by Will Thomas
He frowned, looking at me doubtfully. “See here, this had better not be some sort of undergraduate prank!”
“No, sir, it’s no prank. Mr. Barker says I am to pay you fifteen pounds for your work tonight.”
“He did? Fifteen pounds?”
“Did I say fifteen? I meant twenty.”
He nearly ripped his gown pulling it off. He stepped into an office, donned a heavy coat, a hat with furred flaps, and a pair of stout leather gloves. He wound an absurdly long scarf about his neck. I led him through the drafty quadrangle and hailed a hansom.
Cabs are dear when one wants to be delivered to one of the more disreputable parts of the East End on a moment’s notice, but I’d already cracked open Barker’s coin purse, so to speak, so what is a few extra pounds, I say. I paid, Wessel complained about the inconvenience, the cabman snapped his whip, and the gelding dug in his hoofs and pulled. We all had our expertise to contribute.
Eventually we came to a narrow lane in Limehouse, dark and neglected. It ended in the ruins of an old church that I suspect was Roman Catholic, due to a small, dilapidated door in the very back. I was well acquainted with that bolt-hole. It ran under the river, bisecting Limehouse Reach, and fetched up in a restaurant of sorts.
“Where are we?” Wessel asked as I opened the derelict door and moved to light a naphtha lantern. I could see the concern growing in his face. “What is this place?”
“Ho’s,” I replied. “It’s an Asian restaurant. Of course, it’s after hours.”
As I spoke, I saw a man staggering along in the snow toward us under an armload of packages. I looked twice before I realized who it was.
“Jeremy!” I cried, holding the lamp higher. “What are you doing here?”
“I’d like to know that myself,” our clerk replied. “Mr. B. gave me orders before he left. He said it will be a long night.”
“God help us,” Wessel muttered behind me.
“We’re being watched,” Jenkins said. “Or so Mr. B. claims.”
“Youths in blue uniforms?”
“No, Home Office johnnies, I reckon, or Vatican assassins. Take your pick.”
“I hope they enjoy standing all night in the cold while we’re snug in Ho’s restaurant,” I said, trying to ease Wessel’s mind.
“I hope this isn’t a waste of my time,” the professor replied.
In lieu of a reply, I walked down the steps into the narrow tunnel. It always made my heart race. Wessel and Jenkins followed behind. Jeremy seemed familiar with the place, although I had never seen him there before.
“Mr. L.,” Jenkins said. “Could you take one of these sacks? My arm is cramping.”
“Certainly,” I replied, lifting one. It seemed uncommonly heavy. “My word, it’s the satchel! How did you get it?”
“Hand delivered by a messenger boy as you see it now.”
We could hear the water coursing above the tunnel. It takes some nerve to get used to walking under the Thames and I could sense Wessel’s discomfort.
“Are you sure this is safe?” the professor asked, his voice echoing off the walls. “Perhaps you can find someone else in London to help you. I could make you a list!”
“No, Professor,” I insisted. “You are here, and now you must see this through. Remember those twenty-five pounds.”
“You said … never mind.”
At the far end of the tunnel, Barker was talking to the owner, Ho, arguably his closest friend in the world. Ho is short, stout, bandy-legged, ill-tempered, and argumentative. He was proving the latter with Barker even at that moment. He must have been the one the Guv was arguing with over the telephone. He turned away, muttering to himself, while Barker addressed my companion.
“Professor Wessel, it’s good to see you again. I believe I’ve got something here that will interest you. It may even astound you.”
“Why bring me to this blighted spot, then? Why cannot this be done at the university?”
“I found it necessary to guard all entrances to a building and this place is the most secure in all London. We shall also need food.”
“No food!” Ho called down the tunnel, and they argued again. Or perhaps they were just haggling. It was difficult to tell.
I helped divest the professor of his things and led him into the restaurant. He was at least a trifle mollified. An aroma came from the kitchen despite Ho’s threats and the spacious room was warm from a large fireplace. It would be churlish to require more.
Barker turned to the professor. “It was good of you to come on such short notice.”
“Very well, Mr. Barker. Anything for a fellow Templar. I am at your service, but let me send a note to my wife before we begin.”
I didn’t want to leave and miss anything, but there was the note to be delivered. Muttering to myself, I threw on my coat again and ran out the door. There was a public house nearby called the Cod and Winkle, and there was certain to be a messenger there, despite the cold. I skittered along, heedless of the weather, alternating between stepping into deep snow and slipping on bare ice. I found a boy inside the pub so skinny and cold that I tripled the amount I would normally pay him, enough for a meal and a fire for all his family that night. Then I ran back, falling only once, and reached the door again within a few minutes.
When I entered the restaurant again, the Guv and Jenkins were carefully laying out the manuscript on a long table. Dark strips of something that resembled a decayed banana peel were sealed between small sheets of glass. There was writing on both sides of each one. Immediately, Wessel crossed to the table and bent over it. He shuffled sideways until he came to the first and moved closer until both his elbows rested on the table and his nose was an insignificant distance from the glass, close enough to fog it.
“Oh, my word,” he murmured. “It’s a Greek copy of Matthew. Here are the genealogies. The book of the generations of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.”
He stopped and looked up at us. “Is this manuscript authentic?”
“That is what we have brought you here to ascertain,” Barker replied. “That, and translating it for us.”
“Where did it come from?”
“Best not to ask.”
Wessel bent over the manuscript again. “Look here! It’s suddenly lapsed into the beginning of Mark. What is this, some sort of apocrypha?”
“Again, that is for you to determine.”
He looked up. “Do you think I might have a cup of tea? Any kind will do.”
He was instantly absorbed into the manuscript again. At a nearby table, Jenkins lifted various items out of a hamper basket: paper and leather, ink pens and rulers, paintbrushes and watercolor sets. Our humble clerk was the son of the best forger of the nineteenth century, and Jeremy had learned everything at his father’s knee.
“It lapses into Mark, with the coming of John the Baptist,” Wessel continued. “Then it skips over to Luke with the virgin birth. But look here, some of the verses are new. John’s birth is recorded, while other verses have been discarded.”
“What are your initial thoughts on the manuscript other than the words scribed upon them?” the Guv asked.
Professor Wessel cleared his throat and smoothed his beard.
“I’m only a linguist, but it appears to be made of leather. Originally it was one long strip, a scroll, then later cut into pieces and bound. There are holes along the side here. You see how the bottom is cut at a slight angle. The beginning of the next portion begins with the same angle cut. It’s very small, but then one could not carry a pocket-sized manuscript about if one were a first- or second-century Christian convert. Even owning such a thing could get one crucified.”
Jeremy brought a chair beside the professor, and began sharpening a pencil with a jackknife. Normally he had more sail than ballast by now, but he knew how important the work was, and he’d brought his own ale in case a catastrophe occurred and there was no ready cask.
“There are nine plates here with two sheets for eac
h, making eighteen pieces of glass,” the professor said. “Each contains three lengths of manuscript. The writing is very small. The author was trying to cram as much onto the scroll as he could. Some are longer than others, because whoever cut them tried to do so at the end of a chapter whenever he could.”
“Why is it so dark?” I asked.
“Age. It’s nineteen hundred years old, or thereabouts.”
“A.D. 100?” Barker asked.
Wessel raised a finger.
“You mustn’t hold me to that. It’s old, I can tell you that much. I see nothing wrong so far with the syntax. The language is not as elegant as Luke or Paul, but more so than Mark. The author was probably not a fisherman like the others. Unfortunately, his name is not in the manuscript, at least not in the portion I’ve read. Let me get back to it now.”
By then, Wessel was in the thrall of the manuscript. He was no longer a fish caught on a hook, fighting. He was now complicit in his own capture.
“What is it?” he said in hushed tones, as if to himself.
“What does it appear to be?” the Guv asked.
“A new gospel.”
“Or a very old one.”
Wessel sat back in his chair and ripped his eyes away from the ancient pages. “How old? Are you implying that this came before all of them?”
Barker shrugged his huge shoulders. “I’m not as knowledgeable as you on such matters. This was given me by a person of great authority. I am to deliver it to a place of safety soon.”
Wessel frowned as he realized what Jeremy Jenkins was there to do.
“You are making a copy?” he exclaimed. “You intend to switch the two?”
“No,” Cyrus Barker replied, “but I am making a facsimile. It may be necessary to do so.”
“I believe this to be genuine, linguistically, at least. You wish me to translate it for you?” he asked, as Jenkins began to stain a strip of leather with watercolor.
“Can you do it?” the Guv asked. “It need not be perfect; I understand there is little time.”
The professor ran a hand across his beard. “I’d like a copy. A photographic copy.”
Barker shook his head. “I can allow a copy of the copy, but not of the original. You cannot publish anything without genuine proof.”
“I don’t need it. A copy is fine. I only want the words.”
“No more than I,” said the Guv.
I got out my notebook and sat back. It would be a few busy hours.
“Shall we begin?” I asked.
Wessel held up a finger. “One more question, first, Mr. Barker. Do you yourself believe this to be genuine?”
“Who can say? The individual—individuals, actually—who hired me thought it important enough to be sent abroad. Posthaste.”
Our guest sat back and crossed his arms. One could almost see the thoughts streaming through his skull.
“I understand the need for secrecy. It has not been proven to be authentic, or even more than apocrypha. One could not announce to the world that it had been found until it has been studied and tested. Can you at least tell me where it came from?”
“It appeared in Germany. I cannot be more specific yet. I know not how it got there to begin with, but it was brought here. Beyond that, I cannot say.”
“What do you intend to do with the translation?”
“To read it and keep it locked away. It will not be published. And you?”
“The same.”
Barker reached out his hand. Wessel took it. There was that Templar handshake again. “If word ever surfaces, we’ll both know who did it.”
“What of these fellows here?”
“They are with me and are my responsibility. I have known them for years. Shall we begin? Time is fleeting.”
The professor leaned forward eagerly. I have a bond with Cyrus Barker, going back years now. I would not betray his trust any more than I would Rebecca’s. He asked me on that wintry evening never to reveal a word of the manuscript. Therefore, I shall not.
Wessel began translating then, slow and fast, and slow again. Translation is a difficult task, even for an expert, which I believe the professor was. He spoke without reference works or aids. I didn’t exactly warm to him, but I appreciated him more.
“What are you doing there?” he asked at one point, glimpsing my writing.
“Shorthand,” I replied.
“But I cannot read it.”
“I assumed you would want a more detailed and exact copy yourself,” Barker said.
“I would, but I don’t know this fellow from Adam. How do I know that he can copy every jot and tittle?”
He was referring to Jenkins.
“He can,” I told him, aware that our clerk’s appearance is not prepossessing. “There isn’t another man in Europe who can do what he does. He is a master forger.”
Jenkins looked at me out of the corner of his eye. His lips pulled back into a subtle smile and returned as before.
“Can he make another copy for me? I’d pay him.”
“Jeremy?” Barker asked.
“I’ll do it tomorrow night, Mr. B., but I won’t take any money for it.”
Wessel looked thwarted for a moment. I would not give him a copy of my notes and Jeremy would not give him a copy of the manuscript to take away with him. He wanted something in his hands to prove to himself this Arabian Nights dream was real.
“This is most irregular!” he cried.
“Shall we continue?” Barker asked. It was more an order than a question.
We set to in earnest. In places, the Greek letters were nearly illegible and the professor had to guess. In others, he nearly strangled himself in syntax, trying to draw every meaning out of a word in order to speculate what the unnamed author intended. With each passing sentence, he grew more and more excited.
“Remarkable, sirs! Amazing. Forgive my annoyance before. I did not know what honor you were bestowing upon me.”
“Fortunately for us, you are a Templar.”
“Not much of one, I’m afraid. I’m too busy to attend many meetings.”
“Your industry does you credit.”
Wessel returned to translating. “Some of this is mildly heretical. Jesus appears as more of a radical. Not politically, I mean. Money should be given generously to the poor, elders should be revered for their wisdom. He wanted to do more than change society. He wanted to change men’s souls.”
“Was this manuscript intended for Jews or Gentiles?” I asked.
“Both, I think,” Wessel said. “I believe that it was used to write both the book of Matthew, written for the Jews, and Luke, written for the Gentiles.”
It was nearly dawn before we finished our work. By then, we all had stiff necks and sick headaches. Jenkins would work until breakfast while we had a few hours’ kip.
At last, we saw Wessel out of the tunnel. The snow fell silently, save when a gust of wind pushed the crystals across the frozen crust. I walked him to Mile End Road and hailed a passing cab. The professor said he needed to get away to think alone. He shook my hand and climbed aboard, and I promised to send him my typed notes. When I returned, Barker stood in front of the battered door, the shoulders of his coat as white as mine.
“What now?” I asked.
“Ho has offered us a pallet for a few hours. You take it. I need to read the manuscript a few times. Then we shall take a cab home and go into the office late.”
“Did Ho actually offer a place to sleep of his own volition?”
Barker brushed the snow from his shoulders.
“Very well, he was persuaded.”
Ma Dong, Ho’s chief cook, passed us and went into the restaurant. We followed after. A minute or two later, Ho came down with his arms full. He had a chair, a contraption I recognized as a water pipe, an incense burner, an offering bowl, and a bell. He set the chair in the middle of the passage, spread out the articles on the floor around him and sat, knees spread wide, his burly arms crossed, his face as hard and ma
sklike as a stone idol.
“Go,” he said. “Study your silly Christian text. I must purify my tearoom with proper Buddhist prayers.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
It was half past eight when we reached Craig’s Court. My employer sat down at his desk immediately and began a letter. He writes slowly and deliberately, but he makes up for these shortcomings by being illegible. When I first saw his handwriting, I wondered why he made the effort of sending messages and letters at all, yet somehow he manages to receive a response for all his efforts.
The Guv tapped the end of the pen on his lower lip, drew a few scribbles, inspected what he had written and added a few more lines. If that wasn’t enough, he began humming to himself. At a turtle’s pace, he blotted the letter, folded it, slid it into an envelope, and wrote an address on it. Then I’m blowed if he didn’t take out another sheet and begin a second letter. Thankfully, it was shorter, and when he was done, he folded it into a square. This he handed to me.
“Send this along, will you, Thomas?”
“Of course, sir.”
I stepped out into the court and then into Whitehall Street, looking for blue coats. It was one of those brilliant days, hard and shiny as a skillet, the kind that reminded me that we were on a ball hurtling through space, wrapped in the thinnest layer of warmth.
I was about to study the letters when a boy cut through the crowd and I stopped him just long enough to push both letters and a sixpence into his hand. We didn’t speak; in fact, we did not even acknowledge each other. My hand was suddenly empty while his was suddenly full. My duty done, I went back to our chambers.
A few minutes later, the outer door opened and I tensed. My hand went immediately to the shelf in my rolltop desk where I kept my short-barreled Webley. Barker made no noticeable movement, but I knew a pistol holster was attached to the inside of his desk by his leg. The Guv and I had discussed having a small window installed over my desk, in order to give me time to react. However, windows work both ways.
We needn’t have bothered. Another tyke rushed in, deposited an envelope, caught a coin Jenkins flipped to him, and rushed out again. Jenkins brought it to us and my employer opened it.