Lethal Pursuit

by Will Thomas

  “My stomach’s off,” I replied. “Could I have some water?”

  Barker stood and poured water into a tumbler from a glass pitcher. He was in his shirtsleeves with his sleeves rolled to the elbow. He put the glass into my good hand and watched as I drank, to be certain I didn’t let it fall.

  “Get some rest,” he ordered. “Save what strength you have for the morning.”

  The next I knew, there was light streaming through the window. I crawled out of bed, cradling my throbbing arm, and pulled back the sash. Calais had been blanketed under a foot or more of snow.

  “At least the snow has stopped,” I said, but when I turned, I realized I was alone.

  I looked about and then returned to bed. Since my marriage, I’d had very little time alone. It was novel, but I had no idea what to do with myself. I couldn’t shave. I could not don a jacket. I couldn’t even don my suspenders, which were currently hanging from my waist. I had slept in my clothes.

  Barker came in then with a doctor.

  “I’m thinking of moving to Arizona,” I remarked. “Or the Sandwich Islands. Someplace where cold weather is something one reads about in books.”

  “Back to normal, then, are we?” the Guv asked as the doctor lifted my arm.

  I groaned in pain. The doctor, who did not speak English, shook his head and tsked as if men hanging by my limbs from boats was a habit I should consider quitting. He bathed my bloody wrist in iodine and wrapped it in gauze. I refused the offered laudanum and he tied my arm in a sling of white linen.

  “Is the ferry running?” I asked my employer.

  “Not yet, but the captain hopes that the sun will melt the ice in the Channel enough to travel later this afternoon.”

  “I need to send a telegram to Rebecca.”

  “No need, lad. I’ve already taken care of it.”

  “What did you say?” I asked, sitting up quickly.

  It was a mistake I instantly regretted. My body protested.

  “I said you were injured in the course of your duties but are under a doctor’s care and we hope to return today, if possible.”

  “She’ll be worried,” I said.

  “No doubt. Good wives would be, given the circumstances. However, a month from now this shall be a mere memory.”

  “As I recall, you made the same remark during our first case. My shoulders ached for six months.”

  “Yet here you are.”

  I could not argue with the logic, or didn’t wish to. “What shall we do for the next several hours?”

  “You will rest while I send a few more telegrams. Then we will be questioned thoroughly by Inspector Benoît of the Sûreté. In the meantime, I’ve taken the liberty of ordering breakfast for you.”

  “Thank you.”

  A minute or two later there was a knock upon the door. It was probably the breakfast, but one must be cautious in our occupation, so Barker pocketed his pistol before he opened the door. A man was leaning against the doorframe.

  “Barker,” Hesketh Pierce of the Home Office said in greeting.

  “Mr. Pierce! Come in, sir. Mr. Llewelyn would rise, but he is currently recuperating from an injury.”

  “I know. I’ve been staying with the monsignor since I delivered the false manuscript here at some expense. Cotton Mather?”

  “It wasn’t a criticism, sir. It merely came to hand.”

  Pierce slid into a chair and glared at us.

  “So, it is gone, then?” he said. “The manuscript, never to be seen again.”

  “Gone, sir. Long gone.”

  “All that subterfuge, and the killer lost it in the drink.”

  “The satchel was chained to Mr. Llewelyn’s wrist. Count Arnstein seized it and leaped over the side. It was either the satchel or his life.”

  “You know what decision I would have made.”

  “Naturally,” I said.

  “Barker, you made me look a fool.”

  The Guv crossed his burly arms. “How so, Mr. Pierce?”

  “The bloody false manuscript.”

  “You were retained to deliver a parcel, were you not?”

  “I was.”

  “And you did so. Were you ordered to look inside it and verify the contents? No. That was Bello’s task. You were a courier, therefore no blame should fall to you. Do you know who will be blamed?”

  “You will,” Pierce said.

  “Precisely. Are you and I friends?”

  “Far from it, I should imagine.”

  “Then this should not concern you. Who else will be blamed?”

  “I suppose Munro, for assuming the satchel contained the manuscript.”

  Barker smiled. “Are the two of you cronies?”

  “What, Munro? The man’s a bounder.”

  “Then you and the Home Office are out of it. Move on and work on something else. If anyone questions you, tell him what I told you.”

  “It’s a thought,” he said.

  “Aye.”

  Pierce crossed his legs. The man had the suavity that can only come from good breeding. A third son of a noble family, indeed.

  “Bottom of the Channel, then?” he asked. “All out of tricks?”

  “I did not say I was out of tricks,” the Guv replied.

  “That’s the spirit. Keep them guessing to the last. You know, you should join the diplomatic corps.”

  “That, Mr. Pierce, is the one thing I would never do.”

  “Tell me, Barker, what did you say to Bello that shut him up? I thought he’d tear your head from your shoulders last night, but he left on the first train to Paris this morning, quiet as a lamb.”

  “I will not say he was happy, but he was less angry,” Barker said. “One must be philosophical about such things. Once the manuscript so much as touched the water it probably dissolved. There was nothing to authenticate and deliver, so he left as soon as possible. As the titular spear of the Jesuits, I’m sure he has much to do besides worry over the fate of the manuscript.”

  Pierce nodded in agreement. “You do realize the lions are gathering in London.”

  “I’ve already been sacked once,” Barker said. “What can they do to us further?”

  “I shudder to think. Have you gentlemen heard? No, of course you haven’t. The archbishop passed away last night. He was eighty-three, and he had been ill, I thought you should know.”

  That was it. It was too much. I lost the manuscript. My arm was injured, if not forever incapacitated. We faced an unfathomable future due to the unsatisfactory results of our mission. Now that sweet old man, that giant of English theology, was dead. I had liked him. He had treated us very kindly.

  Pierce stood. “I’ll leave you to your fate, gentlemen. Someday when this has blown over and you are no longer pariahs, I shall stand you a drink. Mr. Llewelyn, take care of yourself.”

  He slipped out the door and was gone.

  “Pierce seems an agreeable enough fellow for a Home Office man. I suppose we can risk one pint of stout,” the Guv said.

  My food arrived a few minutes later, croissants and jam, two eggs and coffee, and it was an interesting experiment. I was hungry now, I could spear the food, but it took all my effort to bring it to my mouth. I had to lunge at it and take my chances.

  “You do realize we’re going to be roasted alive when we return to London,” I said to the Guv.

  “If so, the heat from the fire will be mainly upon me.”

  “Oh, believe me, there will be enough heat to roast everyone, for all your assertions.”

  “Do you need help eating that?”

  “Thank you, no. I can manage. A prisoner deserves a final meal.”

  “Has anyone told you that you have a touch of melodrama to your character?” he asked.

  “Only everyone I’ve ever known. Was there any mention of last night’s event in the morning newspapers?”

  “There is, but my French isn’t good enough to translate it. As far as I can make out, you were mentioned only as a passenger who tri
ed to save the count.”

  “I suppose Arnstein was eulogized.”

  “Not yet. He was still unnamed at the time of publication. I have no doubt it will be corrected in the afternoon edition. It is news. People falling from a ferry is rare.”

  “I say, I could use some help with the coffee. The cup is heavy.”

  He lifted the cup to my lips, coming near to knocking out my front teeth.

  “Thomas, do you suppose your wife will be angry?” Barker asked. “If she has any reservations about your continuing our partnership, I would like to know. I would not want the future of the agency endangered by this incident.”

  “This is a rather small injury compared to some that have occurred during our other cases. I am certain it can prove as an object lesson. Still, I probably won’t be much use lifting a pistol for a while, sir.”

  “Believe me, lad, if I can limp through the Prime Minister’s office behind that madman Swithin, you can lift a pistol when necessary.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I gave up on breakfast. I had managed most of one egg and a croissant with very little jam. The knife had been uncooperative.

  That morning, we visited the gendarmerie. Our interview with Inspector Benoît was hampered by our poor French, and his poorer English although perhaps I made it seem a little worse than it was. We were asked the same dozen questions a half-dozen ways. When one has been dressed down by the Prime Minister of England and the Commissioner of Police, one aggravated Frenchman is of little consequence. We did not admit what was in the satchel. We were couriers; we had no idea what we were delivering. It was a standard delivery. No doubt it was insured. We did not know why someone would give his life to obtain whatever was inside it.

  We left the police station in time to reach the harbor and board the ferry. The temperature had been higher than expected. I envied Barker’s dark lenses. The snow reflected the light in every direction. I looked over the side into the water, thinking of Arnstein. Ice, ice, everywhere, in chunks large and small. They scraped along the bow.

  “Was his body recovered?” I asked Barker, who was standing near the foredeck looking toward the white cliffs ahead.

  “I have not the vaguest idea,” my employer replied. “I saw men with boathooks from the lugger, but I was occupied.”

  “And what became of the lugger?”

  “If the occupants were fortunate, the blizzard beached them. If not, it was a small vessel in fierce winds. It may have sunk.”

  “Those poor boys,” I murmured. “What of the two that you shot? You did shoot them, did you not?”

  “I did.”

  I thought of those ten or twelve young men in their blue coats, scions of important Austrian families, dedicated to their master, to their hereditary king of sorts: a local landowner, a great man to these people whose fathers and grandfathers going back many generations had served the Habsburgs. They had willingly sent their sons with him on a holy quest of sorts, to retrieve a relic stolen from him. A relic he would use to restore his family to its former glory. All of it had come to naught. Rather like our own plans.

  Scotland Yard was awaiting us in Dover, a half-dozen men and an inspector. The inspector was Terence Poole.

  “Well, well,” he said in greeting. “You two have certainly got yourself in a spot of bother.”

  I held out my arms for the darbies. Well, one arm, actually.

  “We can do without the hardware, I think,” Terry Poole said. “You’re in no condition to bolt. Cyrus, can I have your word that you will accompany me in a calm fashion?”

  “You have it,” the Guv said. “Is it possible to stop in Newington?”

  “No. Your house is an arsenal. But, as I recall, you keep a change of clothes in Craig’s Court and only a minor arsenal there. It is less than a quarter mile from our destination.”

  “Downing Street,” I said. “I hate Downing Street. If I ever ran for public office, I’d fear I’d find myself there.”

  “Don’t worry, Thomas,” Poole said. “That would never happen. Who would vote for you?”

  We boarded the express to London. Every roof, every hedgerow, every field under a heavy blanket of snow, a rare sight for the south of England. We eventually reached London, where the blinding whiteness of the snow had already mixed with the soot.

  I feared we would be delivered by Black Maria, but instead, Poole ordered two hansoms, the other four officers going their own way. I knew then why Poole had been sent to fetch us: if Barker escaped or cut up rough, the punishment would fall on his old friend’s shoulders. I had to hand it to Munro. He knew how to manipulate men.

  The cabs rolled through the snow-filled streets. In the sunshine, everything had begun to melt. Water dripped off icicles, gutters were full of slush and water. We turned into Whitehall Street and came to a stop in front of the Prime Minister’s residence.

  I was helped down and was being led toward the door when the constable at my side gave a cry and turned about in the opposite direction.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “Some snot-nosed brat just threw a clod of muck on my oilskin cape! Now I’ll have to wash it off!”

  Somehow, it was comforting to know that Soho Vic still protected our flank.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Being called on the carpet a second time in one week in front of the Prime Minister of Great Britain is not something I would recommend. Salisbury’s mood was so dark he was taking small pills for his digestion as if they were sweets. How much power did he have, I wondered, and how far could these powers extend? Could they close the agency? Could we be tossed in jail, or rather, prison? I’d already experienced the latter and had promised myself never to give cause to go there again. Being married made me want to avoid it even more.

  Over and above our circumstances there was something that made our situation even more wretched. Commissioner Munro had come to gloat. It was difficult for him to hide the glee from his face, which was just as well; he did not have the face for it. He probably did not smile from one year to the next and those particular muscles had atrophied.

  “I don’t know why I let you continue with this little charade, Barker,” the Prime Minister said in a low voice. “Knights Templar or no, I should never have trusted you. You have caused an international incident. You are complicit in the death of an Austrian aristocrat and their embassy has asked for an investigation.”

  “I’m certain—” Barker began.

  “Don’t interrupt!” Salisbury thundered. “You’ve damaged our reputation with the Vatican and the Roman Catholic Church. The Archbishop of Canterbury regrets trusting you. Munro here regrets suggesting your name for the assignment.”

  “Had I known,” the commissioner said, “what a blunder you would make of a simple trip across the Channel, the work of an hour or two, I’d have had one of my own men take responsibility for it.”

  “You have sullied the name of the Knights Templar, if such a thing were even possible,” Salisbury continued. “And Her Majesty’s government is considering making charges against you. Against both of you. I hear, Mr. Llewelyn, that it was you that dropped a priceless antiquity into the Channel.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said. “It was.”

  It was easier just to agree than to argue over the circumstances or make a vain attempt to explain what had happened.

  “Mr. Barker, your incompetence has been a disgrace to our country. Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

  I’d been so absorbed with my own misery since we’d arrived that I had not taken the time to look at the Guv. However, at that moment, the man was relaxed. There was not a shred of anxiety in his entire body. It was if he’d been thinking of something else entirely during the tirade, such as needing to get some new tobacco, or whether he might visit our barber for a shave.

  “Well?”

  Barker snuffed as if aware just now that some answer was required of him. Then he rummaged around in the inside pocket of his coat until he found
an envelope.

  I’d seen it in his hand right before the battle in Craig’s Court. He placed it on the very edge of the Prime Minister’s desk, teetering there, so that it had to be snatched from the farthest corner.

  Salisbury pulled it open with enough ferocity as to nearly rip it to shreds. I saw the Prime Minister blanch as he scanned it and then sit back in his chair. He read the letter, then he read it again, then a third time just to be certain the wording had not changed since the second. At last, the paper fell on his blotter. Heedless of protocol, Munro pounced on it like an old tom and began to read it.

  “You posted it?” Salisbury exclaimed. “You posted the manuscript?”

  “Aye, sir,” the Guv answered. “It seemed the best method to get it to its destination safely. I trust Her Majesty’s postal service, even if you do not. As for the Continental mail, I thought them capable of managing to get a simple package to Vatican City without incident, which is precisely what happened.”

  “But the satchel was quite heavy. There were so many sheets of glass.”

  “Ah, there was. I consulted an expert in the matter and he assured me that the entire manuscript could be pressed between four panes only. He arranged them very carefully—carefully enough for the manuscript curator at the Vatican Library.”

  “So the other sheets of glass—”

  “Remained in the original satchel.”

  “And the copy in the Home Office’s possession was a fake.”

  “Aye, sir. When it was taken from my safe, no one questioned its contents.”

  “I see. What, then, is this business with the silk hose?”

  “Silk hose?” I cried, tearing the letter from the hands of the Commissioner of the London Metropolitan Police Force. My eyes took it all in.

  Mr. Cyrus Barker

  7 Craig’s Court

  Charing Cross, London

  Dear Mr. Barker,

  This is to inform you that the manuscript you sent to us has arrived safely. It has been stored carefully in the vault and is pending a decision from Cardinal Bettini and the other officials as to when and where it will be translated. I was surprised when the package arrived in a manner contrary to what we expected, but was gratified that it was received in such excellent shape. Neither damp nor handling has affected the text in any way that we can see.