by Will Thomas
“You do realize that she is the sister of a young man who may have blown up Scotland Yard, not to mention our chambers.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’re pretending to be someone else, and if she found out who you are, she’d probably loathe you. You are the enemy.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And need I remind you my agency doesn’t exist to find you female companionship.”
“No, sir.” The words stung worse than the burn. I despised myself for disappointing him.
“Miss O’Casey, like most beautiful young women, is a complication, and we have enough complications as it is. Keep your wits about you, Thomas.”
I sighed. “Yes, sir.”
“It’s for your own good. Wash again. You’re still blue about the ears.” He got up and left me to my ablutions.
The group was slowly awakening. Rising from around the now-ashen bonfire, the young men broke their fast on the stale bread and stout from the night before. I decided to wait until we were in Liverpool again before I dared to eat anything.
Maire O’Casey was still using Yeats as a beast of burden. He was loading the hamper and some pots and pans into the cart. I wondered what sort of reception she would give me, after last night. As it turned out, it was none at all. I might as well have been a ghost for all the attention she gave me.
Sore, tired, miserable, and confused, I climbed into the vehicle beside my employer and counseled myself to be philosophical. This is life. One minute, you’re the hero and the next, the goat. Yesterday, after the success of the demonstration, I felt I could do no wrong. Now, all I had to look forward to was a ride back to the railway halt with a group of sullen people and a train ride to Liverpool.
The next day there was another hurling match in Prince’s Park. As I watched, I reflected on the fact that none of the faction members appeared to have occupations. O’Casey was enjoying summer holiday from Trinity, but who fed and sheltered McKeller and the Bannons? Were they all living on American money, like Dunleavy? McKeller suddenly entreated me to stand in for one of the players, but I’d have none of it just yet, nor of the drinking bout that occurred afterward when they won. Instead, after the game I jumped onto the first omnibus, heading back to the O’Casey house.
As I got off in Water Street, I passed a hansom cab sitting at the curb; hearing a voice I recognized, I glanced in. Two men were conversing, while the cabman and the horse waited patiently. One of the men was tall and the other short and stocky. I did not recognize the tall fellow, but there was no mistaking Inspector Munro of the Special Irish Branch. I could not believe he was here in Liverpool, a few blocks from our very street, merely sightseeing.
Suspecting I might be watched, I turned down a narrow alleyway to the next street and passed down it until I was near the back of the O’Casey house. There I squeezed between two buildings set close together, made my way to the back entrance, and went inside and upstairs quietly, so as not to alert anyone.
“Munro is in the area, not three streets from here,” I tumbled out, as I entered our room, but as usual, Barker was ahead of me. He had a chair pulled up against the wall near the window and was peering out while smoking his pipe.
“I’m not surprised. I do not care for the fellow, but he is no fool, and he has great resources.”
“What shall we do?” I whispered.
“We cannot alert the faction,” Barker said adamantly. “If the Special Irish Branch has arrived, I would not willingly jeopardize their investigation merely to save my own. You and I should lie low as much as possible and avoid being taken. Do not leave by the front door, by all means, and stay away from windows. Did you notice any constables at the hurling pitch this afternoon?”
“No, sir, but I wasn’t looking. If we get arrested, is there some way we could talk ourselves out of it? Munro will obviously recognize us if he sees us.”
“He would, but in order to clear the way for his own capture of the faction, he would probably keep us incarcerated for days. I’ve seen suspects held by the S.I.B. for a month.”
“A month!” I cried, my blood running cold.
“Oh, yes,” Barker assured me. “Her Majesty’s government takes treasonous acts very seriously.”
“But we’re innocent!” I stated. “We’re working for the Home Office.”
“Munro is not above his petty jealousies, and, as you are aware, he has a special antipathy for private enquiry agents.”
“Oh, that’s marvelous,” I muttered. “On the one hand, we have to aid the bombers and not reveal ourselves, lest we be killed, and on the other, we risk arrest and incarceration for an indefinite period, even if Munro knows who we are.”
“You put it most succinctly, lad.”
It did not help our predicament that Colonel Alfred Dunleavy came bowling in the next morning through the front door as bold as you please, brimming with confidence about our upcoming assault on London. I wanted to warn him and O’Casey that the Special Irish Branch was in the area, but Barker warned me to silence. We were playing a very close game. Especially damning was a newly acquired map of London with all the bombing sites marked that Dunleavy had brought with him.
“Five men, gentlemen,” he stated loudly enough to be heard in the street as he rolled out the map on the breakfast table around which I, Barker, and O’Casey sat. “Five heroes to bring London to her knees and to free Ireland from the chains of tyranny.”
The bombing targets were marked with stars in red ink. This was the colonel’s element, planning a campaign, a battle plan. Thirty sites were marked on the map.
“My word,” I blurted out, glancing over Dunleavy’s shoulder. “Buckingham Palace.”
“Yes,” Dunleavy enthused, misinterpreting my dread. “And the Houses of Parliament, the Home Office, the Prime Minister’s residence, the Horse Guards, and Scotland Yard again. Whitehall shall be completely reduced to rubble. Then there is the Telephone Exchange, the Central Telegram office and Postal Exchange, the Bank of England-”
“Very good, Colonel,” Barker stated. “I see you have marked all the major train stations, as well. Do you think St. Paul’s is necessary?”
“To my way of thinking, Mr. van Rhyn,” Dunleavy stated, “our biggest troubles with England began when they broke away from the Catholic Church.”
“This is a very bold plan.”
“With your new explosives, we can afford to be bold.”
“So many sites,” O’Casey stated. “However will we manage it with just five men?”
“Each man shall go out armed with two satchels. Each satchel will contain a bomb, already primed and set with a timer. Each man shall deliver a bomb, setting it in some out-of-the-way corner, if possible, and carry the second one to another location. All at once, ten bombs will detonate simultaneously. In the confusion, our bombers shall return, collect two more bombs each, and deliver them to additional sites. A half hour or more later, the second group of bombs will explode, and a half hour beyond that, the third set.”
“So,” Barker said, “the government will be crippled, along with the train stations, the post offices, telegraphs, and the banks.”
“Yes,” Dunleavy continued, “and the gas and water as well. We’ll throw London back into the Dark Ages. Oh, and there is one thing more.”
“And that is?”
“We’re no longer targeting mere buildings, gentlemen. This time there will be casualties. It is time for the gloves to come off. That is why we’ll time our first attack for six o’clock, when the businesses are closing and street traffic is at its highest. Let us see what kind of carnage and terror we can create then.”
18
We waited for two days for Scotland Yard to appear on the doorstep. The wait was agonizing. Any minute, I thought, Inspector Munro and his boys were going to kick in the door, clap us in darbies, and haul us off to the constabulary for an indefinite stay, all our plans in ruins and Barker’s reputation in disgrace. After two days, however, we saw no sign of t
he Special Irish Branch in the area. It was a good thing, too, for all this confinement was wearing on our nerves.
“I must get out of this house,” Barker complained to me. “I cannot think here. I believe we can risk relaxing our vigil. Miss O’Casey!”
Maire O’Casey came in from the parlor, where she had been studying Gaelic. Like the others, she never knew how close the Special Irish Branch had been to discovering all of us. “Yes, Mr. van Rhyn?”
“Mr. Penrith has expressed an interest in seeing the docks. We shall take a walk and perhaps see a little more of the city. Would it inconvenience you if we dine out?”
“Not at all, sir. As you wish it.”
“Thank you. You are very kind to a pair of refugees. Come, Thomas.”
My employer seized his ivory-inlaid cane and made his way out the back door and through to the next street while I followed. My duties as assistant to a prominent enquiry agent seemed to involve following Barker, never knowing where he was going or in what situation we would find ourselves once we got there. I was the apprentice, and he the master, but we were also each other’s safeguard, there to help each other out of any possible scrape. Of course, so far, Barker had done all the helping.
We did actually go to the docks. I’ve never been one of those people who has romantic notions of the sea and ships. The life, when it isn’t banal, with its thousand tasks to be done constantly, is often brutal and dangerous. The sea is a cold mistress, and she doesn’t care a fig what happens to you. I had to remind myself, however, that my employer had grown up on it, rising from dockhand through the ranks on various ships until he was captain of his own, the Osprey. I didn’t know a belaying pin from a bo’sun’s whistle, but it had significance to him, significance and a degree of comfort. When we reached Liverpool Quay and looked out upon the forest of masts and the bustle of men loading and unloading, I let him have his head and remained silent for a while, knowing that he had come here to think.
Half an hour later, we stood at a railing overlooking the ships, and my employer had not moved for fifteen minutes. I’d used the time reflecting on the enigma that is Cyrus Barker. Perhaps it was a makeup of his constitution, but, though he had surrounded himself with a number of friends and acquaintances-not to mention an assistant who lived in his very house-he was a very solitary individual. Sometimes, I wondered if I were an irritation to him, as I am inclined to blather. At least, for once, I knew to keep my mouth shut.
Slowly, he turned and clasped his hands behind him, as a ship’s captain would, and I pictured him in command of his own vessel.
“We have accomplished several things so far,” he said, as if in the middle of a conversation with himself. “We have located the faction, joined them, and gained their confidence. We’ve destroyed their supply of dynamite. Soon it will be time to gather the materials for the second attempt upon London. How do you feel about making our own nitroglycerin?”
“It certainly would impress the faction, but where would we get the materials? We would need a lot to make thirty bombs, as Dunleavy described.”
“England is too tightly controlled for such large quantities. As he said, we may have to go as far as Paris for supplies. The fellow still puzzles me. After all this time with him, I still do not countenance that this plan is his. I think we should search his hotel room.”
“Is it really necessary?” I dared ask. “I mean, we’d be going to a lot of risk, possibly for nothing.”
“We might come up with empty hands, but we also might find something of value.”
“If we can get in,” I countered.
“Get in?” the Guv scoffed. “A simple matter.”
It was indeed a simple matter, as Barker said. After a quick meal at a tea shop, we found ourselves in the hallway at the Midland Hotel, where he removed a skeleton key, or “betty” as he called it, from his pocket and inserted it in the keyhole. After an agonizingly long moment in which no one appeared in the hall, we heard the soft click of the lock, opened the door, and stepped inside.
“How did you know he wasn’t here?” I asked, thinking it was a mercy Barker had not been a criminal. What other little contrivances did he carry about in his pockets?
“I asked him what he had planned for today. He’s got a meeting with a Liberal Liverpool MP, trying to make him more sensitive to the Irish cause and to convince him to throw in the odd shilling.”
Number 314 was a suite, with fresh flowers on the table. There was a pile of papers on the table that attracted Barker’s immediate interest. He crossed to it and began looking through a stack of messages.
“Tailor’s bill. Creditor. Creditor. Oh, dear. Dunleavy appears to be in a spot of financial trouble. Start looking but keep everything neat. I want to know with whom Alfred Dunleavy is communicating. Surely a fellow as disorganized as this must have left some sort of evidence behind.”
We began to search. While Barker went through the papers slowly, I opened drawers, peered under the bed, rifled luggage, and searched among his toiletries. I discovered several things about the colonel. He had a fondness for Cuban cigars, his boots were made in a place called Chattanooga, and he used Parker’s hair tonic. If any of these bits of information were helpful in answering some of Barker’s questions, our quest would be successful, but unfortunately, they were not.
Barker suddenly seized me by the collar and dragged me swiftly to the window. He pushed me behind one curtain, and took his place behind the other. We heard the door open and footsteps enter the room. Dunleavy had returned unexpectedly.
What would happen if the colonel caught sight of us? Were he armed, he’d have us at a disadvantage. Obviously, he’d know we were spies and would pass that information to the faction. On the other hand, he couldn’t exactly march us through the lobby at gunpoint.
I was very conscious of my breathing, feeling that it seemed extremely loud in the room. I looked over at my employer, but he was no more animate than a hat stand. Perhaps this sort of thing was a matter of course to him, but for me, it was a new experience. Any minute now, I expected Dunleavy to fling back the curtain, seize me by the lapel, and clap a pistol to my head. I knew how they treated traitors, and I had no hope that they would treat spies any better.
He didn’t see us, of course. He’d come back for something or other, and when he found it, after a few minutes’ search, he left the room again. Confound the fellow and his lack of order, I thought.
“Right. Let us continue the search,” Barker said, as if the near capture hadn’t happened. “What is this?”
There was a new letter laid atop the stack of bills. Barker snatched it up and read it before passing it to me. I spread it out on the table and read.
Buffalo, New York
Mr. Dunleavy,
We acknowledge your need of funds but regret to report that there may be some delay. As you know, much of our monies are divested in supporting candidates for elections, as well as in silver speculation. As soon as funds arrive, we shall send them along speedily.
Your humble servant,
Chester Finney
Secretary of American Hibernian League
Barker turned the note over in his hand. “This certainly does not ease Mr. Dunleavy’s financial woes, does it, lad? The American gives him no idea if the money shall be forthcoming in time for the faction to proceed with the bombings they have planned. This throws everything askew. Mr. Anderson has given us no instructions on what to do if the faction changes its plans. Do we hand them over to Munro and let him decide what to do about them, or continue our deception a little longer, to see how Dunleavy and his men proceed? I have no wish for us to remain on this case indefinitely. We must cast our nets a little farther. I believe the time has come to make a more thorough search of the O’Casey house. I do not see any evidence of plans or communications here beyond this note, but there is still the possibility that O’Casey has information. I’ve already searched his room, but I don’t think we should overlook his sister’s.”
“You don’t seriously think her mixed up in all this, surely.”
“Remember what I counseled you, lad, about considering everyone a suspect until all the facts have been revealed? If she’s innocent, nothing will be found. You look through Miss O’Casey’s room first, while I distract her, and then you do the same while I inspect her brother’s quarter again.”
“Me!” I cried. “Why have me search? I don’t even know what I’m looking for.”
“No more than I, Thomas. I shall engage her in conversation, while you feign a headache and go up to the room to lie down.”
Upon our return, we found Maire O’Casey in the parlor. “Did the two of you find lunch while you were out?” she asked.
“Ja, Fraulein,” Barker said. “We availed ourselves of one of your Aerated Bread Company tearooms. The sea air has not been so helpful for Mr. Penrith. It has brought on one of the headaches he suffers from time to time.”
The girl gave an anxious look my way.
“It is nothing,” I muttered, raising a hand to my head. “If you will excuse me, I think I shall lie down.”
As I climbed the stairs, I heard Barker speak to Maire. “I see you have been studying your own ancient language. Is there much need for it these days?”
I found her room on the third floor. When I had first been hired as an assistant to a private enquiry agent, I had thought myself ill equipped, but since then, I have found some duties that I am suited for. I am a confirmed busybody, inordinately curious.
I began going through drawers, all the while keeping a sharp ear out for someone on the stairs. A chest contained only clothes. I looked through it swiftly. There was nothing concealed under her garments, save a lilac-scented sachet. In a small, white desk with Queen Anne legs, I found her correspondence, along with her own stationery and ink. She kept up with a few friends she had known in school. One had married and was living in Cork, and another was a servant to an English family in Londonderry. Just when I was sure that my suspicions were groundless and the most secret thing she owned were merely her undergarments, I found a small wooden box on a shelf, and it was locked.
