Blood Is Blood

by Will Thomas

  “Webleys.”

  “Give them here.”

  I did, watching as he stuffed both into one pocket.

  “Clear out,” he ordered before turning to Lydia and Rebecca. “Ladies, Mr. Llewelyn was not here tonight. Have the maid mop this floor.”

  I turned to say something to Rebecca, but she stepped away from me, as if she were afraid. It felt as if someone had poured a bucket of cold water down my back. I looked at her and she frowned. I looked at Aunt Lydia and realized the chances of her becoming my aunt Lydia had become exceedingly small.

  “Thomas, get out of my house,” Rebecca said in a low voice. “I never want to see you again.”

  My shoulders slumped and I shuffled out the front door. Outside in Camomile Street, the rain suited my mood. I began to walk away from the house, my thoughts as dark as a man’s can get.

  There was one last tough nearby, perhaps keeping an eye out for the gang. I crossed the street, reaching into my coat. He backed away and beat a hasty retreat.

  Devil take all Mondays, I said to myself. I’d ruined my life rather effectively. What was I thinking, that something might go according to plan? I was bitter. I wanted to kick things. I wanted to knock people’s hats off, as the author Mr. Melville said.

  Gradually I calmed myself, but then the realization hit me that I had killed a man. Me, Thomas Llewelyn. What had I been thinking? Why had I taken the guns into the house? That, I supposed, was the problem. I had not thought. I had pulled the pistols purely out of instinct, feeling the need to protect my own. There had been entirely too much interest in Camomile Street, and my personal life. When the time came, I didn’t hesitate. I reacted instinctively. What happened was bad enough. What could have happened if I had failed to act, or acted too slowly, would have been worse. Perhaps far worse.

  I found Liverpool Street Station and took the Underground to the Elephant and Castle, feeling as low as a fellow can feel. The rain was pouring down then, and it battered my leather coat and my waterproof bowler. For once, the Universe was in sympathy with me. Finally, I reached Barker’s home. I heard the argument before I opened the door.

  “Are you going to tell me what you’re really doing in London?” Barker demanded inside the front room.

  “I’m not doing anything!” Caleb shouted back. “I concluded a case and I thought I might take some time to visit my only living relative. That decision may have well been a mistake!”

  “You’re gone at odd hours and reticent about your activities.”

  “I’m in the greatest capital city in the entire world. Forgive me if I take in some of the sights. What’s the matter, brother dear, do you miss me when I’m gone? I have a life apart from you. I’ve had it for twenty years. Besides, I have an employer to serve.”

  “Aha! So you admit you are working for your employer. What kind of case is it? Will it interfere with this one?”

  “Cyrus, I did not claim I was on a case for the Pinkerton Agency. You inferred it, and the inference happens to be wrong. I’m not on a case, and I chose to help you with yours, simply because you are injured, and Mr. Llewelyn here might require another trained detective who happens to be free in London with little to do.”

  I came closer, leaning against the doorframe, feeling all in. So far the night had been a disaster and there was more to come.

  “The reason is my problem, Caleb. It’s not as if you wish us to bond again as brothers. You have visited me only twice since you arrived. That is hardly solicitous.”

  “Oh, I didn’t realize your pride was hurt. No one told me that I needed to visit you every day. Should I bring flowers?”

  “That is not what I meant. Just let me know what you are about. We might need your help on the case.”

  “I’m not your lapdog, Cyrus.”

  He pointed at Harm, who was sitting on the rug, shivering. We didn’t raise our voices in this house and the dog was unprepared for it. I wanted to reach down and pet him, but to do so I would need to pass Caleb, who was pacing. I’d soothe Harm’s ruffled fur when it was over, aware that there was no one to soothe mine.

  I heard a short cough and stepped back. Mac was near the back door, looking as concerned as Harm. Behind him I heard the soft hush of the rain, and thunder rumbling overhead. He shook his head, as if he had no idea what to do. I nodded in return.

  “I didn’t ask you to be my lapdog,” Barker went on. “I assumed you volunteered, unless you wish to present a bill later.”

  “I am paid well by the Pinkerton Agency, thank you. This is a private matter. Unless you prefer I quit and move on.”

  “You are free to come and go as you like,” the Guv barked. “Thank you for your help in the case so far. It was decent of you.”

  Caleb looked at him as if it were some kind of a trick. He sighted down his nose, his eyes mere slits in his face.

  “Not at all,” he said cautiously.

  They both looked away, embarrassed. Shouting is perfectly acceptable behavior, but thanking someone, or accepting thanks, is practically a sign of weakness.

  My employer fixed his spectacled gaze on me, as if looking for someone else to harass. “Well, lad, why are you holding up the wall and looking so glum?”

  I pulled away from the wall. He considers leaning to be indolent, as if one could not be bothered to use the two feet God gave you.

  “The wedding will be canceled, sir,” I said. “There was a fracas at Mrs. Cowan’s home tonight.”

  “Was there, by Jove?” Barker asked, sitting up in his bed. “What happened?”

  “I killed Jack Hobson.”

  Both men looked at me, turned to look at each other, and then returned their gazes to me. I wasn’t sure whether they were concerned or impressed. Possibly both. Ours is a very strange occupation.

  “Report,” Barker growled, sitting back in the nest of pillows Mac had placed there, which I knew he did not want. The Guv is an ascetic at heart. Pillows are frippery.

  I told him all that had occurred, from my arrival and talk with Jim Briggs to him sending me out into the night. I omitted my feelings. They were not germane to the conversation.

  “Was anyone else injured?” the Guv asked.

  “I shot another in the chest. I did not recognize him. He was young.”

  “So, one of our suspects is dead.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You shot two men at once?” Caleb asked. “Are you pulling my leg?”

  “No. Two at once. They were advancing on me in a group from both sides, and I shot into both. I did not expect to kill anybody, let alone Hobson himself.”

  “And you shot them in front of Mrs. Cowan?” Caleb asked.

  “And her aunt.”

  “So the wedding—”

  “Is off. Most brides are not tolerant of having their grooms kill men in their own house. Rebecca and her aunt were hysterical when I left. She ordered me from the house and said she never wanted to see me again.”

  “Where are your pistols?” the Guv asked.

  “Briggs took them,” I said.

  “Good. No doubt he will toss them in the river. I shall order a new brace of snub-nosed Webleys for you.”

  Ordinarily I would have thanked him, but at that moment I didn’t want to see another gun as long as I lived.

  “I suspect Hobson’s body will be found floating in the Thames near Wapping in a day or so,” he continued. “Convenient. Did Briggs tell them to remove the bodies?”

  “He did.”

  Barker smiled. That is, his mustache bowed.

  “He’s a good man. I suggest you double his wages for the service he performed tonight.”

  “I will, sir.”

  Both brothers went silent. I believe they each wanted to give me comfort about killing a man and losing a fiancée in the same minute, but were unable to find the words. It wasn’t in either’s vocabulary.

  “Mac!” I called.

  “Yes, Mr. Llewelyn!”

  “Is the bathwater still hot?”


  “I shut down the boiler but half an hour ago. It should be steaming.”

  “Gentlemen, I’m going to have a bath.”

  I turned to leave, and as I headed toward the door I noticed my hands were violently shaking. I’d killed a man. A moment before he was making plans, and the next he was standing with a hole in his cranium and a trickle of blood sliding down his nose. He was a common street hooligan, but still, he was a human being, scrabbling to survive as I was. It didn’t happen this time.

  Five minutes later I was in the bath, steaming as Mac had said, with a wet cloth on my head, staring at nothing. My brain had ceased to function after functioning overmuch. The shaking had stopped and all was still.

  The door opened suddenly, and Mac entered with a tray. He set a glass of brandy by the edge of the bath and turned to leave. It was a nerve cure for our occupation.

  “How are you faring?” he asked, still looking away. Men cannot look at each other in situations such as this.

  “Not well,” I said.

  “I could speak to Rebecca, if you like.”

  I had forgotten Mac had been a classmate of Rebecca’s in Hebrew school at the synagogue and had known her since she was a small girl.

  “Thank you,” I replied. “I believe that ship has sailed, old boy.”

  Mac put the tray under his arm, and beat a hasty retreat. I took a sip of the brandy, which was dreadful, but it was called for in such circumstances.

  Gone, I thought, my brain slowly beginning to run like a clock mechanism after winding. Rebecca was gone. No more soothing evenings in her garden, no being fussed over and cossetted by her and her aunt, no more needling of the ill-mannered maid. I was persona non grata in the Cowan household.

  I’d met her more than five years ago but her parents had chased me off. I’d watched her carriage go by several times over the years without having the courage to stop it. I was anguished when she married, but secretly elated when her husband had died, though I bore him no personal ill will. I had proposed, and been accepted, after a year’s courtship. That year was almost up. Now—pop!—the bubble had burst.

  I should have known better than to think this would come easily. In twenty-six years I had not had a single plan come to fruition, save my employment with Cyrus Barker, Esq., which I had blundered into. It had been both a blessing and a curse. Tonight it was a curse.

  I tossed off the end of the brandy as a kind of punishment. The heat rose up my throat and through my nose. I shook my head as it burned.

  I stood, dried myself, and put on one of the thick, white robes. Then I sat on the stool one uses to wash one’s self prior to bathing, and put my palms to my eyes.

  God’s whipping boy.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The telephone set in the hall jangled twenty minutes later, making Mac and I jump. Caleb Barker gave us a withering stare as Mac picked up the instrument from the alcove in the hall.

  “Ahoy? Yes, this is the Barker residence. What?” He paused, looking at me. “What? Are you certain? Give me the address. Yes, that is the one. Would you be willing to give me your name if we promised never to use it? Very well. Thank you for the information, sir.”

  He put the receiver back on its hook and looked at us. All three of us were on tenterhooks. What could possibly have happened now that might be worse than the attack in Camomile Street?

  “Mrs. Ashleigh has been taken, sir, from her private residence here in town. It happened not much more than an hour ago.”

  I suspected the attack in Camomile Street was a diversion. The Hobson gang would have split into two parties. One had set upon us and retreated under withering fire, while the second burst in upon Philippa and found only Frost, the butler, for protection, who was growing rather long in the tooth.

  “Confound it!” Barker roared. “Get me my clothes!”

  “You’re in no shape—”

  “Don’t say it!” he demanded.

  “We’ll go,” Caleb said, being of a like mind in the matter. “We shall call as soon as we learn what happened.”

  “I’m going, damn and blast! Mac, my clothes!”

  “No, sir.”

  “You are sacked!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I’ll say this for Jacob Maccabee. The fellow has sand.

  “Sir,” I said.

  “Do you wish to join him?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Then bring me my clothes!”

  Just then there was a thump on the knocker of the front door and everyone froze. There was another thump. Behind it, we could hear the peal of thunder and the windows by the entrance illuminated in the hall by lightning.

  As one, we responded. I pulled a stick out of the stand by the front door while Caleb loosed a peacemaker from the waistband of his trousers and Mac, who technically had no say in this fight, came out of his butler’s pantry-cum-bedroom armed with his sawn-down shotgun.

  He was the first to step forward and open the door.

  The rain was falling in a torrent. A man stood upon the sill, barely sheltered by the lintel over the entrance. He wore a shiny mackintosh and a bowler hat, clutching his lapel about his throat. Scotland Yard, I thought. Too late to inform us that Barker’s lady friend had been taken.

  We brought him into the room, where he stamped his feet on the mat and removed his bowler. A cascade of russet tresses fell about the shoulders of her coat.

  “Philippa!” I exclaimed.

  “Please help me out of this coat. It’s waterlogged,” she said. “It was beastly finding a cab. Now I understand how you men must feel—practically invisible in foul weather.”

  “How did you get here?” I insisted.

  “No!” Mac cried. “She should have the opportunity to change and refresh herself before being called upon to speak.”

  We couldn’t argue with that, of course. In fact, we felt like cads for not suggesting it ourselves. I led her upstairs and showed her the amenities, although she had been in the room before. Then I left her.

  Coming downstairs, I heard the front door close. I was shy about sounds at the moment, and went to investigate. Caleb was leaning against the doorframe, facing out of Barker’s room. The Guv was sitting in his makeshift bed with a hand in his hair. It had been a trying day for everyone.

  “Did someone just leave?” I asked.

  Caleb nodded.

  “Mac?”

  Another nod.

  “Is he getting something?”

  “A new job,” he answered. “It’s what you do when you get sacked.”

  “But, Mr. Barker was just joking. And Mrs. Ashleigh is now safe!”

  “Sensitive fellow, your butler.”

  “He’s a factotum. He does everything.”

  “Sounds like he was lucky to get out, then.”

  “Sir!” I called to his brother. “Mac has left.”

  “Has he?” Barker asked. “Go after him. Mrs. Ashleigh is my first concern.”

  My Macintosh was in the butler’s pantry. I stepped inside the room, Jacob’s sanctum sanctorum. It was quiet, however, and when I looked about, I saw chaos there. Mac is as neat as a pin. Even his private room is never out of place. That is, until today. His bed had been mussed by what I could only assume was a valise. Shoes spilled out of his wardrobe. A lone stocking garter lay on the floor.

  I threw on my coat and my stoutest bowler hat, then seized the brolly and ran out the front door into a cascade of water. The air was so moist one could choke upon it like a consumptive patient. I put up my umbrella, and looked for any sign of Jacob in the streets. London looked deserted. A man or woman with any sense would be inside by a warm fire.

  My errand was unsuccessful. Mac must have found the one hansom in the district and was on his way to the City, where his parents lived in Aldgate. I turned and made my way back to our front door. As I entered, Mrs. Ashleigh came down the stair. Caleb stopped leaning on the doorframe and even bowed to her. Barker sat up on his pillow. I nodded, dripping a flood o
f rain on the parquet floor. Mac would have jumped up and down for the state of it.

  “Tell me, Philippa,” Barker insisted. “How came you to be here? We were informed you had been taken.”

  “I very nearly was,” she answered. “My butler, Frost, that dear old fellow, put his own coat and hat on me and thrust me out of the kitchen entrance. Then I came out into an alley and crossed to the other side of the street under a low-hanging oak and watched as the door was burst open. Frost attempted to stop them but they dealt him a strong blow. From where I stood, I saw him fall. A moment later, they dragged her from the house and forced her into a covered brougham. They took her away to who knows where.”

  “I don’t understand,” I interjected. “Who? Whom did they take?”

  “My bodyguard, Miss Fletcher.”

  “Presumably, they did not have a physical description of her,” Barker rumbled.

  “From the conversation I had with Miss Fletcher, I think it likely that she claimed to be Mrs. Ashleigh,” I told him.

  “I have little doubt,” Barker said, bedridden but very much in control.

  “Will she be harmed?” I asked.

  “Or worse.”

  “Oh, god,” I said. “I hired her.”

  “If you recall, Thomas, you just shot and killed Jack Hobson. These were likely the same men, looking for revenge.”

  Just then the hall clock tolled once. Another day had begun. Monday was over. I hoped Tuesday wouldn’t be as bad as the day before. All of us stared at each other, nonplussed.

  “Go to bed, everyone,” Barker ordered. “I can make no promises about what the new day might bring.”

  “But what about Miss Fletcher?” I asked. “Shouldn’t we try to find her?”

  “We have no idea where they are going, Thomas. We can’t search randomly all night. We’ll have to wait until morning.”

  We climbed the stair, each to his own room. Mac had moved Caleb to his brother’s rooms at the top of the house before he left, leaving Mrs. Ashleigh in possession of the rooms which in fact had been decorated for her, though she seldom used them. Caleb would be much more comfortable in Barker’s bachelor domain, with the leather wingback chairs, the old Georgian cabinet bed, and the walls of weapons.