The Hellfire Conspiracy

20

Some of the cabmen in London had begun to recognize me as well as my employer. Barker knew the importance of getting about quickly and tipped lavishly or, rather, had me do it for him. When we stepped out onto the curb, they moved toward us like the goldfish in Barker’s pond when he fed them.

“Regent Street.”

We climbed in, and the cab made its way to the busy traffic of the West End.

The Cafe Royal is the most prominent building in Regent Street. It is a coffeehouse for artists and French expatriates and also where the Honorable Pollock Forbes could generally be found holding court. Forbes was one of Barker’s watchers, but I also knew he was the son of a Scottish lord and considered the upper classes to be his particular domain. I would not exactly call him a detective, but he investigated cases for them and made problems go away. He gave a great show of being a dilettante and an aesthete, but the delicate coughs he gave were not an affectation. Forbes was a consumptive.

Our case was focused in the East End, but had several connections to the aristocracy. I’d had a set-to with Palmister Clay and been threatened by his father, Lord Hesketh. Beatrice Potter’s father was a wealthy man, and even Rose Carrick’s husband, Stephen, came from a nouveau riche family. It was enough, I supposed, to consult with Forbes, who had an encyclopedic knowledge of every noble in the city.

We pulled up at the Royal and went in. I’d like to think I fit in at the cafe; it was full of young, artistic fellows like myself. Barker was like a pebble in a fine machine, however. He stuck out like Shakespeare’s Caliban or Dickens’s Magwitch. He did not belong, but he tried to be subtle. Whenever we entered, he made a show of not looking for Pollock Forbes, knowing the fellow would eventually find him.

We ordered mocha coffees, a house specialty, and a few minutes later Forbes appeared at our elbows. He is a slight fellow, whose hair always looks carefully tousled. He slid into the chair across from Barker and set down a box covered in alligator skin.

“Might I interest you gentlemen in dominoes?” he asked, opening the box. It contained a set of ivory tiles, the pips of inlaid coral.

“I have not come to play games,” Barker said pointedly, but after Forbes had got them all facedown on the table and moved them about, he began picking his own.

“That’s odd,” Forbes went on. “I was about to ask you what game you have been playing.”

“I’ve received some notes. Poems, really, from a man calling himself Mr. Miacca,” Barker said, putting down the first tile.

“Mmm,” Forbes said, pouncing on it with one of his own.

“You don’t sound surprised.”

“The Yard has a half dozen of them. You don’t suppose Mr. Miacca sent a note to you first, do you? He’s been trying to draw attention to himself for some time.”

“I’d like to see those notes.”

“I’m sorry,” I interjected. “I’m a trifle confused. How are you privy to Scotland Yard information?”

Barker looked at Forbes, who pursed his lips in false concentration.

“Let us say,” my employer explained, “that many aristocrats belong to a certain benevolent organization and that because the London Metropolitan Police Force has no trade union as such, most constables and inspectors are junior members of that same organization. It is not unusual, then, that information or support is shared by both.”

I was about to ask what organization he meant, but it was staring me in the face. Through a set of doors leading toward the back of the cafe was the entrance to a Masonic temple. Forbes himself had a tie tack with the Masonic symbol upon it. I thought about how Swanson seemed to be doing his best to conceal information in this investigation and how Lord Hesketh represented a group of men trying to stop a bill from being passed. It was as if a veil had been lifted. The Freemasons were involved in this case, somehow.

“I wonder,” I said, trying to be as tactful as possible, “if Palmister Clay might be inclined to join such an organization.”

“I doubt it very much,” Forbes stated, setting down a tile, double sixes. “He’s more concerned with setting up house and squandering his fortune these days. His father, on the other hand, might have an appreciation for the ancient traditions.”

“There is a certain establishment in Cambridge Road,” Barker said. “A well-kept mews converted to flats.”

“No man is perfect, of course, and some may indulge themselves in the scant pleasures the East End provides.”

“Scotland Yard might turn a blind eye to such weaknesses of the flesh,” Barker said, taking up the conversation again, “but a half dozen or more dead girls is another matter entirely.” He turned back to Forbes and put down another tile. “Or is it?”

“This brotherhood prefers not to mix itself in politics. Sometimes it is unavoidable, especially when both camps have moved away from the center path. If whoever savaged these poor girls should prove to be a member, whoever he is, the organization would consider it necessary to discipline him severely.”

“Publicly or secretly?” Barker dared ask.

Forbes gave him a glance. “You really think a public trial is necessary?”

“I do.”

“And if he is mad?”

“Then I’ll see him in Colney Hatch, but it had better be for a very long time.”

“Jean,” Forbes turned and summoned a passing waiter, “bring me an absinthe.”

We watched as he prepared his mild narcotic, lighting the green liquid with a match and then dousing it with water. Pollock Forbes drank it down, not like a man addicted to a drug but as one taking medicine to kill pain. He held a napkin to his lips as if ready to start a fit of coughing, but controlled it.

“What do you want with Palmister Clay?” he asked.

“He put me in jail.”

“Ah. I’m not surprised his name has come up. He runs with a fast set, from what I’ve heard, despite his bride’s objections. She’s a pretty little thing, but rather naive.”

“Who are his friends?” my employer asked.

“I don’t know. I’m not holding back, I promise you. Is Clay part of the investigation? Does he have some relationship to this Miacca person?”

“We are still collecting information at this time,” the Guv said. “Inspector Swanson is not as forthcoming as you have been.”

“He feels you have gone over to the socialists. You haven’t, have you?”

“I think it is abominable that a thirteen-year-old child can legally become a gentleman’s bauble,” Barker stated, “but I have not ‘gone over’ to them, as you say. I go as my conscience bids me, regardless of any organization, and I shall not be dictated to by anyone in the midst of an investigation.”

“No one is interfering in your investigation, Cyrus,” Pollock Forbes said. “Your move.”

“Do not rush me.” Barker picked a tile from among the others and set it down.

“Thank you. I am out.”

“I have not won a game against you, yet, Pollock, but then you’ve been playing this for sometime. I’ve got another name for you.”

“What is it?”

“Have you heard of a fellow named Stephen Carrick?”

“Son of the soap magnate?” Forbes asked. “I haven’t heard that name in ages.”

“What do you know of him?”

“He was kicked out of Oxford six or seven years ago for consorting with a fallen woman and had a row with his father, who cut him off without a cent. He’s had to make it on his own ever since. I believe he’s had a few rough starts and has moved about a lot. Is he in London?”

“He’s got a wife and runs a photographic emporium in Bethnal Green.”

“Became a tradesman, has he? I’m sure his father left him no alternative, poor chap.”

That poor chap was doing better than I, I thought. By Forbes’s standards, he had accomplished nothing, yet from mine, he had a wife and ran his own business.

Forbes gave a thin smile. “Would you care for another game?”

“Thank you, no.”

“What is wrong? You don’t care for a game where one must play by the rules?”

“Let us say I prefer games more evenly matched at the outset. You are far too clever for me.”

“I doubt that, Cyrus,” he said, giving a cool smile.

The waiter came and asked if we wanted another mocha, but Barker put his hand over the mouth of his cup.

When he was gone, Forbes resumed the conversation. “You are playing a dangerous game, Cyrus. You could get yourself killed making the wrong sort of enemy.”

“Death has no sting for me, Pollock. I am more concerned about you. How is your health?”

“About the same. My most recent physician has warned me about the dangers of absinthe and opium smoking, and then he doses me with a treacle syrup laced with laudanum. He also thinks I should take a long voyage to a warm climate. Tahiti, perhaps, or Mexico.”

“And will you?”

“Of course not. You know I cannot leave when there are important issues plaguing the nation. Stay for dinner, won’t you?”

Those were the words I had been waiting to hear. We hadn’t had a proper lunch. Forbes had invited us once before, but the Guv had turned him down, stating that Mac had dinner waiting. Now we were away from our residence, with nothing but the possibility of cold food from the hamper to look forward to. I missed Etienne’s pigeons sur canapes. Surely my employer would accept a meal from one of London’s foremost French restaurants?

“Some other time, Pollock,” Barker said. “It does not sit well with me to sup richly when somewhere Miacca is planning more deviltry. Thomas and I are sleeping rough until this fellow is caught, and only then shall we take our ease. Besides, Thomas is in training.”

Forbes read the expression on my face. “In that case, gentlemen, I wish you both good hunting.”

We left Forbes gathering up his dominoes and stepped out into the street again.

“So I take it that Forbes is some sort of high rank among the Freemasons,” I said. “Isn’t he rather young for the position?”

“He is young, but his time is precious. An exception was made in his case. Actually, he is the leader of an order within the Freemasons, which also has a long and secret history. There’s an old saying, ‘Scratch a Scot and you’ll find a Mason.’”

“Do you think the Masons in London know who Miacca is? Is there a chance they are helping him?”

“Like Her Majesty’s government, the Masons have occasionally needed to make alliances with unsavory persons or organizations.”

“Are they are shielding him, then?”

“Not necessarily, but we shouldn’t expect much aid from Scotland Yard in this inquiry lad. In fact, I think we should tread lightly. There is little within the structure of English society that the Masons don’t have a hand in, and the pyramid goes all the way to the top.”