The Limehouse Text bal-3

by Will Thomas

  A hansom cab arrived and we climbed into it.

  “One final thing, lad,” Barker said.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Dummolard’s restaurant is only a few streets away. There is a rivalry between our chef and the Royal. You know how Etienne gets when he is slighted. You would do well not to mention our little visit here.”

  8

  I am going out after dinner, lad,”Barker said to me over the coffee and cheese that evening.

  “Are you going to see Miss Winter, sir?” I asked, knowing I was breaking a rule: do not ask Barker where he goes during his free time.

  The Guv cleared his throat in disapproval. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I am.”

  “Might I go with you, sir? I’d like to apologize to her for tossing her maid into Limehouse Reach and for chasing her away.”

  My employer considered the request for a moment, stroking his chin in thought, but then he shook his head decisively. “I had better go alone. She keeps a high temper, and brooks no assaults on her dignity. It is in your best interest to let her cool a bit before you speak to her.”

  Barker slid off in that way of his, and the next I knew, the front door was shutting behind him. Mac disappeared into his sanctum factotum, closing his door with equal finality. Harm was sleeping off a bowl of braised chicken livers he’d eaten, awaiting his master’s return while perhaps dreaming of his recent adventures in Limehouse. That left me alone, bored, and uncomfortable in the cast. I was convinced it was an instrument of torture from the malignant mind of Dr. Quong. A gentleman certainly couldn’t go anywhere in it, not to the theater or even the music halls. I looked ridiculous in my cut sleeve and plaster cast. Even going down the street to the Elephant and Castle for a pint, I’d have to endure remarks at my own expense. It was not worth the effort. Perhaps, I thought, there was something in the library I could read.

  I went in, circumambulating the chair by the back window that overlooked the miniature pond, and went in search of entertainment. The choices were few, I fear. Barker preferred heavy tomes with impossibly long titles and eschewed the sort of frivolous novels that I came in search of. I sat down and looked about. It was a case of books, books everywhere, and not a thing to read.

  The thought occurred to me that in most of our cases, the Guv had provided me with materials to study, but he had neglected to do so in this one. Since he had not, I thought I might collect some of my own. Surely there was not a better place in London for such materials than in the personal library of an Orientalist.

  The first book I came across concerned Chinese pottery. Somehow, I didn’t think that would play a major part in this investigation. Eventually, I discovered a series of small books privately printed in Shanghai that were translations of the analects of Confucius, the Tao-te Ching, and something by a fellow named Mencius. It looked like enough material to keep me occupied until bedtime.

  A few pages into the analects, I found something interesting. Barker’s personal copy had found its way into the downstairs library, complete with his favorite passages underlined. The publication date was 1877. Had he bought the book in China, or had he purchased it more recently in London? For a moment, I considered whether to read it or to give it to Barker in the morning. Then I decided the library was fair game and sat down again to try to make sense of the book and possibly the man who had read it before me.

  The first thing I learned was that Confucius was a Latinized version of the word for “Master.” The second was that he was not a sage living in a cave somewhere as I had thought, but an inspector of police in China during the sixth century B.C. who was concerned with bettering society in his district. The third was that he was not interested in creating a religion but in practical solutions to problems for the here and now or, rather, the there and then.

  Confucius saw contemporary society in his time as divided into two groups, a gentleman class and a peasant class. He believed that if gentlemen studied rigorously and committed themselves to ruling with compassion and wisdom, society would run more smoothly. I noted that Barker had underlined all the analects that had to do with how a gentleman behaves, such as:

  “The gentleman must be slow in speech but quick in action.”

  “In his dealings with the world the gentleman is neither for or against anything. Rather, he is on the side of what is moral.”

  “The gentleman is easy of mind, but the small man is always anxious.”

  What I had before me appeared to be a plan for how Barker was conducting his life, at least since he came to England. That left me scratching my head. Wasn’t Barker a Christian? Was he influenced by both? Even as I was getting closer to the core of the man, I was coming up with more questions than answers.

  Having got through most of the analects, for the book is short, I turned to Lao-tzu and got mired right away. The words were translated into English, but the meanings were almost gibberish. With my clouded Western mind, I could not make head or tail of it. How does one make sense of statements like: “Though the uncarved block is small, no one in the world dare claim its allegiance”?

  As for Mencius, he was one of Confucius’s students. I might have understood him better had I begun with him first. Instead, I found myself reading a phrase once, going on to the next, not making sense of it, and going back to the first. I was tired and my brain could not hold any more Oriental philosophy. Like a man of wisdom, I went to bed.

  The next I knew, I was awakened by a loud report from the room below. I opened my eyes and tried to focus. It sounded as though there was a fight going on. I heard a cry and threw back my covers, yanked open my door, ran down the steps not two feet ahead of Barker, who had come down from the upper floor in a nightshirt and dressing gown. When we reached the ground floor, we found the back door wide open and Harm disporting himself in the dark of the garden, running in circles and barking as if to say, “What larks!”

  We hurried into the study and found Mac on the floor, clutching his leg and moaning. The smell of gunpowder hung in the air. His trusty shotgun lay beside him, and it took but a moment to deduce what had happened. Barker’s butler had interrupted a burglary attempt and had been shot in the leg in the course of it.

  Harm came bounding in, all energy and excitement, and went so far as to bark at us as if we were complete strangers. Barker bent and put his hand on Mac’s shoulder.

  “Do not try to get up. Thomas, bring a towel.”

  I dashed into the kitchen and seized the first cloth I could find. The Guv used it to make a tourniquet around Mac’s leg to stem the flow of blood. When he was done, he said, “Tell me what happened.”

  Mac lay on the wooden floor, propped up on his elbows. He was pale and grimacing from the pain. “A sound of papers being moved about woke me up, sir. I knew it couldn’t be you or Mr. Llewelyn, else I’d have heard you coming down the stairs. I took the shotgun I always keep under my bed, threw open the door, and charged into the study, but he came out of nowhere. It was as though he was invisible. He bent my arm down, forcing the gun to discharge into my leg.”

  “Did you get a good look at him? Was he Oriental?”

  “I really couldn’t say, sir. He was crouched and came up under my gun.”

  Barker let out a grunt in exasperation. I don’t suppose anyone had dared storm the citadel of his private home before. It was unthinkable, like Mount Olympus having its silver nicked.

  “We must get him into bed and call Dr. Applegate,” he told me.

  Barker and I attempted to lift Mac up from the floor, but the butler gave such a cry of pain that even I felt sorry for him. For once, the Guv was at a loss as to what to do. He managed to get hold of Dr. Applegate by telephone and the latter agreed to come over, telling us not to move the patient but to make him comfortable. Comfortable, to Barker, meant slapping a pillow under his head and grilling him for the next twenty minutes over and over again on events that took all of about twenty seconds to occur.

  I suppose I’ve been rather hard on Dr. Apple
gate. I have strong views on the medical profession, due perhaps to the loss of my wife, and nothing that has occurred since then has changed my view-that for all our science, we are merely one step away from bloodletting and witch doctors. Applegate has a chilly bedside manner and a pinched face, as if chronically dyspeptic. For all his skills and his willingness to come the few streets from his own private house to Barker’s, he lacks a cheery countenance. One feels that if one passed on under his care, he’d merely nod sagely and move on to his next patient without a second thought.

  Dr. Applegate eventually arrived and clucked his tongue over the patient. He then called for bandages and alcohol and began pulling the pellets from Mac’s wound. A half hour later, the three of us carried Mac to his bed.

  It was my first glimpse into Mac’s private sanctuary, an odd combination of cleaning supplies and homey touches. There were antimacassars on the chairs, beaded lamp-shades, and a photograph of a dour Jewish couple who must have been his parents. I saw a bookcase against one wall and, being something of a bookman, I made my way over to it. There were a few serious Jewish texts, Mrs. Beaton’s Book of Household Management, and some Jane Austens along with a Bronte or two, but the majority of the titles were of a Gothic turn. The novels of Mrs. Braddon were much in evidence, as was Wilkie Collins, Horace Walpole, the American Poe, and the Baroness Orczy. Jacob Maccabee was a secret romantic, and though this was too good a card to waste, it would be unsporting of me to use it now, when my opponent was down. I helped them try to make him comfortable.

  Dr. Applegate gave Mac a walloping dose of morphine that knocked him out as stony cold as a mackerel in Billings-gate. Afterward, the doctor put on his top hat, wrapped his scarf around his neck, told Barker to expect the usual bill, and left.

  It was then that I realized I had been wasting the last half hour. I had been studying the room and watching the doctor as he went about his business, when all the time I should have been watching my employer. Had I done so, I would not have been surprised by his next statement.

  “We are at war,” he said.

  “Sir?”

  “There has been a killer in this house. He has murdered nearly a half dozen people, by my estimate, and he came here tonight prepared to kill again. Never in the five years that I have lived here has anyone dared to enter my home unbidden. He knows my reputation, I have no doubt, and yet he has found it of little consequence.”

  Perhaps it was a trick of the light, but the yellow from the gas lamps in the room actually penetrated Barker’s black spectacles enough for me to see the glint of his eyes. They looked like small flames, and it gave him a hellish aspect. I wondered if the killer of Quong had seriously underestimated my employer, or whether this unknown person was his equal in dangerous matters. He had killed several people now, after all. What does such power do to a person’s soul?

  “What shall we do, sir?” I asked.

  “We must prepare. This is a siege, lad. He may try again tonight.”

  “Forgive me, sir, but why didn’t you just give the book to Scotland Yard or the Foreign Office and have done with it? We have nothing like their manpower.”

  Barker gritted his teeth, as resolute as I have ever seen him. “Because Quong left it for me to give it to whom I choose. Here.” He picked up the shotgun and broke it open before handing it to me. “The shells are on the table.”

  I had never used a shotgun, but I didn’t want to lower myself in the Guv’s eyes. I put two shells in the barrels and closed the gun, wondering what I was to do with it. Barker moved into the library and took out a brace of dueling pistols, loading them with powder and ball as if he had done it a thousand times.

  “It is possible,” he said, “that the killer has not left the grounds. There are many places where a man can secrete himself in the garden. Let us reconnoiter.”

  Somehow, reconnoitering had been left out of my education. I followed him out into the garden, hoping I cut a more formidable figure than I felt. It was freezing and I was clad only in my nightshirt. I hadn’t even had time to put on my slippers. As for Harm, he took the opportunity to show off, barking at shadows, at the goldfish in the pond, at any sound that carried on the wind.

  Barker lit an Oriental lantern with a vesta and we began to look around the garden counterclockwise from the back door, taking in the kitchen garden, the Pen-jing area, and the rockery. We crossed the stone bridge, icy cold under my bare feet, skirting the training area, where I had been tossed down more times than I cared to remember. We bypassed the staggered stone path and invaded the potting shed. The Guv was very thorough, even studying the roof.

  We stepped out of the gate, where a cold wind fresh from Spitsbergen was blasting down the alleyway. There was no one about, nor any evidence of anyone, yet I knew the killer had been down here within the hour. Where, I wondered, does a murderer disappear to in residential Newington?

  Back inside his half-acre garden, my employer closed the moon gate with a finality and gave it a shake, just to make sure it held. We passed the suspended gong and climbed the two steps to the open pagoda. Barker made a very close inspection of the bathhouse, the largest structure in the garden, looking anywhere a man might hide. We crossed the bridge again and then walked the boardwalk that circled the enclosed pond. The Guv even shone the lantern across the water.

  “Surely you don’t think he’s hiding in the pond. It’s nearly freezing,” I said.

  “There are some men I have known who trained in frigid water,” he answered, “and some who use the sheath of a sword as a breathing straw, remaining underwater for several minutes.”

  “Surely he’s gone, sir,” I said, “and having a cup of hot tea somewhere. Perhaps we should do the same.”

  For once I’d talked sense. Cyrus Barker nodded and we went inside.

  “Look in the kitchen, lad, and do not neglect the pantry. Harm and I will have a look in the cellar.”

  “But he went out the back door,” I protested.

  “We have the evidence only of the open back door. No one saw him leave. If he is still here, he might have moved during our search of the garden. I fear we must search the entire house.”

  I nodded wearily and walked into the kitchen. The room was deserted, of course, the moonlight bathing Dummolard’s copper pots in a blue glow. I wanted to go to bed, but now it appeared we would be spending the rest of the night on a wild-goose chase. I opened the pantry door, and the next thing I knew, Mac’s gun was kicked out of my hand, sliding across the counter and over it, out of reach. I blocked a blow to my face with my good arm instinctively, since all I could see was a black shape in the darkness.

  “Sir-” I began, but a kick caught me in the chest, knocking the air out of me. I don’t know if he then kicked my feet out from under me or whether I just fell to the floor. I was preoccupied with trying to breathe. I rolled over, despite the cast, which I now loathed more than anything in the world, and watched the intruder run out the back door. I wanted to yell, to warn Barker, but I couldn’t draw enough breath into my lungs to get anything out.

  A half minute later, Barker’s head came ’round the corner. I waved vaguely toward the door and he was gone. I lay back and closed my eyes, willing myself to calm down. Slowly, the pain in my chest subsided and I was able to breathe again.

  Barker returned a few minutes later. “Up and over the wall,” he stated. For some reason, he decided I must need a glass of water. He set about searching for a tumbler. It was the first time I had ever seen him in the kitchen, there being some unwritten rule that this was Dummolard’s domain. He found the glassware in one of the cupboards and pumped water into it over the sink.

  “Gave as well as got?” he asked, as he handed me the glass.

  “Not even close, I’m afraid,” I admitted. “If you don’t mind, now that our intruder is definitely gone, I would like to go back to bed.”

  “Sorry, lad. We shall have to go over the grounds again. I believe I shall sleep on the sofa in the library tonight with M
ac’s shotgun close to hand. This fellow has caught me out once. I am not going to let it happen again.”

  Barker helped me up and we went outside.

  “Why didn’t he kill me when he had the chance?” I wondered aloud.

  “He would not risk being caught in the kitchen. There are too many weapons at hand for a pair of trained fighters. It would have been a bloodbath. When you flushed him out, he had no other thought but to escape to fight another day.”

  Our second examination of the garden, like the first, yielded nothing. I went upstairs and crawled into bed. As tired as I was, I had little sleep that night. Every creak had me sitting up in bed.

  9

  Nevil Bainbridge’s funeral was not to be forgotten. As if in sympathy, rain wept steadily from an iron-gray heaven, icy raindrops that one could hear break on the waterproofs of the constables in attendance. All of us were in black and in misery, as if being here reminded us all of our own mortality. Even the statues of angels and men, ingrained with soot like sketches in charcoal, looked forlorn and miserable, wishing they could be somewhere else; but there was nowhere to go. The whole of London was blanketed under a leaden sky.

  Standing under my umbrella, huddled into my macintosh for warmth, I wondered how long the service would go on. There was a great deal of ceremony to get through. It is rare when an officer is killed, and Scotland Yard seeks for an air of solemn grandeur and profound tragedy. Every now and then I got a glimpse within the waterproofs of the dress uniforms, with their epaulettes and braids, helmets and white gloves, of the constables and inspectors. In a show of toughness on the part of the Yard, none carried umbrellas, and the constables stood at attention, chins dripping and ice crystals lodged in their mustaches. Barker and I had no such restriction and made full use of our umbrellas, the droplets drumming on the waxed cotton and falling in a circle around us, save when a gust of cold wind whipped them over our trousers and shoes. I like rainy mornings in London, even in February, but only when I can spend them in a nice coffeehouse or a Charing Cross bookshop. Only lunatics, or someone heavily entrenched in ritual and duty, would be out on a morning like this.