by Robert Thier
‘Mr Pearson!’ My smile widened into a joyous grin. ‘You don't know how glad I am to see you.’
‘Mr Linton,’ the pale bureaucrat managed, obviously having to struggle hard in order to contain his tumultuous emotions, ‘why, pray, are you sitting in Mr Ambrose’s private chair?’
‘Oh.’ Looking down, I saw he was absolutely right. I had completely forgotten that I was reposing on my employer’s official chair with my feet propped up on his desk, something that secretaries were probably not supposed to do. ‘Well, I just thought I’d give it a try, you know?’ I wiggled my behind for emphasis. ‘To see it if is comfy or not.’
Sallow-face’s features turned a little more yellow, which seemed to be his version of getting angry red blotches on the cheeks.
‘It is no concern of yours how “comfy” this honoured seat is, Mr Linton,’ he informed me, glaring at me as if I had sat on a king’s throne and committed high treason. ‘You shall never have another chance to sit there! Where is Mr Ambrose?’
‘Oh, he… he is in the safe, checking something,’ I lied and, when Sallow-face turned in the direction of the safe, hurriedly added: ‘And he doesn't want to be disturbed.’
‘I see.’ Sallow-face turned back to me. I, by now, had risen from my traitorous position on Mr Ambrose’s throne and was thus not quite as fiercely glared at as before. ‘Mr Linton, Mr Ambrose told me to bring him this.’ He held out the list of visitors. ‘Should I wait here for him, or…’
‘Leave it with me,’ I told him. ‘I’ll see that he gets it.’
He narrowed his eyes mistrustfully. ‘On your honour as a gentleman? This is very important business material. Mr Ambrose trusts me with the most important tasks of all his employees. He told me himself that he needs this information as soon as may be.’
‘Of course,’ I replied, trying my best to keep a straight face. ‘I swear on my honour as a gentleman that he shall receive it as soon as possible.’
‘Very well, then, Mr Linton. Here. I shall trust you with this important document. Do not fail me, or Mr Ambrose.’
‘I shall not.’
He nodded stiffly. ‘Until later, Mr Linton.’
‘Yes, until later, Mr Pearson. And…’
‘Yes?’
‘Leave the door open behind you, will you?’
*~*~**~*~*
Five minutes later I was out on the street, hailing the nearest cab. The very important business information Mr Pearson had delivered was crumpled up in the waste paper basket in Mr Ambrose’s office.
A cab drove up beside me, and at exactly the right time! Just as I climbed in, I saw Mr Ambrose’s chaise approach from the West End. Whatever arrangements he’d had to make before embarking on his secret mission lay in the opposite direction from his destination in the East End. Quickly, I ducked out of sight, peeking over the top of the cab’s window frame. From this hidden post I watched, while the cabbie regarded my antics with interest.
There he was! Karim was driving, and Mr Ambrose, his face colder and more distant than ever, was sitting straight as a rod, two large bags and a small chest beside him.
‘Follow that chaise!’ I hissed at the cabbie, without resurfacing from my hidden position.
‘Are ye from Scotland Yard, guv?’
‘Yes,’ I said boldly. ‘This is a criminal investigation of the highest level. The fate of the British Empire, maybe even the world, is at stake!’
‘Blimey!’ The cabbie seemed very impressed. ‘Well, we’d better be going then, ain’t we?’
I was in hearty agreement. The cabbie was about to spur on his horses, when my hand shot up. ‘Stop! Don’t!’ I had just remembered something. Of course! ‘Don’t follow them. I’ve changed my mind.’
The cabbie’s face fell. ‘No chase, guv?’
I smiled. ‘Only because I already know where they are going.’
*~*~**~*~*
On the entire way to number 97, East India Dock Road, the cabbie mumbled and complained. Apparently, he had read enough about the adventures of Scotland Yard detectives to know that this was not how things were done. Detectives of Scotland Yard were supposed to chase after their prey in an exciting race, not leisurely drive to wherever it was their prey was going because they already knew the place. Such a thing was apparently simply not done.
On arrival in East India Dock Road, still some distance away from number 97, I paid him with the last money I had left over from pawning my uncle’s walking stick and got out of the cab, promising myself again to retrieve the stick with my very first earned money. Well, maybe after I had bought a really big piece of solid chocolate. A girl has to have her treats in life.
The cabbie took the money and looked around curiously. ‘This is where ye wanted to go, guv? But there ain’t nothing close to 'ere except the docks.’
I winked at him, in what I hoped was a mysterious manner. ‘Exactly. Things being brought in and out of the country… maybe not as they are supposed to be.’
‘Oh, I see,’ the cabbie said, though this obviously wasn’t the case. ‘Well, good luck to you, guv!’
Turning his coach around, he cried an encouragement to his horse and drove off towards the western, safer parts of the city. Looking after him, I suddenly wished I could follow. But I had made my choice.
With a sigh, I turned to face my destination. Not that I could see very much of it - it was mid-day, and the broad street was crowded as could be. Carts loaded with goods and large omnibuses packed full to bursting with dockworkers drove up and down this broad way of British Commerce, and people stood on all the street corners, waving their wares and yelling at the top of their voices to get the attention of potential customers. I supposed they thought yelling would give them an advantage over the large, but completely silent, billboards and posters which spread over many of the exterior walls.
I probably should have been grateful for all the noise. Nobody paid attention to me as I wandered down the crowded street. While in the West End of London, people had given my baggy trousers and loose-fitting old tailcoat strange glances, here, nobody looked twice at the strange little figure wandering down the street. A lot of people here wore clothes that didn’t fit them well, probably because they had originally not been theirs. It was quite liberating in a way, swimming in a sea of people who didn’t pay any attention to me and wanted nothing from me but that I returned the courtesy. It made me feel… free.
Of course, the aforementioned sea of people also blocked my view of number 97.
I slowly made my way down the street. As I got closer to my destination, I started to draw more curious glances from the surrounding people, as if they found me unusual to look at. I had to admit, I returned the feeling: the farther down East India Dock Road I went, the more the faces of passers-by changed in shade and form: from glances I caught of their faces, I thought noses were broader than usual, and their eyes strangely slitted. I thought I was imagining things, until one of the street-hawkers approached me, starting to address me in a strange tongue I had never heard before. At the sight of his face, I jumped back in shock.
Holy Hell! Who plucked me up from the earth and put me down in Peking?
Then it came to me. Of course! I had heard once that, in the some parts of the East End, there lived a large group of workers from China. This must be it. Chinatown.
Looking frantically from one strange face to another, I tried to remember what else I had heard about this area of my own city that was a foreign country. Only now did I see the colourful ribbons suspended over the street, the dragons painted on house walls, and the strange cuts of people’s clothing.
Think! Think! Isn’t there anything you recall about this place?
Vaguely, I seemed to remember somebody calling it the filthiest, most disreputable rat hole in all of London. Who had this information come from again?
Ah yes, my aunt.
So, hopefully, it’s actually a quiet neighbourhood with nice, well-behaved people.
I caught the gaze of
a particularly slant-eyed youth, who was staring at me over a knife he used to clean his fingernails.
Hopefully.
Making some apologetic gesture to the hawker, who had now taken something strange-smelling and steaming from his tray and was waving it in front of my face, I retreated hurriedly. Pressing myself as closely to the walls of the houses as I could, I made my way down the street without any further delay. As if it could protect me from the strange environment, I turned up the collar of my tailcoat and buried my too-European face in the depths of Uncle Bufford’s old, moth-eaten Sunday best.
I went down the street as quickly as I could manage without running, counting the numbers on the opposite side as I did so.
Number 89, a butcher’s shop…
Number 91, an apartment building…
Number 93, an… an…
Well, I wasn’t exactly sure what it was. It was some kind of unidentifiable building, with a few ladies around the entrance whose clothing seemed to be even more loose-fitting and considerably more revealing than mine.
Number 95, a liquor store…
Number 97, a… Hell’s whiskers!
Quickly, I jumped back into the nearest alley. The man I had spotted on the opposite side of the street turned his head; he must have caught my movement out of the corner of his eye. As he turned, I saw I had been right in thinking I had recognized him.
Warren.
Warren was here. And where Warren was, Mr Ambrose would not be far behind.
He looked around once more, then, shrugging, started to haggle again with a Chinese hawker over the price of some oriental artefact he was apparently trying to purchase. Or, more likely, pretending to purchase. He wasn’t here to buy something exotic for the mantelpiece. He was here for the same reason I was here. The building right across the street from the alley in which I was hiding.
It was an impressive brick bulk: a broad façade, at least forty yards, with higher portions of the building rising threateningly up out of the roof in the centre and at every corner. Originally, it must have had many windows, but now it was obviously a warehouse, since most of the windows had been bricked over.
Or… was it? Behind the few, narrow openings in the brick walls, I could see movement. Not what you would expect in a warehouse where tin plates and cotton trousers waited for weeks before they were shipped to God only knew where. And the narrow, high parts of the building at each corner, connected by walls and walkways… they looked almost like watchtowers.
On the highest of the towers, I saw, blinking in the mid-day sun, the brass number 97.
Over the top of the building, in the distance, I could make out tops of masts, swaying in the breeze. The street wasn’t called East India Dock Road for nothing. The docks of the East India Company, the centre of its web of power extending over half the world to the distant, tropical sub-continent of India, were only a few dozen yards away. Right next to this building.
There! There it is again!
Once more, I saw something move through one of the narrow windows, and caught the flash of a red uniform.
This is no bloody warehouse!
I waited, hidden in the shadows of the alley. After a while, Warren disappeared. In his stead, other men appeared, some European, some Chinese, some an unidentifiable mix. All lingered in front of number 97 for a little while before disappearing, only to reappear some time later, hovering and watching. Nobody would have noticed. Nobody, that is, who hadn’t seen many of these faces before in Mr Ambrose’s office.
I had.
Slowly, the sun began its descent towards the horizon. As it did so, people started to disappear into their houses. Nobody seemed to want to stay out in the street at night in this neighbourhood. Doors closed, and little could be heard from inside. Only from number 93 you still heard sounds. The scantily dressed ladies who lived there seemed in no hurry to go to sleep.
As the last vestiges of sunlight dwindled, lights were lit inside of number 97. Squinting, I concentrated on one of the narrow windows, high, high above me. It wasn’t long before my earlier observations were confirmed: a flash of red and gold passed the window. And again! And again! Red and gold - like on the uniforms of a soldier of the Presidency Armies.
Suddenly, I heard a rattle and jumped, whirling around. But the rattle was not coming from behind me, nor was it coming from the main street. Rather, it sounded as if it was coming from a side street, parallel to the one in which I was hiding.
Quickly ducking into a narrow path between two brick houses, I made my way towards the origin of the sound. I thought it was somehow familiar - and I was not mistaken.
Looking around the corner of the house, I saw Mr Ambrose’s chaise coming up the street. It stopped, well out of sight or hearing of the guards in the towers of number 97. Mr Ambrose slid out of the passenger compartment with one fluid, precise movement. The tails of his black tailcoat fluttered around him like dark wings.
‘Warren?’ he called in a voice no louder than a whisper.
The black-clad figure of Warren stepped out of a doorway, where he had concealed himself. He bowed to Mr Ambrose.
‘We’ve been watching the place, observing the soldiers just as you instructed, Sir.’
‘Adequate.’
‘Thank you, Sir. Here is the report with their duty roster.’ He handed over a piece of paper to his master, who nodded in acknowledgement. ‘But…’
Warren hesitated.
‘But what?’ Mr Ambrose’s voice was cool and distant as ever.
‘But we think the soldiers are not the only guards, Sir. We have caught glimpses of movements on the roof. Understand me, we didn’t actually see anybody, we only caught a flash of dark brown and grey here and there.’ He shook his head, looking over his shoulder at number 97 nervously. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it.’
Mr Ambrose’s jaw muscles twitched, and Karim let out a long string of foreign words that were better not translated.
‘They are here!’ Mr Ambrose hissed.
‘They?’
‘A squad of special riflemen in the Presidency Armies who are at Lord Dalgliesh’s disposal alone.’ Mr Ambrose’s voice could have frozen lava. I gathered he had met this special squad before, and did not have fond memories of them. ‘They use a native plant to die their coats in mottled tones of brown and grey, which makes them hard to see in daytime, and helps them to disappear almost into nothing during the night.’[50]
‘But why should one wish for soldiers not to be seen during a battle?’ Warren asked, his mouth slightly open.
‘These special riflemen are not intended for open battles. Dalgliesh employs them for… different purposes.’
His tone of voice made it clear that nobody who wished to continue to sleep at night should ask what those purposes were. Warren looked slightly sick. Mr Ambrose didn’t seem to care. He said no more, but started to study the paper Warren had handed to him. After a while, he nodded.
‘Whether Lord Dalgliesh’s personal commando is here or not, this will have to suffice.’
Karim looked worried. And if I could see that from where I was standing, in the dark, and through the vast amount of beard blocking my view of his face, he must have been really worried.
‘Sahib, maybe we should…’
Mr Ambrose threw him a look, and the Mohammedan stopped in mid-sentence.
Warren was not as wise, however. He cleared his throat.
‘Um… Sir, forgive me for asking, but why exactly have we been noting down the guard changes and been keeping watch on this house?’
Mr Ambrose was studying the list again. He didn’t look up. ‘As preparation for a break-in, of course.’
‘What?’ At an angry gesture from Karim, Warren lowered his voice, but it sounded no less stricken than before. ‘Sir! You have to be joking!’
‘No, I do not have to be. In fact, I have never in my life felt any irresistible compulsion to joke.’
Warren swallowed. He seemed to realize with whom he was argui
ng here.
‘Sir… I… I’m afraid I cannot in good conscience be a part of an illegal activity.’
Mr Ambrose now had exchanged the list of guard changes for a ground plan he had taken out of his leather bag. He still didn’t look up.
‘Then do it in bad conscience, Mr Warren. I don't care, either way.’
‘Mr Ambrose…’
‘You didn’t seem to care about bending the law when we laid our hands on that snake Simmons.’
Warren bit his lip. ‘That was different.’
‘Because,’ Mr Ambrose concisely stated, ‘he was a private secretary, not a Peer of the Realm, like the owner of that building over there, correct?’
To this, Warren didn’t seem to have anything to say.
‘Don’t worry.’ Mr Ambrose exchanged one set of plans for another. ‘What you have done is quite enough. I won’t require your services further tonight.’
‘You won’t?’
Mr Ambrose gave a derisive jerk of his head. ‘You don't think I would entrust you with a task as important as this? No. One thing I learned early in life is: If you want something done well, do it yourself.’
If possible, Warren paled even more.
‘Mr Ambrose, you cannot mean… You are a gentleman, not a criminal! You cannot mean that you are planning to break into…’
At that, Mr Ambrose looked up, his eyes flashing icily.
‘Dalgliesh took something that belongs to me, Mr Warren. If that happened in the colonies, and if he were any other man, I wouldn’t hesitate to put a bullet in his head. Here, business practices are slightly different. But I will get back what is mine, and you’d rather not stand in my way.’
Warren swallowed again. He retreated a step, and bowed. ‘No, Sir. Of course not, Sir. Your word is my command, Sir.’
‘Indeed it is.’ Mr Ambrose stuck the ground plan back into the bag, slung it over his shoulder and took out of the coach another one, which he handed to Karim. ‘Stay here, Mr Warren. Guard the coach, and wait until at least one of us returns.’ He turned away from Warren, towards the entrance of the alley and number 97. ‘Karim, we’re going in. Stay behind me and watch my back.’
‘Yes, Sahib!’
