by Will Thomas
“Do you have proof that you are who you claim to be?” the woman demanded. In response, Barker presented her with his business card.
“Don’t you have a badge or something?”
“We are private enquiry agents, madam, not constables.”
Mrs. Silverman gave him a grunt. She weighed no more than a hundred pounds in her full ensemble, but she seemed a formidable match for my employer under the circumstances. Reluctantly, she opened the door and allowed us into her own rooms. The furniture was much like that of the sitting room. The air was so dead and still inside the room, one would have thought it hadn’t been aired since Lord Melbourne’s day. I was beginning to become a convert to Barker’s ideas concerning air circulation and the body, although Mrs. Silverman didn’t look like she’d be keeling over dead any time soon.
She sat down on the edge of a chair, and we followed her lead. The padded chair I sat in was so stuffed with horsehair, I might as well have been on the actual horse. She picked up a pair of knitting needles and began to knit.
“You have questions?” she prompted.
“Yes, madam. May I ask what sort of boarder Mr. Pokrzywa had been?”
“He was the best kind. He paid on time. He asked almost nothing of me. He was not wasteful like Mr. Birnbaum, messy like Mr. Moskowitz, gluttonous like Mr. Rosenthal, or constantly complaining like Mr. Ben Judah. My only reservation against him was his large collection of books, which tended to attract cockroaches, and he was able to remedy that by powdering his shelves with boric acid. I do have my doubts about the floorboards under his bookcase, however. Books can be quite heavy, you know.”
“Did he keep regular hours?”
“No, he did not. But he peppered me with so many explanations of this charity group and that charity group that I finally gave him leave to go about his business without regaling me. That fellow needed a wife to keep him home nights. That’s what got him killed.”
“I don’t doubt it for a minute,” Barker said. I could see he was trying to be conciliatory to Mrs. Silverman, but if I saw it, so did she. Had she been a cat, the fur on her back would have stood on end.
“Had he been regular in his irregularity, then? Out most nights?”
“That boy had a fund of energy like I’ve never seen. He lived on five hours’ sleep. He worked during the day, attended classes in the evening, then was out doing charity work until late. Many is the night I’ve come upstairs at two in the morning—I’m a restless old woman, and creaks in this old, settling house disturb me—to find light under his door. I warned him reading would undermine his health, and I was right. Tell me I am right!”
We were both quick to agree.
“I suppose he had no time for lady friends.”
“Time he could have made, gentlemen,” she said, with what passed for a chuckle. “They certainly would have made time for him.”
“Did Mr. Pokrzywa ever break an appointment with you, especially in recent months?”
“No, he did not. He was polite to his landlady, unlike the rest here.”
“Were there any deviations in his schedule lately?”
“Only that his work seemed to increase. Before he would come home a few nights a week at eight thirty or nine. Now he was out until almost ten at least.”
“So, all in all, Louis Pokrzywa was a satisfactory boarder,” Barker concluded.
“If that counts for anything,” she said. “Mr. Barker, I’m an old widow woman who never had any children. The young men who live here are the closest thing to offspring I will ever have. I know my boys. Some of them go out to the pubs and drink; some attempt to consort with women of easy virtue. Several of them have the Jew’s weakness: gambling. Some have even worse vices. But I tell you the truth, Mr. Barker, a man can get killed just as easily working too hard as he can playing too hard.”
“Thank you for the advice, Mrs. Silverman,” Barker said. “May we see his room?”
“There are no locks on these doors. The room he shared with Ira Moskowitz was number five, up on the first floor.”
We made our adieus and climbed the stairwell. The first floor once held a large ballroom and sitting room, but they had been converted into bachelor flats, requiring added doors in the hall. We came up to number five and walked in.
The room we entered had been split even further. There was an invisible line bisecting it. One side was neat as a pin, and the other such a mass of clothing, papers, sheets, and textbooks as to be merely one large pile. From Mrs. Silverman’s description of Ira Moskowitz, I knew which side belonged to the late teacher. On his neat desk was an open box containing the books Pokrzywa had received on the last night of his life. To our left was a wall full of books, but there were too many to look at just now. We concentrated on the box. To a bibliophile, there is but one thing better than a box of new books, and that is a box of old ones.
Barker lifted them out and glanced at each spine before putting them down on the desk in a stack. “Immanuel Kant…Schopenhauer…Goethe, all in German. Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina in Russian. Maimonides in Yiddish. A biography of Rabbi Ben Loew in Polish. And, look here! An English-Dutch dictionary.”
“Five languages! He was well read,” I said.
“He was, indeed. I believe I’ll make an offer to the chevra on the entire collection.”
“Do you have enough room on your shelves?”
“Does a bibliophile ever have enough room on his shelves? The answer is obvious: get more shelves.” He turned to the wall of books. “What have we here? Philosophy; general Jewish studies. Kabala…”
“What is this Kabala thing? That’s the second time I’ve heard of it.”
Barker looked solemn for a second, and he even put a hand on my shoulder. “Hebrew magic and mysticism. There are some roads even I won’t pursue. Look, here’s something you don’t find on most Jewish shelves: the Holy Bible.”
“Yes,” I added, “right next to the Koran.”
“Don’t be cynical, Thomas.”
“What else is there?” I asked.
“World literature, Greek classics, some recent books…”
“Yes, it looks like Pokrzywa had been studying the Oxford Movement.”
“You shall certainly have those if I acquire the collection. I don’t read modern literature.”
We went through the drawers of the desk, examining the detritus of a man’s life, the residue of his hopes, dreams, and aspirations. I thought again of that poor fellow I’d seen on the slab in the morgue, and of how close I had come to the same state. One minute you’re a living sentient being, and the next you’re but a collection of items in a drawer or, in my case, a pasteboard suitcase.
In the bottom drawer of the desk, Barker found a jumble of filled notebooks. Louis Pokrzywa had kept a journal, of all things. What luck! We began going through them, beginning with the most recent.
“Three months old. Look for his latest.”
I searched around the desk and found it under a textbook. We had overlooked it when we searched the first time, thinking it was further study notes. Barker began going through it. He pulled his own notebook from his pocket and took notes in it with a little silver pencil. I wandered about the room, looking for…well, looking for anything. And I found it.
“Good Lord!”
“Mr. Llewelyn, please refrain from using the Lord’s name in vain. What have you found?”
“It is a picture of Louis Pokrzyra, sir, or rather, of the entire chevra. Louis is on the end.”
The framed photograph was on the wall on Ira Moskowitz’s side of the room. The entire assembly downstairs was here, as well as Israel Zangwill, Louis Pokrzywa, and a few others. Barker hopped onto the mountain of clothes and papers that formed Moskowitz’s bed, and snatched the picture off the wall. It was the first time for us to see the man in life, instead of gray and battered and mottled.
He was more handsome than I had expected. His lashes were long and his eyes dark, and his nose was well formed, almost aristocr
atic. The mustache and beard were fine, and the side-whiskers feathery. He wore a dark suit with a soft-collared shirt and a velvet tie. He looked soulful, like a Pre-Raphaelite version of Christ. He had a dreamy, abstract look in his eye. I could see why every daughter and mother in Whitechapel was courting him, and why most of the men here didn’t care much for him.
“I must have this photograph,” Barker said. “Llewelyn, go downstairs and ask Mr. Moskowitz if we might borrow it for a day or two.”
“Yes, sir,” I responded, and clattered down the stairs. I found the group of men downstairs singing some sad, Jewish song, their eyes shut. I couldn’t very well barge into the middle of their prayers. I waited an interminable amount of time, all of five minutes. Finally, Ben Loew finished the little service and looked up.
“You needed something?” he asked.
“Just to speak with Mr. Moskowitz.”
“Ira, go speak with the fellow.”
I got permission to borrow the photograph for a day or so and went back upstairs. Barker was still seated at the desk going over the journals. He was doing that off-key whistling he does sometimes, when he is on to something.
He glanced up at me. “Would you care to try a little detective work of your own?” he asked.
“Alone? Is it too soon? I mean, of course, I’ll give it a try. What is it you wish me to do?”
“See if you can pry Moskowitz away, and take him out to the Bucharest. Ask him some questions. Open him up, lad.”
“But what do I say? What do I ask?”
“Ask him, ‘What was Louis really like?’ See if that gets you anywhere. Remember everything. You won’t be able to write it down.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, doubtfully. “I’ll do it.” I took a step or two toward the door before turning back. “I’m sorry, sir, but shall I use the retainer money? It’s all I have.”
Barker pulled a large wallet of brown leather from his pocket. He opened it, looked in, hesitated for a moment, then tossed the entire wallet at me. It slapped against my chest and I caught it. I didn’t open it in his presence. I wouldn’t dare. But even as I shoved it into my own pocket, I could tell that it was stuffed with bills.
So, in a little over five seconds, I had become the wealthy young detective, interviewing a witness on his own. I felt distinctly jaunty, in my elegant new clothes, and I would have sauntered down the stairs like an aristocrat were I not still in my stockinged feet. I reached the bottom and came around the corner, into the sitting room. The prayer session had ended, and the men inside looked rather bored. The shiva goes on for days, and one may run out of wonderful things to say about the deceased within hours, possibly within minutes.
“Mr. Moskowitz, may I see you a moment again?” I asked, in a professional manner.
He got up off of his stool almost eagerly. I spoke to him in the hall.
“Needless to say, I’m no expert on Jewish funeral custom,” I told him, “but do you think it possible that I might take you down the street to the Bucharest for a bialy and coffee, where we can discuss the case? You must have a wealth of insight into Mr. Pokrzywa’s character and history, given your close daily proximity to him.”
“Well, I don’t know,” the fellow said. “One doesn’t usually leave during the shiva.”
“I understand those who cannot get out of work return when they can,” I said.
“That is true.”
“Is a man’s murder not more important than work?”
“Of course! But, still…”
“Have you eaten?”
“No,” he said. “Mrs. Silverman will be setting a cold table in an hour or so.”
“Let me stand you lunch at the Bucharest Café,” I said, figuring that Barker would not mind the expense. “They make a fine moussaka. And their goulash is excellent.”
“I’ve only ever had their coffee and bialies,” he admitted. He was not a teacher like Pokrzywa and Zangwill. A glance at his side of the room had told me that not only was he messy, he was also less affluent. Perhaps he attended the school on some sort of scholarship.
“I’ve also heard good things about their almond torte and strudel,” I went on.
“Strudel!” he repeated dreamily.
“Of course, if you can’t come, you can’t come,” I said, twisting the knife. “Some other time, perhaps.”
“No, wait!” He laid a hand on my arm. “I’m sure I can get out of it. At least, I hope I can.”
He went back into the room while I carefully put on and laced my new leather pumps. My outfit today included a pair of gray kid leather gaiters with mother-of-pearl buttons. I pulled a handkerchief from my pocket and wiped the road dust from the mirrorlike patent leather, feeling like the Prince of Wales himself.
Ira Moskowitz dashed around the corner. “I can go for an hour,” he said, thrusting his feet into a pair of disgraceful sprung elastic boots. I seized my stick, a thin wand of black wood with a maple ball on top which I had liberated from the hall stand that morning, and used it to usher the scholar out the door.
I set a brisk pace as we headed down Wilkes Road. Moskowitz clapped his hands and threw them in the air in total freedom.
“I’m so glad to be out of there!” he cried. He was a funny fellow, an inch or two taller than I, with a doughy body, and kinky, wild hair that defied any comb. He wore spectacles atop a large nose, and his jovial face grew only a scanty beard. If Pokrzywa set the pace for scholarship in the chevra, I had a good idea who brought up the rear.
12
WHEN WE HAD EACH ORDERED THE GOULASH and coffee, I immediately set into him with questions. “So,” I asked, “what was Louis Pokrzywa really like?”
“Not to speak ill of the dead, but he was impossible!” Ira Moskowitz said between bites of goulash. “Everything came so easily to him. He could sit down and write an essay in half an hour that would have the rabbis enraptured for months, while the rest of us would cudgel our brains for days and barely make a passing grade. We used all our free time to study our textbooks. He glanced through the text once, read extra books on philosophy and literature for fun, and still had hours in the evenings for good works in the community, or to eat with pretty girls and their families. There’s another teacher here, named Zangwill; I’ve seen him work for hours on his teaching plans, carefully using his skills to bring out the best in his students. But Louis walked into the classroom every morning cold, without notes, and was brilliant. I suspect that there were plans afoot among the Board of Deputies. Certain doors would be opened to him. He could ‘write his own ticket.’ It just wasn’t fair.”
“So, you boys used to chaff him a bit,” I said, sipping a passable cup of coffee.
“Oh, we did. Who says we didn’t?” he conceded, downing his coffee before taking a large bite out of a bialy. “Did you know, he had no sense of humor? None whatsoever! You could tell him the best joke you’ve ever heard, and he would just stare at you. Either he wouldn’t get the joke, in which case you would have to explain it step by step and just why it was funny, or he would say, ‘Oh, I see, that was a joke. Very humorous.’ We had arguments about him at the chevra. Some of us thought he was really otherworldly, and others believed he was just putting on an act. He could be that way, you know. It wasn’t just an accident that he looked like Jesus. He cultivated it.”
“He was vain, then,” I prompted.
“No, no. Not really. A little, I suppose. Not overtly. He didn’t stand at the mirror curling his beard or anything. But he knew what effect he had on people. He dressed very carefully. Not as well as you, of course.”
For a moment, I was self-conscious of my new suit. Poor Mr. Moskowitz was in the sort of cheap clothing I had been wearing a week before. I told myself never to forget that there were thousands of fellows in London in “reduced circumstances,” as I had been.
“How was he around women?” I asked.
“Women!” he exclaimed. “That’s a good question. Let’s talk about women, by all means. You know how they
are. The rabbis’ wives had their ears to the door. They had Louis’s dance card full very quickly. He gave some of the girls the vapors. One of them even fainted in his presence. I think half the girls in Aldgate set their cap at him. But you know how he was? Indifferent. Completely indifferent! My mouth watered when I heard some of the girls that were trotted out for his inspection. Yet he turned his nose up at all of them.”
“Was he the cold, analytical type?”
“No. Actually, I think he was a romantic at heart. I thought to myself, ‘Ira, when he falls, he will fall hard.’ Do you know what I believe? You’ll think me fanciful. I think he was looking for a princess. I think he saw himself as a knight in armor, in search of a damsel to save. Not that I could read his mind, of course. He didn’t confide in me. So far as I know, he didn’t confide in anyone.”
His words put me in mind of my late wife. I had to admit that the desire to play knight-errant was a very powerful motive, indeed.
Moskowitz’s fork had reached the bottom of his bowl of goulash. I ordered another cup of coffee and a strudel for him, and more coffee for myself. Then I sent the waiter along with a few shillings, to get us two cigars from a tobacconist down the street. The longer we dawdled, I thought, the more he might reveal. But instead, the conversation reversed itself.
“So, you’re a detective,” he said. “That must be an exciting sort of life.”
“More than you know,” I responded, thinking of the last few days.
“Do you have a gun?”
“I do own one, but I’m not armed at the moment.”
“Have you ever been shot at?”
“No,” I said, “but the last fellow to have this position was killed in the line of duty.”
“How terrible!” Moskowitz cried. “Your employer looks most mysterious. What happened to his eyes?”
“An old injury he sustained in the South China Sea,” I answered. For all I knew, it was correct.
“The South China Sea! And he sits there, so completely still, staring at you. I felt like a mouse in front of a cobra. I thought he was reading our minds.”