by Will Thomas
“And this … this Sponge person will help us find the Irish faction?”
“We can but cast our nets, lad,” Barker said, and with that bit of philosophy, nothing more was mentioned of the matter.
The Sponge, if I may call him that, arrived shortly after four, when Jenkins came into our chambers with a calling card in his hand for Barker. It was none too clean, I noticed, and a corner had been creased and straightened. It bore the legend: HENRY CATHCART, ESQ.
“Show him in, Jenkins,” Barker said, after a glance at the card.
“Very good, sir,” Jenkins replied, but as he passed me he raised his eyebrows as if to say Wait until you see this one.
In a moment, our visitor came in, slowly, gravely, as if he were a headmaster at vespers. I saw what had caused Jenkins’s brows to flutter. First of all, the fellow had the purple ears, veined cheeks, and swollen nose of the inveterate drinker. His pale eyes did not seem to focus on anything in particular but floated about like poached eggs in water. His clothes were patched, the bottoms of his trousers frayed, and his collar had been worn on both sides, and yet there was something in his well-cut, gray-shot beard and the careful knot of his tie that told me he still cared about his appearance. It had been I who had undergone such a scrutiny of dress when I was hired a little over two months earlier, and now I was doing the scrutinizing. Mr. Cathcart did not come out well. I began to think the Sponge soaked up nothing more than liquor.
Barker rose. “How do you do, Mr. Cathcart?”
“As well as to be expected in this hard world of ours, Your Honor, I thank you. And you?”
“I am well. May I present my assistant, Mr. Thomas Llewelyn?”
The old fellow, if indeed he was old, bowed gravely to me.
“Good afternoon, young man,” he said. “I hope you appreciate your position here. There are many who covet it.”
“Yes, sir, thank you,” I said, wondering if he had been one of the applicants for the position.
“Would you care for a cigar, Mr. Cathcart?” Barker continued, raising the lid of the box on his desk. He was treating the old sot well, I thought.
“I thank you, sir,” Cathcart said, taking one from the box and pocketing it. “I shall enjoy it later, with your permission.”
“But of course. I would like to avail myself of your services for the week, if you are available.”
“As it happens, I am between engagements,” the fellow said with a slight air of pomposity, as if he were a master craftsman. “Where might I be working, if I may ask?”
“The Crook and Harp in Seven Dials.”
“Ah! The old Crooked Harp. I know it well. The main room seats over seventy, and the Guinness is always fresh, since they go through it so quickly. A word of warning, however: they water down the whiskey after nine of a Friday night.” He tapped the side of his nose with his finger.
“Er, we shall remember that, thank you. Are your terms still the same?”
“Well, sir, I’ve been much in demand of late among your brethren. I still charge a pound a night, but some have been good enough to add a small remuneration at the end of a case.” Cathcart stroked his beard daintily. I had to stop myself from laughing.
“I would expect nothing less. Thomas, give Mr. Cathcart a five-pound note.” I took out the note from the wallet I carried for my employer, and then subtracted the amount from the ledger on my desk. Henry the Sponge pulled a change purse from his pocket and folded the bill until it finally fit.
“When shall I report?”
“Friday, before five.”
“Is there anything specific I should listen for?”
“Fenian activity involving the bombing of Scotland Yard.”
The old man nodded sagely. “Presumed as much. Friday it is, gentlemen.” He raised a disreputable bowler an inch off his head, then solemnly made his way out of the room. Something about his stately manner made us go to the bow window and watch as he passed down Craig’s Court and into Whitehall Street.
“So, he’s an informant. One of your watchers,” I said.
“Henry Cathcart has a unique gift. He can slip into a public house unnoticed and drink himself into oblivion.”
I smiled. “I gathered that, but so could anyone.”
“True, but who else could wake the next morning and be able to repeat word for word every conversation that went on around him all night? They don’t call him the Sponge for his intake of alcohol. He’s got a horror of the regular police, but he’s worked for me on a case or two. He works for whom he wishes and can pick and choose.”
We took a cab home and changed for dinner. Though it was just the two of us, Cyrus Barker insisted upon formal attire when we dined together. There were to be no dressing gowns and no lounge suits or smoking jackets. The Guv had stated on several occasions that it is all too easy for standards to slip, and when that happened, it would be easier to glue an eggshell back together than to return things to how they had once been. For my part, I appreciated observing the formal rituals of a genteel life. The moldy garret of three months ago was still recent enough for me to remember how hard the world can be.
We were halfway through dinner, and Barker was making some point about the Irish view of English imperialism, when the telephone rang. My employer frowned. Modern contrivances are all well and good but not when they interrupt dinner.
Mac came in from the hall.
“Sir, there is a telephone call for you.”
Barker wiped his mustache with a serviette and muttered, “Confound it,” before going into the hall. I assumed it was Anderson, calling to confirm the acceptance from the Home Office of his terms. Mac watched him go and for a moment, everything was quiet, until my eyes registered a sudden movement. Our butler was standing quite still, but one of his hands was gesturing wildly behind his back.
“What is it?” I asked, sotto voce.
“The Prime Minister, sir,” he said out of the side of his mouth, “on the wire now!”
Jacob Maccabee might have been able to stand still, but I could not. I bolted from my seat and leaned into the hall with my hand on the door frame. The Guv was standing in front of the little alcove in the hall, speaking into the new Ericsson telephone he’d had installed there.
“Yes, sir,” he said. “As you say … No, I will not do anything to hinder Scotland Yard’s investigation. I do not wish credit for the case … Thank you, sir. Good evening to you.”
Barker hung up the receiver. I backed up, stumbling into Mac, who had been leaning over my shoulder. We almost fell over, but if Barker noticed, he didn’t show it.
“Mac.”
“Yes, sir,” Maccabee said, all dignity and poise again.
“Bring a pot of green tea up to the garret. I shall be up much of the night planning. Thomas, come with me.”
I followed him into the library. I believe Barker could tell me the books on every shelf in order, though there didn’t seem to be any system to their arrangement. He pulled one book from a lower shelf, then used the ladder on a rail to reach another one on the highest shelf on the opposite wall. He dropped them into my hands, then scooped up the little dog from one of the green leather chairs, and tucked him under his arm as if he were another book.
“Study those. Good night, lad.”
The volumes were Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry, by William Carleton, and an American book called The Molly Maguires, the Origin, Growth and Character of the Organization, by F. P. Dewees. I’d never heard of either one.
That was it. Barker went to his room without a word about the Prime Minister. I thought I deserved at least some information. After all, he was risking my neck, too.
6
It was Sunday morning, and I had gone up to Barker’s room. With its red sloping ceiling lined with weapons, it is rather bloodthirsty in appearance. On a Sunday, the attention is drawn to the strong, mote-filled light from the two large skylights, and the room’s resemblance to a Mongol leader’s campaign tent rather recedes in
to the gloom. I was all for talking about the case, but Barker would have none of it. His Sabbath day mornings were sacred, literally. He was reading his Bible and slowly emptying his pot of gunpowder green tea into his handleless cup.
“What are our plans for the day?” I asked.
My employer held up a finger, then used it to turn a page in Deuteronomy, and promptly was engrossed in his reading again. I was getting nowhere. Barker is like a bad water pipe. I could spend half the day trying to get something out of him, then he would gush out in a torrent of words, and promptly clog up again.
Barker poured me a cup of tea, and I emptied it in one swallow, then grimaced. Green tea is a misnomer, I think. It’s more gold than green, and it tastes more like dishwater than anything else. I know many people go through a lot of trouble so that the tea grown in Fukien ends up on our Newington breakfast table, but if it were all for my benefit, they needn’t have bothered.
I sighed and went downstairs. Sunday is the only morning when Dummolard does not dominate our kitchen. He makes up for his absence with a bakery’s worth of sweets. Privileged to be the only other person allowed to touch Etienne’s coffeepot, I made myself coffee and looked over the assortment of pastries. Though I was sad to see the apple and caramel pie was gone, I chose a currant scone instead and put a dollop of clotted cream from the larder on top.
After I’d eaten, Barker came down in what I’ve come to call his Sunday suit, a frock coat less ostentatious than his normal wear, with a black tie. Mac had set out Barker’s Bible on the entry table by the door, a book so well thumbed all the lettering on the cover had worn away. We walked the short block to the Baptist Metropolitan Tabernacle and when we got there and were just about to go inside, he made a telling gesture. He reached out and his hand lightly touched one of the marble columns. I knew what he was thinking, for I was thinking the same: How long would it be before we would be enjoying another quiet Sunday here again?
The Reverend Charles Haddon Spurgeon had one or two words to say about peace in his sermon that morning. While many pastors across London were no doubt calling for peace after the recent bombing, Barker’s pastor warned us of false peacemakers and assured us that there would be no peace in the world until the Lord’s return. It was a pessimistic attitude, perhaps, but I didn’t doubt it was true. There is always some deviltry afoot in the world, and not a little of it here in our corner itself.
Afterward, I was looking forward to a nice lunch before whatever my employer had planned for the day, but apparently he thought otherwise. He raised a cane for a cab, rather than shatter the Sabbath peace with one of his whistles, and we bundled in.
“The City!” he called out. “I suppose you can make do with a roll and coffee in the East End until we can eat properly, lad?”
“Certainly, sir,” I said. After all, who has need of a nice Sunday dinner when one can eat a tooth-breaking bun topped with stale onions and poppy seeds?
“It is time to visit the Lane, Thomas.”
There was no need to ask which lane he was talking about. Our first case had begun when a poor Jewish scholar had been found crucified on a telegraph pole in Petticoat Lane, the City’s Sunday market. It is a farrago in the middle of the Jewish quarter, where one can buy everything from Chinese silk to Scottish tweed. Most of the clothing was used, and the Jews were old hands at repairing and reselling items “good as new.” Now we were in need of clothing for our disguises as van Rhyn and his assistant, and it would be suspicious if we presented ourselves in a completely new wardrobe. What better place could we have come to than the Lane?
On a normal Sunday, Middlesex Street, to give its more prosaic name, resembles a football scrum, with enough people knotted together to fill half of London. It functions, somehow, and everyone eventually reaches his own destination. Barker, at least, knew where he was going; he stepped up to one of the more established tailor shops, with its hoardings overhead in Hebrew and Roman letters, and spoke to the proprietor. The latter pulled his measuring tape from his pocket and invited us into the shop’s interior.
My employer had spent a great deal of money on our wardrobes, most recently equipping me with hats, coats, and shoes, but I was not surprised to see him lift the sleeve of a disreputable-looking garment and ask to try it on. He selected four suits for himself and three for me. We were fitted by the proprietor, who was doing his best to keep his thoughts to himself, if not for his raised eyebrows. I knew what Barker was thinking, however. In our ordinary clothes, we would never be able to fit into a group of Irish misfits and radicals.
“I’ll take them all,” Barker eventually said, producing a card. “Have them sent to this address.”
“Very good, sir,” the tailor replied between tight lips. I would have thought he’d have been glad to rid his shop of these items. He took the card and nodded to us as we left.
Passing into Aldgate Street, we hailed a hansom cab. No sooner had we settled in than Cyrus Barker said, “You need a name to use among the Irish.”
“I’m not certain whether I could do the accent, sir,” I admitted. “Not convincingly, anyway.”
“Very well, we’ll keep you a Welshman. Easiest is best. Do you have any family names other than Llewelyn?”
“I have an uncle whose surname is Penrith.”
“Penrith. That’s a good Welsh name. What is his first name?”
“Odweg.”
My employer scratched his chin for a moment in thought. “Perhaps we’ll just call you Thomas. Thomas Penrith. That’s easy for me to remember. Your name is Thomas Penrith. You are from Cardiff and are van Rhyn’s assistant, a disaffected student with anarchist beliefs and a grudge against England. You have been trained at Nobel’s factory near Glasgow and have worked with your new employer for six months. You have a certain natural ability with explosives, and you show great promise. Have you got that, lad?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Excellent. The reason Le Caron has succeeded, and all the others have failed, is that he did not try to pretend to be Irish.”
“I say, sir, have we anything else to do this afternoon? I thought I might stop and see Ira Moskowitz and Israel Zangwill. If I may, I’d like to tell them I was leaving town.”
“Certainly, lad. See your friends. I’m going out myself. I’ll see you back at home for dinner.”
I didn’t ask where he was going, and I don’t think he would have told me had I asked, but I had my suspicions. My employer kept company with a certain woman whose identity one would almost suppose was a state secret. Mac referred to her only as the Widow and she was never to be spoken of. I didn’t intend to do so now.
I jumped out and was soon walking down Commercial Street, that great aorta of London trade. Three months before, this area on the east side of the City was unknown to me, but now I knew it as well as the Elephant amp; Castle. If I had taken anything away with me from our last case, other than several torn ligaments and injured joints, it was my friendship with Israel and Ira. A quick cut up Bell Lane, and a few odd turnings, and I was in Spitalfields. The two of them lived in a boardinghouse for Jewish teachers and scholars. I’d visited enough times that I had become a nuisance to open the door to, and so had been given leave to enter as if I were a boarder. I slipped in, climbed the stairwell to the first floor, and rapped loudly on a door. A voice bade me enter, and I stepped inside.
Israel looked up from his studies. If someone had told me a year before that my two closest friends would be Jews, I would have laughed, having never even met one before, but so they had become. Israel is all head on a stalk of a body, with more nose and less chin than he knows what to do with. At the moment, his nose was propping up a pair of half-moon spectacles, for he had been preparing lessons for his third-form class.
“Thomas!” he cried. “What brings you to Whitechapel?”
“I was wondering if you were interested in sponsoring Ira Moskowitz in the club.”
Israel gave me a shrewd look. “You deem him worthy?”
/> “I deem him unlikely to ever be asked to join any other club,” I said.
“You are right there. But I’m just a humble teacher, not a famous detective’s assistant. The fourpence nomination fee might break me. Besides, I sponsored you. It’s your turn now.”
“Very well, I’ll pay. In fact, I’ll pay for everything.”
“You’ve ended a case?”
“No. Begun one. I’ll explain when we’re there.”
We quickly liberated Ira from his studies at the yeshiva, and spirited him away to our little club. Ira was mystified at his abduction, and more so when we turned in to St. Michael’s Alley, off Cornhill Street, unchanged for two hundred and fifty years. We opened the door of the Barbados, not a private club at all, really, but the most ancient coffeehouse on the street, and bowled him into the dark interior.
The proprietor came forward and bowed. “Good afternoon, Mr. Zangwill, Mr. Llewelyn. Have you brought a guest?”
“We’d like to sponsor this fellow for membership,” I said.
The owner looked Ira over doubtfully from head to toe. He does not have a prepossessing exterior. He is stout and pale with wiry hair that flies in every direction, and he wears spectacles. The proprietor bowed again and went to get the membership book, but he shot me a look, which said I was no longer in his good graces.
We sat down in a booth in the common room and caught up on recent history. When the proprietor returned, I plunked down the membership dues, fourpence, the cost of two cups of coffee when the street was built. St. Michael’s Alley was the heart of the West Indies trade, bringing coffee, tobacco, cane sugar, cotton, and cocoa back to Europe, hence the club’s name, Barbados. Ira was presented with a clay pipe, which he signed with a quill pen, and added his name at the tail of the subscription book. The owner brought Israel and me our own pipes, and we all lit up.
“Three black apollos,” I ordered. “Some beef chops from the grill at your convenience and a barrister’s torte for our friend.”
“Hear, hear,” Zangwill agreed.