Blood Is Blood

by Will Thomas

  It was warm as I walked about the city. I didn’t have a particularly good time alone. I wanted Rebecca with me. I watched people drinking and laughing in a small corner café and looked into the windows of brasseries. People walked by with baguettes under their arms or over their shoulders like small rifles. The smell made me hungry, but I could not eat. I just walked from one arrondissement to another.

  A nearby cathedral bell was tolling when I returned. It was late for me, but still early for Paris, City of Lights. I went back to the hotel and climbed into a rickety lift, built for no more than a single person. A standing coffin, rising and lowering all day and night. It was only my third or fourth time in one and I didn’t care for it. A box suspended by mere rope or cables did not seem safe.

  Unlocking my room, I stepped in and took a tumble. My foot had slid on something. I turned up the gas to see what it was. A slip of paper had been slid under the door, now crumpled by my tread. I reached forward and unfolded it.

  It was a cheap sort of paper, the kind with splinters of wood imbedded in it. There was grime along the crease from dirty fingers. A single word was written on the paper, in some kind of dusty graphite or charcoal. One word: “Londres.” London. Jacques Perrine had gone to London, where he crawled into our cellars and blew down Barker, like the big bad wolf that huffed and puffed.

  It was possible that the note itself was a trap. Someone could be trying to get rid of me, or perhaps they hated Perrine enough to scrawl the word and deliver it to my door. That could be the only explanation, for whoever wrote the note did not receive a sou. There, I thought. The case was solved. So, why did I feel dissatisfied? Because I was here and Rebecca was in London, where Archer and Mercier must be.

  Should I leave immediately? Did I need to warn Barker? Were telegrams carried to places as ancient as the Priory of St. John? I decided the Guv was convalescing as safely as anyone anywhere. It would take a small army to push their way in, and no bomb could damage that ancient stone.

  Likewise, the house in Lion Street was safe. Jacob Maccabee and I might have our differences, but he had a second sight when it came to danger in his domain. Also, he was very fond of grapeshot in a sawn-down shotgun. The dog named Harm, in his way, was formidable as well, and more than one night visitor had run from his attack.

  The offices were surely not a target again. There was little left to bomb. For a moment I thought of Mrs. Ashleigh’s London townhome, but it was only a pied-à-terre. She came to town for a reason, and was rarely in the building. Besides, Sarah Fletcher was watching her, armed with her small pistol.

  Then something hit me so hard, my legs crumpled beneath me. I had forgotten to secure my own bridge. I had a vision of the house in Camomile Street going up in flames, in pieces, blown to atoms. Before I knew it, I was out the door and slipping clumsily down the stairwell. My feet were so useless I would have thought they belonged to someone else. Finally I reached the lobby, and when I found the desk clerk standing there half asleep, I woke him by throwing franc notes at him.

  “Le télégramme, s’il vous plaît! Le télégramme, monsieur!”

  “The telegram office is two streets from here, sir,” he said in better English than my French. “But I regret to inform you they are closed for the night.”

  “When does it open in the morning?” I asked irritably. Rebecca might be in danger.

  “Seven o’clock, sir. Perhaps seven-thirty. Surely it will be open by eight o’clock.”

  Inwardly, I cursed all Europeans for their lack of interest in times tables. When a sign on the door says they are open at seven, they should not open the door as late as 7:01.

  “Thank you, sir,” I said, as I began to trudge up the stair.

  I went to bed but only succeeded in staring at the cracked ceiling for half an hour. I told myself I should sleep. The chances that Rebecca would be attacked while I was away were remote. Not nearly remote enough for me, however.

  The real possibility existed that I had solved the case. Perrine, the only man on the list capable of making a bomb, had been visited by a son-in-law and his wife, Camille. Camille was in London, and Perrine probably was, too, so one could expect that this man, Mercier, was there as well. The two men in the tunnel had been he and his father-in-law.

  The next morning, Caleb knocked and came into the room. I had already been to the telegram office the moment it opened and sent a message to Mac to enlist Barker’s favorite bodyguard, Bully Boy Briggs, to immediately go to Camomile Street and guard Rebecca. I glanced at the clock and saw that it was already nine o’clock. Caleb looked as if he’d been run over by a cart.

  “Where’ve you been?” I asked.

  “Enjoying the bountiful sights of Paris and nursing champagne.”

  “Are you in any condition to get on a train and go back to London?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the ferry across the Channel?”

  “That remains to be seen.”

  “I’m sure it does. Breakfast?”

  He waved a hand at me, as if I’d suggested viewing a postmortem. “Sorry the trip was for naught. For you, I mean: one name on a piece of paper.”

  “Try two lines on two pieces of paper.”

  He glanced at me through bloodshot eyes as I handed it to him. He tried to focus. It was not difficult. The one word was two inches tall.

  “Someone followed us to the hotel from Perrine’s old place,” he said. “Aren’t we a couple of crack detectives?”

  “Enquiry agents.”

  “Speak for yourself.”

  “You know investigations,” I said. “Sometimes you come up empty-handed. One throws out a line and hopes something nibbles. A full half of an investigation consists of dead ends.”

  “That’s how it works. I haven’t figured a way to avoid it. When I first started I figured if I stumbled down the wrong trail, I’d get in trouble back in Chicago. Since then I realized it’s just a part of the game.”

  I pulled on my boots and attached my collar.

  “Well, this case is solved. Camille and Antoine Mercier worked with her father to bring down the Guv, and Perrine is in London now with them. I need to get back at once.”

  We took a cab to the Gare du Nord. Hours later we reached Calais and the ferry. Crossing the Channel I stood and studied the White Cliffs of Dover, a sign that we would soon be in England again. England, with a French bomber threatening our lives, and a young woman who had some imagined need for vengeance against me and mine. Caleb Barker clung to the rail of the ferry deck, looking the worse for wear. I felt a certain satisfaction watching him.

  My mind returned to my own problems. I hoped Briggs was already standing in front of Rebecca’s house, keeping watch. It depended on how quickly Mac could find him. And while I was at it, I hoped the Guv would be released from the hospital soon. Everything was out of sorts. I began to doubt I would emerge unscathed from this enquiry to stand beside my bride on our wedding day.

  In Dover, we climbed aboard the express to St. Pancras Station and all points north. Caleb was silent, his nocturnal escapades no doubt catching up with him. He didn’t speak on the train, and he only muttered when we retrieved our luggage at the end of the journey.

  We parted company. A cab took me to the City, and in particular to the shadow of the synagogue. I alighted and saw Bully Boy Briggs standing not more than a dozen feet from Rebecca’s residence. He is big, lumpy, menacing, and dangerous. He’s also a member of an East End chess club.

  “Hello, James,” I said as I walked up to him. “Thank you for coming on such short notice.”

  “Any time, Thomas. I appreciate the double rate. Is that girl in there yours?”

  “She will be in a week or so.”

  “Congratulations. She’s pretty.”

  “She is that. How’s Minerva?”

  “Cracking.”

  Briggs had married as well. His wife would be delivering a son in a few months, if he was lucky. He had probably walked here from Bethnal Green.
No cabs for him. Every sou went for the comfort of his wife and their coming baby. What he had was what all men desire. Myself, included.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I pinched my brim to Bully Boy Briggs and returned to the cab. He nodded solemnly, and turned away, looking solid and menacing to the world at large. She was safe, but I would not tarry. “Clerkenwell!” I cried and was nearly pulled off my feet as the hansom jerked forward. It is not a far distance from the City to St. John’s Priory.

  “Sir,” I said when I entered his hospital room.

  He was sitting in a bath chair by the bed, swathed in a large sheet that left one arm uncovered, rather in the manner of a Roman senator. His chest was pale against the swarthy skin of his face and arms. The contraption on his shin was balanced atop a second mechanism to keep it suspended. He looked dejected, but rallied on sight of me, pushing himself higher in his chair with a wince.

  “Ah, Thomas, lad,” he said. “Good to see you. How was Paris?”

  “It was the same as always, sir. But I think I may have solved the case, or at least gained some solid information while I was there.”

  “Did you?” he asked.

  His response was not enthusiastic, nor was it chilled. I knew he always counseled patience, so I tempered my actions accordingly.

  “Sit down and give me your report,” he said.

  I did, telling him everything that had happened from the moment we stepped aboard the express, until we had departed from it the day after. He listened with his arms crossed, concentrating.

  “Mrs. Archer is making a nuisance of herself,” he finally said when I had finished.

  “She is, most decidedly,” I agreed.

  “The name Mercier is familiar to me, but I cannot remember from where. Perhaps it will come to me later. Perrine has left Paris?”

  “Yes, sir. He’s here!”

  “Thomas, you cannot make that assumption based on an anonymous note.”

  “Where else would he go?” I asked. “He hates you.”

  “He hates a number of people. However, he needs to get his materials from Russia. Neither France nor England would allow him to purchase proper equipment. He had to have purchased the devices somewhere.”

  “Our offices were blown up, sir. It is more than coincidental.”

  “Perhaps, but you have not convinced me.”

  “What does he look like, sir? At least we should keep an eye open for him.”

  “Not an elegant figure. Short, bristly black hair, a broken nose, and a short beard. A very hirsute fellow. Believe it or not, he is an idealist. He wholeheartedly believes that all monarchs should be swept away and replaced with a new order. Anyway, that is his description. He sports the same anarchy tattoo as I, but his is buried ’neath a mat of fur.”

  “It is good to see you sitting up, sir. Where is Mrs. Ashleigh?”

  “I sent Philippa to her town house to get some rest. That chair is akin to a medieval torture device.”

  “Have they said when you will be released? Mac and I must begin the process of turning the parlor into a convalescing room. I don’t believe this chair will fit up the stairwell to your room.”

  “They will not tell me,” he rumbled. “It is maddening! I considered leaving, but Philippa refused to wheel me to the front door!”

  Cyrus Barker of Craig’s Court, Whitehall, did not like to be at the mercy of someone else’s decisions. He is independent, if the word can be used to describe a man for whom other men worked. He preferred to forge his own destiny. That’s a positive way of saying that the man was accustomed to getting his way.

  “I shall ask Mac to help me as soon as I am home.”

  “Did Caleb make a nuisance of himself in Paris?”

  “Not especially, though he did enjoy some degree of debauchery last night. He was certainly dispirited this morning.”

  “Mother would pray for his soul,” he said, shaking his head.

  “That’s probably a good idea.”

  “Did he give any indication of why he was still in Europe?”

  “No, sir. I tried pressing.”

  “Keep an eye on him. Did you account for his movements, save for his visits to the city’s dens of iniquity?”

  “No, sir, but he arrived late this morning. I can’t both work the case and keep track of him.”

  “Agreed. Perhaps I shall put Miss Fletcher on the task. He didn’t see her.”

  I nodded; it seemed wise. She was working for us, after all.

  “She doesn’t like me very much,” I told him.

  Barker gave me one of his wintry smiles. It was the first I’d seen since the bombing. “That’s for the best, with your coming nuptials,” he said. “Hewitt tells me she finds fault with all of our sex.”

  “There is certainly enough evidence to warrant that assumption,” I said.

  Barker winced. I could see it in the skin beneath his round Chinese spectacles.

  “What’s wrong, sir?”

  “A twinge.”

  I’d like to see what a twinge was to him. No doubt whatever it was would have had me screaming in pain.

  “Do you believe you will be able to attend the wedding?”

  “Of course I shall attend your wedding!”

  I raised my hands. I’d ruffled his feathers. Under the current conditions, he was liable to be moody for some time to come.

  “I’m trying to lobby the telephone exchange to install a temporary set here in the hospital,” he went on. “I would pay well for the privilege, but the directors of the priory are not happy with the idea. Apparently, telephones are not monastic enough for them.”

  “Sir, that’s not necessary. I can come around more frequently, if you like.”

  “No,” the Guv said. “You shall be far too busy. Now you must go to Newgate Prison to see Mr. Strathmore.”

  “Why, if I may ask? We already know who is responsible for your injury. It is Jacques Perrine.”

  His mustache curled up on one side in disappointment. “What are the chances that the first lead you follow will guide you to the right man? Or, in Mrs. Archer’s case, the right woman?”

  “In theory, it has to happen sometime.”

  “Let us say it is mathematically unlikely. In either case, it would be worthwhile to proceed with the enquiry and investigate the other men on this list. It might prove instructive, at the very least.”

  I nodded. “I suppose that makes sense.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Llewelyn. I am pleased it meets with your approval,” he said. There was a layer of frost over that last remark.

  “Yes, sir. Shall I visit Burberry Asylum as well?”

  “Of course. I am curious as to how Dr. Pritchard is faring.”

  “Very well.”

  “Keep your notebook by your side and your pencil sharp. Take down what is said, what is done, your own personal opinions on what you’ve seen, and anything else that occurs to you. In effect, you are my eyes and ears, while I am stuck in the blasted chair!”

  “Yes, sir. Do you still want Caleb to go with me?”

  “If he is willing. Have you noted that he has not seen me since our first meeting a few days ago? He can lie to anyone, but I’ve known him too long to fall for one of his schemes. That brother of mine has plans of his own, something we may know nothing about. Play upon his weaknesses. He has always been vain. He’ll believe himself better qualified to run this investigation.”

  “Oh, he does that,” I said. “He’s told me several times to rely upon his skills.”

  “Keep him at your side when possible,” the Guv said. “Perhaps he will show his hand and reveal if he keeps any appointments that might indicate he has an accomplice.”

  “You sound as if you believe he is involved in the bombing.”

  Barker considered the point. “It is generally wise to accept the probability that Caleb is in some sort of trouble or is keeping something private.”

  “I’m not surprised.”

  “Since there has been
no other person who can verify or dismiss my brother’s words, we must interpret everything he says for ourselves.”

  I considered what he said, still looking down at my employer in his makeshift toga.

  “I suspect there are layers and layers of things we don’t know,” I said.

  “Worse than that, perhaps, is that whatever he says he believes, and he feels justified in whatever he does.”

  Having agreed, I left as his lunch arrived. Priories are not known for their cookery, but then, neither is Barker a gourmand. He would eat whatever was put in front of him. As far as he was concerned, it was merely fuel. It had been making Etienne apoplectic for two decades.

  Back in Whitehall, I considered what to do next, assuming Jacques Perrine was in town, along with his son-in-law and daughter. We must find him as soon as possible, and stop him before he could inflict more damage. But how? There had to be some solution.

  The door opened below and I heard an assured tread upon the stair. I did not like these upper offices. There was no escape except those self-same steps. I didn’t relish jumping out a window.

  There was a flash of blue and I heard a voice asking to speak to me. His English was flat like Caleb’s. Another American, I thought to myself. A man about my age entered the room and took in everything, myself included. He was nearly as tall as Barker and as deep chested. His face was clean shaven and his square jaw was cleft. I’ve yet to meet an American who didn’t tower over me.

  He wore some sort of military uniform, consisting of a blue tunic, lighter-colored trousers with a red stripe, and a peaked cap. His buttons were highly polished.

  “Mr. Llewelyn?” he asked.

  “I am he.”

  “I am Captain Yeager of the United States Marine Corps, assigned to the American Legation. I must ask, sir, if you are acquainted with a man named Caleb Barker.”

  I sighed. “Yes, I am.”

  “Could you give me his address, or do you know how to locate him?”

  “He has not divulged the name of his hotel, nor do I happen to know his exact whereabouts.”

  “It is vital that I speak to him.”

  “What has he done now?” I asked.