by Will Thomas
“No, no, no, mon petit chou, we shall try again. You have the talent, now you must study and work hard in the craft. We shall try again later.”
“It’s really, really good,” I said, finishing the last of the roll.
My bride looked deflated. She wiped a bit of flour from her forehead with the back of her hand.
“I’m to attend a funeral this morning,” I told her, indicating the hat.
“Fine,” she said, taking my hand. “Let us go, then.”
Upstairs I changed quickly as she draped collars, ties, and hose over the side of the changing screen, until there was nothing more to add. She adjusted my tie. She had told me that two-thirds of the men in London need their ties straightened. I told her she alone was allowed to adjust mine.
Ten minutes later, I stood at the front door sweltering. Rebecca had given me a heavy coat, a woolen muffler, my rabbit fur–lined gloves, and my thickest boots. She doesn’t do things by halves, my Rebecca.
Barker came down the stairs, acknowledged that I was present and favorably dressed with a grunt.
“Sir, you’re carrying a satchel,” I told him.
“I am.”
“Are you taking it to the funeral?”
“Presumably. I want to gauge the mourners’ reactions.”
“Where is the ceremony to be held?”
“Brookwood.”
“Ah,” I said. “The LNR, then.”
Waterloo Station is the London terminus of the London and South West Railway, but if one goes down to a private entrance at the lower level, one discovers that in fact there is a second railway wrapping around the first the way a morning glory circles around a rosebush. This is the London Necropolis Railway. Its purpose is to carry mourners and the deceased to burial at Brookwood Cemetery in the Surrey countryside, the largest graveyard in Europe.
At some time it was decided to write a Burial Act, discouraging any more urban burials and building more remote cemeteries after two millennia. This railway, with its private entrance and high walls that offered privacy from any gawkers on the LSWR line, was built to handle any exigency, from bodies arriving by boat to those spirited discreetly from nearby hotels. The terminus contained two mausoleums, first- and second-class funeral services, a choice of Church of England and Nonconformist services, and one room containing hundreds of what one wag in a journal called “wooden overcoats.” It was all very professional and English, but that didn’t matter. It still gave one a chill. The public called it the “Cemetery Station.” Even when I traveled on the LSWR I was aware that on the next platform a mechanical lift was just then hoisting a casket from below to a waiting train. Let’s face it, by its very name, it is a railway for dead people, and as often as Death stalks us, we still don’t want to think of it.
I paid two fares and spoke to a porter about which funeral we would attend before the trip to Brookwood. Drummond was an Anglican and there was to be a service in the LNR station itself. It was not the first time I had attended a funeral of someone we didn’t know and it would not be the last. It is part of our duties as enquiry agents, but I would argue with the Prime Minister’s assertion that all our cases end in bloodshed. We gave any client what he desired, like any other member of our profession.
We sat near the back so as to leave quickly if necessary. The Guv took a seat on the aisle, with the satchel on one knee, and we watched the crowd for anyone who noticed it. He was taking an awful risk, but then he often did. I believe he was uncomfortable being in an Anglican service itself, though he joined in on the hymns he recognized, dragging everyone nearby off-key.
I was looking for blue coats, but I supposed that would have appeared too obvious now that they had been in the country at least a few days. They would disappear into the fabric of London life, or at least attempt to do so. That was what I would do in their shoes.
No one obviously looked at Barker’s bag, though I searched every man’s face in the chapel. Some looked solemn, others bored. It depended upon how well one knew the departed. It gave me an excuse for looking at other people. I thought it certain that whoever killed Drummond would be there at his funeral. Apparently, Cyrus Barker did, as well.
“No one, sir.”
“Keep looking.”
I did. It took me nearly twenty minutes of eulogy to spot him behind a pillar, an earnest-looking young fellow in a new coat and hat. Very new. He seemed to glance about as if the speaker were using a language he didn’t understand, though perhaps I was being imaginative. He seemed the only person there out of place.
“Three o’clock,” I said. We both knew it was not time I was mentioning, but degrees. My employer turned his head slightly to catch a glimpse. Meanwhile, I memorized his face: young, the beginnings of a mustache, a mere smudge on his lip, a few red spots on his face, the youth’s complaint. Brown hair. He was observing as I was and it was inevitable our eyes should meet. When they did we both looked away.
“He is too young to be a spy,” I said. “But he seems to be alone and he is not sitting, though there are many seats available. He does not appear to be an usher, and the days are long over when a youth leads a funeral procession.”
“Agreed.”
“I don’t like having my back exposed in this manner,” I said. “It makes me think of swords. I don’t want the next funeral I attend to be my own.”
The Guv raised his eyebrows and nodded.
“Here he comes,” I murmured.
The youth sat on the aisle end across from us. He glanced coolly at the satchel and then ignored us, listening to family members tell recollections of Drummond. Who paid for him to come to London? More important, why? The service over, we boarded the train to Brookwood.
The service had been no different than any other. It was not the gothic affair the mourners expected, and perhaps even wanted. When we arrived the sky was hammered steel and it was so cold I saw pickaxes and a stone hammer alongside the shovel behind a tree nearby. I did not envy someone that duty. Drummond’s remains were covered, a prayer was said, and those of us not of the family began to disperse. We did not say who we were and no one asked.
Brookwood was neat and new-looking. Rows of identical snowy white gravestones stood achingly perpendicular in ground laced with frost. Mausoleums crouched in corners covered in snow, not as uniform as the teethlike slabs. The cemetery might have looked more hospitable in the spring with manicured lawns and trees. Now the lawn was dead and the trees stunted.
Everyone began to board the train once again to London. I had done my best to keep the youth in sight, but it was impossible. When the train reached Waterloo, he had vanished like a wraith. One does one’s best, but one doesn’t bat people about in a funeral train to keep a suspect in sight.
The train returning us to London was an identical engine to the LSWR line. There were no skulls affixed to it. Only the morbid name gave the old Necropolis its reputation. We left the terminus, Barker still flaunting the Gladstone bag in his hand, daring anyone to take it.
Back in Westminster, we walked across the bridge and along Whitehall Street to our offices.
I take it Barker wanted to display the satchel a little longer. It was a bright morning, though still cold; our breath plumed from our chests. The tip of my nose was cold. The woolen muffler around my throat itched, but my hands and feet were warm and that is what matters when the weather hovers around freezing.
We reached our offices, and I began hanging items on the coatrack in the waiting room. My nose began to run, as it always did in such weather. There was a coal fire in the grate. If I were not careful, I would fall asleep in my chair.
Barker set the blasted bag on his desk. It contained glass, was very important as far as the government was concerned, and yet he carried it about cavalierly, even disdainfully. He lifted the handle, and suddenly pulled at the small padlock. It came off immediately. I sat up in my chair, no longer tired.
My employer opened the Gladstone, and peered inside, rummaging around in the in
terior with his oversized hand. Then he removed an irregularly shaped block of wood and put it on the desk.
“It was a decoy,” I said.
He nodded, distracted. He reached into the satchel again and removed a small wooden box. When he opened it, I saw various small tools: files, rulers, a jackknife, and a few pencils.
“A boat!” I cried. “You’re carving a model of a boat!”
I’d never seen him do that before, but as he was after all the former captain of a merchant vessel, it did not stretch credulity that he would model a miniature boat. He lifted a pencil, and began to draw a rough shape on one edge.
“What boat will you model?” I asked.
“The Arrow,” he replied.
“Ah.”
The Arrow was a Chinese vessel that had caused the Second Opium War. The Chinese government had boarded and confiscated it, arresting the crew on a charge of piracy. Unfortunately, the boat was flying the Union Jack at the time, and when the governmental sailors took it down and the crew was arrested, it spurred an international incident. Diplomatic messages were exchanged. There was a good deal of saber rattling for a while. By the time the Q’ing government was ready to release the sailors, Her Majesty’s government had created a list of demands. When they were not met, England began shelling Canton. It was a diplomatic nightmare, and China got the worst of it. Afterward, foreigners were free to enter the ports of Canton, and China lost face again.
“I’m surprised you aren’t building your own boat, the Osprey.”
Barker’s ship was a Chinese vessel, about a hundred feet long. It had the customary junk sails, but at some point it had been gutted and a steam boiler installed. He’d had her for fifteen years or more. She was currently dry-docked on the South Coast.
He made no answer, but then he seldom did. Still, he got the old Llewelyn noggin going for once.
“I wonder what became of the old Arrow,” I said.
Barker took up a jeweler’s file and began filing a small part of the deck.
“I imagine the owners would have trouble selling it, given its history.”
He stood, crossed to a table for an oil lamp, and set it on his desk.
“Didn’t you tell me you won the Osprey in a game of fan-tan?”
He gave me an abstract grunt, as if caught between answering me and getting this particular plank perfectly smooth.
“As I recall, your boat is a lorcha, like the Arrow,” I went on. “An Asian approximation of a European vessel, but with junk sails. Yours has had a steam boiler and propellers installed. Did you add those yourself?”
The Guv shook his head. “The owner added it himself, inexpertly. The entire boat was a ruin. It took me three years and all the money I had to make it seaworthy.”
“She was the Arrow, but you renamed her the Osprey. An osprey dives into the water to seize its prey, just as you used the boat to search for salvage.”
My employer took the block into his lap and began sanding the side with his file.
“How long have you been working on that?”
He put the file down and turned his swivel chair in my direction.
“Mr. Llewelyn,” he said. “Do I not employ you to work? Are you not paid to do something other than pester me with questions?”
“No, actually,” I replied. “We are partners now and I am paid through the agency accounts, although you’ve been generous enough to see that I receive a steady salary since I am a married man. Of course, you never actually do any of the accounts, so in essence, I pay myself.”
He looked grim. “Lad, I am doing fine work here. In answer to your question, I began this three years ago, though I have set it down for half a year at a time. This requires calm. If I make a mistake, I can ruin a month’s work. I would appreciate some quiet, unless you have further questions.”
“Just one,” I said. “Our client, which is to say Her Majesty’s government, expected us to take the real satchel, wherever it is, to Calais two days ago, yet here you are today settling down to rasp a block of hardwood for who knows how long.”
“You do not agree with how I am running this enquiry?”
I was treading on dangerous ground here. I had to measure my words and not tell him he was fiddling while Rome burned.
“Not at all, sir, but I cannot do my work fully if I don’t know what we are doing. Is there some task that I could accomplish instead of pestering you? Could I have at least a glimpse into your motivations?”
He lifted the hull he’d been cradling in his lap and laid it on its side on the desk. Then he stood and crossed to his smoking cabinet. There, he selected his most battered and yellowed meerschaum, its top blackened with carbon, its amber stem ground between his square teeth. It was the pipe he owned, I imagined, when he first captained the Osprey. The rest had been purchased in relative prosperity. He carefully stuffed it with his own blend of tobacco and carried it to the bay window. Then he took a vesta from a Swan match box and lit it as he watched the street.
“There is a gentleman on the other side of Whitehall Street. He is turned away, leaning against a gas lamp, but he has a cigarette case. I see a flash of light now and again. He’s watching us through a mirror. Why don’t you go ask him why?”
I jumped to my feet. “Thank you, sir!”
I began wrapping the scarf around my neck and reached for my overcoat.
“Not that one,” Barker ordered.
The other hanging on the coatrack was what I jokingly called my “battle coat.” It is of black leather and the capes in front contained thin sheets of lead, in the hope that they might stop a bullet. The pockets contain holsters sewn into the coat itself. I hate that coat. It is heavy, hot, and cumbersome. The leather creaks and I do not prefer caped coats. Reluctantly, I took it down from the rack. The latter seemed relieved to be rid of the burden.
I looked at Jeremy Jenkins, who tipped me a wink and returned to the penny dreadful he was poring over. I donned my gloves and took down my bowler hat instead of the crepe-covered topper, adjusting it on my head.
“That’s me, then,” I said, and stepped out of the door.
Once outside, I exhaled. My employer can be rather … what is the word? Gruff? Rude? Exasperating? Secretive? Ill-tempered? All of that and more. I began to suspect I was underpaying myself.
I crossed the street, but when I got there, he had disappeared. I took two steps before I realized I had been got round. Barker hadn’t let me into his plans at all; he’d merely given me something to do. Ah well, I told myself. It’s better than watching him scrape on that length of wood.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
When I returned, Cyrus Barker drew his ancient turnip watch from the well of his pocket and consulted it with the aid of his desk lamp.
“I believe it is time we looked into the matter of Mr. Heinlich, the atheist.”
I recalled that he was on the list of suspects compiled by Hesketh Pierce, the Home Office man.
“We have just enough time to reach the Egyptian Hall,” the Guv said. “His program should be starting soon.”
We left Whitehall by hansom cab, intent upon Piccadilly, for there was no direct connection by Underground. It occurred to me that I had grown accustomed to such transportation in my work, and yet it was dear for me on my salary. Rebecca had an account from her late husband’s estate, but I was loath to touch it, not having earned it. I had a picture in my mind of Asher Cowan looking over my shoulder disapprovingly if I spent a shilling on a book or a pint of bitter. The cab does that, you see; it leads one into abstract thoughts. Or rather, it did to me.
“Look at those lads, Thomas,” Barker said.
I looked over in time to see two urchins successfully strip a man of his wallet and handkerchief while he told them the time. The Guv has compared the view from a hansom to the proscenium of a stage, offering entertainment and drama, and yes, even tragedy, in the mean streets of London town. We would have shouted out had we been closer, but I suppose in the grand scheme of things,
the money would be carried home to feed many hungry mouths, whereas the gentleman had only the mild annoyance of purchasing a new wallet. He probably had two dozen pocket handkerchiefs at the moment in his dresser drawer.
“The atheist,” I said, over the steady thump of the gray mare in front of us. The roadway was covered in two or three inches of snow.
“I assume he’s not the only one, Thomas.”
“The atheist speaker, then,” I remarked. “An American, like Cochran. Is it a mere coincidence that his program should coincide with the camp meeting, or that they each arrived in the same city simultaneously? Do you suppose there is enough animosity between the two men to have one dogging the other’s steps?”
Barker nodded, but did not speak until we reached our destination. Despite the fact that the columns and designs in the Egyptian Hall are not authentic, I find it quite satisfying, an Art Nouveau Thebes, if you will. The events held here were well attended and often controversial.
We found Karl Heinlich in a greenroom behind the stage. He was in front of a mirror darkening his eyebrows with some sort of wax. The man was in his early forties, clean shaven, with an average build. He looked a normal enough fellow. I saw no horns or a tail.
“May I help you?” he asked, his arm frozen in midair. “Sorry, my eyebrows are light and people in the audience cannot read my expression without some aid.”
“Naturally,” Barker said.
“Are you gentlemen from the press, or have you come to show me the error of my ways?”
“Neither, sir,” my employer replied, looking grave. “We are enquiry agents. My name is Barker. This is Llewelyn.”
I handed the man our card. He read it for a moment, digesting the information, then nodded his head.
“What may I do for you?”
“We have some questions. You have recently come from Germany, have you not?”
“Yes. From Heidelberg. We arrived three days ago.”
Heinlich turned to open a small pot containing some sort of cream-colored concoction. He began applying it to his face. I’d heard of it before but never seen it. It was a new invention called “grease paint.”