by Will Thomas
I began to feel positively wretched. First I discover Hettie is having a relationship with another man and then I am warned off Bok Fu Ying. My mind conjured up her China doll face and earnest eyes, the smell of jasmine in her hair. “What is to happen to Miss Winter then?”
I saw Barker frown a little. He was her guardian, after all, and these were weighty matters. “I shall find a worthy suitor for her eventually, or she shall find one for herself without my help. Really, lad, I’ve never seen a fellow so eager to get himself betrothed. You’re but a pup, but you’re as bad as Robbie Burns, falling in love at the drop of a hat. Ours is not a profession for taking wives, and especially not at your age.”
“What of Pollock Forbes?” I asked, in order to change the subject.
“Pollock? What makes you think we should include him as a suspect?”
“He knows a great deal about what was going on, and he was in K’ing’s opium den. Also, he has a ring, sir, with an insignia on it. I believe he belongs to a secret society of some sort.”
Barker gave me one of his wintry smiles. “He smokes opium because of his tuberculosis. As to secret societies, if we arrest a fellow for being a member of one, I would be the first on the list. Don’t forget, lad, that we called him into the investigation.”
I got up and nodded good night. I was on the stairs when I suddenly turned. “The text, sir. The Limehouse text. Is it really on its way to China?”
“No, lad, it is still here. In such a case as this it has been necessary to keep all my cards to myself. You understand now how vital it was that the book be kept safe, and so I gave it to the man I most trusted in London.”
“Old Quong?”
“Dr. Quong was indeed the Chinaman I gave it to, but he immediately passed it on. It was you, lad. He gave it to you.”
“Me?” I demanded, confused.
“Yes. The text is plastered against your left shoulder blade at the moment.”
All power of speech left me. I’d had it the entire time, while the killer was searching half of London for it? I was Barker’s most trusted man?
“But my injury, sir…” I began.
“Oh, there was nothing really wrong with your shoulder, lad. Once Quong set it back in place, it was right as rain. The tendons there are quite elastic. I hope you’ll forgive the minor inconvenience.”
I thought of the many sleepless nights I had with that hard cast biting into my shoulder, the discomfort as I drove the cab, the taking notes with one hand, the preparation of Barker’s dinner. It all began boiling up.
“I believe I’ll just take a walk, sir. I need some fresh air.”
Barker reached into a drawer of his desk and removed a pair of stout scissors with short curved blades. “Certainly, but I shall need the book. Take off your jacket.”
He proceeded to cut me out of the cast. Plaster rained onto the floor as he wrenched the small package from my back. It had been wrapped in cloth and looked the same as always, a dull yellow, perhaps a trifle wrinkled.
“None the worse for wear, the both of you.”
It was easy for him to say. My limp, pale arm looked ready for one of Vandeleur’s postmortems. I tried to move it, but it hung there at my side uselessly.
“Raise it up over your head and down behind you in a circle, lad. That’s the best thing for it.”
I tried, but halfway up, the atrophied muscles seized up and cramped. I cried out, then used a few choice words I’d learned in prison.
“Really, lad,” Barker said dryly. “You must learn to control your temper.”
“Thank you sir,” I said tightly. “I believe I shall put on a fresh shirt and take that walk now.”
“You do that, Thomas. You realize there is still one thing I haven’t worked out.”
“And what is that?”
“I still must decide what to do with the text.”
I passed the Elephant and Castle, decided not to stop for a pint, and walked down the Old Kent Road. It was cool that evening, but I believe winter’s hold on London had finally been broken. I walked, and as I walked, I thought. The book, that bloody, bloody book, had been in my cast from the beginning. Jimmy Woo, Mr. K’ing, Campbell-Ffinch, and Inspector Poole might have reached out at any time and laid hands on it. Barker had fooled them, had fooled us all. It was brilliant, though I hated to admit it.
When I came back in the front door, I noticed a smell and when I reached the staircase I realized it was burning paper. He’s done it, I thought. He’s burnt the manuscript. I took the staircase two steps at a time.
Barker looked over his shoulder from the fender where he knelt poking the fire. There was ash and black shreds of curling paper rising up the chimney.
“You burnt it!” I murmured.
“No, but I sat here for the last half hour considering it. It would be a wise decision, but ultimately I do not believe it is mine to make. The text belongs to the monks of the Xi Jiang Monastery.”
“So what did you burn?”
“I made a copy that first night, in the basement, a personal copy. It is not a long book, not more than seventy-five pages.”
“But if Woo had laid hands on it, he wouldn’t have needed the original.”
“I know. I translated it into Yiddish. I assumed the killer would search for the book here and be able to read English and possibly Chinese.”
“But why burn it now?”
“It is knowledge no one should have, not even I. I already know too much about dim mak and wish to learn no more. I do not desire to become a personal engine of destruction. Do you recall making nitroglycerine in the Irish case last year? Do you remember what you told me afterward?”
“Yes, sir. ‘Never again.’”
“Exactly. I feel the same about dim mak. Never again.”
“So what shall you do with the real text, sir?”
“I wish I knew, lad. I shall spend a long night praying over it. Perhaps I shall have an answer in the morning.”
32
I left Barker with the text and took myself off to bed. I was still dissatisfied and felt that justice had been thwarted somehow, but at least I had my cast off and could finally get a good night’s rest.
The next morning, Poole arrived at our chambers. One would think that after the successful capture of a murderer, an inspector would be jubilant, but apparently, such was not the case.
“How did Chief Inspector Henderson receive the news?” Barker asked his friend.
The inspector sighed. “Let us say he was less than enthusiastic. Don’t forget, Cyrus, a murder suspect died under my supervision.”
“But you caught him, nonetheless, and his murderer at the same time. That is two in one.”
“That’s not how Henderson sees it.”
“You are not under report or suspended from duty, are you?” Barker asked.
“No, but he gave me an earful I shall not soon forget.”
“That is not so bad,” the Guv pronounced. “Earfuls, one can live through. I thought you might be in disgrace, but it turns out you are merely in trouble. You successfully arrested the killer. Why should your superiors be so particular?”
“They know it was you who uncovered Jimmy Woo and they were not impressed by my cooperating with your plan to bring all the suspects together at Ho’s. Henderson had some choice words about that.”
“And yet he is acting smug enough in The Times this morning. ‘Inspector’s Killer Meets Fate.’ It has only been two weeks since Bainbridge’s death. I wouldn’t have your position for anything, Terry. If you ever decide to become a private enquiry agent, you might consider putting up your brass plate outside and taking one of the vacant offices upstairs.”
“Don’t tempt me,” he said, putting his bowler back on his head. “Next time you decide to bring all the suspects together in one room like that, let me know so that I may get safely out of the country. Good day, gentlemen.”
We watched him leave the room. I moved to the bow window and gazed out as he mar
ched along Whitehall to his offices, swinging his stick so aggressively I thought he might strike a pedestrian.
“Ungrateful, I call it,” I said.
“When one works for Scotland Yard, one must always deal with superiors and their quest for power. That is one reason I prefer private enquiry work.”
Not long after that, Campbell-Ffinch made an appearance in our chambers. He looked somewhat diminished and tired and fell into a chair at Barker’s invitation. I would not have been quite so charitable as my employer.
“For the last time, Barker,” he said wearily, “where is the text?”
“I made that perfectly clear yesterday,” Barker stated. He sat immobile in his chair, and the situation was rather reversed from how things had been when we’d first met Campbell-Ffinch at the Oriental Club.
“I do not believe you, sir, but I cannot compel you to hand it over to me, though I believe you should for the good of the country.”
Barker offered the fellow a cigar from the box on his desk. As Campbell-Ffinch took a vesta to it, I wondered if my employer was seriously considering the request or merely stalling.
“I am not the sort of person who believes every weapon should be given to the army or the Foreign Office, for that matter. Some knowledge is best forgotten.”
“Perhaps,” Campbell-Ffinch conceded. “Perhaps not. I am not certain anymore. It doesn’t really matter anyway. I’m being sent to Mongolia.”
“Mongolia? When?” Barker asked.
“Almost immediately. As far as the Foreign Office is concerned, I’ve been doing nothing this entire year and getting paid for it. My superiors are not pleased.”
“Yes, but confess it. You were making even more money on clandestine matches in the middle of the night.”
Our visitor actually chuckled. “I did, at that, I suppose, but that is all at an end. The Hammersmith Hammer is done for, I’m afraid.”
“Not necessarily,” Barker said, holding up a finger. “The Mongolians appreciate a good fight and a good wager, and they are certain to have some talented lads.”
“Will they, by Jove? I hadn’t realized,” Campbell-Ffinch said, eyeing his cigar speculatively. “I shall work my way back to London yet. I have done it before and I’ll do it again. When I do, I challenge you to a match.”
Barker ran a finger along his jaw, which was still slightly swollen. “Rules?”
“Five rounds, no holds barred. Anything goes, but no tricks before the fight. I don’t want to end up like Woo.”
“I thought you didn’t care for Mr. Woo.”
“I hated the little blighter. He got what he deserved. But I am an Englishman. I expect better treatment than that.”
“Very well,” Barker stated. “I accept your challenge. Until we meet again.”
They stood and shook hands.
After a morning of such arguments, we ate a lunch of sausages and mash at the Rising Sun. The meal and the memory were not worth mentioning save for one thing. Soho Vic, a boy Barker and other enquiry agents in the area employ, appeared and the Guv scribbled a message. He folded it and passed it into Vic’s filthy hands, along with enough money for the boy to take a cab. Somehow during the brief conversation, the urchin managed to nick my last sausage. I added it to a growing list of grievances I have against him. Someday, he would turn eighteen and I would sock him in the eye.
An hour or so later, Vic came breezing through our office, helping himself to one of Barker’s cigars for his trouble. He leaned on my rolltop desk causing the lid to crash down on my fingers as he looked all innocence. It was another notation for the list. What really annoyed me, of course, was that Soho Vic had just been on an errand and Barker had not told me what it was about. He was one up on me, and I hated nothing more. My employer read the message he brought and handed Vic another shilling. The last I saw of the street arab, he was outside, passing by our bow window, puffing on the cigar and flipping the coin in the air as carefree as a lark in spring.
Barker read for the next hour at his desk. It was one of the Scotsman George Macdonald’s pastorals, Donal Grant, I think the title was. It could not be related to the case at all, but something was brewing, I knew. The Guv only read at the office when he was marking time for an appointment.
At three o’clock, Big Ben chimed in our ears and Barker put a thin strip of tartan in his book and set it down before rising.
“You coming, lad?”
“Yes, sir,” I said, reaching for my coat. Half of my job is to be intuitive and the other half to just look like I know what is going on. This was definitely the latter.
Our destination was the Reading Room of the British Museum, one of the places in London I love best. It was here that I had whiled away my hours before I found employment and it was here also that I first spied Barker’s advertisement offering “some danger involved in performance of duties.” The Reading Room is the British equivalent of the fabled library at Alexandria, containing the sum of all modern wisdom and the accumulated knowledge of the ages. It is the repository for all of the important books in the world, and in a way, I thought of it as home.
The Guv pulled the repeater from his pocket and opened it. It was an old watch, grime having worked its way into the crevices of the filigree, but apparently it had sentimental value to him, for he rarely kept anything that was not in pristine condition.
“Three o’clock to the minute,” he stated. “I hope our appointment shall not keep us waiting. Look, I believe that is the man there.”
Barker pointed to someone standing between two rows of books in a suit of brown check. He was turned away from us, and all I could see was that he had black hair and spectacles with thick tortoiseshell rims. I recognized the bent shoulders of the inveterate scholar. We crossed the room to where he was standing, and when we were a dozen yards away he turned toward us. The fellow was Mr. K’ing.
“Thank you for coming,” Barker said to him, as if actually grateful to this man who had come so close to ordering our deaths.
“Of course. I must say, Mr. Llewelyn looks rather stunned.”
“I’ll admit to being curious myself. Is this your normal attire or is the other?”
“I am inclined to say both. I feel more comfortable in silk when I am in Limehouse, but I prefer normal English attire when I am conducting business in the West End.”
K’ing looked about the room at the readers and shelves and the thousands of books.
“I thank you for suggesting this place. I used to come here often, but lately I have been too occupied. I am afraid I have another appointment at the Bank of England in half an hour.”
“I believe,” Barker said, “that should give us enough time. May we sit?”
We found two desks together between a stout man with a beard and an anemic aesthete with a drooping mustache. I was obliged to pull a chair over from nearby.
“Thank you for responding to my request,” Barker said.
“Are you sure you have come to the right man?” K’ing asked.
“Of all the people whom I questioned concerning the manuscript yesterday, you gave the only satisfactory answer. I believe you are the man I can trust to see that it gets safely back to China.”
“Ah,” K’ing said, nodding. “Who is the recipient?”
“Huang Feihong of Canton.”
“Was it he that taught you? I should have recognized the Tiger Crane style. Might I be permitted to know what Feihong will do with this…package?”
“He shall see that it is delivered to the Xi Jiang Monastery. I shall send a telegram by steamer today so that he can expect its arrival. He shall wire me when the mission is complete.”
“China is far, far away, Mr. Barker. How do you know that I can guarantee its safe delivery?”
“You will do so by placing it in Blue Dragon Triad hands, aboard a direct Blue Funnel liner. That, along with suitable threats and inducements, should secure its safety. I assume your power extends to Canton, at least aboard ship.”
“I shall see that it is safely delivered.”
My employer then reached into his pocket and held out the book. “Be careful,” he said. “It bites.”
“So I understand,” K’ing replied, tucking it into his coat pocket. “The courier I assign will be careful and discreet.”
“Thank you.”
We all rose. Barker bowed, little more than an incline of his head. K’ing gave him one in return.
“I must apologize, Mr. Barker, for underestimating you. To think that Manchu Jack, by his very size, could best you. I had counted upon the fact that you had been long away from China and might be out of condition. Obviously, such was not the case.”
“Until we meet again, sir,” Barker said, and we went our separate ways.
Outside, Barker stopped, raised both arms over his head and stretched. The men and women streaming in and out avoided him like the other eccentrics that sometimes inhabit the museum.
“Ahh!” he exhaled. “I was never so glad to rid myself of anything in my life. May all hidden texts remain well and truly hidden and never cross my path again.”
“If all goes according to plan,” Barker said, “in a little over a month and a half, the Xi Jiang Monastery shall send word to the Forbidden City that the manuscript has been found misfiled. It never officially left the grounds.”
“And Jimmy Woo?”
“A former imperial eunuch who died in an accident. London’s dockyards can be a most dangerous place for Chinamen, as most of them know.”
“That all sounds very convenient,” I couldn’t help saying.
“Do you know what one does with a mystery in China, lad? One buries it in a foot of rubble, then two feet of soil, and one plants a public garden over it so that no one shall ever dig it up again. I think we’ve done enough for one day. Let us go home and have some tea.”
“I think I’ll have Darjeeling, sir,” I said, as Barker raised his stick for a cab. “I’m rather off the Chinese at the moment.”
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