Some Danger Involved bal-1

by Will Thomas

"Spare me the romantic descriptions, lad," Barker interjected. "We'll accept she was pretty. Get on with it."

  "Yes, sir. Her eyes were red from crying. She gasped when she saw me.

  "†'Don't be afraid,' I told her. 'Have you been hurt?'

  "†'No, sir. I've lost sixpence," she sobbed. She'd been working several hours, taking care of some children for a woman who worked in a factory. She'd been paid sixpence and had accidentally dropped it in the street. She was afraid to go home without it.

  "†'I shall help you look,' I answered, bending down and beginning to search about. I thought it possible, even more than likely, that she had not dropped any money at all. It is a dodge I have seen done before. But she seemed honest enough and determined to find the coin. Cautiously, I examined every inch of light about us, but the desire to please her was just too great. I palmed sixpence and pretended to find it just outside of the circle of light. I needed the coin myself, but the smile she gave me more than paid for the loss.

  "I offered to walk her home, and she settled her hand on my arm as lightly as a dove. Her name was Jenny Ashby. She asked me if I was a student at university, and that was it. We were off on a long conversation, as we walked along Holywell together. Whatever I possessed, and would ever possess, I was willing to throw at her feet by the end of that walk.

  "Had I been given the training I have now, sir, I might have noticed her clothing more, but then I'd grown up in cast-off clothing, myself. The building to which she led me was one of the worst tenements in Oxford. I'd grown up in poverty but never in squalor. I could tell she was embarrassed by her surroundings. With a murmured 'good night,' she flew into the doorless opening. I went back to my rooms with my heart and mind in a tumult.

  "I took to passing by the old building several times each day, trying to screw up my courage enough to walk into that gaping hole and track her down. Jenny told me she lived with her mother and seven siblings. Her father had taken to drink and run away, but Mrs. Ashby called herself a widow. They made their meager living making paper flowers. Jenny was the eldest. She was sixteen.

  "Finally, by the third day, I'd scraped together enough courage to go in. It was even worse than I expected. The halls smelt of decay and unwashed humanity. The fellow whom I asked about the Ashbys was reluctant to tell me, thinking me a creditor. At last, I found her door and knocked. Jenny opened it, and her hands flew to her face at her being discovered there by me. Before we spoke a word, she was elbowed aside by a wan-looking woman whose resemblance to her was coarsened by the ravages of alcohol. It was her mother. She latched onto my arm and drew me into the room. The place was worse than a sty. A broken table was covered with crepe paper, wire, and other detritus of the paper flower trade. Odiferous clothing stood in piles, but whether it was other people's washing or their own, I did not know. Seven half-starved, half-naked children ran about the room or mewled in broken drawers. I asked Mrs. Ashby if I might take her eldest daughter out for a cup of tea and a bun. She seemed ready to protest, but then a cunning look came over her face and she agreed. Looking back on it now, I think she smelled money. Meager as my finances were, they outstripped their own."

  "Your mother-in-law was some bit of work," Barker said, pouring me another glass of porter. "I looked up her record by the address on your antecedents. Cora Ashby. She had quite a long sheet. Fraud. Theft. Public drunkenness. Vagrancy, and worse. She was quite a dollymop in her younger days."

  I looked up at my employer. "I'm not making a hash of it, am I, sir?"

  "No, no. Pray continue."

  "The common proprieties of polite society are far different from the economic realities of the English poor. With her mother's subtle conniving, Jenny and I were wed within a month, and I suddenly found myself almost the sole support of a family of nine. No change in our domestic arrangements was possible, and I continued living in my room at Magdalen, while Jenny stayed with her family. I couldn't mention my marriage to my family, my classmates, or the administrators, because it was forbidden to underclassmen. I was a naive nineteen-year-old at the mercy of an older woman with much experience and few scruples. She had me in her clutches. If I'd worked hard before, I did so doubly now.

  "Between attending lectures and tutorials, studying, and the odd jobs, I was hard at work eighteen hours a day. I lost weight and began to look sallow. All my money went into Mrs. Ashby's hands. Luckily, the tuition and boarding payments were paid by Lord Glendenning's solicitors directly, and she could not get her hands on them.

  "Things can always get worse, and they generally do. That winter, Jenny developed a cough. Her mother treated it with alcohol and morphine-laced patent medicines, but it was not until she coughed up blood one morning that I realized it was more than a cold. With her delicate constitution, she was a natural victim of consumption, and with unheated rooms and scant food, she wouldn't last long. During the few minutes I saw her in and around my work, she was fading like a bouquet of roses.

  "At this time, I was still batting for the odious Mr. Clay. If anything, he'd gotten worse. He was complaining constantly now that I was an embarrassment to his rooms. I admit I was looking rather shabby. My clothing was wearing out, and my hair needed a barber's attention. But the worst thing about serving him was the stack of gold sovereigns that sat on the edge of his mantel. They had been won in some sort of wager, and Clay kept them there to rankle his friend who had lost. They meant nothing to him, since his father was one of the richest men in Manchester, but they meant the world to me. With just one of those sovereigns, I could bring a doctor to Jenny's side. I had never stolen in my life, but that stack of coins became an obsession. I was aware of it, no matter what I was doing in the rooms, and no matter who was there.

  "One day, I could fight temptation no longer and was just reaching out to touch the top sovereign when Clay and two of his cronies walked in the door unexpectedly. I flinched and dropped the coin, which was as good as admitting my guilt. I saw a look of triumph on the Honorable's face. I tried to get past him, to get out of there and run, but he stepped in my way, seizing me by my thin jacket. My nerves had been at a fever pitch for weeks. He didn't know who he was facing. I clouted him a good one on the chin and he was down. In five seconds I had compounded theft with assault. Clay's friends, two strapping lads, seized me by the arms, while he struggled back onto his feet. Clay was an amateur boxer, but you might have thought him professional for the going-over he gave me. As I sagged, nearly unconscious, bleeding from the nose and mouth, they summoned a constable, who took me into custody.

  "I'm sure you've inspected the hearing and trial records, and I'd rather not speak about the uncomfortable interviews with Lord Glendenning and my parents. Clay's father, a merchant turned peer, brought all of his influence to bear on the case, and the result was eight months' hard labor. I was broken to the treadmill, and my hands shredded from picking apart oakum. I endured beatings and surly treatment from the guards and from the other inmates. Worst of all, I was separated from my beloved Jenny. She came to see me twice before my trial and once in prison. After that, she was too ill to leave her bed and come to see me. The tuberculosis was consuming her from the inside. On the twentieth of March, she died in that squalid little flat and was buried in an unmarked grave.

  "Directly after my release, I attempted to find Jenny's family, but they had skipped out on the rent, and I never found them again. Eventually, I drifted to London, looking for work, as my name was thoroughly blackened in Oxford forever. What little I possessed, I pawned for food and shelter. Then, one morning at the British Museum Reading Room, I found your advertisement in the 'Situations Vacant' column of The Times, and you know the rest."

  "I know more than that," Barker said. "You'd skipped out on your rent. The suitcase told me as much. And I suspect that you were considering killing yourself that day. I could see it in your eyes."

  "Why did you hire me, sir?" I asked, as Barker replenished my glass yet again.

  "I wish you could have seen yourself throug
h my eyes, Thomas. I was watching all of you outside from the bow window. You were the most nondescript fellow I'd ever seen. It was as if you were trying to blend in with the brick wall. I almost overlooked you, standing among all the taller men. I was intrigued when you tossed your suitcase into the dustbin, right under my window. Then you came in and presented me with an Oxford education, or at least the beginnings of one. Better still, you had an eight-month tenure at Oxford Prison, which in many ways is more educational than University. You then sailed through every test as if you'd been practicing for weeks, and you kept your temper in check. A man would have had to be an idiot not to hire you on the spot. Whether you know it or not, you're a natural detective's assistant."

  "I thought I was fit for nothing."

  "You would think that, lad." He patted my sleeve. "You undervalue yourself."

  "So, why did you hire Jenkins?" I asked.

  I had made Barker chuckle again. "Jenkins came to fill the position temporarily and never went away again. I can sack him any time, and he can quit. He's an odd fellow, but I've grown used to his ways."

  I sat up and put my glass down. The beer had thoroughly loosened my lips.

  "So, tell me, sir. How did a Scottish boy end up in China?"

  Barker put down his porter. He'd been matching me glass for glass, but so far, it hadn't seemed to affect him.

  "My father was a missionary from Perth. He followed the tea clippers to Foochow soon after I was born. My parents stayed several years, developing a congregation of Europeans and Chinese as well. They died when I was eleven. Cholera."

  "Good Lord!" I said. I could definitely feel the effects of the porter now. I nearly chipped a tooth navigating the glass to my lips. "So, did you go home?"

  "That might have happened in England, lad, and possibly in India, but not in China. The right palms were never crossed, so the gist of it was that I was cut loose on my own."

  "Cut loose, sir? In China, at eleven? What did you do?"

  "Whatever I could to survive. I was just another street urchin. I started out on the docks, scavenging for food, looking for odd work, and learning how to defend myself the hard way. Eventually, I signed on as a cabin boy aboard a broken-down clipper, looking about as thin and desperate as you did that first day I saw you."

  I was trying hard to keep up, but the alcohol was swiftly overtaking my brain. If he told me the rest of his story that night, I didn't catch it. After a while, it seemed sensible to rest my hot, throbbing temple against the nice, cool wood of the table. That is the last thing that I remember.

  I awoke some hours later. I'd been asleep in my plate, between the bread and the cheese. My head was throbbing and my shoulders ached. Barker was nowhere to be found.

  22

  The next morning I felt as if my head had been split open with an axe from the Tower and my tongue slathered in coal tar. What had I been thinking, pouring that noxious stuff down my throat? I suspected Maccabee of having designs on my life. Lifting my head off the pillow required far more energy than my poor powers could muster. How did Jenkins survive this ordeal on a daily basis?

  I lay in bed for over an hour, half paralyzed, watching the sunlight slowly illuminate the room. My head throbbed, and even my cheekbones hurt. I decided to forgo any future attempts at self-pickling. I haven't the drinker's constitution.

  Barker came bustling in, all health and vigor, shooting his cuffs and adjusting his links. He showed no signs of distress from the night before. My stomach threatened to turn as active as Krakatoa at any moment.

  "Morning, lad," he said loudly. "Beautiful day. Time we were about." I was in agony, and Barker, it appeared, was in one of his cheerful, telegraph-message moods.

  "I fear I'm too sick to move, sir," I said.

  "Nonsense. Get up and walk about. A nice long hike is what you need, and a good soak, to sweat out the impurities, but we don't have the time. Show your body who is master."

  "Yes, sir," I answered, and rose to a sitting position. A fireworks demonstration began to go off in my head. I swung my limbs over the side of the bed and waited to see what would happen next. Nothing noteworthy.

  "I shall be along, presently, sir," I told my employer, who still stood there, expectantly.

  "That's the spirit. Have Etienne make you some eggs and coffee. I'll meet you out front in half an hour."

  "Oh, God, please, not eggs," I whimpered after he left. "Anything but eggs."

  Dummolard insisted on a concoction of his own, a greenish sludge that looked as if it had been dredged from the sewers. Who knows? Perhaps it had. I managed to keep it down and even swallowed some coffee and toast, but eggs were quite beyond me. Having broken my fast, I dragged myself up the stairs again and traded my old suit for another of my new ones. I was still employed, despite yesterday's little debacle.

  "Ready, lad?" Barker asked, as I stepped down into the hall. Mac was helping him into his coat.

  "Ready, sir," I responded, far more confidently than I felt. I put on my coat myself. I didn't want Mac near me. I don't approve of hiring poisoners as servants.

  I moaned as I climbed into the cab and leaned well forward in case the rocking motion made me ill. John Racket gave me a frown from atop his box. He didn't want anyone ill while in his cab, and I am certain that my complexion was as leaden as the sky overhead. Juno was off, and I held tightly to the leather-covered doors.

  We didn't go to the office at all but instead went straight to Tower Bridge. Within half an hour we were seated in the Bucharest Cafй again. Barker was enjoying strong Romanian tea and a fairly lethal-looking bialy, while I was nursing a bicarbonate of soda.

  "Feeling better, lad?"

  "Much better, sir," I lied. "What are we doing here this morning?"

  "We've been actively pursuing this investigation for several days now, muddying the waters, so to speak. Today, I want us to plumb its depths. We're going to observe the Jews today and the rhythms of their lives. Is there any real evidence of a threat, or is it merely imagined? Was Pokrzywa's death a personal matter or a harbinger of future developments? In a way, we shall be testing the area's temperature."

  I thought it more likely that he had run out of leads, and we were to spend the day sitting idly. However, it was politic to agree. After all, I couldn't do much else at the moment but sit and sip soda water.

  Despite his plan, Barker was too restive to sit long. After half an hour's time, he announced that he would explore the Lane again. I seconded his decision. His energy was not exactly calming to my stomach. Like a hound let off his lead, Barker shot into the crowd of Brick Lane. Only then did I begin to relax.

  The bicarbonate and the absence of my employer began to work their subtle magic on me. In twenty minutes, I ordered a coffee in one of the glass cups, and within another ten, I got up to explore a little bookstall down the street. I bought one of the local Jewish newspapers, in English and Hebrew, more for the novelty than the reading. I also found a book by Maimonides, A Guide for the Perplexed, for only a few shillings, and thought I might see why he was such a favorite of Pokrzywa's. The book, as it turned out, was an attempt to reconcile Jewish doctrine with the Hellenistic teachings of Plato and Aristotle and had been written during the Middle Ages.

  I returned to the cafй, ordered a second cup, and even hazarded a bialy, though it was several minutes before I dared the first bite. Begrudgingly, I had to admit that my employer was right. Being up and about was preferable to staying in bed all day, moaning into my pillow. So I sat in the outdoor cafй, reading the Jewish Chronicle, with a bialy, coffee, and a copy of Maimonides, not realizing how Jewish I myself appeared, in my long black coat, curling hair, and bowler hat, until I was interrupted.

  A set of knuckles rapped roughly at my table. I looked up over my newspaper at a fellow I'd never seen before, a tall, well-built Jew in his twenties, with a stern face and a long beard. He looked at me intently and said, "Sholem aleichem."

  "Aleichem sholem," I replied. It was the response Bark
er had given Zangwill, a few days before, which had impressed the little teacher greatly. The charm worked for me as well, for the fellow nodded once, as if I had given the correct password. He leaned his head to one side and raised his chin, motioning for me to follow him. It was just the sort of break, I realized, that Barker was looking for. I threw down a shilling, gathered my book and paper, and trotted off after the fellow. I only wished I could have had time to write some sort of note to my employer.

  I followed him down Brick Lane for several blocks, then he stepped into a warren of doss-houses and ended up on Flower and Dean Street. From there he went into a small court. Where was he taking me, and why all the dodges and turns? After a dozen more yards, I realized we were not alone. There were several silent men moving in our direction. The court was dominated by a set of steps going down in the middle, not unlike an entrance to the underground, save for a large sign at the back that read "Oriental Bazaar."

  Down we plunged into semi-darkness. I smelled spices in the air, and incense. The only illumination here was from the opening overhead and dozens of flickering candles. I saw men squatting on the ground, patiently awaiting customers or playing at cards. There were shining copper pots for sale, bags of saffron, rice, and betel nut, and bookstalls in which not one title was in English. For a moment again, I was not in London. I might just as well have been in Cairo or Calcutta. At the foot of the steps, I heard rather than saw my companions turning left and going back alongside the stairway, down a hall full of underground booths. We came up to an open public house, and at the far end, a bar. The proprietor, without a word, lifted the hinged bar with one hand and waved us through. We passed through a green baize curtain behind, into a large room. Even as I crossed the threshold, a young man on a soap-box had begun speaking.

  "Greetings to you, gentlemen of Zion. I address you all in English today, for I can see Sephardim and Ashkenazim alike before me. Forgive this sudden summons from your daily activities. There is in London today a grave threat to our well-being. How many of you have known firsthand the deprivations and cruelty inflicted upon us by the goyim in Russia and Poland?" There was a sudden murmur. "I thought as much. Do you feel you have arrived at a place of safety? Is your journey over? Louis Pokrzywa thought it was, and look where it got him. Will he be the last Jew in London to give up his life, or is this just one more beginning of anti-Semitic sentiments in a foreign land? Do you not realize that we shall be continually persecuted until we are restored unto our homeland in Palestine? England has been generous in taking in our widows and orphans, but I fear we are no more safe here than we were in Moscow, Kiev, or Odessa.