The Limehouse Text bal-3

by Will Thomas

  “Good Lord!” I cried.

  “Easy, lad. Easy. Don’t tense up your arm. This is merely an old Chinese remedy. The needles will not hurt you. In fact, at the moment, they are dulling the pain.”

  “Why am I not bleeding?”

  “The needles have been inserted carefully along the nerve points, away from the veins and arteries. It is an ancient science but an exact one. You are perfectly safe, I assure you. It has been done for millennia in the East. You must lie there for ten minutes or so.”

  I had to admit the discomfort was beginning to ebb. Barker was having a conversation with the old man, and it did not appear to be about me. The old man’s manner was polite and businesslike, but soon he ran a hand across his shaven forehead in mute concern. Ten minutes later, he pulled the pins from my arm one by one and left the room. I watched and waited for blood to start pumping from the dozens of pinpricks. There was nothing, not a single drop.

  “Your arm was worse than I realized, lad,” Barker said. “Quong says you shall need a cast on the joint for a couple of weeks until the tissue and ligaments heal properly.”

  “Quong?”

  “Yes, Dr. Quong is the father of your late predecessor. He is also our client.”

  He made a sudden shake with his arm and a knife was in his hand. I sometimes forget that my employer generally keeps a dagger strapped to his forearm and pistols in his pockets. He bent down and before I could stop him, insinuated the blade into the arm of my shirt and began to cut.

  “Sir!”

  “Easy, lad. Don’t move. This knife is razor sharp. You shall need room for the cast. We can always have more shirts made.”

  The old man returned with a bowl of water and rolls of gauze. With Barker’s help, he wrapped my shoulder and elbow in sheeting and then mixed plaster into the water. Then the messy part began. Twenty minutes later, Barker was easing the ripped shirt over my new cast and if I felt foolish, it was nothing compared to how I looked. My employer knotted my tie and wrapped my elbow in a grosgrain sling. As a final touch, he settled my coat over my shoulders.

  “There. Good as new and still in plenty of time for our appointment at the Oriental Club and the inquest this afternoon.”

  “Inquest?”

  “The coroner sent word to our chambers this morning. How are you feeling? I could have Dr. Quong prepare a tisane for you.”

  I declined the drink, wanting as much distance between myself and the premises as possible.

  Old Quong turned to Barker and dared raise an admonishing finger. He spoke English for the first time, or at least a pidgin form of it.

  “You still hire,” he said. “Find my son killer. Come chop chop tell me.”

  “I shall summon you the moment he is caught,” Barker assured him.

  “And you,” he said, turning to me with the same extended finger. “No water on arm. Rest. Savee?”

  “Yes, sir,” I replied. “I savee.”

  I followed my employer back out into Canton Street, feeling glum. The cast was a nuisance and I looked ridiculous in it. In the back it covered one shoulder blade and extended down to my elbow. I was completely trussed. I wouldn’t be able to bathe properly in the bathhouse for a while, which I counted one of the chief pleasures of life; sleeping would be extremely difficult; and I’d be about as useless as an East-bourne octogenarian were we to get into a scrape.

  We made our way back to the tram and successfully boarded it. The draft horse in front began pulling the vehicle along the rails. From Barker’s coat, Harm sniffed the cast inquisitively, but I could see my employer’s mind was back on the case.

  “Quong disappeared New Year’s Day, and his body was found in the Reach the next morning. I had to collect his father and take him to Bow Street Mortuary to identify the body. You should have seen the fire in the old fellow’s eyes. He wanted me to find his son’s murderer and to kill him myself. I refused, of course, though nothing would give me greater satisfaction. I promised I would find the man and turn him over to justice. British justice, that is, not Chinese. Now there are three deaths, if it is the same man.”

  “You are really convinced, then, that Jan Hurtz’s death was not an accident? I mean, he was a clumsy man. Even his brother said so.”

  “It would be a coincidence if a man coming into possession of this particular manuscript should chance to die, and an even greater one that the shop should be burgled afterward. We owe it to the late Jan Hurtz and his untidy habits that the manuscript came into our possession.”

  Coming to the end of the line, we transferred to a hansom for the rest of the journey. Climbing in was a distinct challenge with my cast, but I struggled along gamely. Harm’s eyes were sparkling and he was panting. He dearly loved cab rides. We wended our way through the City, the Strand, and finally into Whitehall, stopping at our chambers just long enough for the Guv to drop off the dog and read a message he had received. I stayed in the cab, my new cast thumping me in the side. Barker sprang back into the cab, and we were off again. We bowled sedately down Pall Mall and then turned along Regent Street.

  “Where is the Oriental, sir?” I asked.

  “It is in Hanover Square.”

  “Shall we have any trouble getting in, do you think?”

  “Hardly. I am a member.”

  I don’t think the Guv could have said anything that would have surprised me more. My rough-and-tumble employer a member of a gentlemen’s club? I could hardly believe it.

  “I am considered an Orientalist, after all,” he explained, reading my expression. “I have done some translating for various members, who submitted my name for membership. I do not have much occasion for attendance, but it can be of use.”

  We pulled up in Hanover Square in front of a vaguely ministerial looking building and alighted. We had not taken two steps into the club when Barker’s name was called.

  “Mr. Barker, sir,” the porter spoke from his small office by the door. “What a pleasure it is to see you again.”

  “Thank you, Chivers. This is my guest, Thomas Llewelyn. Mr. Campbell-Ffinch is expecting us, I believe.”

  “Indeed, sir. He is in the library. Shall I show you the way?”

  “I know it, thank you.”

  The inside of the edifice was better than the outside. It had the same grubby collection of chairs as any other club, but the walls were done by the famous architect Adams, and I do not mean merely his school. When we reached the library, I took a glance at the pleasing carvings of oak leaves and moldings before focusing on our host.

  I didn’t care for Trelawney Campbell-Ffinch on the spot. He seemed to be looking down his patrician nose at me, the way Palmister Clay always had, the blackguard who had sent me to prison. Though he was still in his twenties, the fellow already had the look of an established Old Boy. I thought him the kind that would rise from position to position through dropping the right names and mentioning the right schools until his future was assured. Some people float through life while the rest of us pull the barge.

  “Barker, have a seat,” he said, not bothering to rise. My employer ignored the slight, or at least seemed to. He stepped back into the hall and summoned a waiter into the room.

  “Bring us a bottle of port, Sandeman if you have it, and a large bowl of walnuts. Put it on my account.”

  Campbell-Ffinch raised an eyebrow. Obviously, he had not thought the Guv would be a member here. Having put the fellow in his place, Barker settled into a chair, where he dug into his tobacco pouch like a horse going to his oats.

  “You wanted to see me, then?” he asked, stuffing his pipe. “You have a most colorful associate.”

  “Oh, that Woo fellow,” he answered, lighting a Cuban cigar from the lamp. “He’s hardly an associate. He works for the Asiatic Aid Society as an interpreter. The office has used him on several occasions, but he’s a bit barmy. Been here too long. Fancies himself an English gentleman. He’s more like a trained ape, if you ask me.”

  I’ll admit Woo was a bit eccentr
ic, but Campbell-Ffinch was just the sort of fellow to see anyone beneath him socially as being on a lower evolutionary scale, myself included. Aristocratic privilege is one thing, if one appreciates it, but accepting it as one’s due and the rest of the world as mere vermin is quite another.

  “So, what can I do for you, sir?” Barker asked.

  “There is a book that has made its way to London,” the man said. “The Chinese government is keen to have it back.”

  “You wish to hire me to locate it?”

  Campbell-Ffinch puffed on his cigar and blew the smoke out slowly. “Not if you’ve got it already.”

  I swallowed. The manuscript was probably still in Barker’s pocket, since he wouldn’t let it out of his sight.

  “I have thousands of books. What makes you think I would be interested in this one?”

  “You know the one I mean. We traced it to a pawnshop in Limehouse this afternoon, a pawnshop you just happened to stop into yesterday morning with Inspector Bainbridge. The same Inspector Bainbridge who had his brains blown out a half hour later.”

  “They were not blown out,” Barker corrected. “He was shot between the eyes with a small caliber bullet. Also, he was an associate, if you do not mind.”

  “So, Mr. Barker,” he said, ignoring the remark, “do you have the book or are we to believe the fellow managed to get it off you in the dark in that blasted tunnel?”

  “I am most sorry to disappoint you,” my employer said, “but I am not currently in possession of it.” He sucked on his pipe as serenely as if he were in his garden. I wondered what was wrong with giving the book over to the Foreign Office and having done with it, other than the obvious one of not giving anything to Trelawney Campbell-Ffinch, Esquire, and helping him further up the social ladder.

  “Pity,” the Foreign Office man said, stabbing his cigar out in an ashtray as the port and walnuts arrived. “I have been following that book all the way from China. The Dowager Empress very much wants the book safely back in China again.”

  For a moment we were pouring glasses and cracking nuts. They were, anyway. Cracking nuts was a bit beyond me with only one usable hand.

  “How is Hsu Tzi these days?” Barker asked. “I have not spoken to her in five years or more.”

  “She is well,” Campbell-Ffinch answered tightly. “Or so I’ve heard. You have some interesting friends. In fact, one of them has sent you a message all the way from China.” He reached in his pocket and removed a small packet of paper with a seal on it. Barker took the papers into his hands.

  “The seal has been broken,” he noted.

  “We are the Foreign Office, old man. We don’t give information from one party to another without inspecting it.”

  My employer frowned and opened the packet. One sheet, in white, had been wrapped in an outer layer of thick paper the color of saffron. The writing was in Chinese script so perfect it might have been hung on the wall. Barker translated it and read it out loud for my benefit.

  To Shi Shi Ji,

  Greetings to you, my brother, from the Plum Blossom Clinic. Information has reached me here of a most alarming nature. A rare and secret forbidden text has been stolen from the Xi Jiang Temple and two monks murdered to obtain it. The apparent thief, a monk named Chow Li Po, has been traced to a vessel bound for your country. It is imperative that the text be restored. We understand each other.

  Huang Feihong

  “What is that last bit?” Campbell-Ffinch demanded. “How do you understand each other?”

  “He reminds me that I am in his debt. His father was my teacher, which makes him my elder brother. I can deny him nothing. Very well. I shall look into the matter, though the text shall not be as easy to acquire as the first time. Anything may have happened to it now. I shall do what I can to aid the Foreign Office, but my first priority is still finding the killer of my late assistant, Quong.”

  “Damn it, man, this has international repercussions. The whole of Her Majesty’s government’s relations with the Imperial Court is at risk. What difference does the death of one Chinaman make-or a dozen, or a hundred, for that matter?”

  “It makes a difference to me.”

  “I heard you were a rough player, Barker. I must say, I am not impressed.”

  In answer, Barker picked up a handful of walnuts and crushed them between his thumb and forefinger. The fragments rained down on the table between us.

  “Come, Llewelyn.”

  6

  Barker hailed a cab and consulted his watch. “We are cutting it fine. We must get to the inquest in time, as we are to be witnesses.”

  “Are the law courts in the City?” I asked.

  “They are. Normally, inquests are held there, but it is up to the discretion of the coroner where he holds court. In rural areas it is often in a public house. In this case, it will be at Ho’s.”

  “Ho’s?” I asked. “You mean he has not opened his tearoom again?”

  “He never had the chance. After we left yesterday, the coroner arrived and ordered Poole to seal the room. I assume that was in order for the jurymen to see the tunnel and how everything is situated there. The coroner is Dr. Vandeleur.”

  Vandeleur had been in our first case together. I could never forget how he had wanted to cut up a corpse because the victim had been crucified and he desired to write a piece about it for The Lancet. Now it would be we who were vivisected, if only in the dock as witnesses.

  At two o’clock, Dr. Vandeleur was sitting behind a table facing the jury, in a spotless black frock coat, while a chair was reserved on the side of his table for witnesses. We and other interested persons sat in chairs along the sides of the room. I was rather nervous, knowing I must eventually give evidence in front of a crowd, but at the same time it was rather thrilling. Then I remembered why I was there-poor Bainbridge-and I was ashamed of my feelings. His widow, it was reported, had suffered nervous collapse and been sedated with laudanum. She would not be in attendance.

  Vandeleur called the inquest to order and gave preliminary instructions to the thirteen men of the jury. Being a medical man rather than a legal one like most coroners, Vandeleur gave them all a brief lecture of what he had discovered during the postmortem. As expected, the cause of death had been due to the one bullet through the brain and Bainbridge had been in perfect health for a man of his age.

  Next, the jury was taken back to the tunnel and the pertinent facts were presented. I am certain that the gentlemen were mystified as to how Ho’s was run and what its exact purpose was. Vandeleur and Poole were interested in that themselves.

  I was called as the first witness and moved to the chair, feeling nervous. Barker had counseled me to keep my usual levity in my pocket for once, and I told the main features of the case as lucidly as possible. Also, on his advice, I left out any mention of the book. Perhaps it was because I went first, but there were comparatively few questions asked me by the coroner and none from the jurymen. Soon Vandeleur dismissed me and I crossed the room to my seat again.

  Barker was interviewed next. He had replaced his dark spectacles with a simpler pair, with plain leather strips covering the sides. The attempt was to make him look like any other Londoner; and, as might be expected, it failed. His appearance created a murmur in the court which Vandeleur had to suppress with his gavel. For once, Barker was not as lucky as I. They asked him about the book almost immediately.

  “Mr. Barker, would you please give us your history with Inspector Bainbridge?”

  “A year ago the inspector was in charge of the investigation of the murder of my assistant Mr. Quong,” the Guv said in his Lowland Scots accent. “The case had never been resolved. Inspector Bainbridge came to my offices Wednesday morning, the fourth of February, 1885, having discovered a pawn ticket among the effects of my late assistant. With my assistant, Mr. Llewelyn, we proceeded to the establishment at 21 East India Dock Road and redeemed the ticket for a book on Chinese boxing.”

  “Do you mean a book in Chinese or in English?�
�

  “In Chinese. The book gave every indication of belonging to a monastery, so we took it to Mr. Ho to look at it, for he is a former monk. We discussed the book but came to no conclusion as to its worth or what we should do with it. Returning through the tunnel, Inspector Bainbridge was fatally shot and Mr. Llewelyn had a lantern shot out of his hand.”

  A man spoke up from the side of the court. “I have a question, sir, about the book-”

  “Might I know who the speaker is?” Vandeleur asked.

  “Yes,” said a sturdily built man in his late fifties with a thick mustache. “I am Commissioner Henderson of the Criminal Investigation Department. I wish to know what has become of the book.”

  “I gave it to a Chinaman, sir,” Barker replied, turning his head slightly in Ho’s direction. “It was a Chinese text, after all, and of no use to me.”

  “My eye!” the commissioner grumbled, loudly enough for everyone to hear. There was a laugh, which Vandeleur quelled with the tap of his gavel.

  The head of the jury, a bucolic man who looked more like he should have been planting wheat than participating in an inquest, spoke up. “How long have you been an enquiry agent, Mr. Barker?”

  “Six years, sir.”

  “And do you often work with Scotland Yard?”

  My employer gave a stony smile. “The Yard has little need for my services. They have within their ranks some of the best investigators in all Europe. Occasionally, I will be offered a case first, because the victim wishes to keep the matter private. Other times, I am given a case that Scotland Yard has in its wisdom decided to turn down.”

  “Which one was this, Mr. Barker?” This elicited more laughter from the court.

  “Neither, sir. This I believe to be a continuation of an earlier case, in which my assistant was killed. Both men were murdered in the same manner.”