The Symbol Seekers

by A. A. Glynn

  ‘Did you see this when it was new?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes and it intrigued me for a time. It brought back memories of the Dixie Ghosts but I can’t say why. I eventually forgot all about it, though I recall there was mention of another message to follow.

  ‘Yes and I have it here. From this morning’s paper.’

  ‘Which I haven’t yet seen.’

  She handed him the second communication, placed in the paper by one of Vavasour’s London contacts on the General’s instructions.

  He read it quickly and gave a short laugh.

  ‘Aha! The first one baffled me completely, except for a modicum of plain English, This second one is rather easier and I believe I have solved it without much trouble.’

  ‘Mr. Dacers, the first of those messages puzzled me for days,’ she said. ‘I just knew there was something about it—something American—that was shouting out to me but I just could not understand it. Now you say you have solved the second part. Please, you must tell me what it means.’

  He smiled, shook his head and said somewhat teasingly. ‘Oh, no. You claim to have solved the first part so let’s start with that so we have a full picture.’

  ‘Very well. Take the first part: The good father is wrong. Have you ever heard of Father Abram Joseph Ryan?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Neither had I until very recently when I read about him in one of the literary journals Father receives from home. They are beginning to call him the Poet Laureate of the Confederacy. He is a Catholic priest, a son of Irish immigrants born in the South and devoted to Dixie. He joined the Confederate Army as a chaplain and distinguished himself on the battlefield, giving the last rites to dying men and carrying the wounded to places of safety. With the collapse of the South, he wrote a poem, The Conquered Banner, which is popular with both sides. It makes a plea for the South to accept the furling of its flag but to always remember the thousands of brave and devoted men—of whom his brother was one—and women who died in its service.’

  Roberta paused and, for a moment, her face clouded and she said: ‘That’s a sentiment thousands of Northerners, including myself, can agree with. Our big war was a family quarrel—far, far worse than a normal family quarrel, I grant you—but, North or South, we are all Americans. Though my father is an officer of the present administration, I regret that President Johnson’s party is treating the South so harshly.’

  Dacers noted her downcast expression and the unmistakable melancholy in her eyes. For an instant, her face reflected so much that was good in her character: her broad compassion; her desire to see her country’s recent wounds healed and the folk of North and South united in the quest for the bright future America promised. In that instant, he realised how much he admired her sterling qualities—no, how much he loved her.

  He quickly turned his attention to the next portion of the first newspaper announcement: ‘The ban not con.’

  ‘Ah, I see—that obviously means the banner is not conquered and it sounds suspiciously like a call to arms, the same sort of dodge the Dixie Ghosts tried; a money making fraud based on a spurious move to re-start the American Civil War. I can’t believe anyone would try that again so soon after the Ghosts were tossed into jail. The case was widely reported in the papers.’

  ‘Well, it is certainly some kind of organisation to do with the Confederacy’, said Roberta. ‘And it announces that a meeting is to be called soon. I puzzled over the meaning of the initials LUB for a long time then I matched the initials against Father Ryan’s poem and hit on League of the Unconquered Banner.’

  ‘Sounds reasonable enough,’ said Dacers. ‘How about the combination of letters at the end, the Si Se Ty that looks almost Chinese?’

  ‘I was puzzled by that for a long time, too,’ she said. ‘Then I recalled that, as he jumped to the stage of Ford’s Theatre after shooting President Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth shouted the motto of his native State, Virginia: Sic Semper Tyrannis—Thus To All Tyrants. After I juggled with those initials for a time, the slogan suddenly came to me and it set the seal on the whole thing as having something to do with the old Confederacy, with Booth’s cry as a kind of motto.’

  ‘Very good reasoning and it strengthens my uncomfortable feeling that it is an echo of the Dixie Ghosts’ case,’ he said. ‘The announcement in today’s paper takes us a little further.’ He began to trace each word with his finger. ‘See? We have the same trappings; the initials LUB, and the initials representing Booth’s cry, signing off and, between them the message: Mtg arrgd. 7-30pm Fri inst T Rm Crem Gdns.

  Roberta looked at the paper more closely.

  ‘I understand the main gist of it, saying a meeting has been arranged but the last bit about the venue escapes me,’ she said.

  ‘It wouldn’t if you were a native Londoner,’ he said. ‘That scrap of code: T Rm, Crem Gdns, simply means Big Tea Room, Cremorne Gardens. So that’s where our mysterious friends are meeting at 7-30 pm on Friday—three nights from now.’

  ‘Cremorne Gardens?’ Roberta gasped, ‘Isn’t that the notorious place beside the Thames at Chelsea?’

  Dacers smiled. ‘Notorious is the right word but Cremorne Pleasure Gardens have a double life. They put on a very respectable face in the mornings and afternoons. Parents quite happily take their children there to see the animals in the menagerie, ride the merry-go-rounds, watch the ascents of daring balloonists or drink ginger-pop.

  ‘Towards evening, the character of the place changes. The wine, gin, whisky and grog flows in quantity. Certain types of men and women who live mainly at night make their appearance, replacing doting parents and their innocent offspring. Need I say more?’

  Roberta had been listening to him with eyes wide open and her mouth making an “O”. She was displaying what Dacers thought of as her “tomboy” side which was every bit as attractive as her compassionate side—and every bit as loveable.

  ‘How fascinating Cremorne Gardens must be. I should like to go there one evening,’ she said. ‘My father is always saying I should see more of London.’

  Dacers started. ‘Oh, no, not if I can help it! Cremorne is no place for a single young lady on her own. There are pitfalls and I’m certain your father did not have Cremorne in mind when he said you should see more of London,’

  ‘You make it sound very forbidding. I suppose I’ll go there without any fear when I am a fully operating detective and I feel I am well on my way to achieving that ambition.’

  Dacers stood with his head on one side, regarding her with a quizzical expression. ‘What brings you to that conclusion?’ he asked.

  ‘Why, my dear sir. Did you not witness the ease with which I translated that first newspaper notice into understandable form? I probably have a natural talent for breaking down clues.’ Her eyes were sparkling with a whimsical light familiar to him from across the breakfast table.

  ‘What ease?’ he countered, half teasing. ‘You admitted you struggled with the puzzle and I think it was your knowledge of modern American poetry that did the work for you when you spotted the link with Father Ryan. You might qualify as a professor of literature, but that’s hardly the same as a detective.’ Even as he spoke, he realised how patronising he sounded. She had displayed a sharp, investigative mind and he, man like, had to belittle her. All at once, he saw himself from the woman’s viewpoint—from Roberta’s viewpoint—and he perceived that the male of the species always gave a woman’s achievement short shrift just because it was the accomplishment of a woman. It seemed almost a duty in this society which Roberta had justifiably complained was male dominated.

  What gave him qualms of most regret, however, was the thought that he had hurt Roberta and that was something he would never consciously do. Yet again, he thought how very deeply he loved her with his one-sided love which he believed she would never return.

  She pretended to pout. ‘Oh, fie! You have quite deflated me ju
st when I thought I had taken a great step towards proving that ladies are brainy enough to be detectives.’

  ‘Oh, you’ve done valuable work,’ he said with much more genuine feeling. ‘You’ve done some remarkable brain work and established that there is a group here in England called the League of the Unconquered Banner—or some similar name—which appears to be associated with the old Confederacy. We don’t know its aims. The Dixie Ghosts were criminal and dangerous but we don’t know what these people are up to. Maybe they’re quite innocent. If not, the British authorities and your Ambassador, Mr. Adams, need to know. A good deal of investigating must be done to be sure of being on safe ground.’

  ‘Oh, good! How I’d enjoy being involved in an investigation just to prove that my instincts as a detective are sound,’ said Roberta. Her eyes were bright with enthusiasm and she was obviously gripped by her tomboy mood.

  Dacers sighed. ‘My dear lady, please be assured that I shall not take you on as a partner in this matter. The affair of the Dixie Ghosts turned nasty to the point where I was almost fed to the fishes in the Thames. If this new affair turns out to be dangerous and you are injured or killed it would break your father’s heart. I respect him very much and I know you mean everything to him. You are fortunate to have each other.’

  This appeal to her deepest sentiments had its effect.

  She was touched by Dacers’ concern for her father and she recalled the long hours of anxiety when she nursed him through his close brush with death. Then the fervent sense of thanksgiving when he came out of his fevers and gathered strength and she knew she would have her wise, gentle and beloved father a little longer. Her answer was slow in coming, but when it did, there was nothing of her reckless, tomboyish style in it.

  ‘I suppose you’re right, Mr. Dacers. I tend to get carried away by my enthusiasms. In all my time in England, I never learned to be a contented woman of the English type, happy to settle down with a romantic novel or my needlework.’

  Dacers smiled. ’You should try it sometime, just to keep out of mischief. However, I know the Van Trasks were among America’s earliest Dutch settlers, so I suppose you’ll always want to see what’s over the next hill.’

  ‘Ah, that sounds as if you understand my inquisitiveness,’ she said. ‘It’s most likely a family trait, going back for centuries. I was probably born to be a detective.’

  ‘Possibly. Maybe Professor Darwin, can give you an explanation all based on evolution but please curb your inherited enthusiasm in this matter of Cremorne Gardens—there could be danger lurking there.’

  ‘Danger?’ she said as if savouring the word. ‘After doing nothing special all winter, the prospect of some excitement is tempting me to abandon my newly made plans concerning romantic novels and needlework.’

  ‘No, Stick to those civilised plans’, he said firmly. ‘And leave the meeting at Cremorne to me.’

  She looked at him with a light in her eyes that seemed partly mocking and partly whimsical. Dacers hoped it did not betoken a stirring of her streak of tomboy defiance?

  CHAPTER 6

  A REFUGE FOR THE BOX

  The day after Mr. O stood beside the Thames at Chelsea, surrounded by scented tobacco smoke and smitten by a new notion for getting the box from Birkenhead off his hands to evade any police sweep for it, he walked boldly along Southampton Row. Under his left arm he carried the cumbersome box, wrapped in a substantial covering of canvas. O was at that time occupying a set of small but adequate rooms in Putney, the district in which he was seeking a suitable house for his cousin-bride and himself after their marriage. He did not wish the box to be found there but he was on his way to a place where it could be comfortably lodged away from prying eyes.

  O understood that it contained something of extreme interest and value to serious collectors of Americana. Almost certainly, its theft had caused a fuss up north but he was confident that it would be safe where he hoped to leave it until he thought of a profitable way to dispose of it.

  A policeman was plodding towards him at the usual foot patrol pace and, as they drew level O took an impudent pleasure in addressing him.

  ‘Good morning, Constable. Another promising day, what?’

  The officer saluted. ‘Good morning, sir. Yes, it feels a bit like spring.’

  Walking on, O smiled and thought of the value of a dandyish costume and a handsome walking stick when carrying stolen property under the noses of the police. Had he appeared to be a poor man or even a labouring man, he could expect a gruff question from the peeler: ‘Just a moment. What’re you carrying under your arm?’

  O continued a little way down Southampton Row then he turned off at a straggling street lined with old houses, many in a State of decay. Deep in the street was a large building of the tenement type, every bit as run-down as the neighbouring property. It had an ornamental entrance over which moulded letters declared it to be “Marlborough Dwellings”.

  Although it was inhabited by those managing to make ends meet rather than the truly poor, the truly poor had left their mark on the premises. The building was bereft of the impressive wooden doors it must once have had. In exceptionally cold winters, the street-dwelling truly poor had a habit of raiding vulnerable properties for firewood and street doors often disappeared.

  Consequently, the entrance hall of Marlborough Dwellings was quite unprotected from the open street and its denizens.

  O climbed the set of cracked stone steps and entered the hallway and then mounted a creaking inner stairway.

  In a small room on the first floor, a young man was seated at a table cluttered with materials of painting and drawing. His surroundings were far from luxurious. A single bed, unmade, stood in one corner; another corner was occupied by an easel bearing a large, blank canvas and, behind these a small and grubby window let in thin shafts of light, hopelessly inadequate as an aid to painting, Here and there, oddments of clothing, books and boxes were scattered about.

  Adolphus Crayford, sitting at the table, was working on a metal plate, which had a whitened surface. On this, he was drawing a number of horsemen. When his boldly drawn lines were etched into the plate, it would be an illustration for a “penny dreadful”, one of the shockingly bloodthirsty cheap magazines. The vociferous reformers of British morals claimed such publications were causing the reformatories and prisons to be filled with boys and young men, corrupted by them.

  Adolphus had his heart set on higher art but sweated hack-work was all he could get to keep the wolf from the door.

  A sharp rap on the door caused him to turn his head and without any bidding from him, the door opened and the face of the man Adolphus knew as ‘Mr. O’ looked around it, grinning. He looked the very picture of the amiable chum calling in to share some of the spirit of this bright morning in a little chat. He turned on a flow of charm as if it was obtainable from a tap.

  ‘Good morning, young Mr. Crayford,’ he hailed. ‘So good to see you gainfully employed.’

  Adolphus, son of a hard working vicar of a poor country parish in Dorset, turned his lean face towards his cheerful visitor. It was the face of a young man who was being handed a hard time by life.

  ‘Not so gainful,’ he said dolefully. ‘Do you realise the fetching and carrying I have to do for these shark publishers? I have to collect the prepared plates and the copy to be illustrated from St Giles. The drawings must be ready two weeks before publication day and, when they are finished, I have to trudge over to Seven Dials to have them engraved and march back to the printer with them and collect fresh plates for the next round of slavery. I walk all London because the printer won’t employ a errand boy and I’m keeping alive on bread and cheese.’ He paused in his doleful litany for a moment then asked O, hopefully: ‘Anything in the wind?’

  ‘Sad to say, old chap, nothing. In all my acquaintance with the cream of this city’s finest painters—which, as you know, is considerable—I never
knew a situation like the present one. Not one seeks a studio assistant. Mr. Whistler, just back from his adventures in the Americas, is looking for commissions. Mr. Sandys is not doing too badly but can’t run to a salary for an assistant and Mr. Rossetti is in one of his gloomy moods and is scarcely painting at all. But, cheer up, old fellow, spring is nearly here. It’s bound to bring a change.’

  Adolphus shrugged and asked: ‘What is that bundle you’re lugging around under your arm?’

  ‘This?’ said O as if he had just remembered that he still had the canvas-wrapped bundle under his arm. ‘This is the real reason I called on you. You know I’m to marry later in the year and that I deal in oddments of curios. Well, since I’m living in a couple rooms in Putney and have no storeroom or showroom and must quit my rooms when I get married, I’m asking a few friends to look after some oddments of stock I was keeping in my rooms. When I’m married, I’ll have a regular place of business. I’m sure you won’t mind looking after this box for a little while. It contains just a few hobby items—you know, the kind of things that interest people who go in for birds’ eggs and foreign coins.’

  ‘No, I don’t mind in the least,’ Adolphus said. ‘If you move those few books in the far corner, there’ll be room for it.’

  O moved the books and laid the box in the corner then took out his smoking materials and lit up another of his scented cigarettes. He gulped in smoke and proceeded to fill the room with the sickly pungency of the tobacco, which Adolphus greatly disliked. He also disliked O’s habit of discarding the tiny scrap left of one cigarette on his floor before immediately lighting another. Adolphus was not sure that he really liked Mr. O or his brash style of boosting his own self-importance but O had done him a good turn and he believed one good turn deserved another.

  Had he known the truth about O’s ‘good turn’ he would certainly have felt differently.

  Adolphus wanted a career as an artist and he had undoubted talent. His father’s living did not produce the wherewithal to send him to art school but the young man saved enough money to go to London to try to further his ambitions. He found the city hideous yet attractive; bright but gloomy; welcoming but threatening. It was a place where flamboyant wealth flourished beside the most abject poverty. He often regretted leaving his father’s parish with its green fields in sight of the sea but he persevered in his uneasy affair with London because, for all its faults, the city had a verve and vitality all its own and sent out a challenge to all young men of ambition.