by Will Thomas
I heard a rustle of fabric, and she was there. Rebecca Mocatta, in her night attire. True, it covered her as much as her day attire, if not more so. But just the thought that she was uncorseted and ready to retire, and so close, unnerved me.
“Don’t look!” she began, a protective hand over the ribbon at her bosom. “You needed to see me, and I wanted to help you find whoever killed Louis. This is the only way, I’m afraid. Mama had her eye on me all night, and no doubt will tomorrow.”
“I fear I must look, Miss Mocatta, if only into your eyes. You see, I am trained in knowing if one is telling the truth.”
“Very well, if you must.”
“I thought to formally ask for a word with you from your father.”
“Mama would refuse. She has strong beliefs about propriety, and she does not trust Gentiles. If she catches me here now, I shall be married to someone I don’t even know within the fortnight.”
“That’s fine,” I blurted out before thinking. “You don’t know me.”
Peripherally, I saw her smile. “I don’t believe you shall be on Mama’s list, you impudent fellow. But come! I want to help you find Louis’s killers. What can I do? Ask any question you like, but be quick, I pray.” She sat down on the edge of a settee and buried her slippered feet in her voluminous gown.
“I take it you and Mr. Pokrzywa were close. Was there any understanding between you?”
“Between Louis and me? No. Not at all. Louis was a sweet, intelligent fellow, but we had no romantic attachment. We were simply friends. I was tutoring him. He knew little of what passed between the mothers and daughters of his acquaintance, and he asked me candidly if I could help him find a suitable match. But as it turned out, he didn’t need any help.”
“How so?”
“He fell in love, of course.”
I watched her soft hand smooth the fabric of her gown. “With whom?”
“He wouldn’t tell me. I called him an ungrateful wretch. Her name is Miriam and she is a Jew, but that was all he would say. There must be a thousand Miriams in the East End. I assume she was low-born, from the neighborhoods farthest east.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Had she been of our crowd, he wouldn’t have hesitated to announce it. He was in love with a common woman, I fear. Was it my fault, do you think, encouraging him? He once walked halfway across Europe, but for all that he still knew so little of the world.”
“One cannot help whom one loves.” I believed it, I think, trying not to stare at the jet hair that was down about her shoulders, and the way the light from the lamp caressed her cheek.
“Miriam,” I murmured to myself.
“It is all I know, I’m afraid,” she said.
“Perhaps not. May I continue?”
“Yes, but hurry!”
“Had Louis Pokrzywa ever mentioned Christianity to you?”
“Yes! He said he’d stopped into a church for Jews who had become Christians. I quite brought him to task. I called him a Marrano and asked if he was thinking of converting to gain political influence, like Mr. Disraeli.”
“I don’t follow you. What is a Marrano?”
“You don’t know your Jewish history, Mr. Llewelyn? They were the Spanish and Portuguese Jews who converted to Christianity, rather than be tortured in your Inquisition.”
“It wasn’t my Inquisition, I assure you. I’m a Welshman, Miss Mocatta, and a nonconformist. I don’t believe any of my ancestors were in Spain at the time.”
She smiled. “Why, Mr. Llewelyn, that was an attempt at humor. I thought you such a serious fellow.”
“What do you know of me?” I asked, but of course the question was rhetorical.
“Only what Mr. Zangwill has told me.”
“You’ve sent your spies before you.”
“It’s the only power I have,” she sighed.
“You have more power than you realize,” I responded, unable to hide a smile.
“You shall make me blush. Are all detectives this forward?”
A half dozen remarks teetered on the tip of my tongue, but I swallowed them and returned to the business at hand.
“Did Louis, at any time you knew him, speak as if his life were in danger?”
“No.”
“But he was secretive.”
“Only near the end, when he spoke of Miriam. Oh, I do hate that—‘near the end.’ He had no idea he was near the end of his life, you see.” She twisted the lace of her gown.
“When did he first mention her?”
“Less than a month before his death.”
“Did he ever—” A floorboard overhead creaked. I put out the lamp and flew across the room into the hall, as quietly as I could. I kept to the carpet and got into the sitting room just in time. I was stirring the fire with a poker when her mother came into the room.
She wore a robe so thick it might have been made from carpet, and her jet black hair hung down in a ropelike plait to her waist. Her manner had not changed, however, and she looked at me sternly.
“You’re not using too much coal, are you?” she demanded.
“I am trying to be frugal, madam. I will use less, if necessary. Is the fire upstairs satisfactory for Rabbi Mocatta?”
“It is like an oven, but he likes it that way.”
“And the fires in your daughters’ rooms, are they satisfactory?”
“Yes, yes.”
“Is there anything else I might be doing for the household beyond the fires and the lamps?”
“We have servants for that, thank you. There shall be several duties in the morning, but none until then.”
“As you wish, madam.”
“What is your name again?”
“It is Thomas Llewelyn.”
“And Mr. Mocatta says you are some sort of…detective?”
“Assistant to Cyrus Barker, private enquiry agent. We’re working for the Board of Deputies at the request of Sir Moses Montefiore.”
“Mmph,” she said. It must have irked her not to find anything to criticize. “Mind you, don’t fall asleep and let the rooms grow cold.”
“Your cook has left a full pot of coffee in the kitchen, along with some victuals.” I was rather enjoying the opportunity to use this servant speech. I don’t believe I’d ever actually used the word “victuals” before.
“Very well, then. Good night, Mr. Llewelyn.”
“Good night to you, madam. I hope you and your family sleep well.”
24
WHEN SHE LEFT, I WAITED A MOMENT AND went into the hallway to look up the staircase. Then I crept into the library again. The room was empty. Rebecca Mocatta must have flitted upstairs while I was talking to her mother. That was close, almost too close, but I was disappointed at not getting to speak with her again. Very disappointed, indeed.
By the time the servants arrived the next morning, I’d become better acquainted with Thomas Hardy, whose heroine, Bathsheba, was a willful, raven-haired beauty, and a danger to all males, coincidentally enough. I helped start the fire in the big iron stove and made myself as useful as possible in the kitchen. I got on well with the staff.
I barely got a glance at Rebecca amidst the flurry of Sabbath morning activity. The rabbi would be reading that day at one of the smaller synagogues in the suburbs. I understood that he made himself available to speak as an interim rabbi wherever he was called upon. At home, he had a distracted air. Perhaps he was thinking about his reading. He seemed to have one foot on this earth and the other in Paradise. His wife was more pragmatic. Both of her feet were firmly on the ground, and had it not been for her, the rabbi might not have made it out the door Saturday mornings.
I carried water to the rooms, acted as a stand-in valet for the rabbi and his son-in-law, a bland and portly fellow with Prince of Wales whiskers, and even added a word or two to Rabbi Mocatta’s notes at his request, since he was forbidden to lift a pencil.
With measured precision, the courses were set on the side-board, and the family b
roke their fast. I replenished the new dining room fire and removed the ash. Later, I helped the rabbi with his coat, and the family left for service, after which I almost collapsed from exhaustion. I had gotten only four hours sleep out of the last fifty.
The servants cleared the dining room while I went upstairs to clean and rebuild the fires. I trimmed the wicks in the lamps that needed it, while the upstairs maid set every room in order and changed the sheets. It was a lot of work for just one family, and for a moment, I recalled Jacob Maccabee. He performed all of these duties himself, and so smoothly I hadn’t noticed he’d done it. Did I think fresh sheets grew like manna, or that Dummolard’s meals reheated themselves every night? I reproved myself a little, a very little. It was Mac, after all.
When the breakfast dishes were done, the cook and servants immediately began lunch. The meal would be pheasant consommé, roast beef with mashed potatoes, sprouts, carrots, and trifle, washed down with cabernet and coffee. For some reason, I thought of little Reb Shlomo, Pokrzywa’s mystical rabbi. No doubt his repast would be more frugal, but it would also be more exotic: borscht with sour cream, perhaps, or pirozhki, gefilte fish, and homemade rye, washed down with strong tea made in the ever present samovars. The newcomers must think that the Sephardim, so long among the English Gentiles, had lost some of their heritage.
Eventually, the family swept in the door again, flushed from their activities and the brisk air. The cook was kind enough to see that a plate was prepared for me in the kitchen. I had been spoiled by sitting at Barker’s table, however. The food tasted like one of Dummolard’s experiments. The family did not seem to notice but consumed everything on the table, between the rabbi’s blessing on the meal and his benediction.
I came out of the kitchen in time to watch Rebecca Mocatta pass by. She put her head down, but I think there was a smile on her face. The scent of gardenias perfumed the air in her wake. Her black dress swayed like a bell as she passed down the hall, but it was my heart that made the clangor.
The rabbi came down the stairs, dressed in a tattered old sweater, worn thin at the elbows, over his shirt and tie. He came up alongside me and murmured in my ear, “Would you take a turn in the garden with me, Mr. Llewelyn?”
I agreed, of course. He led me not out the front door, but through the kitchen. The back of the Mocatta property was not large, just a simple square of grass returning to life afer the blasts of winter, lined on all sides with shoulder-high walls of red brick. Having clung to life all winter, vegetation began to put forth its first tentative buds. In the center of the lawn, a lone ash tree stood some twenty feet tall, still bare of leaves, but vigorous for all that.
Mocatta stopped me in the little porch outside the back door.
“Mabel does not allow me to indulge in the house, but I am dying for a smoke. Are you as much of a wizard at lighting a pipe as you are at fireplaces, young man?”
I thought of Barker. I’d watched him dozens of times now. “Even better, I think. Have you tobacco?”
He pulled a pipe from his pocket. I expected a Dunhill, or at the very least a Comoy’s, but the rabbi’s pipe was almost as disreputable as Reb Shlomo’s. I took in his sweater and his pipe together. It was obvious that he saved the luxuries of this world for his family.
I packed the pipe with tobacco from a small tin of Arcadia he carried. I filled it, tamped it down with my thumb, and filled it again. When the rabbi had the pipe clenched in his teeth, I struck a match and made those little circles Barker had demonstrated, while Mocatta puffed plumes of smoke, which drifted out and were blasted away by the early spring air. I didn’t envy the rabbi his cold smokes, but he didn’t seem to notice. He grunted with satisfaction and wandered out into the garden and slowly walked in circles, probably pondering abstract questions from the Torah. From my vantage point on the porch, he reminded me of one of the older inmates at Oxford Prison, the long-termers, taking the air in the small, guarded confines of the prison yard, with only their old pipes to comfort them.
The rabbi wandered over to the tree, and his hand caressed the trunk. “Do you see the stump there?” he asked, pointing to a medallion of wood flush with the lawn. I had not noticed it before. “That was Leah’s tree. I planted it the day she was born, and I cut it down a few days before her wedding. We used it, along with the tree her husband’s father planted at his birth, to make the chuppa under which they were married. Now there is just one tree here, Rebecca’s tree. I wonder if it is lonely.” He tapped out his pipe, emptying the ash onto its roots. Then he absently patted me on the shoulder and led me inside.
Not even the most virulent invective Madam Mocatta might have come up with could have dashed colder water on my dreams than the gentle words of the rabbi. No one had planted a tree when I was born. We owned no plot in which to grow it. My family had no mansion and had never even heard of a chuppa. The water in my father’s bath was gray with coal dust when he left it each night, and my mother’s faith in Jesus Christ and John Wesley were all that kept her going when times were lean, which was often. I felt just then that I had no more chance of a relationship with Rebecca Mocatta than if she had been a princess among the Venusians. For all the studying and mingling I had done, I felt no closer to this alien race than I had to the crown jewels when I was in the Tower looking through the bars. I am always an outsider.
How had he known? Rebecca and I hadn’t exchanged a word in his presence. Was it coincidence, perhaps, or a set speech he made to discourage unworthy suitors? No, he scarce seemed the type. These rabbis seemed rather unworldly to a fellow raised among solid Methodists. I felt they could almost read my mind. And just what had Reb Shlomo meant by that remark about trapdoors?
I came into the hall through the kitchen, and the first thing I saw was Rebecca with a look of concern on her face. Did she already know what her father had said to me? Were they all clairvoyant? I wondered. Then she turned her gaze and I saw that it was not her father who caused such anxiety. A tall figure stood in the hallway, black as death against the white entrance door. It was Barker.
I looked into the sitting room at the clock. It was barely four. He was early; I still had almost two hours left. He paid no attention to me but stepped over to the rabbi and spoke to him in low tones. I strained to listen but only caught the words, “Take him.” Mocatta nodded his agreement.
“Come, lad,” my employer said. “Fetch your hat and coat. We must away.”
I collected my things in the kitchen. By the time I came back, the rest of the family had come in, no doubt to look at the spectacle that is Cyrus Barker, agent of enquiry. I couldn’t resist one parting shot at Mrs. Mocatta. I spoke up boldly.
“I fear we must leave early, Madam, but it has been a pleasure serving your family. I thank you for inviting me into your beautiful home. Good day.”
What could she say after that? She was speechless. She gave a high-pitched squeak as if her pearl necklace was too tight and nodded as I shook her icy hand. Then I turned and put on my bowler hat. I dared look boldly into Rebecca’s eyes for just a second, and tilted my hat at enough of an angle to be rakish, before following my employer out the door.
“What was all that about?” Barker muttered as we got into Racket’s cab. He missed nothing.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Let’s not start that again, Thomas. Don’t play the innocent with me. I know better. Tell me everything from the moment you walked in the door.”
I did so. I had hoped to leave my romancing out, but it was too tied up in everything. The best I could do was to abbreviate. If I hadn’t risked that glance and had set my hat on properly, I might have gotten away with it. But I’d forgotten that behind those black lenses Barker sees everything.
“I don’t approve of your romancing witnesses,” he said, “unless it is on my order. But then, you were in prison for a few months. I suppose you’re only human. Just watch yourself, Thomas.”
“Yes, sir,” I said. I sat back in the cab and looked out ahead
of me as Barker did. We were heading northeast, toward the City again.
“You arrived early,” I said, with a sudden pricking of my thumbs.
“Yes,” Barker responded. “There has been another murder.”
25
CYRUS BARKER WAS UPSET. I COULD SEE IT now in the way he sat. He didn’t have that calm demeanor I’d come to expect from him. In fact, he was restless, bouncing about in the cab until I could hear the springs underneath protest. I was about to protest, myself.
“I don’t like it!” Barker said, smiting his thigh like a petulant child. “Perhaps I am vain, but I like to think that when the criminals hear that I am on a particular case, they blanch in fear, or at least alter their plans. This carrying on as if I were inconsequential is an affront to my abilities. To quote Shylock, ‘I shall have my pound of flesh.’ ”
“Have they crucified another Jew?”
Barker seemed not to hear me, but he finally turned toward me. “What? Oh, I beg pardon, lad. I haven’t told you. A body has been found in a quarry wagon on a spur near Aldgate Station. It was buried under rubble. Another message from the Anti-Semite League had been scrawled on the wall by it. It is in a short tunnel of the underground, or it would have been found sooner. I haven’t seen it yet. Inspector Poole sent me a message.”
“Not crucified, then?” I asked. “How was he killed?”
“Stoned. Another Biblical punishment. But it was not a ‘he.’ The victim was a woman.”
“A woman? They killed a woman? How can anyone kill a woman? This is monstrous!”
“I agree.”
The enormity of the whole thing struck me. I pictured a phalanx of angry Englishmen stoning a poor Jewess to death. It made my blood boil. As far as I was concerned, the fair sex was somehow precious, inviolate. Had I not just shared a few brief moments with a daughter of Zion? Somewhere, even now, the poor dead woman’s loved ones were wringing their hands, perhaps, wondering what had become of her.
