The Hellfire Conspiracy bal-4

by Will Thomas

  “Thank you,” she said, taking the envelope. “I was very glad to help him, but I don’t believe I shall be available for future work. This has been a rather trying time for me.”

  I pulled my handkerchief from my breast pocket and gave it to her. She wiped her eyes and held it to her lips, stifling a cry, before handing it back to me.

  “I’d better get back in. Who knows what Joseph will promise the crowd.” She attempted a smile. “I didn’t want you to hate me, Thomas.”

  “Small chance of that, Beatrice, if I may call you that at our parting. I wish you only happiness.”

  “Thank you,” she replied in a ragged voice.

  I lifted my bowler and bowed, not daring to show how wretched I felt. “Good day, Miss Potter.”

  I whistled for a hansom, conscious of her scrutiny. Climbing into the cab, I waved, and then she walked into the hall and I never saw her again.

  I was dispirited when I arrived back in Craig’s Court. She had treated me poorly, so why did it feel as if it were the other way about? Beatrice was in a bad situation and all because of Chamberlain.

  “Did you find Miss Potter?” the Guv asked when I returned.

  “I did.” Right then, I decided not to tell Barker about the relationship unless he continued to pursue Chamberlain’s part in the case. “She said to thank you for the letter of recommendation.”

  “She deserved it,” he said.

  “Has the major communicated with you?”

  “Not so far, though I sent him a note detailing all that we uncovered. He may be at his barracks.”

  “I hope so,” I said. “I mean, I hope he hasn’t gone back to the drinking.”

  “I would not worry over his lack of response. The poor fellow’s got a lot to think over.”

  Jenkins came in with a new edition of The Times. I left the Guv alone to read it while beginning the process of preparing a bill. There was a weeks’ worth of cab fares, Soho Vic’s lads, the warehouse rental, and a half dozen other expenses. I wondered if I should expect a bill from Reverend McClain for his instruction, as well. Then another thought occurred to me.

  “What shall become of little Esme, sir?”

  “I’ll send a message to Andrew to find a proper home for her, at least until her brother is released from the workhouse.”

  “Do you think he was angry about my losing the first boxing match?”

  “If I know him, he’ll say it was a typical example of the inadequacy of gloved boxing and your winning without them is proof. You needn’t worry on that score.”

  “Has anything happened with Stead?”

  “He is still in his office, refusing interviews. Vic reports that the Ratcliff Highway Boys have been gathering materials all day. Something is very definitely in the offing. The Times has been assessing public opinion all day and, I believe, shall come down in favor of a bill raising the age of consent to sixteen. I would hazard the bill is already being written by liberal members of the House of Commons. The fight, however, shall be in the House of Lords, where Hesketh and his party votes. The latest editorials claim it shall pass, but not without some struggles.”

  “Are we going to the Gazette office then?”

  “Oh, you may be sure of it.”

  After a dinner of haddock at the Northumberland Hotel, we proceeded to the Pall Mall Gazette building.

  There was a large crowd in the street, and somewhere up ahead I heard the sound of breaking glass. I pushed my way through after my employer. When I finally reached the offices, everything looked so different from the last time we’d been there, I thought perhaps a bomb had gone off.

  All the lower windows of the newspaper office were broken, and inside one could see a makeshift barricade of desks and filing cabinets. The upstairs windows were still intact, and now and again I could see the top of a man’s head peer over the sill. In front of the building there were dozens of broken bottles, along with rotting vegetables, eggs, and fish offal, all glittering on the pavement. I lost sight of my employer but recognized the Ratcliff Highway Boys, with whom we had faced off in Bethnal Green. Lord Hesketh was keeping them very busy these days. Barker surfaced then, pushing his way through the crowd. He made his way to the door and knocked upon it through a hail of flying bottles, which he ignored.

  The door opened quickly, and Barker stepped in but not before another volley of glass crashed into the office entranceway.

  “Look, there’s Barker’s man,” one of the gang members said, and I realized all of them were looking my way. Their leader stepped through the knot of them to get a look at me.

  “It’s him, all right,” he said.

  I wasn’t sure whether they really meant mischief to me, but I was not about to take any chances. I thrust my hand into my pocket and raised my coat with my fingers around the butt of my Webley in its built-in holster. I gave it a gentle push until the muzzle poked through the eyelet hole sewn into the hem. Whatever happened, the leader of the Ratcliff boys was going down with me.

  The leader shrugged his shoulders and raised his hands. “Keep your shirt on,” he said. “You’re a nervous little cove, aren’t ye? No need to be a-fingerin’ firearms. We’re just ’avin’ a bit o’fun.”

  Then they turned back and continued to pelt the door with bottles and food. They were yelling and joking and making a lot of noise, but if this was a siege, it looked like it would be a long one.

  I assessed what strength the crowd might have. There were a dozen or so Ratcliff boys, and it looked as if the tumult had emptied every public house in the area. If they finally broke through the door, how much of this crowd would go with them, and what would happen then? Would they hang Stead from a nearby gas lamp? One could not tell what would happen when a crowd turned into a mob. Where were the police? I wondered. A Division was not so many streets away.

  Barker slipped out again, and when the barrage of glass missiles came his way, he butted them away impatiently with the brass head of his walking stick.

  “You!” he said, pointing to the leader as he walked to the center of the circle. The rough-hewn man met him there. I was not going to be left out; and as I stepped across, a fourth man, obviously his lieutenant, came as well. Our quartet met in the middle.

  “How far are you prepared to take this?” Barker asked.

  “As far as it need be,” the young man jeered back.

  “But how far are you contracted to go? Are you here to frighten Stead or to take him?”

  “To take him.”

  “The damage is already done,” the Guv said. “The article came out this morning.”

  “But Stead’ll come out with another one tomorrow.”

  “If we let you come in and stop the press, will you let Stead alone?”

  “Nah,” he said flatly. “He is to be made an example of.”

  Barker crossed his burly arms and stood in thought. “There is a lot of give in that statement,” he finally stated. “Do you intend to take his life?”

  “I didn’t say that, did I?”

  “Break an arm or leg, then?”

  “Hadn’t thought that far. Are you tryin’ to broker a compromise?”

  “I did not say that, but it appears we are at an impasse. I’m certainly not going to recommend to him that he come out so you can break his head.”

  “He should have thought of that before he started making reckless remarks in the newspapers.”

  “I think it best,” Barker said, addressing me, “if we went in and joined Stead.”

  Our quartet separated, and the bottles came flying again like arrows at a besieged castle. We squeezed sideways through the doorway, closed the door behind us, and listened as more glass shattered on it.

  Most of the ground floor was deserted, but there was a brace of Salvation Army women at the door who seemed capable of taking on the entire crowd outside themselves and were not frightened by a little glass. In the back, there was a printing press going full blast, putting out another special edition for the nex
t morning. Upstairs we found a couple of dozen employees watching anxiously out the windows. In Stead’s office, the editor himself sat at his desk, while across from him, the stern but clear-cut features of General Bramwell Booth of the Salvation Army regarded us calmly. If the purpose of the crowd outside was to frighten the men into submission, they had chosen the wrong men. For all the cowering employees outside in the hall, these two acted as if it were any other evening.

  “Their intent,” Barker explained to the editor, “is to do you harm.”

  “I am prepared for that,” Stead said coolly. “My subordinates have copy for the next two days, and if we are broken into and the press smashed, I have arranged with the Standard to borrow theirs for a limited run.”

  “How capable do you think they are of carrying out their threats?” Booth asked my employer.

  “They are hirelings and only in it for the purse. I doubt there are many in the crowd genuinely perturbed over the ‘Maiden Tribute’ article. However, we cannot control the crowd. If they are agitated, we could have a riot on our hands. How well are you prepared for a siege?”

  “We have food and water for a day or so,” Stead said. “If they make a concerted effort to break in the door, we can push the press in front of it.”

  There was a crash of glass behind us, as one of the upper windows was shattered by a paving stone.

  “Did you expect such a response?” I asked.

  “Oh, yes,” Stead said.

  “They shall certainly have to force a bill in the House of Commons after today,” Booth stated. “The edition has sold out. Half of London has read it.”

  “Shall you bring the child you purchased back to England now?” Barker asked.

  “Soon,” Stead replied.

  Booth cleared his throat. “She’s in a Salvation Army property we own in the north of France.”

  “Eliza is a smart little thing,” the Gazette editor said, referring to the child in question. “She should do well if she is to speak at my trial.”

  “You believe it shall come to that?”

  “It may, that is, if I survive this night.”

  There was a sudden thud at the outer door.

  “Woodbury!” Stead called. “What is that racket?”

  A young and frightened-looking clerk came shuffling into the room. “They’ve pulled a stout table from one of the pubs, sir, and are trying to use it as a ram.”

  There was a second crash against the door and a third. Barker looked over at me, as if to say it is only a matter of time now. Then suddenly, it stopped.

  “What the deuce?” Barker asked.

  Woodbury came shuffling in again.

  “The police, sir! They’ve just arrived. It looks as if some of the crowd is going away.”

  “Thank heavens,” Booth said, and Stead gave a sigh of relief.

  Our celebration was premature, however. The Yard had not come to save W. T. Stead at all.

  “Stead! Open this door and surrender yourself,” a voice boomed from a speaking trumpet in one of the inspector’s hands. “You are under arrest for transporting a child out of the country.”

  Stead drummed his fingers atop the blotter of his desk and rose. “I suppose that is it, then,” he said. “You know what to do, Booth.”

  “I shall arrange counsel,” the general said, shaking his hand. “God bless you, William.”

  “Thank you, Bram. Mr. Barker, they might have hanged me waiting for the police to arrive. I owe you a debt.”

  Booth’s guardians at the front door allowed the police in, and soon we were all being questioned about the event of the evening, while Stead was put in darbies and escorted to Scotland Yard. The Gazette office was in complete disarray, and I did not envy the staff the tremendous work and expenditure necessary to get it looking as respectable as it once did, but I noticed that the press never stopped cranking out endless copies of the next edition. Booth took over Stead’s chair and fired off messages and before we left, I noted that most of the staff was seated in front of typewriting machines, taking down the events they had witnessed firsthand that evening for the later edition.

  By the time Barker and I left, the crowd had almost dispersed. People loitered about here and there, looking at broken brickbats and an inch-thick carpet of broken glass in front of the Gazette ’s door. Of our friends, the Ratcliff Highway Boys, there was no sign.

  34

  I was lying on my bed with my arm behind my head and a copy of Donal Grant in my hand. I wasn’t doing MacDonald justice, idly turning pages, but then he was not the sort of author to read when one is feeling down. After another ten minutes, I tossed the book down on the bed and began counting the beams in the ceiling.

  “Am I interrupting, sir?”

  Mac had come in. I don’t know what he puts on all the hinges in the house that all the doors open soundlessly, but it is faintly unnerving.

  “I was working up a thought, but I don’t believe I have the right equipment, and it hardly seems worth the effort. What do you want, Mac?”

  “There is a young lady who wishes to speak to you.”

  Until I am dead, I shall always consider those to be agreeable words.

  “Pretty?” I asked. For some reason, I’ve always considered Mac a fine judge of women.

  “Yes, sir. Quite attractive.”

  “Did she give a name? Is it Miss Potter?”

  “No, sir. Your visitor is Miss Amy Levy.”

  “Miss Levy?” I asked, putting my feet over the side of the bed and pulling on my first boot. “How extraordinary. I wonder what she wants. We cannot speak in the street. Show her into the garden and pick a flower for her, Mac. Recite poetry until I get there.”

  Mac rolled his eyes. “Very good, sir.”

  Lacing my other boot, I debated putting on a new pair of spats I’d recently purchased. Granted, I had no romantic plans for Miss Levy, considering her Israel Zangwill’s girl; and, though she seemed rather sharp at times, how often does one find a girl at one’s doorstep, delivered like a parcel? I straightened my tie before going downstairs.

  Out in the garden, Miss Levy’s petite form was turned away, surveying the miniature vistas in front of her. She wore a blue-gray dress with a white collar and seemed the kind of no-nonsense woman that eschewed artifice of any kind.

  “Good day, Miss Levy.”

  She turned but did not smile, which was not a good sign.

  “What an odd garden,” she eventually said.

  “It is Oriental.”

  “I know it is Oriental, Mr. Llewelyn. I am not ignorant. Tell me, does Mr. Barker enjoy torturing the trees?” She pointed to the corner where the Guv’s Pen-jing trees stood on display.

  “I think he rather does,” I said, wondering if she had a reason for coming here other than to discuss Barker’s trees.

  She regarded me with her dark eyes. “I came here to slap your face for breaking Beatrice’s heart, but it hardly seems worth the effort now. One hears how painful it is to be slapped, but nobody ever talks about how it hurts to slap someone. Why is that?”

  “I scarce can say.”

  “My word, those are the ugliest spats I’ve ever seen.”

  We looked down at my boots. She was right. What had I been thinking?

  “You cut me to the quick. I presume you have some information to impart, that is, if you’ve resolved one way or another whether you shall slap me.”

  “I’m still mulling it over. I came here with the express purpose of doing so, but something about being here has changed my mind.”

  “The garden does do that to people. Shall we go and sit in the pavilion?”

  We crossed the little bridge that spans the brook and made our way up the rock steps to the pavilion where Barker spends of good deal of his time in fair weather. In the very center of it, Harm sat, mildly twitching his tail.

  “And who is this?” Amy Levy asked.

  “It is Harm, the guardian of the garden.”

  “He did not guard again
st me,” she noted. “He never even left this spot.”

  “He likes women. It is men he attacks. He tried to bite Israel the one time he came out here.”

  “I’ve wanted to bite him myself once or twice. You are correct about the garden, by the way. It’s very peaceful out here. I can hardly believe I’m in Newington. But that is not the reason I came here. I want to tell you about Beatrice.”

  I felt a tightening in my stomach. “What has happened to her?”

  “She has had a nervous collapse, I’m afraid. She has given up her room and position at the Katherine Building and her volunteer work entirely and has gone back to live with her family.”

  “I am heartily sorry to hear that,” I said, while inwardly a mantle of guilt fell about my shoulders. Perhaps I had been too forthright. I should have spoken to her more gently or stayed longer to see what she would do. Palmister Clay notwithstanding, I hate to inflict pain upon another human being, particularly one I genuinely liked. “Did she give any message to you for me or say anything about me?”

  “That is a typical male response, Mr. Llewelyn,” Miss Levy said coldly. “This is not about you. It is about her.”

  “Yes, yes, I know that. I’m sorry.”

  “She began planning her departure shortly after seeing you, from what I could gather. What exactly did you say to her?”

  “I-wished her happiness.”

  She got up and walked across the lawn to the brook and watched it burble over the stones.

  “I cannot understand it,” she finally said. “Beatrice was so far above you. You are an ex-convict, working in an unsuitable occupation with limited prospects, while she is a brilliant young woman, attractive, from an excellent family, and she cared for you. And yet, you threw her over and broke her heart. Are you mad? Whatever made you do it?”

  “Are you here on her behalf? Did she send you?”

  “No, she did not send me. I rejoice in the breakup. You were unsuitable for her in every way. You were a disaster. I merely wanted to look you in the eye and to find out why you ended the relationship.”