The Limehouse Text

by Will Thomas

  “Might the government round them up?”

  “I would hope so, rather than face a purge of the district by the citizenry after a clash overseas.” Barker looked down and ran a hand over the back of his neck. “But perhaps it shall not come to pass. Let us concentrate on the present and see if we can ferret out Bainbridge’s killer before he harms anyone else.”

  16

  IN THE PREDAWN HOURS OF THE NEXT MORNING, I was awakened by a sudden sharp crash outside my door. I cursed myself for a fool for not keeping some sort of protection in my room. I opened my door cautiously, ready for anything. As it turned out, I was ready for anything but what I found there.

  Cyrus Barker was in his nightshirt lying across my sill. The porcelain chamber pot he had carried from his room upstairs had shattered on the polished floor, spilling its contents. The liquid, even by the low light of the turned-down gas jets, was a dull rusty color and thick as blood.

  “Sir!” I cried, going down on one knee and trying to lift his head with my one good arm. Barker was unconscious. It must have taken all he had to climb down from his upper chamber. I placed my hand on his chest, fearing the worst, but though faint, I detected a beating heart. What could I do? If I didn’t act quickly, my employer, my mentor, the man to whom I owed practically everything, would be dead.

  There was a sound on the stair, but it was only Harm. He took in the scene before him with his bulging eyes, seemed to gather himself for a moment, and then raised his head and howled the most mournful wail I had ever heard from an animal. I can only compare it to the funereal dirge of a bagpipe. It was obvious that Harm thought his master dead.

  “What has happened?” Mac called up from the foot of the stairs with a thrill in his voice that told me he expected the worst.

  “The Guv has passed out in the hall,” I cried.

  Mac managed to hobble up the stairs with the aid of a walking stick, just as the door opened behind me and Madame and Monsieur Dummolard emerged. They had taken the trouble to don proper dressing gowns and slippers. On seeing the sight, Dummolard let out a remark that should not be repeated in English or French.

  Mac reached the landing and surveyed the scene. “This is bad,” he stated. “You had better call Dr. Applegate.”

  “Of course,” I said, and took the stairs down three at a time. The Harley Street physician answered the telephone as soon as I was put through. I was not at my most coherent, but somehow I managed to communicate the direness of the circumstances and he rang off, saying he would be along in a few moments. I looked at the clock in our hall. It was shortly after five in the morning. Then I ran upstairs again.

  Barker still had not come around. He is a man known for his immobility and yet seeing him there so inanimate was unnerving. What if he died? I wondered. What then? My mind leapt ahead to the funeral, the settling of the estate, the selling of the house and dismissal of his servants, myself included. How could I bear to be cast adrift again, after all this? Surely Fate could not be that cruel.

  Madame Dummolard was already soaking up the mess on the floor by laying towels across it before sweeping up the shards of pottery.

  “Do we dare move him to a bed?” Maccabee asked. “I cannot bear to see him like this, prostrate in his own hallway.”

  “We had better not risk it. Applegate lives but a few streets away. He should be here soon,” I answered.

  The doctor arrived in ten minutes, commenting that we were keeping him busy these days. He authorized Barker’s removal to his bed upstairs and it took the five of us to carry him there, slack-limbed as he was. Applegate then herded us out before examining his patient. Mac, Dummolard, and I stood in the corridor uncertainly. Barker was our leader and now we were left without direction.

  “Let’s have some coffee,” I suggested.

  “Bon!” Dummolard responded, relieved at having something to do.

  The four of us went down into the kitchen, where Dummolard boiled coffee on his gas stove while I wrestled with my inner demons. At the moment, they were conjuring images of Barker’s funeral. Would it be a big one when the time came? Barker, if he even made plans, would have favored a brisk, businesslike affair at the Baptist Tabernacle. As far as he was concerned, his soul was in heaven and his body was merely so much humus to be set aside, awaiting the Second Coming. I had no idea where he might wish to be buried, perhaps with his ancestors in Scotland. There were many that were indebted to Barker, including the Prince of Wales himself, who might be desirous of attending. Then there were the Chinese who would wish to be there, led by his very own ward. As for me, my life would be shattered, as it had been shattered when I had lost my wife. I managed to take hold of myself. After all, the man was not dead yet.

  The Dummolards and I were seated at the deal table in the kitchen. Madame Dummolard poured coffee for all of us and we sat in woeful silence.

  “I’m sorry,” I said finally. “This whole thing has me out of sorts.”

  “That is understandable,” Mac replied, and for once he unbent a little. “I cannot believe this is happening. He has not been sick once for as long as I have worked for him, going on five years.”

  Just then Dr. Applegate came into the kitchen. Mac poured him a cup of coffee and he fell into the unoccupied seat.

  “His condition is very grave, gentlemen,” he said, running a hand over his features until they were ruddy. “His kidneys are failing. I do not understand it. He is a very healthy man. I won’t be coy with you. Cyrus Barker is at death’s door. But we won’t give up without a fight, will we?”

  It was then that the last piece of a puzzle clicked together in my head. The sailor Chambers had died from kidney failure. This was no accident. It was dim mak. I thought back to the two youths who had tried to steal his wallet. Had it been they? No, more likely it was the innocent-looking beggar they had knocked Barker into, the one who had reached up and caught the Guv, with both hands against his back as they fell over. He had been dressed in a long hooded cloak and shapeless hat, obscuring his face, and now, a day later, the Guv’s kidneys were giving out as if his insides were made of clockwork gears and the hour had tolled.

  I leapt to my feet, suddenly sure of what I must do. Mac and the Dummolards looked up in astonishment.

  “I must go,” I said. “Etienne, find whatever weapons you can. Get them from Barker’s bedchamber if you must. Mac, fill your shotgun and guard the front door. I must leave and this is just the sort of opportunity the killer might use to attack the house again. I’ll be back!” Then I turned and rushed out the back door.

  I ran through the streets, raising the eyebrows of the few people out on this slowly dawning morning. My plan involved getting to our horse Juno as soon as possible. As I ran toward the rising sun it occurred to me that the murderer, whoever he was, was winning. He had killed Quong and shot Bainbridge, downed Mac and now he had even brought down Cyrus Barker. If anyone had a chance of besting the killer it was Barker, and right then I felt as if his life or death was in my hands. The only man who could possibly save Barker’s life, if in fact it were savable at all, was Dr. Quong. Somewhere in his antiquated shop with its bowls of roots and bottles of herbs and its pins, there might be a cure. I had to get to him and bring him back as quickly as possible.

  I slid on a patch of ice and nearly fell but righted myself and kept on going. Finally, I arrived at the barn. As calmly as possible, I told the stable boy to saddle Juno, for he was as head shy as the horse. He got her tacked up in record time, after I offered him a half sovereign. As sedately as possible under the circumstances, I climbed into the stirrups as the boy opened the livery doors.

  “You’ve wanted a good gallop for weeks now, girl,” I said in her ear. “Now is your chance.”

  I kicked her and she leapt forward, her iron shoes ringing off the roadway. We galloped along the Borough High Street past rows of anonymous houses. I felt the pent-up energy in Juno being released and the fierce joy of having something useful to do. I understood it because I felt
it myself. Between us we swallowed up the streets as we headed toward the river and the bridge that spanned it.

  London Bridge was nearly deserted as I urged the horse on. By now, Juno and I had become a single entity. A policeman blew his whistle at me, but I cared not a whit. We squeezed between a couple of draft horses, who voiced their displeasure, and went flying down Gracechurch Street.

  “Good girl! Excellent!” I cried into her ear and then I brought her into an easy canter, for she couldn’t keep up this pace forever. We trotted through the City and increased our speed again once we reached Commercial Road. A little more than half an hour after I had left, I was beating on Old Quong’s door.

  “Dr. Quong! Dr. Quong! Are you there?”

  I assumed he lived above his shop and that he would answer my stout knockings, but there was no answer. It hadn’t occurred to me he might not be home. Perhaps he was out on a call somewhere. I knew not what to do but climbed back onto the lathered bay and began circling the streets of Limehouse. I found him on the fifth or sixth street I passed, sitting on a small stool in the street getting the top of his head shaved by a Chinese barber. I pulled up so quickly, the barber nearly cut off the doctor’s ear.

  “Dr. Quong, come quickly. Barker has been stricken. It is his kidneys. I think it is dim mak.”

  “Dim mak?” the doctor said, wiping his forehead with a towel. “You are certain?”

  “Very. He hovers near death. If anyone can save him, it is you.”

  “Take me home. Must get bag.” He used the barber’s folding chair to climb behind me.

  Juno’s energy was flagging on the way back, but she came from good Thoroughbred stock and had hidden depths. We did not equal our time on the journey back to Newington, for the town was well awake now and the traffic heavier. Some were stopping to watch two men, one in a cast and the other an Oriental, on the back of a sturdy mare galloping through London. By then Juno was bathed in sweat and there were flecks of foam on her bridle.

  We finally reached the Elephant and Castle and I pushed myself off as I reached the familiar alley behind our house. I unlocked the moon gate and tied up Juno there before I hustled the doctor over the bridge and through the back door.

  “What’s going on here?” Applegate demanded when the two of us, weary and disheveled, reached the top of the stairs.

  “Tell me, doctor,” I said, “do you despair of his life? Be honest, I beg you.”

  Barker lay in his bed, his lower torso wrapped in a towel and his skin slick with sweat. Applegate looked at him and frowned.

  “Answer me, please!”

  “Very well, then, yes, I despair of his life.”

  “Then let this fellow have a try. His name is Dr. Quong. He is a Chinese herbal doctor and he cannot do anything to worsen Barker’s condition. I believe, sir, that my employer has been attacked by a secret Oriental method and the only cure is from an Oriental doctor.”

  “I’ve been treating Cyrus Barker for five years now,” he growled. “I’ve fixed lacerations and broken limbs and busted heads. But I’ll admit I’m beat. I do not know if there is a cure for this, but if this fellow can find a way, he may try. May I watch?”

  Old Quong nodded to him but pointed at me. “Him stay. You go out.”

  After all this I was being tossed out on my ear. “Wait! Can’t I—”

  “No!” both doctors barked.

  “Hang it!” I cried and went downstairs.

  “What is happening?” Mac asked as I reached the hall.

  “Ask them!” I snapped and went outside into the garden. I had to see to Juno or she would take ill in the cold. I led her to the alley and back to the stable. Once there I removed her saddle and blanket and began rubbing her down. I could have bade the boy to do it, but I needed to do something as much as Juno needed it done. I rubbed and combed her until her muscles, which were bunching and shaking in her breast from the cold and activity, finally began to relax. Then I filled up her hay box and water bucket, shoveled out her stall, and put down fresh straw. Normally she is stall shy, unwilling to be locked in the small enclosure, but for once she went in without protest. She was all in, and nearly asleep before I left the barn.

  I returned to the house praying that God would spare my employer. Surely it made no sense to take him when he was doing so much good. I admit he could be a martinet at times, but he was exceedingly bighearted. There was nothing that if I convinced him I had the need of he would not buy, and the very best, too. If there was a benevolent God watching out for us, surely the world would be poorer without this one man struggling down here, this Noah among the forsaken, this Quixote tilting at windmills.

  17

  AN HOUR LATER, DR. QUONG WAS CLOSING HIS lacquered case full of bottles and tonics and Dr. Applegate was latching his bag. They had reached a truce, if not exactly a friendship, and both had other patients to see. Mac’s nurse was now looking after her new charge on the upper floor and I had a chair drawn up by his bed.

  I reached across to lay a palm on Barker’s forehead and found it hot to the touch. Under that placid exterior, my employer’s body was in a pitched battle for its life.

  “S’truth,” a voice spoke behind me.

  “Hello, Jenkins,” I said, not looking up.

  “’E ain’t dead, is he?”

  “No, not dead. Who told you he’d been hurt?”

  “Inspector Poole stuck his head into the office. He’ll be along in a bit. Word got to Scotland Yard, I think.”

  My mind filled in the blanks after that. I must have been seen and recognized riding into and out of Limehouse. Barker had told me once that information traveled fast in London.

  “What?” I asked. Jenkins was speaking to me, but I was lost in my own thoughts.

  “I said what’ll I do? The office?”

  “What about it?”

  “Should I keep it open or refer cases to Hewitt?”

  Hewitt was another enquiry agent who sometimes took the cases Barker was too busy for.

  “For now, just take messages,” I said. “And put that out!”

  Even if I hadn’t smelled the cigarette, I knew he had one. It was like a sixth finger in his right hand, though he limited himself in the office to a few each day. I watched him take a last lungful like a diver before he went under the water, then cross to the dormer window and toss the fag end out into the street. He leaned forward and exhaled through the inch of space between the window and the ledge and then he came back and regarded Barker’s still form solemnly.

  “Never seen him like this,” he said. “No tie with the pearl stickpin. No Windsor collar. The least we can do is comb his hair.” Jenkins reached into his pocket and removed a small comb, running it through Barker’s hair. It made me think of corpses, and I wanted to reach over and stop him but stopped myself instead. Jenkins was worried as well and this was making him feel he was doing something, even if it did send a chill up my spine.

  “Can’t the doctor do anything?” he asked.

  “We’ve had two in,” I said, saving for myself the fact that one of them was a Chinese herb healer. “I think the immediate danger has passed, but there is no telling when he shall awaken.”

  “Hard times,” Jenkins said.

  “Indeed. Are you going back to the office now?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Why don’t you lock up at five? No sense staying open late. We’ve already got a case we’re working on.”

  “Thank you, Mr. L.” Jenkins left the office at five thirty every workday, bound for the Rising Sun public house where he held court. “I could use a drink after this.”

  Going down, I met Inspector Poole on the stairs. He looked strained, as I suppose I looked myself.

  “I need to speak to you,” he said, taking my arm.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t believe we have a suspect for you just yet.”

  “I’m not here for that. I understand the house was broken into and your butler injured.”

  “Yes
.”

  “And now this. I don’t believe all this Oriental mystical nonsense, but would you say Cyrus’s injury was probably due to this case and the book?”

  “Probably. I’m not certain how yet and won’t be until I speak to Mr. Barker, but it has to be more than a coincidence, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “I would. I want you to know I’m putting a pair of constables in the area until further notice. Good men. They both saw time in India.”

  “Thank you, Inspector.”

  He sighed and shook his head. “I can’t believe this. I’m going to catch this fellow, just you wait.”

  Having had his say, I saw him to the door. My view of the street was obstructed by the large black growler he had come here in. He climbed inside, then smacked the door of the vehicle with his hand. “Limehouse!”

  “Was that Poole?” Mac asked from the doorway of his room. He was still in his dressing gown and leaning on a pair of crutches.

  “Yes. He’s sending two men to keep an eye on the house.”

  “Good!” Mac responded. “Though I don’t think the fellow I encountered would be dissuaded by a couple of constables.” Mac gestured to me, so the maid in the drawing room couldn’t see. He brought me into his room and closed the door. “The maid is getting on my nerves,” he said. “She was entertaining at first, if a bit Frenchy, but with the Guv hanging on for life upstairs, it’s maddening being ten feet from the door and not being able to answer it. The killer could stroll right in and kill us one by one.”

  “I don’t think it’s as bad as that,” I said.

  “I can almost get about, I think,” Mac continued, ignoring my remarks, as usual. “We could get by with just the charwoman for a few days. I know the governor cannot make any decisions. Do you think we should ask Madame Dummolard to pack up her maids and leave?”