Cursed in the Act

by Raymond Buckland

  “Not if I can help it.” Stoker strode over to where George Dale still stood scratching his head and looking about him, not knowing what to expect.

  “Mr. Dale. We need your assistance. I am Mr. Abraham Stoker of the Lyceum Theatre . . .”

  “Oh yes, sir. I knows you. I know young ’Arry, ’ere. We been mates for many years.”

  I would not have put it quite like that, but this was not the time for niceties. I quickly explained to George what was happening and asked if he could help.

  “They took the young ’un? Miss Terry’s boy?” His eyes opened wide. I nodded. “You sure about that . . . ? Not that I’m doubting your word, sir,” he said to Stoker, “but takin’ a young boy from ’is mother, right out of the theatre . . . now that ain’t right.”

  “Not at all right,” agreed my boss. “Now, time is of the essence. We need to find where they have taken the child. How can you help us?”

  George lifted his well-worn bowler and again scratched his head. “I’m your man, if’n I can be,” he assured us. “’Oo did you say was involved?”

  “Mr. Ogoon, Ralph Bateman’s foreign friend,” I said. “And Ralph himself, of course. We don’t know who else. Tell me, George, who has been hanging around with Ralph and Ogoon recently?”

  “Only one as I know of would be that ’Erbert Willis.”

  “Willis? Of course!” muttered Stoker. “We should have guessed.”

  “Was he with them tonight?” I asked.

  “No. Monday night is ’appy night for Mr. Willis. Never misses.”

  “Happy night? Whatever do you mean, George?” I was intrigued.

  “In Whitechapel, as I ’ave it. There’s a ’ticular one as our Mr. Willis goes to. Never misses.”

  I looked at Stoker for an explanation. “Opium, Harry. There are lots of dens in Chinatown. Used mostly by seamen, but quite a few so-called gentlemen from the West End go out to Limehouse on a lark. Some for more than just a lark, too. I didn’t realize they were also in Whitechapel.”

  “Ho, yes!” said George. “There’s ones in Whitechapel a bit more posh than them Chinatown ones, they say. It appears our Mr. ’Erbert Willis is somewhat addicted to the stuff, as I ’ear it.”

  “You know where this particular den of iniquity is, Mr. Dale? There’s a sovereign in it if you do. We have to find out from Willis where Messrs. Bateman and Ogoon may have taken young Edward. Time is of the essence.”

  “’Ave no fear, Mr. Stoker, sir.” George Dale pulled himself up as straight as he ever could. “I don’t ’old with the doings of Ralph Bateman and I most certainly don’t ’old with takin’ a young man like that, especially one belonging to Miss Terry. You don’t ’ave to pay me no sovereign, Mr. Stoker. I’ll tell you all I know. No problem.”

  * * *

  The hansom made good time to the Whitechapel area, just north of the Commercial Road. I was worried about the passing hours and said so to Mr. Stoker.

  “I don’t think we need be too concerned, Harry,” he said. “Time is certainly of the essence, as I have observed, but I don’t think they mean young Edward any immediate harm. I’m presuming they have in mind some sort of ransom demand. If so, then they can do nothing until tomorrow morning at the earliest, so they will be holding the boy in some safe place. The location of that place is what we need to learn from Mr. Willis. Now, the inestimable Mr. Dale said we should find him just off New Road, Whitechapel, at the end of Green Street. Ah! We seem to be arriving at our destination.”

  He banged on the trap with his cane and the driver pulled in to the curbside and stopped. We alighted.

  “Wait for us here,” Stoker said to the man, and then led the way along to the top of the well-worn stone steps descending to a cul-de-sac. There was one solitary street gas lamp at the top of the stairs, its light greatly diminished by the fog drifting off the river. I took hold of the rickety handrail and followed the bulk of my boss as he moved slowly downward. At the bottom of the steps we paused and looked about us.

  “Over there,” said Stoker, swinging his cane to point in the direction of a small cluster of shops alongside the solid blackness that was one of a set of warehouses.

  As we drew near the group I was able to make out a low-flamed gas jet protruding, globeless, alongside the front entrance of the shop. It was the only illumination in that area. The shop doorway itself seemed tightly closed.

  “I don’t think there’s anyone here,” I muttered. It didn’t seem right to speak loudly, for some reason.

  “Nonsense,” said Stoker, his voice booming and echoing across the water lapping the wharf. “This has to be the place.”

  He raised his cane and rapped on the door. There was no response. He rapped again, a dozen times at least. A small grid in the door, which I had not noticed before, slid to one side and a pair of eyes looked out and studied us. No words were spoken. Stoker himself said nothing but held up a half sovereign, turning it in his fingers so that it might catch the glimmer of light issuing from the gas jet. The grid slid closed again.

  “Now what?” I asked.

  “Shh! Patience, Harry,”

  We must have stood there for two or three minutes before we heard a lock turn and the door inched open. An ancient Chinese face filled the narrow gap. I couldn’t tell whether it was a man or a woman. The figure held a candle, which sputtered in the slight breeze.

  “You want?”

  “We want entrance,” stated Stoker. “Kindly step aside.”

  But the figure remained firmly blocking the doorway. “Name?”

  “My name?” responded Stoker. “I don’t think . . .”

  The person tut-tutted and shook his head. I had pretty much decided that it was a man, though some slight doubt still remained. “Herbert Willis,” I said.

  The face turned to look at me, raising the candle higher. Then he held out a skeletal, clawlike hand with long, dirty fingernails. “Crown,” he said.

  “How did you know he needed Willis’s name?”

  “I guessed that we required some sort of introduction, sir,” I said. “I remembered that Willis is a regular here so assumed his name would give us passage.”

  “Well done, Harry.”

  As soon as Mr. Stoker had paid the crown we were allowed in, with the door being closed firmly behind us. The man led the way back into the darkness, his long, loose-flowing robe dragging on the floor. He opened a second very low door and we followed into a long room with dim light coming from two or three lanterns hanging along the length of the room.

  The room was filled with a sweet-smelling smoke that I found attractive yet repulsive at the same time. The floor of the room was covered with pallets in low wooden frames, side by side and end to end, stretching away into the far reaches of the establishment. Two young Chinese boys, dressed in soiled blue canvas jackets and ragged short trousers, wearing the rope-soled shoes favored by the Chinese, scampered back and forth over bodies stretched out on the pallets. The pair brought long-stemmed pipes and glowing charcoal to the variety of men lying in various stages of stupor. Some were sitting up drawing on the pipes, while others lay flat, the ends of the pipes still held between their lips, their eyes glazed, closed, or half hooded. One or two of the imbibers muttered to themselves, a few laughing quietly at something imagined.

  I looked to Mr. Stoker. I had heard of these opium dens but never seen one before. My boss did not seem at all affected by his surroundings. He looked about him and even rolled a couple of men over onto their backs the better to see them.

  “Ah! Here we are!” he cried.

  “Shh! No talk!” hissed the man who had led us in. He waved his hands to silence us.

  Stoker ignored him and dragged Willis into a more or less upright sitting position.

  “Here, Harry. We’re going to have to get him out of this idiocy if we are to get any sense out of him.”

&n
bsp; “Shh! No talk! No talk!”

  We ignored the man until I became aware of another figure who had advanced from the dim, smoky, far end of the room. It was the largest man I had ever seen. He was stripped to the waist and stood with massive arms folded across a huge barrel of a chest. His jet-black hair was pulled back in a queue, and his equally black eyebrows met together in a frown that did more to quiet us than did any number of “No talk!” orders.

  The man reached across two other semicomatose figures to pluck Willis off of his pallet. Slinging Herbert over his shoulder, the giant pushed past us and made for the door through which we had entered. Reaching it, he flung it open and pitched Willis out into the night. As he then turned to us, Stoker and I squeezed around him and dashed out of the building. I heard the door slam behind.

  * * *

  “Fank you for wasting my ’alf crown!”

  Willis’s dirty blond hair looked dirtier than usual. It stuck out at different angles, making him look like a scarecrow.

  “Let us have the information we seek and I shall be happy to reimburse you,” said Stoker. “Now, where would Mr. Bateman have taken the boy you kidnapped?”

  “Kidnapped? Boy? I’m sure I don’t know what the ’ell you’re goin’ on about.” The nervous tick in his right eye started working overtime.

  “You know perfectly well. I will be more than happy to hand you over to Sergeant Bellamy if I don’t get some sense out of you. Some of his men can be none too fussy about how they extract information when it is needed.” Bram Stoker is a big man and he can look fearsome when he wants to. He wanted to now. He drew his brows together and glared at Willis, his face only inches away.

  I pulled out my new half hunter and looked at it. I was surprised to see it was almost two of the clock in the morning. Stoker glanced at the dial and then turned back to Willis.

  “Two minutes, Mr. Willis. That is all the time we can give you. Two minutes in which to tell us where your confederates are hiding the boy.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Of course you do.”

  “I don’t, I tell you. They wouldn’t tell me.”

  “Where could they be hiding him?” I said.

  “They wouldn’t hold him at the theatre,” said Stoker. “And I doubt very much they’d be foolish enough to try to secrete him at the home of any one of you. Where else is there, that would be secure?”

  I had an idea. “Willis, when Mrs. Crowe took over Sadler’s Wells Theatre, she had to clear out a great deal of stuff she didn’t need, did she not?”

  “Good, Harry!” cried my boss. “Yes. I remember when the Guv’nor took over the Lyceum, the same thing. He threw out a vast quantity of material and a tremendous amount was put into storage, just in case it should be needed for some future production. I particularly remember several thousand peacock feathers, for example.”

  “You can’t keep everything backstage,” I agreed. I turned back to Willis. “So where is the storage for Sadler’s?”

  Willis looked somewhat surprised. I honestly think he hadn’t known where Ralph had taken the boy, but I think he now saw that I was probably right. It would be a good place to hide someone, and not at all obvious.

  “Ralph did say somefink just a few days ago about the old warehouse,” he muttered grudgingly. “I asked ’im what he was goin’ on about but ’e just told me to shut up!”

  “Good.” Stoker nodded. “Now all you have to do is to tell us where it is located.”

  “All I know is that it’s off the Mile End Road.”

  “South of the gas works?”

  He nodded, his brow furrowed. I could see him trying to picture the route. I imagine he had not traveled it any great number of times, the last time probably far in the past.

  “Not far from the Docks,” he said. “London Docks. Off Old Manor Road. I fink it was Salmon Lane, on the left as you gets toward the river.”

  “Salmon Lane?” said Stoker.

  “I fink so.” The tick was at work again.

  “Hmm. And where exactly on that road might we find it?”

  “It’s a bleedin’ big ware’ouse on the left. I fink it’s the first one you come to. Fact I never went no farther down the road so it may be the only one, for all I know.”

  “How far would that be from here, sir?” I asked my boss.

  “Not too far,” he said, cryptically. “But whatever the distance, we must be on our way. Mr. Willis, if you should be misleading us . . . we will meet again; have no fear.”

  Willis seemed to shrink back and looked down at his feet. “Don’t you worry none,” he mumbled.

  Stoker gave a final hrmph and turned away, leading us back to the still-waiting hansom and leaving Willis to fend for himself.

  * * *

  The weather had worsened and the snow fell heavily. Our two-wheeler turned onto Whitechapel Road and then, from there, to Mile End Road. There we turned south. Through the driving snow I barely made out the Commercial Gas Works on our left, under their many flickering gaslights, though the “bad-egg smell” was inescapable. The gas was produced by fueling with coal. I envied the men in there working in the heat, no matter how suffocating it might have seemed.

  Then we were on past that, down Old Manor Road. It was difficult seeing through the driving snow, and I think our cabbie earned every penny of his fare. Many times he slowed as he came to a side road, presumably to make out the name of the road. Eventually we came to Salmon Lane and made the turn. The cab stopped and the trapdoor opened.

  “You sure you know where you’re going, mate?”

  “I most certainly do, cabbie,” said Stoker. “Now, you have been paid and paid well. Pray continue.”

  The cabdriver grunted and said something under his breath that I’m sure was not polite. We eventually came to a high fence, behind which we could just make out what looked like a warehouse. We were not far from the Limehouse Basin and the London Docks. Many such warehouses are scattered along the roads about that section, on the north bank of the river. My boss had our driver stop, and Stoker and I disembarked. I was stiff and took some time stretching, while Stoker negotiated with the cabdriver to wait for us, not knowing just how long we would be. The man was very reluctant, after all this time, but there was no chance of him finding a return fare in that area, so he climbed into his own cab to sleep until such time as we returned.

  “Softly, Harry. Softly,” said Stoker as we started walking toward the warehouse gates.

  There was a single street lamp alight close to the warehouse, but the light was dim in the swirling snow that still descended. One bonus of the snow was that our footsteps were muffled in the growing accumulation.

  “What now, sir?” I asked.

  “If this is the correct place, then they have almost certainly secured the boy inside. In all probability they will have left a guard with him.”

  As we stood there, growing colder by the minute, we were startled to observe our hansom cab suddenly go rattling past us at a good pace. It seemed that the driver had decided it wasn’t worth the discomfort to wait on our pleasure. Besides, he had been paid in advance. Stoker cursed . . . not for the first time that night. My boss and I were left alone in the blackness of the night, shivering in the falling snow. Without a word we both moved forward to the warehouse gates. They were wrought iron, high, and securely chained. Behind them the windowless building was only faintly discernible through the snow.

  “We must presume that Edward is in there,” said Stoker. “They would not have driven all the way out here with him only to take him back again to the theatre.”

  “Unless this was just one stop, for some reason,” I said, “and they are going on to some other destination to actually leave him.”

  Stoker looked at me and I could feel his eyes boring into me. “Don’t be foolish, Harry,” was all he said.

  He was right
; or more correctly, we had to believe that he was right. We had no way of continuing a chase and had now lost our prey. Edward had to be in the warehouse.

  “Can you climb these gates?” he asked.

  I studied them. They were old and rusted but still solid. If I could get a good grip, I thought I could scale them. Getting over them looked a little trickier, since there were some decorative spikes across the top, but I thought I could do it. I told Stoker so.

  “But what about you, sir? Do you want me to go in alone?” I didn’t mean for it to sound plaintive but it seemed to come out that way.

  “Fear not, Harry. We go together. I’m hoping there is some item or items on the inside of these gates that you can commandeer to assist me in following you over the top. For instance”—he pointed—“I think I can make out some planks of wood over in the corner, leaning against the wall. We may be able to make use of them.”

  I took off my topcoat and bowler hat and threw them over the top of the gate. Then Stoker had me climb up onto his back and, with a knee on his shoulders, I was able to stand upright and then reach the ornate gate tops. I eventually clawed my way over. I hung for a moment on the far side before dropping to the ground. I had hoped there was now enough snow to give me an easy landing, but it jarred my leg and I yelped like a puppy.

  “Are you all right, Harry?”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll be fine. It was just a bit more of a drop than I anticipated. Not to worry.” I put on my hat and coat again as quickly as I could and then limped off toward the planks he had indicated. I found that my ankle was extremely painful.

  “Just start with one, Harry,” my boss called. “We’ll see how that goes. Get it over here to begin with.”

  I dragged a long wooden plank from the side of the warehouse over to the gate. Following Stoker’s instructions, I turned it on edge and slid it out through the rails of the gate. Stoker then lifted the end, turned it flat again, and wedged it in and onto an iron fleur-de-lis partway up. This formed a long ramp. After tossing his own overcoat over the gate to me he stepped back a short distance and then ran at the sloping surface.