The Red Ribbon

by H. B. Lyle

  The two men, plus an inspector and a constable, walked back through the station and out into the snow-flecked night. Sidney Street was only a short walk away. Mulvaney pulled on his pipe as they walked, and spoke after every puff.

  “You were right. There are at least two men holed up on the first and second floors of the house. We have evacuated those living on the ground floor—two families—and a woman who lived on the first floor. She claims some ignorance of the exact details, but she is a friend of one of the gang, Fritz Svaars. We tricked her into coming into the hallway, and now we have her in custody. She says Fritz and another gang member, Joseph Sokolov, are in the front rooms.”

  “There is no mention of anyone else?”

  “You’re thinking of Peter the Painter, the last member of the gang? We’re not sure. We’re waiting for a Yiddish interpreter. He may be in the attic, which is a tailor’s workshop. Ah, here we are.”

  They’d turned down a tiny alleyway. Kell assumed they were passing down the back of one side of Sidney Street. Mulvaney turned to him. “We have the whole block completely surrounded. No one is getting in or out without us knowing. Whispers now. This is directly opposite number 100. We’ve got the family out, and have set up a viewing post on the first floor. No noise, no sudden movements.”

  Kell followed Mulvaney as they soft-footed it through a back door, then up a carpeted staircase lit by a lantern turned down low. Mulvaney took a seat at the back of what appeared to be a small drawing room and gestured Kell next to him. He could just make out the form of two constables at the far window, crouched over long, thin guns.

  “Morris tube rifles,” Mulvaney muttered. “We reckon they are armed to the teeth in there.”

  Kell shifted in his seat and for once hoped Wiggins was asleep dead drunk in a pub. “What do we do now?” he said.

  “We wait.”

  22

  Wiggins dreamed of Bill. Big bluff Bill who took him under his wing in the Gunners; who showed him how to stand tall, how to drink a pint, then two; who belted out “God Save the Queen” and belched: big broad Bill, smiling into your face, like he meant it. “God Save the Queen.” But she’s dead, like dear, dead Bill. “God Save the—”

  He flicked open his eyes. Thin morning light pooled down from the window. Peter stirred in front of him, a jumble of loose material. And over the morning mist, as clear as any Big Ben, came the sounds of a brass band, thumping out “God Save the King” as if their lives depended on it.

  “What the—?” Wiggins shook life back into his neck. He guessed the band was playing out the back of the house, in the next street, but he couldn’t be sure.

  Peter got up. “Anglish,” he said. He looked at his watch. “It’s seven o’clock. What is this?”

  Wiggins shook his head. “It’s the East End,” he said. The band stopped, then struck up another, jauntier number. “I need a piss.”

  “Huh? Oh. I get bucket.”

  He tossed the bedding aside and went out. Wiggins tried to stretch and bend his neck as best he could. He looked down at Peter’s hat, adorned with the red ribbons. His own hat must be out on the street. It had fallen off in his drunkard routine and he had nothing now.

  Peter came back in. “Here it is. Now piss.” He put the bucket down.

  Wiggins looked up at him. “You gonna take my cock out then, or what?”

  Peter glowered. Then he placed the bucket in the corner, shunted Wiggins to face it. He was still attached to the chair. “Feel that?” Peter asked, as he pressed the cold wet muzzle of his pistol to the back of Wiggins’s neck. “I will untie. You piss. I tie. If this does not happen, I shoot you. Good, yes? I am keeper, you are caged bear.”

  “I just need a slash, not a lesson in Russian poetry.”

  Peter loosened the rope and stepped back. Wiggins stood and pissed. “This give you a thrill, does it? Bit of the old nip and tuck. You can watch if you want.”

  Peter shuffled around. The band switched to a marching song as Wiggins pissed on. “What’s wiv that red ribbon on your hat?”

  “Red is color of revolution.”

  “That right?” He’d barely finished when he felt the gun on his neck once more. “Easy, I’m done.” He sat back down and waited as Peter tied the ropes again. Then he shunted the chair around.

  “I can save you,” Peter said. “We can save each other. But you must tell me truth.”

  “What, that I’ve seen the bloody light? That I’ve been exploited all my life, that the revolution is nigh? Is that the bollocking truth you chatting on about?”

  “No, not this foolishness,” Peter said. “What I mean—”

  Bang! Bang! Bang!

  Rapid shots from inside the house. Then a faraway pop, pop, and then another, longer burst from downstairs.

  Peter exclaimed in anguish, grasped his gun, and rushed out of the room.

  Kell was shocked by the devastation. The windows shattered. A screaming started up from outside. Pop, pop, the police rifles went.

  Then another crescendo from the house. The wooden frames splintered. The bricks chipped. And the screaming went on.

  Mulvaney gestured at him frantically, and they hurried down the stairs and out the back door.

  It had been a long, sleepless, deathly cold night up until that point. The dawn light had started to gray the horizon when Mulvaney began to get impatient. “Let’s see where we’re at, shall we. Send a sergeant down to knock on that window.”

  They had watched as the sergeant hunkered along Sidney Street, back close to the wall, and smashed the ground-floor window with the butt of a revolver. Seconds later, the second-floor windows had lit up with gunfire.

  Now, in the backyard, Kell shouted at Mulvaney, “Are you sure they are only two?” Slates flew from a nearby house.

  “It’s Mausers. Semi-automatic.”

  A wounded policeman was carried into the yard, screaming blue murder. “I am dead, I am dead. Bury me in Putney.”

  “Get this man out of here,” Mulvaney cried. “And someone tell that blasted band to shut up. What are they at anyway?”

  “A bakery advertising their opening, sir,” a constable said. “They refuse to leave off.”

  “Then arrest them.”

  Suddenly, the firing stopped. Kell put his hand on Mulvaney’s arm. “You are outgunned, Superintendent. A Morris tube is no match.”

  “But we have no others. A gunsmith in Cable Street has offered up his stock, but it’s nothing like those things. And half my men can’t fire a popgun, let alone anything useful.”

  “You must call in the army.”

  Kell went with Mulvaney through the backyard and down the alley. As they did so, another furious fuselage echoed off the cobbles. The occupants of number 100 Sidney Street would not go easily.

  Back at the station, Mulvaney called Scotland Yard and then the Home Office. “I need to talk to the home secretary, apparently,” Mulvaney offered as an aside to Kell. “But he is in the bath.”

  Kell stepped back a discreet distance from the phone and looked about the station. All pretense of normal business had been dropped. Rows and rows of policemen left at regular intervals. More came into view on the street, as Kell stood outside to watch.

  Mulvaney joined him on the stairs. “Will you walk with me? We’re to go to the Tower to get the Scots Guards. I’d value your advice as an infantry officer.”

  “I’m off the active list.”

  “You still know more than me.”

  “Why so many more police?” Kell asked, as constables ranged about them, heading back to Sidney Street. “I thought you had them surrounded already.”

  “You’ll see,” Mulvaney said.

  And he did. As they walked past the south end of Sidney Street, they had to physically push through the crowds of onlookers. “I’ve called up a thousand men,” Mulvaney shouted back at him. “I reckon by the end of this there’ll be thirty times that trying to watch.”

  As Kell followed him, he thought exactly
that—it was a sporting crowd. Men jostling against each other, angling for a better view, excitement etched on their faces, bright smiles, jokes, catcalls. As they walked on, they heard the burst of gunfire every now and then, countered by the weak popping of the police rifles.

  At the Tower of London, Mulvaney was shown straight to the duty captain of the Scots Guards, who agreed to give him twenty men armed with Enfield rifles. At Kell’s prompting, Mulvaney gave the men a short, sharp briefing in the forecourt outside the barracks. Just as the superintendent was finishing, the platoon captain by his side and Kell behind him, Sir Patrick Quinn hurried up with a fleet of Special Branch detectives in tow.

  “What is this?” he cried, marching up to Mulvaney.

  “Sir Patrick, I believe?”

  The detectives and the army captain slunk back, sensing an argument between superiors. Kell stood his ground.

  “You have them surrounded?” Quinn said, clearly agitated. He glared at Kell.

  “There is no way out,” Mulvaney said. “We are to return with more firepower.”

  For once, Quinn looked at a loss. He glanced again at Kell, at the platoon of soldiers, then back to Mulvaney. “Do you mind if I speak with the men?” he said at last.

  “If you insist, but be quick. I must get back to Sidney Street. Captain,” he called to the Scots Guardsman commanding the troop. “You know what to do. I shall see you at Sidney Street in twenty minutes.”

  The army captain saluted. Kell left with Mulvaney, but he glanced back to see Quinn huddling close with the soldiers. A number of them, in their heavy gray coats and distinctive diced cap bands, bent toward Quinn, nodding.

  Kell did not go back to the house opposite number 100. Instead, he left Mulvaney at the northern end of Sidney Street. The police cordon strained against the crush. Hundreds more had joined to see the spectacle, or at least hear it, and still the bullets popped and banged. He entered the side entrance of the Rising Sun pub. The enterprising publican had opened the roof up to the press, and Kell joined them, for a small fee.

  If one of the anarchists had been so disposed, he could have slaughtered half the reporters of Fleet Street with one well-directed barrage. But alas, thought Kell, all the gentlemen of the press were intact. As always, they had the best view.

  Across the street and to the left stood number 100. The windowpanes were shattered, the brickwork chipped. Every now and then a gun appeared, twitching at the window in a deadly dance before retreating once more.

  “Got the bloody arsenal in there,” one of the reporters joked. “They’ve been firing for two hours straight.”

  “Three,” muttered Kell. “I was here at eight.”

  Further down the street, he could see four soldiers take position on the ground, rifles poised. Past them, stretching right down to Commercial Road and beyond, a river of humanity, as Mulvaney had predicted. It was the same looking to his right. Outside the pub, three more soldiers lay on the ground. Behind them, up to Bethnal Green, another vast swathe of people, listening for the gunfire, straining for a view. It was the most exciting thing to happen in Stepney since forever.

  In every doorway and archway down the street, policemen crouched. He saw two more soldiers on the brewery roof at the far end of the street; plainclothesmen had heavy revolvers drawn; policemen with rifles stood atop ladders, or poked them out of windows. Beyond the street, the rooftops were dotted black with heads: spectators, onlookers, thrillseekers. It was as if half of London had come to watch the show. But it wasn’t a show, thought Kell, it was a public execution.

  The soldiers on the roof opened fire. The police followed. The house shook. The tiles jumped and shattered; the air roared.

  The firing stopped. Silence. Even the crowds were still, ears upturned, waiting. Smoke hung in the air, tinged with cordite. Kell could hear a man to his left scribbling hurriedly in his notebook. Was it over? He looked at his watch.

  A burst of gunfire came back from the house. More windows shattered. Someone was still alive in there, still armed.

  The reporters reset themselves, and began talking again. “Here, look at that!” one of them cried, pointing down into the street on the right. “Is that who I think it is?”

  Kell peered over the side of the pub. Churchill had arrived. He had an entourage, of course, and Kell picked out Mulvaney next to him, pointing. On the other side of the street, Kell even saw a film crew setting up. Blast the man, he thought, he even brings his own publicity machine. Is no event too tragic to make into political capital?

  He looked back at number 100, then out across the road and the rooftops, the hundreds of armed men bristling to bag an anarchist cop killer, covering every angle. He hoped to God Wiggins wasn’t in there, a hope he knew to be forlorn. It was a charnel house.

  No one was getting out alive.

  “Let me go parley,” Wiggins said.

  “You can’t even get out of door.” Peter squatted down opposite.

  As soon as the firing started, Wiggins had shunted the chair up against the chimney breast.

  “What about those two?” he gestured downstairs.

  “They have gone mad.”

  “Tell ’em to throw a white flag out the bloody window.”

  Peter had been running back and forth throughout the morning, giving Wiggins a commentary on what was happening. It seemed that his companions Fritz and Joseph had reached for the heavy artillery and there was no going back. Wiggins could hear they had serious weaponry.

  “If only,” Peter muttered to himself. He looked up at the skylight. “If they know who I am, I won’t be killed.”

  Wiggins was about to scoff at this suggestion, that Peter had fallen in love with his own fame, when the truth suddenly hit him full in the face, like Tommy’s right hook. “Of course,” he cried.

  CRASH!

  The attic exploded in an inferno of bullet fire. The skylight shattered. Bullets pinged through the roof. Peter collapsed to the floor. Wiggins upended his chair.

  They huddled against the barrage. Then all of a sudden, it stopped. “That’s army,” Wiggins hissed. “Enfields.”

  From beneath them, the crackle of gunfire resumed. Fritz and Joseph, still defiant. Wiggins shook his head and locked eyes with Peter. “Do something.”

  “I will try. One last time,” Peter said. He crept toward the door and was gone.

  Wiggins lay on his side in the broken glass, still strapped to the chair.

  He had gotten his revenge. Peter was a dead man. But so was he. He wondered if the revenge was worth it, as he lay among the shattered remains of the window and listened to the guns: Was this always how it was going to end?

  “I wish they’d hurry up, I’ve got to file by two to make the West End Final.”

  “Boohoo, you should work for a daily.”

  “Call that a newspaper?”

  The pressmen bantered on, or else buried themselves in their notebooks. Kell kept up his vigil, looking down on that house of death. He’d gone downstairs at noon and forcibly removed one of the journalists from the telephone, whereupon he’d raised Simpkins on the line, and then Constance. Still no word from Wiggins.

  Now, back on that roof, he wondered whether he could intercede in any way. Speak to Mulvaney, Churchill even. For with each passing hour, his suspicions were hardening into conviction. Wiggins, alive or dead, was in that house.

  He turned to go back inside: it was worth telling Mulvaney, if no one else.

  “There she blows!” a reporter cried in excitement. Kell rushed back to the edge. The house was on fire.

  A torrent of flame shot out of the top-floor window. “That’s the gas!” Streams of thick black smoke began funneling first out of one window, then a second, then a third.

  The place was an inferno within minutes, sparks flying, great crashes of falling masonry, tongues of flame shooting into the sky, and thick black smoke rolling along the terrace rooftops.

  Kell stood and stared, like the reporters. The police and soldiers
too fell silent for a moment. The fascination of watching men die. “It’s an oven,” someone said quietly. Smoke obscured the whole upper portion of the house until it was lit up like a beacon.

  Suddenly, as if by silent command, the soldiers started firing, followed immediately by the armed police. Every man within three hundred yards let go with everything they had.

  Kell flinched as the besiegers poured hot lead into the inferno, a lethal hail of bullets. Finally, the shouts and cries of the commanding officers halted the senseless waste of ammunition. You didn’t need to kill a dead man twice.

  The fire burned on, spreading to the ground floor. No one moved, inside or out. The vast crowds beneath stood still, watching as a fatal black pall ribboned into the sky.

  “Fools!” Peter cried as he crashed through the door. “Scum.”

  Wiggins was still pinned to the chair, lying on his side on the floor. His hands were red raw and bleeding. He’d been shuffling about in the glass for the last hour, gnawing away at the rope as best he could.

  Peter scrabbled around the room, pulling up bits of material, a fistful of newspaper, almost in a panic.

  “What you doing?” Wiggins gasped.

  He stopped and looked at Wiggins for a moment, his deep, dark eyes wild. “Making hell,” he said, and left again, just as another burst of gunfire strafed the roof.

  Wiggins gave one final wrench and pulled his left arm clear. He began to wriggle out of the bonds. As he did so, he heard shouts from below. The floor grew warmer. A plume of smoke passed the skylight. Gas hissed.

  He got to his feet just as Peter came back in. They stared at each other for a moment. Peter didn’t pull a gun. “Don’t go downstairs,” he said, and rammed his ribboned hat on his head. “Fire and death.”

  Smoke crept under the door. Peter glanced up at the skylight, weighing something in his mind. Wiggins followed his glance. “They’ll pick you off clean,” he said.

  “Not in smoke,” Peter said. He leapt onto the table and put his hands either side of the broken window and disappeared upward.