by Will Thomas
We spent the rest of the journey in silence. Barker was irritable and I did not desire to have his discontent directed toward me. I had an unusual question on my mind, one that had only occasionally occurred to me during the course of the investigation: what if we failed?
What if we failed? We’d taken on a seemingly impossible task, hunting down a pack of murderers, a vigilante group, in a city the size of London, with only a few clues and a good deal of hope. What would happen if the league were successful in hiding their identities? Detective work is not like tailoring; when you engage a tailor, he doesn’t have to go out on blind faith, hoping that somewhere in the City there is material of the correct color and yardage sufficient to make a frock coat and trousers. We detectives wander about, making cabmen rich, asking innumerable questions and being tossed out of places, hoping that in the end we don’t look like fools with our hats in our hands. What does one say to a client at the end of a month or so? “Sorry, old man, couldn’t find the blasted fellow?” A couple of those and it’s time to take up your brass plate and see if some barrister in the Middle Temple needs a former detective to clerk and run messages.
Aldgate was the easternmost station of the Metropolitan Line, serviced by the London, Midland and Scottish line. Once we entered the station and walked down the staircase to the lower level, it was only a matter of following the policemen, who, like so many breadcrumbs, were scattered along the line. Of course, it wasn’t as easy as that, because every constable demanded complete particulars. Barker was reasonably pleasant to the first, a little less so to the second, and downright cold to the third. Finally, we came upon a clutch of blue helmets in the tunnel by the tracks, and there in the thick of them was the heavily whiskered face of Inspector Poole, looking somewhat upset himself.
“Have you removed the body?” Barker growled.
“Don’t start, Cyrus,” Poole said, running a hand through his thinning ginger hair. “We’re already in the middle of a jurisdictional nightmare. Scotland Yard maintains that this is part of an ongoing investigation, the city police claim that the murder occurred in Aldgate and belongs to them, and the railway police have announced that the death was on railway property and refuse to give it up. We’re waiting for our superiors to arrive and sort it out. The lord mayor himself may be involved by the end of the day. Still, I think I may get you close enough for a look-see.”
The body lay beside a row of wagons on a siding near the tunnel wall. It was gloomy here but not dark, for the brief tunnel was lit by gaslight on the station side and by sunlight on the other. Nevertheless, the body was lit by a single lamp which lent a strange and macabre air to the proceedings, rather like limelight from a stage. The woeful form before me was a petite woman of indeterminate age, her face marred by bruising, and her aspect made even more bizarre by her hair’s having been shorn close. Poole reached down by her side and lifted what I first took to be a scalp.
“It’s a wig,” Barker prompted. “Traditionally, married Jewesses cut their hair and wear wigs as proof against vanity. Have we any identification?”
“She had no bag, but there was a pawn ticket in her pocket.”
The two detectives discussed the investigation, while I went down on one knee and looked at the victim more closely. Despite the pallor of death and contusions, she had regular features and might once have been attractive. She was not a young woman, perhaps thirty years of age. Her lids were half closed, and the eyes tinged a dark, rusty red. I leaned forward and closed them. They were cool and waxy. I took in her plain, blue dress and stout but serviceable shoes. The last thing I noticed before standing up was the furrow around her ring finger, where a wedding band had once rested.
“Raise the lamp, lad,” Barker ordered.
I picked it up and lifted it high.
“How’d she die?” I asked.
“Back of her head’s caved in. Someone gave her a good wallop with a rock or something. There may be more, but we’re still awaiting the coroner, and I doubt he’ll be stripping the body here.”
The thought that a coroner would dare subject this poor woman’s body to such humiliation I found revolting.
“Over here, lad. Bring the lamp over here,” my employer insisted. “I want to see the message!”
“Sorry, sir!” I’d forgotten about the message. I stepped over to the wall and raised the lamp again. Against the soot-encrusted brick of the wall, the white chalk letters stood out in bold relief: “Lev. 20:10 The Anti-Semite League.”
“Leviticus twenty ten,” I read.
“What say you, Cyrus? Up to the challenge?” Poole asked.
Barker stood for a moment, sifting through chapters and verses in his mind. I’ve always admired people who would memorize long passages of scripture; a cold challenge to snap off a particular line seemed particularly hard. Finally, Barker spoke.
“And the man that committeth adultery with another man’s wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbor’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.”
We all stood for a moment, taking in the implications of the verse. Then, Poole suddenly let loose a string of curses.
“Anti-Semite League—there’s no such thing! It’s just one bloke with a grudge. Pokrzywa was sparking the old fellow’s lady here, and he set up this whole charade to lead us all on a merry chase after Jew-hating phantoms! We’re going to find this woman’s name, and then we’re going to hang her husband by his thumbs until he confesses. Hundreds of hours wasted patrolling Aldgate, trying to protect the Jews from an attack that will never bloody happen!”
“I think there’s more to it than that, Terry,” Barker said. “The East End is like a tinderbox, ready for a match to strike, and this fellow is the match. He’s still out there, trying to stir up trouble. He shot at Thomas here. I think he’s mad at the Jews, perhaps because of a real or imagined relationship between Pokrzywa and this poor woman. He’s intelligent and resourceful enough to rattle the Board of Deputies and elude our collective grasp.”
“Resourceful or not,” Poole said, pulling a notebook from his pocket, “he’s just one man. I’m alerting my superiors to issue a manhunt. Hoi! Over here!”
A young constable had come down the line, almost at a run. He pressed a piece of paper into the inspector’s hand. Poole glanced at it and thrust it into his pocket with casual indifference.
“I believe we’ve seen all we need to see here,” he suddenly announced, changing tone. “The railway police appear to have everything in hand, and this is not our jurisdiction. We shall leave them with the body. Shall we go, gentlemen?” Poole left, as if he were the living embodiment of the Criminal Investigation Department of the London Metropolitan Police Force. Barker and I followed behind him more slowly, as if we were merely headed in the same direction. We caught up with him again in the street.
“Her name?” Barker asked, hungry as a dog on the scent.
“Miriam Smith.”
“There’s your Miriam, Thomas, the one Miss Mocatta spoke of. And the address?”
“Three twenty-seven A Orient Street.”
“Poplar. Not far from the church. Have you a vehicle waiting, Terry? No? Then let us take a growler. It appears Racket has picked up another fare.”
We took the larger vehicle, Poole promising an extra half crown if we arrived in twenty minutes. As we were leaving, I noticed a few burly police officers in peaked caps arriving at the station cab stand with some speed. Poole had beaten the city and the railway police to the information. He looked pleased with himself.
“So, Mr. Llewelyn, how did you come by the name Miriam?” he demanded.
I looked at my employer.
“That information was obtained while questioning people who knew Pokrzywa,” Barker said.
“I suppose asking what you discovered during the course of the investigation is out of the question.”
Barker frowned, or seemed to, behind his spectacles. “You know I don’t answer questions without t
he permission of my clients.”
“We could compare notes,” the inspector said, hopefully.
“The fact that you offer them so readily shows how little you have.”
“I could drag you down to the station and sweat it out of you,” Poole warned.
“You could try,” Barker said.
This went on most of the journey. The two men were obviously friends but rivals when it came to work. Poole backed off several times and came in on a new tack each time, trying to pry information from Barker, but my employer was as impregnable as a clam. He wouldn’t even give him information we knew to be useless.
“What about you, young man?” Poole said, turning to me. “We know about your little stretch in Oxford Prison. We may need to question you about recent events, perhaps have you spend the night in ‘A’ Division at Her Majesty’s expense.”
It was a good threat, but I was not about to be intimidated. “You know where to find me, sir.”
“That I do!” Poole chuckled. “I could throw a sandwich from my window in Scotland Yard, and it would land on your office roof!”
The inspector alternately wheedled for information and crowed over his small triumphs. Barker balked like a stubborn bull, and I leaned against the cold window and thought of the poor thing that had until recently been called Miriam Smith. To think that days ago, the woman had been pretty enough to have a young scholar in love with her, a man who could have his pick of young women in the City. I pictured her brutal husband murdering her with some blunt instrument, destroying the skull of the woman he had promised to shelter and protect all his days. Who was this fellow? I had seen two bodies now, dead as a result of this man’s hand. Obviously, the wretch thought himself justified in murdering for their betrayal.
When we reached Orient Street, Poole was out of the cab before the vehicle even stopped. Perhaps he hoped to catch the killer at home. The street was respectable, if a little down-at-heel. Number 327A proved to be a residence turned into flats. Our knocking at Smith’s door brought many of the residents out into the hall.
“Has anyone seen Miriam Smith recently?” Poole demanded with authority.
“She gone to see her muvver days ago, now,” a stout woman spoke up.
“You saw her leave?” Poole asked.
“No. Her old man told me Tuesday. What you want wiv her?”
“Mrs. Smith was found this morning, dead at Aldgate Station!” Poole said. He seemed to enjoy causing a sensation. “What is Mr. Smith’s first name?”
“John!” the chorus called out.
“Not a very original alias,” Barker growled in my ear. “You’ll find in the East End that people change names as often as we change suits. It is possible that Mrs. Smith was not even his legal wife at all. We are on the fringe of Anglo-Jewish society here, where Jewish-Gentile couples live, and the few fallen Jewish women ply their trade.”
“When did any of you last see John Smith?”
There was a buzz of conversation, and an old fellow obviously in failing health spoke up. “Three days ago, near abouts.”
“What was Mr. Smith’s occupation?” Poole demanded.
Another murmur arose, accompanied by the shrugging of many shoulders. No words were forthcoming.
“Well?”
“Dunno, sir,” the old man answered. “ ’E told me ’e were in the sugar-making trade like, sir, but Jasper ’ere says Smith claimed to be an ’ostler. Reckon ’e changed jobs reg’lar, as people do, ’ereabouts.”
“What were the Smiths like?” Barker asked.
“Kept to themselves,” the plump woman said. “Bit high and mighty, if you ask me. I fink they was Jews, or at least she was. Been havin’ rows lately. Shoutin’ several times at night. Reckoned she’d packed up and gone home to mum. Looks like he done her in, he has.”
“Does anyone else live in this flat along with the Smiths?” Poole continued.
“No, sir.”
“And they haven’t been here in three days?”
They all agreed neither had been there.
“Then I declare this flat abandoned. Is the landlord here?”
“Not ’im,” the old man cackled. “ ’E’s absentee, every day but rent day.”
“Very well!” Poole called. Turning, he raised his foot and brought it forward against the lock with great force. Barker had trained him well. Part of the door frame splintered, and the door swung open with a crash against the wall. The inspector stepped inside, we followed, and the residents of number 327A Orient crowded around the door and peered in.
It was a spare little working-class flat, though opulent by the standards I had once lived under. There were antimacassars on the backs of faded stuffed chairs and framed pictures pulled from magazines on the walls. Miriam Smith had worked hard to make the shabby apartment habitable. Everything was spartan but clean. The flat seemed unnaturally still, however, and I had to agree with Inspector Poole’s assertion that it had been abandoned.
The room was divided by a screen and a blanket hanging from the ceiling. We moved into the back portion of the room.
“No blood,” Barker noted, looking about. “She wasn’t murdered here, unless Smith cleaned up afterwards.”
“Search the drawers,” Poole suggested, and we immediately began going through everything. Most of the dead woman’s personal effects were still here, worn but carefully repaired. The suspect’s clothing was gone, as was anything referring to him, save for a certificate of marriage on the wall, from a church in Brighton. There were no photographs and no evidence of where Smith might have gone.
“Scampered,” Poole pronounced. “I’ll have my men take this place apart board by board in the morning, but we’re losing valuable time now.” He turned to the crowd. “Can anyone describe John Smith?”
The crowd pushed forward a hesitant-looking Jewish fellow with long side locks and a cap he was twisting in his hand.
“Sir,” he said gravely to the inspector, wringing his hat until it resembled a challah. “Sir, I am a street artist. If I could just go get my charcoal and some paper, I could sketch him in just a few minutes.”
“Get your things, by all means,” Poole agreed. The fellow ran downstairs and returned with a piece of butcher’s paper and a charcoal pencil. We sat him down in one of the worn dining chairs and left him to reconstruct the man from memory, while we combed the flat for more clues. All we found of interest was Miriam Smith’s Bible. It had no bulletin from the Poplar church, but her handwritten name on the dedication page was in the same handwriting as the notes we had, or so Barker pronounced. Miriam Smith was definitely the woman with whom Louis Pokrzywa had been passing messages.
“I’ve got it,” the street artist called in triumph. The three of us crowded around him and looked into the face of our possible murderer for the first time. It was a square, clean-shaven face, a man of perhaps forty years with a birthmark on his chin. He had typically British features and gave the appearance of a stern, no-nonsense sort of person. It was an intelligent face, and not one I would associate with violent behavior. Most of all, though I did not recognize his face, I somehow felt I had seen him recently, if only I could place just where.
“He matches the description of the man in the park who Da Silva said was speaking against the Jew,” Barker said, turning to Poole. “I believe this has answered your question, Terry. Whether the deaths were personally motivated or not, this fellow obviously has an agenda against the Jews. I still think he will attempt to force a pogrom if he can.”
When we came out of the building, it was nearing six. Poole was anxious to take the sketch to Scotland Yard, and Barker and I were hungry, neither of us having eaten since breakfast. We parted company, and the Guv and I walked back to the station, where we were able to catch a hansom dropping a fare. I fell asleep in the cab and knew nothing until Barker shook me roughly to say we were at the Elephant and Castle. We were a couple of tired and hungry men as we passed down the lane behind Barker’s home and reached for the lat
ch of the back gate. All my thoughts were of a filling dinner and a warm bed. The last thing I expected was for us to be set upon in our own alleyway.
26
AT LEAST A DOZEN MEN CAME AT US OUT OF the gloom of the alley, their hands filled with staves, axe handles, and other makeshift weapons. I recognized none of them. Was this it, I wondered? Were we finally being set upon by the Anti-Semite League? Roughly, Barker thrust me through the gate and followed behind. With a ham-sized fist, he smacked a small brass gong which hung near the entrance. The sound reverberated around the small enclosure. At the far end of the garden there was a horrid screech. It was Harm giving the alarm. Without slowing his cacophony, he flew across the lawn, charging the first intruder. Pekingese, I have discovered, have absolutely no fear when it comes to protecting their property from invasion.
Harm sunk his razorlike teeth into the ankle of the first man, bringing a cry of pain to his lips. Before he could do any further damage, however, a second fellow caught the little dog full in the ribs, a savage kick that brought a yelp of pain from the poor animal, and sent him flying several feet into the bushes.
That tore it, as far as I was concerned. I saw red. Just who did these blighters think they were, coming onto our property and kicking our dog? There the big blackguard stood, his foot still in the air. Is it any wonder I seized the offending foot in my hands and planted my own full in the fellow’s stomach?
Another scoundrel seized my lapel and raised a club, ready to strike me down. It was just like an exercise in Barker’s class. I trapped his hand with my own, stepped back, and raised my other arm up hard, striking him in the elbow joint. I felt rather than heard the break, and the fellow went down holding his arm. At that moment, I was struck two different blows by men armed with staves, and I tried another trick that Barker had demonstrated in class: run when you are momentarily outnumbered.
As I passed him, Barker appeared in little trouble. He was mowing men down as if they were skittles. I saw him pick up one fellow like a doll and toss him into two more. Then he seized one of the others by the wrist, and flipped him so fast, he caught another in the jaw with the man’s foot. My employer might have been out for a little light evening’s entertainment, but I had a ringing head and a sore shoulder and was in need of a good wall to put my back against.