An Awkward Way to Die

by Will Thomas

  The last part of the sentence came out roughly and his face twitched in pain.

  “Hospital, sir.”

  “We could call Dr. Applegate to come to the house.”

  “Hospital.”

  “Blast. Very well. Hospital.”

  At Charing Cross, they covered his face with sticking plasters and wrapped his ribs in gauze to cover the abrasions on his chest. His nose had been broken (for the sixth time, he told me later), along with a few cracked ribs the physician suspected. The Special Branch were quite accomplished at beating a subject without killing him. Normally, they elicited a confession, but not this time. Barker is made of sterner stuff. I never thought I’d see the day he was bruised and battered to this extent, but I hadn’t imagined a time when he would be handcuffed and manacled to a chair and unable to defend himself. All I can say is it must have been a stout chair. I’ve seen him reduce one to kindling. Anyway, the surgeon gave Barker a bottle of opiates I knew he would never use, and we left.

  “I could have had Mac put a plaster on my face at home,” he grumbled.

  “It’s wiser to be cautious than hasty,” I told him. It sounded priggish even when I said it.

  I got him home eventually and he would not accept help from either Mac or myself to climb both sets of stairs. Mac gave me the evil eye for allowing our employer to somehow get into trouble while I was out. Everyone thinks I’m responsible for keeping him safe, but suggesting the safest decision in any situation only made the Guv do the opposite. Heaven help him if his assistant were ever right about anything.

  Jacob Maccabee after dinner heated the water in the bathhouse to molten levels, but Barker was in no condition to try it. He went to bed and I availed myself of it alone. After bathing under a sluice, I soaked for a quarter hour, then pulled myself up on the boards and used the bathhouse as a sauna. By the time I was done, I was drowsy. It felt as if the soaking had detached each bone from its neighbor and it seemed at least a mile from there to my bed.

  Harm waddled up, sniffed my bare toe suspiciously, and looked up at me. I’d done it wrong. I was supposed to either share the bath with the Master, where he offered me insights or orders involving a case, or he went first. This going by myself was totally unacceptable.

  “Not my fault,” I told him. “He got himself beat up by some Special Irish chaps.”

  He stared at me with those goggly eyes of his. There were standards to be met. One cannot have assistants using the Master’s bath indiscriminately, or the empire would go to ruin.

  “You’ve become as bad as Mac,” I told him as we entered through the back door.

  “I heard that,” Mac called from down the hall.

  “Good! I’m for bed. Good night.”

  I went upstairs, noticing how very steep they were. Eventually, I climbed between the cool, crisp sheets and picked up a book. Home. A funny kind of home, perhaps, but my own. I would not trade it for another.

  We did not go to our offices the next morning. As is often the case, his wounds were more painful the following day, not that he would admit it. His face was ruddy and swollen. I made a telephone call from our set in the hall to the one in our offices, hard by the telephone exchange, telling our clerk, Jeremy Jenkins, that we would not be in. Toward noon, Barker attempted to get dressed to go to our chambers, but I talked him out of going. At his request, I called Jenkins again to see if anyone had come round to arrest us. Despite our being well known to Scotland Yard and having offices less than a hundred yards away, there had been none. I assumed Cusp had provided bail and stood for us in court. I do not recall what else I did that day. It slipped by the way some days do, and was gone in a wink, never to be remembered.

  Of course, Barker was up all the earlier the next day, before the sun in fact. The skin under his sticking plaster had turned purple, and he stirred with an economy of movement that told me he was still in pain, though the Guv is never one to complain. I knew better than to think I could get by with two days off together, so I dressed and went down to breakfast.

  The kitchen was cold and dark. Our chef, Etienne Dummolard, is a temperamental fellow who sometimes goes off in a sulk. I pressed my own coffee and cut off a slice of bread to toast over the Aga. From the kitchen window I watched my employer in his garden consulting with his Asian gardeners. I was down in the hall waiting by seven o’clock, when he came in the back door.

  “Ready, lad?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  We had been using the new Underground station nearby to take us to the river each day, but the electric traction engines owned by the City and South London Railway with their brutally upright carriages was no place for a man recovering from a beating. Instead, we rode to Whitehall in a hansom cab, and a smooth ride it was, too. Sometimes the old way is best.

  We were settled in our offices with fresh newspapers in our hands and a cup of tea at our elbows by eight o’clock, the third day since the showing in our garden, just in time to hear the door open and the sound of several boots rattling in our outer office. I assumed Scotland Yard had finally beaten a path to our door, but I was mistaken. Two Asian bodyguards in matching suits entered and looked about with concern. A moment later, General Mononobe entered. Barker rose to his feet and the two men bowed. My employer lifted the palm of his hand in the direction of the visitor’s chair and our visitor sat. The guards stood behind him at either shoulder.

  Again, I found Mononobe impressive. His manner was calm, but I imagined he could be fierce when the mood took him. He wore a tall collar like a plinth on which his square jaw was set. His clean-cut features were strong, his brow dark, and his hair gleaming and plastered to his head with macassar. Not a hair was out of place.

  “Mr. Barker,” he said in a low, rough voice. “I wish to hire your services.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  How can I help you, General?” Cyrus Barker asked.

  “Mr. Campbell-Ffinch has explained to me what a private enquiry agent does. I would like you to find the man who shot my old friend.”

  “But cannot Campbell-Ffinch do that himself? He has the resources. And then there is Scotland Yard.”

  “I do not trust organizations, Mr. Barker, not even my own. But individuals, one man, I feel I can trust.”

  “Why, we are almost strangers, General,” the Guv said. There was something in the way he said it. Silky, perhaps. He is not a silky kind of person.

  “Yes, almost, whereas everyone else in London is a complete stranger. You seem trustworthy, or so is my impression of you. Mr. Campbell-Ffinch has made several remarks to your detriment, but I do not trust him. Therefore, I choose to believe the opposite is true. Besides, I understand you are one of only a dozen or so men in London who speak Japanese. Some of the men that work in the embassy do not speak English as well as I.”

  Mononobe spoke English well, of a kind. He had an American accent, but then the United States had forced itself upon the isolated islands of Japan for trade concessions almost half a century before. I doubted there were many in that far-off land who spoke the Queen’s English.

  Barker seemed cautious, if not reluctant. I would have thought he would be champing at the bit to get his nose into this particular feedbag. The general sensed his reluctance.

  “If the work is not palatable,” he said, bowing humbly, “there is no need for you to undertake it. I merely wished to extend a favor since you honored us by showing us your beautiful garden.”

  What could one say after such an offer without sounding churlish? Barker sat back in the recesses of his tall desk chair and his face took on a stoic, masklike expression.

  “It is not necessary,” he said. “I accept your request.”

  “That is most satisfactory,” Mononobe crooned. “I shall tell my aides to expect you at your leisure.”

  “You do realize Scotland Yard considers me the chief suspect in the ambassador’s murder.”

  “I do. I am a good judge of character.”

  “Tell me, General,” Barker ask
ed. “Now that Mr. Toda has died, who is in charge of the delegation?”

  “That honor has fallen to me.”

  “No doubt you will be up to the task.”

  General Mononobe rose to his feet and bowed. Barker did as well. “I have duties to perform, as I’m sure you do. I look forward to seeing you.”

  “You may expect me within the hour,” Barker said.

  The two men with Mononobe moved to the front door and stepped out, scrutinizing Craig’s Court for the ambassador’s safety. The general passed my desk with no more attention than he gave to his own subordinates. I heard some sort of carriage roll off into the traffic of Whitehall.

  Things were trundling along smoothly now. I am not an enquiry agent for nothing, you know. I might even have learned a thing or two.

  The first item of interest was that there was Cyrus Barker with his face damaged and puffy with a sticking plaster on it, yet the general said nothing. There is politeness, of course, but I thought it likely that even Japanese decorum might extend sympathy to such a visible wound. Being a general he would know that it might heal quickly, but some word would be given. More likely, the general had been informed that morning over his tea and rice.

  The second was that Barker did not rush out. Normally, he is a hound on the scent. No injury or discomfort would stop him. He would contemplate and strategize for a while, but after half an hour he’d bounce out of his chair. He said he’d be there within the hour, but it was more like two. Now, I was worried.

  Barker sat in the chair and did not move for the longest time. He did not even choose a pipe and begin to smoke, which was often his first move after being hired for a case, the planning stage. I decided to take a dare.

  “Three days ago,” I spoke up, “I could not help but notice you seemed disconcerted by the delegation. Was there something specific bothering you?”

  “I was scrutinizing their medals,” Barker said. “The general and the admiral each had a chest full of them.”

  “And what made the general look particularly at you?”

  “How the deuce should I know? You must ask him about that.”

  I raised an eyebrow, but he doesn’t rise to such clues on even the best day. All questions must be well thought out and reasoned.

  “You do not know him, then?”

  “How could I know him? The man has obviously not set foot in England before.”

  I rose from my chair and walked to the window with my back toward his desk, thinking furiously. It seemed that he was correct about this being Mononobe’s first trip to the West. However, Barker had knocked about the East for many years before coming to England. He’d been in China, Hong Kong, Sumatra, and Shanghai. He’d even been to Japan aboard his ship, the Osprey. He never talked about his time there. In fact, even Mrs. Philippa Ashleigh, with whom he had a long-term relationship, admitted she knew little of it.

  “Don’t ever ask him about his time there,” she warned me. “The slightest mention puts him off for the entire day.”

  I knew when to keep my mouth shut. This was one of those times. But when have I ever listened to advice from anyone but myself?

  “Japan must be beautiful,” I said. “Of course, all I have ever seen are stereoscopic cards. I understand you lived there.”

  “Aye,” Barker said, but something in his voice told me his thoughts were thousands of miles away and he was barely listening.

  Belatedly he rose, went to his smoking cabinet and chose one of his meerschaum pipes. It featured an Asian rice-grower in a conical hat. The art of meerschaum carving has degraded since that time. Now they barely look presentable, but in 1890 they were nearly works of art. The Asian face of this one was very lifelike, as if he would suddenly open his eyes and begin to move. The pipe had been smoked enough to lose its whiteness and the face had a golden glow to it, as smoke rose from the top of the little fellow’s hat.

  Baiting him would not work, but the Guv had taught me a whole range of tricks. I cautioned myself to be patient. As he so often said, all would be revealed in the fullness of time. Secrets had a way of being stripped bare all by themselves in his presence. All I had to do was be there and wait.

  “I’m going to get a newspaper,” I said, to no one in particular. “There might still be some mention of the shooting in the Gazette or the Daily Mail.”

  I received no response from the green leather chair behind the Guv’s desk, which at the moment was wreathed in smoke. Stepping into the waiting room and out the front door, I headed north toward the statue of Charles 1 and Nelson’s Column, tall and white behind it. It was a good summer day and a few leaves tumbled across the cobblestones in the wind, though there were no visible trees in the area. I turned into Northumberland Avenue and headed east toward the Embankment. I considered strolling along there and looking at Cleopatra’s Needle, which is guarded by a pair of sphinx. There was a rumor going about London that the sphinx faced toward the ancient obelisk, rather than away from it, because they are in fact protecting London from the Egyptian curse the monument contained, but that was the sort of nonsense thought up in public houses after ten o’clock in the evening by enterprising journalists.

  I stopped at a kiosk and picked up a copy of the Gazette. The death of Toda Ichigo was on the fifth page, though there was no news to report that we hadn’t heard already. I turned and passed by the window of the Turkish bath. As I walked, I glanced into the window. Someone was matching my gait. That’s not enough to prove one is being followed, even in the current circumstances, but it should give one pause. I’d have to keep a suspicious eye out for the fellow again.

  Who would be following me? Surely, it wasn’t any of the embassy bodyguards. I stopped and turned back. There was no one obvious. There were two possible groups that might have someone shadow me. The first belonged to Inspector Dunn. He had no plainclothes detectives of his own, but there was a squad of them at Scotland Yard. They had solved a few cases, but the Yard preferred not to advertise their presence to the press. The average Englishman still has trouble with the need for a police force at all, let alone one that walked among us, so to speak. The other likely candidate was Special Branch. They all wore plainclothes and they were a rough lot. They did not mix with the other departments, and the Met avoided them as a rule. Barker told me they were a close-knit bunch and that they treated each other like brothers.

  I turned south, following Northumberland Parade. I swung my cane as I walked. It was that kind of day. A couple of young things ahead of me flashed their parasols and swayed like barges floating in the Thames, but I suspected it was more for practice than interest. I lifted my bowler and passed them.

  I studiously ignored the east side of Northumberland Street. They had built a monstrosity there, the Edison House, named for the enterprising American who had filled our offices with electric lighting. It was a slab of white stone without adornment of any kind. Truly beautiful buildings had been built recently, such as the Savoy Hotel in the Strand, fashioned in the most beautiful Art Nouveau style. I imagined a city of the future made up of nothing but blocks, all squares and rectangles. What would future architects do with all their free time? I wondered. I blamed the Americans.

  I caught another glimpse of him in a window. Dashed considerate of everyone to have windows facing east. I had played this game myself a time or two and was good at it. It helps to be unremarkable, so that even if someone sees you, you slip away, out of his consciousness.

  Finally, I turned west and passed under the arch at the back of Great Scotland Yard. I sauntered by the Rising Sun public house, where our clerk Jenkins held court after five o’clock, then passed through the gate into Whitehall Street. I traded looks with the constable on duty who knew me. He didn’t seem interested in arresting me for helping a suspect in a recent murder case to escape. I turned north again, past the blue light informing the public that the police division was here. Before I knew it, I was back in Craig’s Court.

  “Where the devil were you?” Barker
demanded.

  “I took a walk. I needed to clear my head.”

  “And did you?”

  I knocked on my forehead. “Clean as a whistle.”

  “Here’s the Gazette,” I went on. “It has a bit about the murder. Very vague. Oh, and I picked up a shadow.”

  “Describe,” he said.

  “Under six feet, brown suit and a matching bowler, low crowned. Mustache.”

  “Scotland Yard?”

  “Or Special Branch.,” I replied.

  “I wish I’d seen him. I’ve become well acquainted with Special Branch, lately.”

  “It’s probably best for his sake that he didn’t run into you. Anyway, you’re healing. Try to avoid fights, if possible.”

  “Come then. Let us visit the scene of the murder.”

  There is always a cab to be had in Whitehall Street. I raised my stick and within a minute a sleek-looking gray gelding pulled up with a pristine hansom cab. We clambered aboard, Barker more slowly than I, and sat back as the jarvey cracked a whip over the horse’s head and he carried us away.

  CHAPTER SIX

  One would think that places in which someone was murdered would have an air of tragedy about them. The opposite is true. No one in the nineteenth century was ever killed in a crypt or a dungeon; the eighteenth, perhaps. Most murder scenes were just an ordinary room five minutes before: a dull office, a fussy bedchamber, a book-lined study.

  Also, once the body is removed, there is little sign that anything had occurred. Usually, there are no gouts of blood splashed across a wall, no hint of the killer’s initials scratched in the wooden floor by the deceased. There is often a pool of blood, but a bucket of soapy water and a little dedication will get most of it out. One might conceivably need to buy a new rug, I’ll admit.

  We were shown into Ambassador Toda’s room, which was both an office and a bedchamber in one. My own room was much the same, with a library thrown in, but it was less than a quarter of the size and not nearly so opulent. A glance informed me that I was being shortchanged. Barker had plenty of money. The least he could do is to provide his assistant, who risked life and limb every day, a few little creature comforts. Some bookcases, so I’m no longer knee-deep in tomes. A new bed, so we can give my old one back to whatever monastery it came from. Well. Some of us were never meant to sit in a Chippendale chair.