Lethal Pursuit

by Will Thomas

  “While you were in Germany did you encounter a man named Hillary Drummond?” the Guv continued.

  “No, I don’t believe so. What’s this about?”

  “Mr. Drummond was found dead three days ago, having just arrived from Germany. Do you remember your arrival time?”

  “No, I have no idea,” he replied. “It was morning. Was he murdered?”

  “He was killed with a sword. Run through just at Scotland Yard’s door.”

  “In broad daylight?”

  “Aye, sir. Just minutes after stepping off the platform. Witnesses say he was chased by several young men. With whom did you travel?”

  “I travel alone, sir. My publisher books events in various cities and it is up to me to reach the venues on my own.”

  “Do you speak German?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  I watched as he applied the cream to his face. It gave him a curiously flat appearance, like a painting. I noticed a small scar along his jawline.

  “You have a scar just there, Mr. Heinlich,” I said. “How did you acquire it?”

  “You ask the most random questions. I fell out of a tree when I was seven, lacerating my cheek on a branch.”

  “While you were in Germany, did you notice any young men in uniforms?” I asked. “School or university uniforms, I mean.”

  Heinlich looked at us in the mirror. “There were none in the audience, but a group of them protested my speech once, even trying to stop me from entering. That was in Dresden, I think. There were long coats and caps.”

  “Blue?” I asked.

  “No, green. They were not happy to have an avowed atheist in their city.”

  “How are you finding London?” the Guv asked.

  “More civilized, I must admit, although we’ve been picketed here, as well.”

  “Was it the One True Church?”

  “Funny you should say that. It was. However, they have protested our events often in the past, so I hardly notice their placards and chants.”

  “Were they the only ones to protest?”

  “They were,” he admitted. “I must be losing my touch. To some extent, my work plays on my notoriety, gentlemen. ‘Come see the Avowed Atheist. Stop him before he corrupts your children.’ Sometimes I feel like a freak in a sideshow, but that is part of the work. Frankly, if they read my book ahead of time, they might not come. It is occasionally dry, I must admit.”

  “Have you been following the One True Church?” Barker asked. “You say you have seen them often.”

  “Rather, it is the opposite,” Heinlich said. “They have been following me. I believe someone has studied my schedule and made certain the tent revival always arrives the day before.”

  “Why have they chosen to bedevil you?” I asked. “Is it the allure of having a physical enemy to fight?”

  Heinlich stopped applying the cream and sighed. “That might be part of it, I suppose, but more likely the reason is that Daniel Cochran is my younger brother.”

  “Ah,” Barker said. “We attended his program last night. I noticed he made sport of people and races he finds inferior. Is this sort of behavior common for him?”

  “Perhaps. I haven’t spoken to him during this tour. I try to talk to him as often as possible, but now I’m being shut out, kept away by his supporters.”

  “What sort of fellow was he like as a youth?”

  “At one time he was a wastrel. Aimless. Often drunk.”

  “What changed him?” Barker asked, settling into a chair.

  “A girl, of course. He transformed himself for her. It was the single biggest achievement that he ever accomplished, but it did him no good. Her parents objected. Whose wouldn’t? She married someone else, and in his despair, he threw himself into an evangelical tour across New York. As luck would have it, it was successful. He had to hire a larger tent and convince a few of his more fervent converts to come with him on the circuit. Eventually, it led to a European tour.

  “I assumed he had forgotten the girl. Maud was her name, as I recall. When we last met, he asked if our mother had said anything of her. As it happened, she had. Maud had just given birth to twins. I didn’t tell him. I hadn’t the heart.”

  “Was your relationship always adversarial?”

  “He was jealous of me to some extent. I received honors early, and won a scholarship to Yale, while he rarely applied himself. For years, he was casting about for a purpose in life, and never finding it. I worried about him. I still do.”

  “Do you consider preaching a futile endeavor?” the Guv asked.

  “No, actually, I don’t. Sometimes I wish I could have the comfort it brings. I tried, but I cannot. It isn’t easy, what I do. People are easily offended. I have nearly been tarred and feathered twice. I was beaten once. I’ve lost count of the number of times someone has spat on me in the street or thrown an egg. Many of them are from my brother’s flock. I was a theology student at Yale, Mr. Barker. It was there that my doubt overcame me.”

  I cleared my throat. “Is it your brother’s obsession to prove he has succeeded in doing something you have not?”

  “Perhaps. I don’t believe he schemes to harm me. Occasionally he is spurred by a particularly laudatory report of one of my speeches in the press. I’ll admit to you gentlemen that I also have a spy in the enemy camp. Our uncle is a kind of caretaker who keeps me abreast of his doings. In my defense, I’m speaking of his health. My brother taxes himself too much and he is excitable.”

  “Do you believe his religious sentiments are genuine?” I asked.

  “I cannot say. If, for example, this entire enterprise should come crashing to the ground, would he pick up the pieces and try again or would he attempt another endeavor to prove he is better than me? To tell you the truth, I wish he’d find another nice girl and settle down, and build a small chapel to do some good.”

  “And you, sir,” the Guv asked. “Should the physician not heal himself?”

  Heinlich chuckled. “Very canny, Mr. Barker. Yes, I’ve proved to myself that I can impress people and orate with the best of them. I’m tired of travel. The last few months I’ve been spurred along by my publisher. I’d like to go home and build a house in the Berkshires. Perhaps a nice woman will come along then. I’ve proselytized long enough.”

  “Amen,” Barker said.

  A corner of Heinlich’s mouth curved upward. He appreciated the irony.

  “Mr. Heinlich, your brother’s sermon yesterday was highly focused upon the Jews and Catholics and any other minorities that were not Aryan.”

  “The Aryans were originally Indian, and I’m sure he doesn’t believe they’ll enter the kingdom of heaven. Or the Greeks, or the Italians, or the Spanish. Not even the French. He holds salvation as if there were little of it, only worthy to be given to a small handful of European countries and America, and only a small portion of that, I should imagine.”

  “Has he always held such beliefs?”

  “No. We come from a very progressive family. Our father, also a preacher, helped establish the Underground Railroad, which transported slaves from the Deep South to freed status in the North. We were not taught that one man was better than another. Far from it, in fact. We were to help our unfortunate brothers.”

  “How then do you account for your brother’s behavior?”

  Heinlich stood, stretched, and walked behind a screen to change his clothing. He continued to speak to us over the top of it.

  “My brother is susceptible to whatever influences are around him. He’s always been easily led. He writes his sermons at the last minute, taking in all he has read or heard since the last one. I’ve cautioned him about it, but he is mercurial.”

  “Can you suggest a reason why he should be so intolerant of other races and religions?”

  “I can. Several reasons. First of all, I suspect he is saying what other people want to hear. Knowing what they want and seeing that need in them, he echoes what they always suspected. Also, he just came back from Germany,
which has become increasingly nationalistic. Not long ago, I heard him espouse that the so-called white race was not related to other races at all. We are somewhere between angel and man. Have you ever heard such nonsense?”

  “Do the two of you meet often?”

  “I don’t see him for half a year at a time, then we both return to Schenectady for the winter months. He feels it is his biannual duty to convince me of the need for grace. Every year his polemics grow stronger and stronger, but in spite of our religious differences, we would talk. Yet he continues his inflammatory rhetoric. Daniel loves to cause some sort of reaction in his crowds. He’s not above showmanship. The less educated people who attend his meetings want a show. They want to see him exhort and sweat and rant about the need for salvation.”

  “Has he always been pious?”

  “Not especially. He was spoiled as a child. Daniel is basically lazy, then angry at the world if things don’t come easily to him. When he couldn’t get into Yale, he began attending a minor religious college in Connecticut, but he left after the first year.”

  “How does he preach, then?”

  “He founded his own church and named himself a clergyman by divine intercession. He holds no doctorate of divinity. He changed his name to Cochran to avoid association with me and opened a church in a former general store. My family assumed he’d fail, as he had at everything else he tried. Instead, he was a success. My father is gravely disappointed at his shifting beliefs. It’s a bad situation and I don’t know what the future holds for him. I am not jealous of my brother, Mr. Barker, but I truly wish he were not so successful.”

  Barker lifted his hand. “Come, Thomas. This gentleman has been patient with us. We should let him get on with his day.”

  Outside the Egyptian Hall, I sidestepped a frozen puddle.

  “Do you believe him, lad?” Barker asked after he had filled and lit a pipe in a doorway, away from the wind.

  “You’ve trained me well enough not to believe a suspect without examining his actions or motives,” I said. “Is it time for lunch, sir? We could go to Le Toison d’Or. What do you suppose Etienne is serving today?”

  My employer grunted. “Something with sauce, I should imagine.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “Thomas,” Barker said two hours later, after we left Le Toison d’Or. “Let us discuss Rabbi Mocatta.”

  “By all means.”

  The Guv was in his cavernous chair, a scalpel in his hand, sawing bits from the block of wood again, layer by layer. The shavings littered the glass atop his desk. He looked content. Either that, or he was discontent and this helped relieve it. The case was weighing on him; in particular the death of Wessel. That innocent scholar would plague him for months if not years.

  “How should you prefer we go about it?” he asked.

  “You’re asking me, sir?”

  “He is your father-in-law, lad. We can run roughshod over him if required. We can uncover what hijinks he’s been getting himself into, and where and why, or we can slap his wrist and let him infer that we can do more, which we can.”

  “But we don’t know what he’s done, or why he’s done it. That is, unless you’ve had some of your urchins following him about.”

  “I’ve had one tyke watching him, but only to see where he goes. So far he lives a blameless life: the synagogue, his home, and the Board of Deputies. He is a solemn man.”

  “He was not unkind to me the few times we met. I’ve wondered if he was influenced by my mother-in-law. She’s a fierce old bird. However, I cannot picture her writing Rebecca off the way she has. Forgive me, sir, I do not mean to throw my private life into this case.”

  “That cannot be helped. There are few rules in enquiry work. Pollock’s list did not give the reasons why each of the suspects was considered. There is much to do this week. I don’t have time to waste on a Johnny-come-lately to our list. What do you suggest?”

  I cleared my throat, thinking furiously. Barker rarely asks my opinion, but when he does he expects a logical and well-considered one on the spot.

  “Well, I don’t believe the roughshod approach is necessary, although we might hold it in reserve if all else fails. However, the slap on the wrist is too gentle, I think. I want him to know I am serious. My opinion would be to go at him directly and clinically.”

  Barker nicked himself with the knife and pressed his thumb to his lips. Boatbuilding of any kind is rarely accomplished without spilling blood. He sniffed, as if disappointed at his own skills, or lack thereof, and put down his blade.

  “That seems logical enough. What happens if this should delve into family matters? How would you proceed?”

  “Cautiously, of course. Sir, I do not believe the one can be separated from the other. If you wish, I can handle the matter myself.”

  Emotional conflict is anathema to my employer. He gets highly embarrassed by discussing feelings, whether his own or someone else’s. I’ve seen him bolt from a room in which a woman is crying, or worse, a man breaks down in tears.

  “No, no, Thomas, I must be there. You are the scalpel,” he said, holding up the instrument. “While I am the mallet. You suggest we confront him and see what happens, then act accordingly.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That is not a plan at all.”

  “Not much of one, I’ll admit,” I said. “But as far as I understand, in our work that appears to be our standard modus operandi.”

  Barker’s mustache widened to contain his cold smile.

  “Touché, Mr. Llewelyn. The point is yours. Very well, we shall see what the rabbi has to say.”

  “Bring your mallet.”

  “Believe me, Thomas, I intend to.”

  Mocatta was to be found at a small and recently begun synagogue in a former warehouse on the very eastern edge of London. We rendezvoused with a round little street arab with short hair that stood on end, and a mouth circled with jelly. He nodded toward the converted warehouse and I gave him two shillings for which he must have worked for most of three days.

  “Your work is finished here,” Barker said. “Off with you.”

  The boy gave us a gap-toothed grin and waddled off. We entered the makeshift synagogue. There were various signs and hoardings written in Hebrew and a good amount of new woodwork, none of it finished. A carpenter was adding a rail to some wainscoting and I asked him where the rabbi could be found. He pointed down a long hall. When Barker and I reached the far end, we found a door with the rabbi’s name on a pasteboard sign tacked to it. It was a temporary assignment, not a permanent one. The door was open.

  The rabbi was seated at his desk, elbow deep in volumes of the Talmud, a pair of semicircular spectacles resting on his nose. He raised his brows when he saw the Guv, but he did not lose his composure until he saw my face. Perhaps I was defiling his office.

  “Good afternoon, Rabbi Mocatta,” my employer said, bowing.

  I did likewise, save that I did not greet him. A pair of Gentiles in his synagogue and we had him pinned to the wall, or at least trapped. He could not avoid escape.

  “And you, sir,” he replied cautiously. “Thomas. Have a seat, gentlemen.”

  “Thank you, sir,” I said, trying to sound as natural as possible.

  I would not lose my temper. Not yet, anyway.

  “What brings you to my office? It must have been difficult to find me.”

  “Not at all,” the Guv said. “Tracking people is part of what we do for a living.”

  “Of course. How may I help you?”

  “You’ll scarcely credit it, sir. A list is circulating in government circles concerning radical extremists. An agent of the Crown was assassinated this week, or so I’ve been told. Various organizers are being closely scrutinized and you are on that list.”

  “I, on a list?” Mocatta asked. “Who made such a list?”

  “The Home Office.”

  “So we heard,” I put in. The idea occurred to me to embellish a little. “I believe it was created by S
pecial Branch at Scotland Yard. They are usually the ones who deal with radicals.”

  “But that’s ridiculous. Let me see it!”

  “We were not permitted to retain it,” Barker said. “To be frank, we had not full permission to see it. Thomas was concerned about the family and insisted we come here immediately to warn you.”

  Apparently the Guv was embellishing a bit as well. It made my father-in-law anxious so I saw no reason to stop. I’d have pitied him if he had not been a beast to my wife. As far as I was concerned, his chances of ever seeing her again depended on what occurred in that room then.

  “Have you been approached by any anarchist organizations?” my employer asked.

  “None. That is, none who admit it. They know the Board of Deputies would have no truck with violence. We monitor our more revolutionary brothers closely.”

  “Have you yourself attended any demonstrations, protests, or rallies?” Barker asked. “There has to be some reason you are on this list, even if it were a mistake. Such lists are carefully compiled and closely scrutinized.”

  “There are rallies here all the time. One stops, listens for a moment or two, then moves on. The East End is in perpetual need and one group or another believes they can fix all its ills with speeches and temporary funding. Yet the East End continues to be, long after these organizations run out of funds and shut their doors.”

  “Are there any new organizations that are causing unrest here?” the Guv continued. “Are any young gangs causing trouble? Is the underworld flexing its brawn?”

  “No,” the rabbi said. “That is, I don’t believe so.”

  The conversation was dying. We had been stopped at every turn. It seemed likely the old man was being deliberately thick. It was possible someone was influencing him. He might be aided or enticed, or even threatened. It had to be one of those three. One does not casually get on a Home Office list. One has to work at it.

  My eyes darted around the room. For all I knew, Barker’s were as well. There must be some sign in this makeshift office he was using to show us what we wanted to know. I glanced at books on the shelves and stacked on the desk, papers spread out or fanned across tables. Then I saw something, a piece of pinkish vellum stuffed in a book, save for an inch protruding with a letterhead across the top. Upside down, no less, I deciphered it.