Old Scores--A Barker & Llewelyn Novel

by Will Thomas

  “Why would you think that? Have you come across information I haven’t?”

  “I was merely asking if K’ing, being in charge of the Chinese sailors, and the most prosperous businessman in Limehouse, might wish to come to terms with the embassy.”

  “Of course not!” Ho said. “It’s unthinkable. No self-respecting Han would have anything to do with an enemy of our people. Where would you get such an idea?”

  “I was speculating,” Barker stated, putting his feet up on the corner of the table in front of him.

  “Stop it, then, at once. And kindly take your boots off my table.”

  Barker lowered the offending articles with something like a wry smile. At least for him it was. Anyone else would think it a grimace.

  “Don’t think the other side is eager to meet with us, either. Too much has occurred between us.”

  “I’m sure,” I said, “the blame must be on the Japanese shoulders.”

  “Naturally,” Ho answered. “We have been gracious to them for decades, even forbearing. What have they done in return? They have housed revolutionaries scheming to end the Qing dynasty, and tried to decide how best to dissect my country’s carcass. I don’t like them establishing an embassy in London. They’re up to no good, mark my words.”

  I thought it more likely to be a result of native prejudice, but it is not likely one can convince a person through reason, after a lifetime of enmity. I did not see much difference between the two countries, but I supposed it was my own ignorance that was responsible for that. I felt the same suspicions about the English, but of course, that was their fault, not mine.

  “Japan and China are natural enemies, of course,” Ho said.

  “China and the Blue Dragon are not the same thing,” I stated.

  Ho raised a finger to his lips. The Blue Dragon Triad was not to be named here. It was a so-called benevolent society whose nominal purpose was to tend to the financial needs of sailors plying their trade between Canton and London, but in reality, it was a secret society on the order of the Masons, save that occasionally a Dragon member was found floating in the river. I’ve heard tell if they peached, their tattoo would be branded off before they were thrown in the river. I’ve also heard the men were held underwater with poles until they drowned.

  “Why do you say that?” Ho asked me, glancing at my employer.

  “In order to find out,” Barker replied.

  “Is your ward involved?”

  I looked back and forth at the two men, trying to read their faces. Bok Fu Ying was Barker’s ward, a girl about my own age who had actually been given to the Guv by the Empress Dowager of China to look after his Pekingese, Harm, whom the empress had bred. The year before, Fu Ying had been wed to Mr. K’ing, for good or ill. I was not sure of all the particulars, but I heard later that Ho had hoped to marry her himself, though he was twice her age. At any rate, a cooling between him and her new husband was inevitable. Some of it splashed on Barker, but then there was always a certain amount of intrigue in Limehouse.

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “But you suspect.”

  Barker shrugged his wide shoulders, then winced. I suspected it was his ribs.

  The food arrived and we ate. There was a table full of small dishes. Ho ate with us, but both he and my employer looked dissatisfied. They switched to Cantonese for a few minutes for privacy’s sake. I ignored the slight and ate noodles flavored with prawns.

  “I understand,” Ho finally said, returning to English, “that the entire embassy was to be invited to the Inn of Double Happiness, but Toda’s death postponed that.”

  “Had they met? Mr. K’ing and Ambassador Toda, I mean?”

  “Not to my knowledge. They were to meet for the first time when the meeting was to occur.”

  “How was the offer made? By messenger? Who made the first overture?”

  “I have not heard so far. I can ask for you.”

  Barker shook his head. “There is no need. I’ll find out for myself.”

  “You will visit Fu Ying?”

  “I have neglected her lately.”

  It was true, and not merely lately. Fu Ying was a young woman taken from everything she had known and forced to adopt a foreign country by her owner. She had problems adjusting, even though she tried especially hard to please him. She was also a source of interest among the Asian community, which was nearly all male. I heard she received several proposals of marriage from rough sailors, wealthy merchants, slumming aristocrats, and powerful mandarins. I even considered something in the line of a proposal myself, once. Fortunately, God doesn’t permit every harebrained scheme we envision. At any rate, Barker and the girl had stopped talking, and before we knew it, she and K’ing had eloped. As far as Barker was concerned, she had done it to spite him, jumping from pan to flame, thumbing her nose all the while.

  “Yes, you have,” Ho said. No one else I knew could get away with such a remark. I’d have been kicked into a nearby dustbin. “And if she chose an unsuitable husband, whose fault is that? A girl has no business choosing a husband for herself. She lacks discernment, wisdom, caution. She could have married this one, and then look what a son-in-law you would have!”

  I ignored the jibe at my expense, and bit into a spring roll. I had heard this conversation several times before.

  “She was a slave and an orphan,” Barker replied. “I gave her a home and trained her as best I could to face a cold and cruel world. She chose her partner and there is an end to it.”

  “She married too young.”

  “He is the most successful man in Limehouse,” Barker pointed out.

  “He is a drug addict.”

  “He was held against his will a couple of years ago. Perhaps she can wean him from the poppy.”

  “K’ing has lost some of his money and prestige. He takes risks.”

  “Often he is successful.”

  A servant brought Ho’s pipe to him, a metal contraption like a watering can. He filled it with tobacco and lit it and sucked the smoke through a small reservoir of water.

  “It will all fall on your head one day,” he said in a high, rough voice, before spitting out the smoke. “You mark my words. It will end badly.”

  “That is her affair, not mine,” Barker said. “If it happens, we shall be there to help her, the three of us.”

  Ho rose, spitting Cantonese under his breath before quitting the dining room for the safety of his office.

  “What did he say?” I asked.

  “He compared the sense of two guailos to that of a mayfly during its one-day life span.”

  “Not a complimentary remark, then.”

  “Decidedly not.”

  “He’s still bitter over her marriage.”

  “I didn’t promise her to him, no matter what Ho thinks. I didn’t promise her to anyone. It was her own decision whom to marry. She did not solicit my opinion.”

  “Would you have consented?” I asked.

  “I would have warned her that K’ing is a complex individual. He is not bound by Western concepts of right and wrong, nor by the Eastern beliefs he left behind when he came to this country.”

  “What is his background?”

  “No one knows save himself, as far as I can tell. K’ing is obviously an assumed name. I know not what his real name is nor where he is from. He started as a sailor for the Blue Funnel Line, and formed the Blue Dragon Triad, an offshoot of the Heaven and Earth Society. He had natural abilities and a desire to learn. He would have gone far. He still might if he can overcome his opium addiction. But one hears rumors.”

  “Rumors, sir?”

  “Aye. He’ll disappear for days at a time, but the reasons are often legitimate. He has a staff of employees willing to help him or lie for him. He doesn’t make use of his own opium den ever, which is below his casino in Limehouse, but the rumor is that he frequents out-of-the-way dens on waterfronts all over the empire, and never the same one twice.”

  “What does he tell his
wife?”

  “He claims he has overcome the effects of his incarceration years ago by my old enemy, Sebastian Nightwine, but then, that is what one would expect a confirmed opium eater to say.”

  He stood and nodded toward the stairwell leading toward the tunnel. I looked about and noticed no fewer than three waiters nearby, wiping tables or arranging flowers. Silk flowers don’t require arranging. I rose to my feet and casually followed the Guv from the room. More than once we had relied upon information gathered here, but I didn’t care for supplying it myself.

  We did not speak in the tunnel. Our voices carried too well there. I reached up and knocked on the ceiling overhead with a knuckle. The dull thump of the river above reverberated through the chamber. At the other end we climbed the stone stair and left through the door. Then, and only then, did we speak.

  “Can you think of any reason why K’ing would want the new Japanese ambassador killed?” I asked.

  “As we said earlier, there is no love lost between China and Japan.”

  “But K’ing is not a typical Chinaman.”

  “True. For example, he invited the ambassador to his establishment.”

  “Yes, but he could have invited him in order to kill him.”

  “Perhaps. We haven’t all the facts. We have precious few, to be honest, but that is normal for this stage in the case.”

  “But any handle will do,” I said, as we walked along a wicked-looking street named Ropemaker’s Fields.

  It was a phrase he used often in our antagonistics class. He’d seize a collar, an elbow, even a foot, and use it to take a man to the ground until he was helpless. What it basically meant was not to look or hope for something to come along. Use what you have at hand this very moment.

  “Aye,” he murmured.

  “So, what do we do now? What handle have we got?”

  “There was a person in the room with Ambassador Toda.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I saw them from across the street. They emerged from the chimney.”

  I stopped and stared at him. “You saw someone on the roof? Why didn’t you say something to Scotland Yard?”

  “Scotland Yard didn’t ask. The Foreign Office and Special Branch asked, but not very politely. I was under no obligation to tell them, and their methods merely made me want to spit in their collective eye.”

  “So, was it someone dressed as a chimney sweep?”

  “No, someone dressed as a burglar. Garbed in black, and heavily masked.”

  “How do you know he was in the room the ambassador used? He must have emerged from a common chimney.”

  “A man is murdered, and someone appears on the roof dressed in black. It is not difficult to make a connection.”

  “This burglar, which way did he go?”

  “To the north end of the building, where I assume some sort of corbel or drainpipe led to the ground.”

  “He got away, and you got the blame. He could be anywhere right now. If only we knew who it was.”

  We turned into Three Colt Lane, where Barker had purchased a property for his ward, Bok Fu Ying.

  “I know who it is, lad. I knew then. Our presumed assassin is a woman.”

  Raising his stick, he rapped on her door.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  A small, plump maid met us at the door of Three Colt Lane. Barker had hired an elderly couple to watch over Bok Fu Ying while she was unwed, reasoning she might want to be with those who could speak her native tongue in Limehouse. When she wed, they had been replaced, but at whose insistence I was not certain. Now that she was a young married woman, we saw less of her than before.

  “May I help you?” the girl asked.

  “We wish to speak to Mrs. K’ing,” the Guv said, removing his hat.

  “Who is calling, sir?” she continued in a singsong voice.

  “Mr. Cyrus Barker and Mr. Thomas Llewelyn,” I supplied for my employer.

  The girl frowned, shrugged her shoulders, and left us standing outside his own front door, bought and paid for. Very well, so he had given it to the couple as a wedding present, but it was no way to treat the closest thing to family. Or his assistant, for that matter.

  She returned a few minutes later in no particular hurry, and led us up the staircase as if she felt leading us was beneath her dignity.

  Fu Ying was seated at a table writing letters. She was dressed like an English lady, from her coiffed hair to her button shoes. Her dress was of pale gray with pink accents and she wore pearl earrings. Her face was powdered and her lips and cheeks lightly rouged. The Llewelyn eye misses nothing.

  “Sir!” she cried, jumping to her feet.

  “Fu Ying,” he rumbled, stepping toward her.

  She opened the door and barked orders in sharp Cantonese down the hall. Then, she took our hats and sticks and directed us to a couple of small chairs carved in China. Gingerly, we sat.

  “Are you well? Sir’s face is bruised. Is Damo well? I fear I have been neglecting him of late.”

  “Harm is fine. I am fine. We are all fine.”

  “What brings you to Limehouse?”

  “Cannot a man come to see how his ward is finding married life?”

  There was an awkward affection between them, but their relationship was very formal. It was too formal, in my opinion.

  “Of course. And how is Mr. Llewelyn?”

  “My father is quite well, thank you,” I told her.

  She bowed. “Thomas. Forgive me.”

  “Not at all,” I said, dismissing the remark with a wave of my hand. There was no need to be formal around me. I work for my wages.

  The door crashed open and the maid entered, laden with a tray. There was a pink palm print on her cheek, I could not help but notice. Fu Ying hadn’t done it. There must be a housekeeper about the house who still knew what was going on. The girl poured tea in spite of the tears in her eyes. There was no more dawdling. She poured each of us some oolong, then left quickly. As soon as she was gone, I spoke.

  “Mr. Barker was arrested by the Foreign Office. They consider him the chief suspect in Ambassador Toda’s murder, and detained him overnight. They chained him and tried to beat a confession out of him. His solicitor had him released. This morning General Mononobe of the Japanese embassy has hired us to track down Toda’s murderer.”

  So far, Fu Ying had betrayed no emotion at the harrowing tale, but she suddenly turned her head as I finished.

  “He hired you?”

  “Yes. Is there any reason why he shouldn’t?”

  The two exchanged a look. It’s difficult to tell with Barker hiding behind those large discs, but I believed so.

  “Not at all. I’m sorry Sir was detained.”

  “Would you be so good as to tell me why you were on the roof of the Japanese embassy?” Barker asked.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she replied.

  “I am more than your benefactor, I am your teacher,” he said, referring to her martial training under his tutelage. “I have trained you for ten years. I know your every move and could choose you out of a crowd in the dark. The way you moved along the ridge of the roof was unmistakable; I taught you to move like that. Only two people have been trained that way and both of you are in this room. Mr. Llewelyn, did you climb the chimney of the Japanese embassy?”

  “No, sir, I did not. At the time I was dining in the City.”

  “There. You see? One accounted for. And where were you the night of Ambassader Toda’s murder, my dear?”

  “I was with my husband.”

  “No doubt. And precisely where was your husband?”

  “He was working at the inn.”

  Barker shook his head. “I hope you avoid that den of iniquity as much as possible.”

  “But it is my husband’s place of business. It’s no longer the opium den it once was. Now it has a restaurant and tables for gambling. My husband intends to buy the old theater next door and renovate it for entertainment and meetings.”


  “I know for a fact that opium smoking still goes on in the basement.”

  Fu Ying now looked annoyed. She used to hang on every word my employer said. I suppose marriage can change people’s opinions.

  “Oh, that. Most of the addicts are old men. He would rather have them smoke under his care than at a less scrupulous establishment. He takes his responsibilities in Limehouse very seriously.”

  “Why did you go to the embassy that night? I presume K’ing had some business plot involving the Japanese delegation.”

  Fu Ying inhaled, trying to decide whether to confide in him. She exhaled, and shrugged her shoulders. “My husband asked me to. I have no more to say on the matter.”

  “Why were you there?” Barker asked.

  “Please do not ask me that question now, sir,” she pleaded, bowing her head in shame.

  “You do understand that you have become my chief suspect. You climbed down into the room. Toda died. You climbed out again and left, notifying no one. In my eyes, you are the most likely suspect in the murder of Ambassador Toda Ichigo.”

  “I did not murder him, sir. You must believe me.”

  “Why must I believe you?” the Guv growled.

  “Because I have promised another that I would say nothing. I am sorry that I could not tell you.”

  Barker opened his mouth to speak and shut it again. He began to pace about her carpet, his hands clasped behind his back. I understood what was agitating him. He had respect for anyone who keeps a vow. While he does not encourage secrets, when one has taken a vow, he or she is duty-bound to keep it.

  “Did you not see me?” he asked.

  “No, sir.”

  “I was across the street. I saw you very clearly. You have been trained to observe. Why didn’t you see me?”

  “I was preoccupied,” Fu Ying replied. “A man had just died at my very feet. I was escaping.”

  “Excuses!”

  Barker was sometimes a harsh teacher, in order to make us independent, knowing he cannot be there every time we were in trouble. A father disciplines his children.

  “I will be more careful next time, sir,” Bok Fu Ying said, a hiccup in her voice.

  “Pray do. I could have been someone with a rifle. I could have been the police. I hope you will never do something like that again.”