in his eyes.

  My concern was that the commissioner would make a public spectacle of dragging us to Great Scotland Yard Street, but for once, he did not take advantage of the situation. We were escorted past the old offices with which we were so familiar, to the gleaming new buildings that reminded me of a wedding cake. Once inside the front doors, I called over my head to a man behind the front desk.

  “Morning, Sergeant Kirkwood!”

  “Bless my soul,” he replied to my back. “If it isn’t the Guv and his nibs!”

  We did not tarry. In the time it would take for Barker to light a pipe, we were marched to a holding cell and locked in.

  That was standard procedure for hardened criminals such as Barker and myself. Even the most famous or infamous suspect must share a cell with the other dregs of humanity: the drunks, the pickpockets, the wife beaters and rampsmen, who make Scotland Yard such a colorful and interesting place. They cleared a bench for us and we sat.

  “I wondered if you were going to fight your way out of our predicament,” I said to the Guv.

  “I considered it, lad, but I cannot think that anything we have done warrants an arrest. Therefore, I suspect there has been some new development.”

  A half hour crawled by. The Yard hopes that its very reputation shall break down a man’s resolve and he would be only too glad to confess, given enough time. Believe it or not, it actually worked now and again.

  Eventually, I began to wonder what time it was, when the turnkey arrived and took us to the interviewing room. Munro was awaiting us.

  “Such treatment, sir,” the Guv said, as if it were a compliment. “Interviewing us yourself. I’m certain you have many matters that require your attention.”

  “Barker, where were you last night?”

  “We went to see a friend in Limehouse.”

  “Who was with you?”

  “Thomas, here, my clerk, Jeremy Jenkins, and a professor of classics, Dr. Wessel of the University of London.”

  “And what were you doing there all night? I am informed that you didn’t return until this morning.”

  “That’s an interesting piece of information to have at one’s fingertips,” Barker said. “It’s almost as if we were being deliberately observed.”

  The interrogation rooms are small and cramped. The Guv and I had been thrust onto one tiny bench. He got most of it. Across from us, Munro laced his fingers over his waistcoat, which the benefits of too many social and governmental functions had distended. A constable took notes beside him.

  “Answer the question.”

  Barker shrugged, as if it were a small matter. “Professor Wessel and I come together about twice a year to discuss eschatology.”

  “E-s-c-h—” I began, for the benefit of the constable.

  “Shut it, Llewelyn,” Munro said. “Barker, are you telling me you debated the Revelation until dawn?”

  “Almost,” the Guv said, nodding. “He availed himself of a cot for the last few hours.”

  “You are telling me that you were not using the professor to decipher an ancient manuscript in your possession?”

  “To what manuscript do you refer?” Barker asked.

  “Do you have several? I’m referring to the one you have been entrusted with by Her Majesty’s government!”

  “I believe you will find that the manuscript to which you refer is locked in the vault of the Cox and Co. Bank.”

  Munro pounced in anger.

  “Barker, I don’t know what sort of cheap conjuror’s trick you used to spirit the Gladstone bag to Limehouse, but you cannot fool me. Suspect you are and suspect you have always been. You are a man with no provable past, and you are locked in cells like these every couple of months.”

  My employer raised his hands, palm up. “My past can be proven if one can read Mandarin, which is perhaps the most widely spoken language on earth. Should you wish my record to be free of arrests, you might consider not arresting me so often.”

  Mu
nro closed his eyes, reining in his temper. He exhaled slowly, then opened them again.

  “You were hired to take a bag to Calais, not mess about in Chinatown.”

  “How did you know that?” I asked. “Were you spying on Downing Street as well as Limehouse?”

  My hands were prone on the table between us. Munro brought down a fist upon one of them and thumped it as if it were a cockroach.

  “Ow!” I shouted in the confined space. One or two words might have slipped from my lips that I would not use on the Sabbath. For once, Barker did not look as long-suffering as usual when an untoward word was spoken by his assistant or even his partner.

  “That hurt!” I said, rubbing my injured hand with the other.

  Munro shook a finger at me. “Let that be a lesson to you, Prisoner 7502.”

  There it was: 7502, my number as an inmate in Oxford Prison. He would never accept that I had served my sentence, that the theft I had supposedly done had, in fact, never occurred, or that I had been framed by an earl’s son, for whom I worked as a batsman.

  I was about to give Scotland Yard’s favorite son my opinions about his manner, his knowledge, his disposition, his morals, and his piglike features, but at that moment, Barker kicked me under the table, nearly fracturing my ankle.

  “Ow!” I cried.

  “We digress,” the commissioner said. “Mr. Barker, why have you not delivered the bag to Calais?”

  “Because I did not wish to,” he said. “I did not find the time to be propitious. Thomas was attacked last night by three youths who believed a bag in his hand was the one they were seeking.”

  Munro rounded on me, me with the crushed hand and near broken ankle.

  “Is this so?”

  “It is,” I said, while wiggling my fingers to see if they still functioned. They did, but just barely.

  “Describe these youths.”

  “Three of them, university age, I’d say. Couldn’t really describe their faces because they were running away, but I’ll not forget their uniforms.”

  Munro raised an eyebrow. “Uniforms?”

  “Yes, sir. The coats were a blue wool, with a collar and no lapels. They were double-breasted and the apron came to a point in the middle. That is, the coat hung to their knees, but it was six inches lower in the middle.”