Lethal Pursuit

by Will Thomas

  “A pleasure to meet you, Sergeant. How are things in Downing Street?”

  “Contentious, sir. Constables are still holding back a small crowd. Some lads have been throwing clods. I nearly got some on my uniform.”

  “I see. You are an official-looking fellow this morning, sir. Would you be willing to escort us south?”

  “It would be an honor.”

  Barker put down the note and stood.

  “Come, Thomas,” he said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  We bundled up and stepped outside, the sergeant at our heels. The snow was falling much more heavily than it had before. There was a knot of people at the end of the street, and people walking by were stopping to observe. I noticed a young rake leaning against a building, one boot against the brick. He tossed the fag end of a cigarette into the gutter. It was Vic, as nonchalant as ever. He brought his hand to the brim of his top hat as we passed.

  I studied the crowd as we came to Downing Street. For the most part they looked like professional men. Some might have been from the House of Commons, in which case they were trained to dispute the constables trying to keep order. However, one officer’s coat had been soiled with muck.

  “This is your doing,” I said. “Enjoy it.”

  “I shall.”

  Barker inserted his bulk between two men arguing in the crowd. The crowd parted as if the Guv were Moses. The people gave way and the constables moved aside. The Guv nodded to the sergeant beside us and we passed through.

  There were men blocking the doorway to number 10. A constable stood on either side, but not just any constables: they were the largest and strongest the Yard had to offer, the human equivalent of draft horses. One held a clipboard and was consulting it while barking orders. Between them stood our old friend Swithin. His face brightened when he saw us.

  “Gentlemen! You are expected! This way.”

  “Could we not walk a bit slower this time?” Barker asked. He tapped his brace with his sturdy blackthorn stick.

  “As you wish, sir.”

  He led us down the familiar halls at a more sedate pace than our previous visit. There was no more trotting to keep up. Also, I sensed more respect in the halls as we passed through. People stopped to watch as we passed. The day before, we had been brought here in steel cuffs. Now we walked freely to the Prime Minister’s door.

  Swithin turned. “May I take your coats and hats, gentlemen?”

  “That would be agreeable,” Barker said.

  “I’ll bring tea.”

  “Do you have coffee?” I asked.

  “I’ll search the kitchen.”

  He opened the door and led us in. “Messieurs Barker and Llewelyn, sir.”

  Salisbury sat in his chair as we had left him, his fingertips pressed together. However, he looked far less thunderous than when we last spoke.

  “Gentlemen, won’t you sit?”

  We sat. Barker rested the cudgel against the arm of the chair.

  “Mr. Barker,” he said. “You could have warned me.”

  “Warned you about what, sir?”

  “Let us not be coy, sir. You should have said you were the new leader of the Templars. I am a member, though I do not attend meetings. You can imagine my distress upon hearing that I had dismissed a superior officer.”

  “I was not aware of your association,” Barker said. “I have not received a list of the membership from Mr. Forbes.”

  “We have four telephone sets in the residence and they have been jangling nonstop since you left. We heard from the Admiralty and the War Office. Both thought you’d been treated shabbily. We heard from the Temple Bar and the Exchange. They’d heard I had slighted you in some way. The Conservative Party, that is, my own party, is discussing a vote of no confidence should the Templars throw their votes elsewhere.”

  “Mr. Barker donates substantially to the party,” I said.

  “It appears it is I who have bungled this business, sirs, not you. I freely admit it. I have made mistakes in the past. Every politician has.”

  “So has every detective and enquiry agent,” Barker replied.

  He was being magnanimous, I thought. By now, I would have roasted Salisbury’s feet over hot coals without so much as an ounce of guilt.

  The Prime Minister paused for a moment before speaking. “Tell me, Mr. Barker, are you responsible for the incident in Whitehall Street?”

  “I am, sir.”

  “Did you hold back a few letters that should have arrived here?”

  “A few? It is more like fifty, sir. And there were a like number for Scotland Yard.”

  “You realize you may have endangered important work. Certain projects here are sensitive.”

  Barker nodded. He looked as if he wanted to put a foot on the edge of the desk. Raising his limb kept it from throbbing.

  “Of course,” my employer replied. “I debated the matter thoroughly. It seemed the only way to get your attention.”

  “Well, you have it, sir. How was such a thing accomplished?”

  “With the help of a dozen street arabs working to my instructions.”

  “You mean a few ragged boys nearly brought the British government to its knees?”

  “I do.”

  “I was not aware there was such a breach in our flanks. I must be certain to correct it. When did you employ them?”

  “That was—when, Thomas?”

  “A few days ago, sir.”

  “You knew you were going to be sacked yesterday?”

  “Of course, sir. I would have considered sacking me were I in your shoes.”

  “I must remember not to play chess with you, Mr. Barker.”

  Barker gave one of his wintry smiles. “I don’t play chess, sir. The stakes are too low.”

  “Finally, I am beginning to understand what possessed Munro to suggest you for the assignment.”

  That stopped both of us cold.

  “I was not aware that he suggested our agency,” the Guv said.

  “Oh, yes. He was rather enthusiastic. Naturally, he received the first dressing-down afterward.”

  I looked at the Guv, but he did not reply.

  “You have guile, Mr. Barker,” Salisbury said. “I misjudged you. You must forgive me, sir. I said some terrible things to you. I called you bumblers. Perhaps I didn’t understand your reasoning. Would you please explain why you chose not to deliver the manuscript?”

  “I fear I cannot,” Cyrus Barker said. “Not yet. You shall get a full explanation in time, I promise you that.”

  “That will be an interesting story, I’m sure. You’ve come very close to ruining your career and spending time in jail.”

  “That is a constant danger in our profession, sir.”

  Swithin arrived with a large silver tray and set it on the table between us. He handed a cup each to Barker, the Prime Minister, and myself. I noted that he had found coffee somewhere in the Downing Street larder.

  “I wish there were a better way for our business relationship to end, Mr. Barker,” Salisbury continued, “but you admitted you would have sacked yourself under the circumstances.”

  “I did,” my employer replied.

  “Still, I regret that Mr. Pierce had to take the manuscript to Calais. He should be there by now with Monsignor Bello.”

  “Tell me, will the Jesuits open the satchel, do you think?”

  “I would assume so. The monsignor will probably authenticate it before taking it to Rome, otherwise a simple courier would have done. Not that you are simple, mind you. Why do you ask?”

  “The Jesuits will be most surprised. He will find the works of Cotton Mather in the satchel. Edifying, yes, but not what he expected.”

  The Prime Minister jumped from his chair as if he’d been stung.

  “What? Are you saying Pierce is carrying a false manuscript?”

  “The commissioner demanded that my assistant open my safe. I gave him permission. A constable took possession of the satchel inside, while I was clapped
in irons. No one asked me if the satchel in the safe held the manuscript, and at that moment, I did not feel especially obliged to tell him. This was borne out when I was marched in darbies the length of Whitehall for all of London to see.”

  “Yes,” Salisbury replied. “That was unfortunate. So, where is the manuscript? Is it still in the original satchel?”

  “It is.”

  Salisbury leaned back in his chair, rested a hand on one edge of his desk, and stroked his beard with the other.

  “Bello will be grinding his teeth,” he said at length.

  We did not inform him that Bello had visited us, I noted.

  “No doubt Pierce will be less than pleased, as well,” I replied.

  “Can you deliver the manuscript to Calais as soon as possible?” Salisbury asked.

  “That’s how we found ourselves in this trouble before, sir, our interpretation of the words ‘as soon as possible.’”

  “I believe you will deliver it far more than I did yesterday. Very well, deliver it for me. For us. For your government. Get it out of London. We wish to have no more to do with it!”

  “I will,” my employer replied, standing. “Thank you for the tea. Most refreshing. Come, Mr. Llewelyn.”

  I nodded to old Swithin as we left. Outside, the snow had become fierce. Barker stuffed two fingers under his mustache and gave an ear-splitting whistle that echoed across the narrow street. I looked about and watched as one boy, then another stepped back from the crowd and wandered away. The loudest voices were silenced. The police looked about, expecting some sort of trick. Those who had been trying to get inside rushed to the gate where the officer with the clipboard stood.

  “Let’s go back to the office, Thomas,” the Guv said. “Good heavens!”

  We stepped out into Whitehall Street and were instantly swallowed up. A blizzard had started. The snow before had been nothing like this. We held our hands out to stop the wind from whipping our faces. I clutched my bowler to my head and turned north, the very direction it was coming from. We ducked our heads and moved into the teeth of the storm.

  “Why did Munro press to have us hired?” I called out to Barker.

  “To humiliate us when we failed.”

  “The man’s a menace!”

  We stopped speaking then. The storm made it too difficult to communicate. At some point we locked arms lest one of us wandered in the wrong direction. The snow was wet and heavy and already to the tops of our shoes. It stuck to our heels, making us stumble. I’d forgotten my scarf, so my only defense was to hold my coat up to my nose with my hat brim pushed down, leaving myself only a half inch or so to see through. It was utterly miserable, but there was one saving grace: our offices were not far away.

  We passed Scotland Yard and I waved a fist at it as we went by. I could not make out which pub we were passing and felt relief when I saw the white marble of the Cox and Co. Bank ahead. We were nearly at our offices. Finally, we reached Craig’s Court. And stepped into complete pandemonium.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  A youth appeared out of nowhere, seemingly, a youth in a light blue coat and a matching cap. Perhaps he had just stepped out of the court, or perhaps he had been in front of us all the while, but we could not see him. He raised a sword in his right hand. In turn, I lifted my stick, as he raised his over my head, ready to strike.

  The Guv had no time to dally. He parried the youth’s attack, the blade biting deep into the wood of his stick. Seizing the boy’s wrist, he chopped the knob of the blackthorn across his head. The boy fell like a stone.

  Barker shouted something. I called out, but I felt as if a handkerchief were in front of my face. The sound of my voice was swallowed up. Somewhere ahead, I heard Barker bellowing, but his voice was heavily muffled.

  Another young man came out of the alleyway, a sword in his hand. He swung it into my shoulder, cutting the fabric of my coat. However, I had the finest sword cane James Smith and Company sold, which I had purchased at great expense the year before. I didn’t hesitate. I lunged and there was a spray of crimson blood in the snow. My hand came in contact with a hard surface. I recognized it as the wall of the Silver Cross.

  I didn’t feel any blood inside my sleeve. At one point I ran headlong into another body, a tangle of limbs, with neither of us able to use our swords. I managed to step on his hand, however, and stumbled on, hoping I was still going in the right direction.

  They were all around me. I could hear the crunch of their boots and the sound of their voices. They were yelling in German. If I stopped moving I would be surrounded and they would make short work of me. Survival was my only thought. Instinct came to the fore.

  How many were behind me? Two? Three? I hoped it was not more. Were any ahead of me? Were they behind? The flying snow was making them invisible. I wouldn’t know until I met them.

  I was nearly at our door when a figure stepped out in front of me, so close that I skidded on the ice and almost fell into him. My jaw hung open. He looked like a figure out of grand opera.

  He wore a formal cape, black as pitch, and a wide-brimmed hat with a low crown. It made me think of the shrouded figures who had watched me the day before from the shadows across the street. I looked hard at him, but could not see his face. It was covered with a dark mask, the kind one might see at a festival in Venice. It was a crow’s face, shiny and black. The eyeholes were round and covered in glass. The flakes glanced off the hard beak. He seemed unnaturally black.

  We stared at each other for no more than a second. I tried to move past and he let me, but only to get to the youth behind me. He lifted a filigreed sword in his hand. As he moved forward there was a glint as I spied a cross around his neck and a dog collar. A wave of shock went through me when I realized what he was: a Jesuit assassin.

  Our court was in the middle of a full-scale battle. Men in blue coats and men in black capes and gleaming coal-black masks. An owl. A cat. There must have been half a dozen men altogether in the alleyway. As I watched, Barker charged out of his office, a broadsword in his hand, and jumped down the steps into the path of one of the blue coats. The clash of steel upon steel was muffled by the snow, which was falling so fast that it was on my very tongue and in the back of my throat.

  We were caught in a war between two factions: Catholic Jesuits and Protestant Mensurites. With whom would we side? The Austrians had tried to kill us, but the Jesuit leader, Monsignor Bello, had pointed a gun at us in our very offices. The decision was taken out of my hand. The so-called assassins were ignoring us, while the youths seemed hell-bent upon taking our lives.

  I had an advantage over the Austrian boys. They had been trained in a rigid school. One could not move positions or stand back. One stood toe-to-toe and fought until someone bled. I was not constrained. I moved back, I stepped forward, side to side, whatever took my fancy. I, too, had been trained in this traditional style, but it wasn’t my master.

  Raising my sword over my head I lunged and my opponent met it with his blade. He could kill me, I realized. It wasn’t like facing a pistol, which one could discharge from across a room. That razor-sharp blade could pierce a lung, a heart. It would be an excruciating way to die. I had too many things to live for now. Were it a matter of this university youth or me, there was no need to guess which side I would take.

  There was a flash and a burn and suddenly my cheek was sliced. Blood seeped down my face. Some blighter had either forgotten or disregarded the rules. I turned on him, a tense young man who seemed to know what he was about. He was a solemn, silent opponent. He lashed forward again, revealing excellent form. The boy knew far more than I about fencing, perhaps more than I would ever know, but he had never faced a Barjitsuan before. I parried one blow over our heads and then buried a shin in his thigh. He fell screaming. There are bundles of nerves there and the skin is soft. Such a blow hurts like the dickens. I knew that, but had little compassion for someone who tried to lay open my cheek.

  I bumped into a Jesuit, the owl, a small but
lithe fellow who pressed his advantage against his opponent. Why had I not paid more attention in fencing class? He turned for less than a second and regarded me. I could see his eyes through the glass lenses in the mask. Perhaps he will turn on me, I thought, but he didn’t. Instead, he returned to his next adversary and left me to mine, a pale-haired, tan-faced aristocrat. That blond hair had been passed down through generations and that tan acquired recently in Baden-Baden. He assumed the position, or tried to. I am an aggressive fighter and savor that first second when a bout begins. I jumped onto the step and caught him in the nose with the brass ball of my stick.

  “Lad!” Barker cried. I turned and dared look at him.

  He was standing near our front door, pointing into Whitehall Street. There was a vehicle passing. Not a hansom cab, but some kind of closed carriage. I saw Barker turn away, reaching into the rubbish bin beside our steps and lifting a satchel from inside. He shook the snow from it and began to run. As best I could, skirting men with swords intent on killing other men, I followed behind.

  The satchel was in his hand. It had been in the dustbin, the dustbin the entire time. Anyone could have reached in and taken it. Scotland Yard had hunted for it, the Home Office had bargained for it, the blue coats were fighting for it, and there it was in plain sight, like Poe’s Gold Bug.

  Barker leaped, pushed off the carriage step, and sprang onto the board, beside the astounded driver. The Guv caught the man full in the chest with his shoulder, and he fell over the side with a yell, disappearing into the void, swallowed by the open maw of the blizzard. Meanwhile, I took my place on the step. A window of the brougham was pushed down in front of my face, and a man’s voice came from inside.

  “What the devil is going on here? Who are you?”

  “Scotland Yard, sir,” I said. “There’s been another bombing attempt by the anarchists. I’m afraid we must make use of your vehicle.”

  A face appeared in the window. A fellow about my age, with a small mustache and a large monocle. He looked drunk. Drunk and rich, I’ll be bound, to force a servant to go out in this weather.