by Will Thomas
“Right,” Perkins said.
“Or I can go to the corner and whistle for more constables,” I said.
Barker nodded.
“Yes, that!” the young man said, with a look of relief.
“We’ll both go,” the Guv interjected. “Stay here, P. C. Perkins.”
“You really shouldn’t tell the truth,” I told my employer when we were almost to the street. “It confuses people.”
I looked over my shoulder. The constable stood in the doorway, concerned that he might be letting two criminals get away. Anyone could have a business card from the Barker and Llewelyn Agency. We print them by the gross. We reached the corner and lifted our Metropolitan whistles again.
“I’ll bet I could get louder than you,” I said.
Barker gave a wicked grin. “Lad, you’re welcome to try.”
We each took a deep breath and began to blow.
* * *
A quarter hour later Perkins and I were trotting down Commercial Road in the direction of the London Hospital. Chernov was in a bad way and we were not helping his condition by pushing the hand litter along rough cobblestones. It was fortunate for him that the hospital was about a half mile of where we found him.
Chernov was about five-and-forty. He had a prison regulation haircut and a long, thick beard. He looked, as a matter of fact, like Bayles, the fellow who was assassinated, at least as I could remember from the brief seconds I saw him. Chernov had been tortured with a red-hot poker, no doubt at the order of Rachkovsky. There were massive welts across his chest, limbs, and back, and two crisscrossed his face to form an X. He must have been in such pain as I could not even imagine. Perhaps it was a way for the Okhrana to recognize him should he ever return to Russia. If the anarchist survived, that is.
Barker had gone ahead by cab. No trotting along for my partner. Someone had to warn the hospital staff of the approaching litter.
We reached the hospital, Constable Perkins and I, hefting the hand litter and carrying it up the steps to the front door, where Barker met us. He was right to have gone ahead. The lobby was full. One man was screaming, his arm having been mangled in some sort of industrial accident. Elderly people sat in every corner, as if they had waited for months and become part of the furnishings. Tubercular children coughed under the protective arms of their mothers. It was heartbreaking, but it was a normal evening in Whitechapel, until Chernov was wheeled in with multiple injuries because he’d been tortured. It’s not something one sees here in Jolly Olde.
Two orderlies lifted him off the cart and onto a gurney. Now that we were off the street, I could hear that he was murmuring. He groaned loudly when he was laid on the gurney, but then he returned to muttering under his breath. I attempted to follow after as he was wheeled down the hall, but one of the orderlies put a hand on my shoulder and pointed toward a chair. There is a spot just in front of the shoulder that produces pain if you press it correctly. He pressed it correctly. He’d been around the park a time or two. I sat. Barker sat down beside me.
“He was muttering when he came in, but I wasn’t able to hear what he said,” I told the Guv. “Couldn’t make head nor tails.”
“It may have been in Russian,” Barker said.
“Perhaps.”
“Did you see the men who ran out of the tailor shop?”
“I did,” I answered. “They were definitely from the group of Okhrana agents in our office. One was Olgev.”
The Guv frowned. “Did they recognize you as they ran by?”
“No, they heard the whistle and hared it.”
“We owe Mr. Zangwill another debt of gratitude.”
“So, what next? Do you intend to confront Rachkovsky?”
“That’s a thought,” Barker said. “I will consider the matter. He might assume his little game was foiled by Scotland Yard. The guards were gone by the time I kicked my way inside.”
“You planned that intentionally.”
Barker shrugged. “It was a ruse. It might have worked, or not. Rachkovsky could have been in there himself, armed and waiting for us.”
“What do we do now?”
“Let us see how Chernov is progressing.”
A half hour later a doctor came out of the wards and looked about. When he saw us, he came forward and stood in front of us.
“Are you gentlemen here about the man with the burns?”
“We are,” Barker said. “His name is Kazimir Chernov and he is Russian.”
“Who are you gentlemen?” the physician asked.
Barker handed him a card. “We are working with the Home Office and Scotland Yard.”
“How did he come to be so injured?” he asked. “He was tortured in the most abominable manner.”
“The Russian Socialists are at each other’s throats. We assume he was one of them.”
“I deal with battered wives and abused children, generally,” the doctor said. “An occasional accident or someone who’s fallen under a carriage. I’ve never seen a man branded before.”
“What is his condition?” Barker asked.
“It is grave. There is no way to know if he will recover. It’s really up to him. I’ve given him morphine. We are bathing his wounds with cooking oil.”
“Excuse me,” I asked. “Did you just say ‘cooking oil’?”
“I did,” he replied. “It works well on burns. A bit of a panacea. If you’ll come back tomorrow, I’ll have more information for you.”
“Are burns his only wounds?” Barker asked.
“No, sir. He was beaten beforehand, by someone who knew what he was about.”
Barker nodded, and started walking toward the door. I followed, and the doctor turned to leave, but then I stopped.
“I say,” I called. “He kept muttering something over and over. Could you make out what it was?”
“Yes,” the doctor said. “It was ‘Sofia.’”
My blood ran cold.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
We gave our statement in “H” Division, which was reasonably quiet at that time, and then went on to Barker’s favorite spot in the East End, Ho’s in Limehouse, a Chinese tearoom and restaurant. The tearoom is open around the clock, which begs the question: Why would someone want a cup of Chinese tea at three o’clock in the morning? The fact that Ho is a member of an organization known as the Blue Dragon Triad might explain some of it.
I had worked for Cyrus Barker long enough to feel, as he did, that Ho’s tearoom was like a second home. A home full of spies, criminals, and rude Asian waiters, perhaps, but a home all the same. Like the Guv, I could go there and eat a bowl of rice and prawns and relax in a way that is not possible in the office or traveling about London on a case, never knowing what to expect. True, Ho’s is one of the most unusual places in London, reached only through a tunnel under the Thames, but I had been there at dozens of festivals the owner hosted for the Asian community over the years. It was rare that a foreigner would be invited to attend a private party, but Barker was respected and I was tolerated because I was his satellite, and because I could nearly make myself understood in Cantonese and to understand them in turn. I had become a denizen, a regular customer, which was a privilege in the eyes of the Limehouse community and a detriment in the eyes of Scotland Yard. As any of my friends will tell you, however, I’d cross the street to stick my thumb in the collective eye of the CID.
I finished the final prawn, put down the bowl, and laid my chopsticks across it. Then I sipped plum wine from a cup the size of a large acorn. I won’t drink tea unless forced, even the Guv’s beloved green gunpowder tea. I’d heard the rumor that the leaves are thrown in the Pearl River on one end, steeped, and collected at the other by young female swimmers not wearing a stitch. Then the leaves are dried and rolled carefully into green pellets, like balls of gunpowder. The image of maidens frolicking in the water collecting leaves did not stop the tea from tasting like something an artist uses to clean his brushes.
“I disagree,” Ho said to Bark
er. It was about three-thirty in the morning. The two had been arguing in a patois veering between English, pidgin, Mandarin, and Cantonese. I was not surprised by Ho’s remark. He is almost always disagreeable.
“How so?” Barker rumbled.
“The Russian state visit is the perfect time to assassinate the tsar’s whelp.”
“Ho, we are trying to prevent the assassination, not encourage it.”
“What has Russia done for you or me?” Ho asked. “Nothing, I tell you. They are a nation of drunkards.”
“I have seen you in your cups many a time,” the Guv said.
“Perhaps,” he admitted. “But I am not a nation.”
Barker settled back in his cracked captain’s chair.
“You have been hired,” Ho went on, “by a person of no official standing to protect the tsar’s son without actually staying with him to protect him.”
“Correct.”
“And he will be traveling in an open carriage for all to see.”
“Correct again,” the Guv replied, nodding.
“And you will save him.”
“If I can,” my partner admitted.
Ho suddenly turned to me as if I’d said something. “Who is that guailo painter?”
“Which one?” I asked. “We have several.”
“The one who is also an inventor.”
“Ah, Leonardo da Vinci.”
“That’s the one,” Ho said, shrugging. “He had an invention that flies.”
“I think you’re right. I’ve seen the sketch.”
Ho smiled. He is not a beauty when he smiles. He’s not a beauty at any time. “You build two of them. Then you fly around above the carriages until you spot someone with a rifle. Ha!”
He threw back his head and laughed and the waiter behind him did the same. His boss had shown the Westerners to be stupid again.
“Thomas,” Barker said, “I want you to go to a public house in Mile End called the Potted Eel. You’re looking for a man named Jack Carr. They call him Blackjack. Tell him I need to see him immediately. Tell him it is vitally important.”
I stood at once, nodding, and headed out the door. The sooner I was off, the quicker I’d get in bed. After a ten-minute walk, I located the Potted Eel, not far beyond the late Andy McClain’s mission. The establishment was no doubt one of the houses Andy brought his proselytizing to, by which I mean he’d had a knockdown with several patrons. I missed the old man.
The Eel had seen better days. The damp had gotten into every board in the place and at first I thought Barker was having me on. It looked not only vacant but derelict. Seizing the handle, I pushed open the door, which protested with a squeal.
Inside, a fat publican lounged behind his bar, cleaning his fingernails with a knife. Two men were playing at cards with a limp deck and another was passed out in his chair. A slattern with wild, witchlike hair looked annoyed as I entered.
“Here, beggar off!” she bawled. “We’s closed!”
“I have a message for Mr. Jack Carr,” I said.
“He’s asleep,” she answered. “Get out. Come back in the morning.”
“I can’t do that,” I replied. “I need him in half an hour at Ho’s in Limehouse.”
The two men playing cards chuckled, as if I didn’t know what I was asking.
“I don’t care what you need, toff. Cut along or we’ll slice you like mackerel. And you don’t order Blackjack around. Who do you think you are, anyway?”
“It’s not for me,” I answered. “It’s for Push. Cyrus Barker. He needs to see your leader. It’s not just important. It’s vitally important, he said.”
No one had a response to that. In spite of his saying he didn’t want to draw attention to himself, everyone in the East End knew the Guv. He cut a broad swath and had busted any number of heads even before I had come along. He wanted their respect, and got it. I, however, still had to earn it. No one was willing to do me any favors. One of the men, a bear of a fellow wearing a stained singlet with no shirt, got out of his chair and came toward me.
“That’s a nice hat,” he remarked. “Think I’ll try it on.”
I was all nerves from the evening’s events. I pulled out my Webley and fired. The bullet knocked a pewter plate off the shelf behind him, skipped across the bar, and bounced into a corner. The bear looked stunned and sat down again.
“I like this hat,” I answered. “It’s mine, got it? Jack Carr, half an hour in Limehouse. Vitally important. Got it?”
I backed out of the room and pocketed the pistol once I was in the street again, then I walked back to Limehouse. It was the middle of the night. Most people had gone home. Some were getting ready to go to work. Those who hadn’t either were stone drunk or plied a dishonest trade.
I entered the tearoom again through the long tunnel. Ho and Barker were still arguing, but then they did that all the time. Ho was the first mate once aboard Barker’s boat, the Osprey. I imagine those must have been interesting times.
“And now you bring strangers to me in the middle of the night,” Ho cried. “A gang leader. I try to keep a respectable tearoom here.”
“Ha,” I muttered.
He cursed me in several languages, but then I’d heard them all before. It wasn’t as villainous as his tea.
At last our guest arrived. He did not appear to have any trouble finding Ho’s establishment, though there was no sign to advertise it, only a battered door to enter through. He brought a half dozen men with him just in case. Jack Carr was an ugly man, though come to think of it I’ve never seen a gang leader who wasn’t. He was shaved bald, and his black mustache and beard encircled his mouth like a ring. His beady eyes were bloodshot and puffy. He looked in a foul temper.
“Welcome, Mr. Carr,” Barker said, sitting back in his chair and tenting his fingers.
“Push, you had no business waking a hardworking man from his sleep,” he said.
I was still taking impressions. His men were very obviously second tier and therefore he was, too.
“My apologies, Mr. Carr,” the Guv said. “And how are the Mile End Boys these days?”
“Thriving, sir, though times is hard. The messenger said you had something important to say.” He turned to look at me. “You, you shot at my best plate!”
“That was your best plate?” I asked. “I wouldn’t feed my dog off that plate.”
“Mr. Carr. Blackjack. Do you have a group of Russians occupying a tailor shop in Menotti Street?”
“I do, yeah. They pay regular. I don’t ask questions.”
“Perhaps you should,” Barker said. “They tortured a man tonight, burned him with hot pokers. A ghastly sight. They fled as we entered. We took the man to the London Hospital, where he died two hours ago. My reputation is far from spotless, but it is still better than yours. ‘H’ Division will soon be sniffing at your door. Prepare yourself.”
“Why are you giving me the tip?” Carr asked, looking suspicious.
“I don’t like their leader. His name is Rachkovsky and he is a visitor to London. He doesn’t know the rules.”
“I’ll teach him his manners, then. He’s not going to shock me with a fresh corpse.”
“Find alibis for your men quickly.”
“Yes, sir, I reckon I will.”
“By the way, gentlemen,” Barker said. “Rachkovsky and his men are staying at Brown’s Hotel in Mayfair. They are privileged secret policemen from Saint Petersburg. They protect a Russian prince here for the royal wedding. I can’t touch them. Scotland Yard, the Home Office, myself, we cannot punish them.”
Carr frowned. He looked menacing enough, I supposed, but Barker could give him a shake he’d never forget.
“Secret police?” Blackjack repeated. “Like Special Branch? I hate Special Branch. Mayfair, got it. Why are you telling me this, Push? Do you think I’ll owe you after this? Because I won’t.”
Barker shook his head. “Mr. Carr, you may do as you wish. I just know that you haven’t done the thing for whic
h you may be blamed, and I’ve learned where this man and his cronies are. Now hurry! By all means, go!”
The men didn’t question him. Seconds were slipping away before they would be brought in by Scotland Yard for murder. Torture and murder, in fact. Those were grave charges and men were guilty, but not these men.
“You think that went well?” Ho said after they were gone. “The Mile End Boys, they are small. They are weak. They won’t give you the vengeance you need.”
“I don’t need vengeance of any kind,” Barker replied. “But if Carr and his hoodlums can teach the Okhrana some manners, I am not averse to that.”
Ho stood and walked to the door. “I must be awake in a few hours and so must you. I have no use for Russians, or tsars, or anarchists or secret police or western gangs.”
Of course not, I thought to myself. Ho’s tearoom collected more than tips. It provided information of all sorts, some of which was sold to interested parties, and others used to gamble with.
“You had this information in your hands. You could have sold it. Instead, you gave it to the one person who required it. You never learn!”
Ho returned to his native tongue, whichever it was, and shooed us out the door. My partner took it philosophically and didn’t mind the assault on his dignity. We walked through the long tunnel and up the stair to the narrow street. I passed by the bare wall that the weathered door was set into.
“Did you really shoot his best pewter plate? In the middle of the Potted Eel?”
“I did,” I admitted. “It seemed the quickest way to get his attention.”
“This is getting dangerous,” the Guv said as we stepped into the cool night air. “I’m starting to wonder if you should stay home with your wife until this case is concluded.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The garden was in full bloom the next morning as if nothing could be occurring on this earth other than its beauty. Barker’s half acre is not the sort of garden one sees at flower shows. It is a classic Asian garden and was designed to look austere, but even it is able to kick up its heels now and again. The plum tree was in full blossom overhead and a carpet of azaleas lay at our feet. The standing stones each wore a bright cap of green moss and tiny, insignificant leaves on our pen-jiang trees were being pruned with scissors, under the experienced hand of Rebecca, who had taken on the duty voluntarily. I had been entirely useless at the chore. The Chinese gardeners were shaving the bark from a young tree in order to make it look like an old one under the watchful eye of Cyrus Barker. I raked the white stones in circles around the much larger black rocks, standing like islands in the sea. Mac was inside doing whatever Mac does, and Etienne was experimenting in the kitchen with a dish that might soon be on the menu at his restaurant, Le Toison d’Or. As usual, Barker’s prized Pekinese, Harm, orchestrated our movements from a rock by the bridge that spanned the stream that bisected his personal domain.