Fatal Enquiry

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

It’s odd how people come into our lives and we learn to rely upon them to such an extent that when they are gone we mourn them more than our natural relations. Aunts, uncles, even sisters and brothers I did not have as strong a bond with as I did with Andrew McClain. He had taught me, advised me, cheered me when I was down. I could rely upon him. He was that brick without which the entire structure comes tumbling down. If I felt that way, then Cyrus Barker must have felt it doubly so. As far as I could tell, no one deserved to be considered Barker’s mentor as much as Handy Andy McClain. If anything existed that could derail my employer from a case, it was this. For once, I saw the mighty oak tremble.

“I’m sure there will be a large funeral for Brother Andrew, considering what he’s done for this city,” I said.

“Aye,” he answered, but with little conviction.

We had found a tea shop in which to sit and mourn. It would have felt irreverent to the Reverend’s memory to mourn him over a pint when he had helped so many drunkards during his ministry. The East End would never be the same without him.

“What shall become of the mission?”

“I don’t know,” Barker admitted. “It was undergoing a transition. I suppose it is harmless to tell you now. Andy was leaving the Church of England. That is why I spoke to Lord Clayton. He was going to provide the money for a new building. Andy had asked me to act as an intermediary. It would not be an easy break, but he had prayed long and hard over it and was convinced it was the right thing to do, even if it meant leaving the old church building behind. He would have taken the boxing ring with him, of course.”

“Of course,” I murmured.

“We’ve tempted fate long enough,” Barker said, setting down his cup. “We should get back to the barge.”

It was a drawn-out process getting back to the spot where our day had begun. From start to finish it was more than an hour before we neared the dock where the Lo family’s barge was berthed. When we got there, it was already far too late.

“Abberline,” Barker growled as we viewed the scene from behind a nearby warehouse. The vessel was in danger of capsizing from the number of constables gathered on the deck, and moored right beside it was the police launch, whose sleek hull and brass fittings only made the barge look more weather-beaten and decrepit.

“We won’t be sleeping here tonight,” the Guv said, turning away, as if dismissing it from his mind.

“What about the Los?” I asked. “They’re sure to be arrested.”

“I must get word to Cusp,” he answered, referring to his solicitor, Bram Cusp, who was expensive but generally worth the money.

“But where do we go now?” I asked. “We’re nearly out of money.”

“I’ve got a place in mind, though I must admit I haven’t been there in a few years. And it shall mean another long walk. We cannot trust cabs, even were we to find one here in Chelsea Basin. Cabmen have long memories.”

“It’s just unfair,” I said. “We’ve done nothing wrong and yet half of London is barking at our heels.”

“No one ever claimed life is fair, lad. It’s a cold and callous world.”

We tramped across the city for the second time that day. “Plodded” might be a better word. Johnson said a man who is tired of London is tired of life. Just then I was heartily sick of both. I wanted cool sheets and a soft pillow and I wasn’t too particular where. Barker propelled us forward, moving from shadow to shadow whenever possible to avoid notice. At one point, half dead on my feet, I imagined I heard the steady regulation boots of every police constable in the district measuring out his beat. Perhaps, I thought, we could escape to the country for a while until everything settled down. Philippa Ashleigh, Barker’s companion, owned an estate in Sussex that was but an hour’s ride by train. We could sit in relative ease while Scotland Yard chased its tail up here in the city.

However, I knew that the Guv would never endanger her life and had some other destination in mind. As we walked, I mulled over where Barker could be leading me. If his first choice had been a dilapidated barge, what could possibly be his lesser choice?

We crossed to the Surrey shore at Westminster, within half a mile of our home. I wondered how the old pile was faring at the moment. Was Mac awake and worrying about us? Was Barker’s Pekingese, Harm, pining by the front door, wanting his master home? Probably not, if they were sensible. I wanted to prowl into the kitchen and see what Etienne had left in the larder as I had done on countless other occasions in the middle of the night.

Barker headed north into Lambeth, which is not my favorite part of the city. It has all the squalor of the East End without its poor reputation. It’s dull, drab, and down-at-heel. Centuries before, in Shakespeare’s day, all the theaters in London were there, including the Globe. The bawdy houses and the more riotous public houses were there, as well. Since then, Lambeth has embraced an aura of shabby respectability, but the same activities went on behind more discreet doors, I was sure.

We trudged silently down Lower Marsh Street. I’m not the wittiest conversationalist when I am this tired and footsore, and the Guv was silent, as usual. I was hungry and thirsty, and a fugitive from what passes for justice here. I was lamenting my fortune, when my employer suddenly plunged into a common lodging building. Without stopping or asking for directions, he led me to a stairwell and began to ascend as quietly as possible. The old Georgian stairs were so tall and narrow a chap could easily break his neck on them. The halls were painted a dun yellow, and in some places wallpapered in a peeling print many years out of date. The carpet on the stairway was threadbare and musty. Here the Guv didn’t seem certain where he was going. He reached the top floor and looked about with his fingertips on his lower lip, lost in thought.

“This is it,” he finally said, coming to a padlocked door. He removed a key from his pocket and tried to unlock it. The lock was stiff and in need of oil, but it finally yielded to his pressure, opening with a squeal of protest. The room in front of us wasn’t a room at all, but a staircase leading to an attic. I followed, curious to see what we would find at the top of the stair.

It was a room much like the one he occupied in our home in Newington, only smaller.

There were two dormer windows facing the street, a sloped ceiling, and old, mismatched furnishings, including a bedstead, a desk, and an upholstered chair with a small table.

Everything was covered in a thick layer of dust. There was a straw hat on the desk; not a boater, but a flat-brimmed one with a light tan band and a raised peak down the center of it like the keel of a boat. A suit of clothes hung from a hook that was equally tropical. I stepped closer to the desk and found it was spread with dusty maps of London and yellowed newspapers dated August 1879. There was a book written in Chinese there, and when I picked it up a square of polished wood lay under it in the dust. The entire room was like stepping into the past: Barker’s past, to be more precise, when he first arrived in London. I found a pack of Swan vestas in the drawer and lit a small penny candle.

“This flat belongs to you,” I said.

“Aye. I let it when I first came to England and was looking for a residence and chambers. I kept the lease, in case I should ever need it again.”

Cyrus Barker is not in the least sentimental. He didn’t spare a glance at the mementos, but went down on his knees and pulled an empty drawer completely out of its slides. Reaching into the recess, he retrieved an old pistol and some cartridges. He opened the revolver at the top and spun the cylinder. Like the lock on the door, it could do with a drop of oil.

“This should do us for now. As I recall, there is a grocer around the corner. We can get food there in the morning, but only one of us should go. It isn’t prudent for us to travel in pairs at the moment.”

“I’ll go,” I said. “I see there is a gas hob and a kettle. I could buy some tea and tinned food. If I had a broom and rags, I could even start cleaning up this place.”

He shook his head. “Not worth the effort. Our time would be better spent sleeping.”

“There’s only one bed,” I pointed out. “We’ll have to sleep in shifts.”

“I wasn’t accustomed to beds when I let this room. There is a hammock stowed underneath the bed.”

While he unrolled the hammock, I slowly pulled off the sheet which covered the entire bed, taking the layer of dust with it. The bedding was sound, if a trifle musty. I helped the Guv suspend the hammock from two hooks in the ceiling I hadn’t noticed when we arrived. We had reached the point beyond which words were needed. Quickly, we doffed jackets, braces, shoes and socks and crawled into our beds. I blew out the candle, and we were asleep by the time the wick was cool.

In the morning, the Guv showed little inclination to leave his hammock, but he’d switched back to his black spectacles and looked more like his former self. I purchased tea and bread at a nearby shop and then brewed tea on the hob and began to sort out the place.

In spite of his advice, I gave the room a thorough cleaning. I was hoping to unearth more of his past, right under his nose. The room, empty as it looked, was a potential treasure trove. The most likely spot to find something of interest was the desk, but I wanted to get to that last. I picked up the suit from the hook and looked at the label. It was from a tailor in Hong Kong.

“This will never fit you again,” I remarked.

Barker grunted abstractly from the hammock. Digging into the pockets of the suit, I found three sharpened Chinese coins. They each had a square hole in the center, and were roughly the size of the British coppers he used now. I pocketed them and picked up the hat from the bedstead. It was from Canton, according to the label. These must have been the clothes he had worn on his journey from the Far East.

As casually as possible, I went to the desk and began straightening. The Times for August 1879 had yellowed with age, and the information seemed out of the dim dark past. Disraeli was prime minister and an MP was complaining because the soldiers in Africa had been reduced to rags. I could not make head or tail of the Chinese book, but at the very end of it I found the treasure I was hoping for. It was a studio portrait, octavo-sized, of four men: Barker, Ho, our cook, Etienne Dummolard, and Paul Beauchamp, who maintained Barker’s boat, the Osprey, down in Sussex. This had been the crew of the Osprey, and though none would explain how, each had become rich enough in the China Seas to set up businesses of their own here in England. They all looked uncomfortable in their suits, glowering at the camera in front of a painted trompe l’oeil garden backcloth, and save for Beauchamp, all had put on weight since then. Barker was wearing the suit and the tropical hat was in his lap. I couldn’t help smiling because I deduced why the photograph had been taken. It must have been Mrs. Ashleigh, Barker’s lady friend, who had insisted upon it.

“What are you smiling at?” the Guv demanded.

I was caught. I really should learn to control my emotions, the way Barker does. Ruefully, I surrendered the photograph to him. He looked at it, grunted again, and tucked it into his pocket.

“The kong,” he said.

“Kong?”

“It means ‘four.’ A quartet. I don’t recall who first called us that.”

“Friends forever,” I said. “Even unto death.”

“Something like that. But even that can change. Nothing stays the same forever, you know. Once, we-”

The Guv hesitated.

“Once you what?”

“Nothing,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “It’s not important anymore.”

He was intractable. Brother Andrew’s death had taken all the wind from his sails. I’d never seen him so defeated. The worst part of it was that his mood was infectious.

The desk drawer which I hoped would provide me with answers to my questions proved to be empty, so instead, I set to work cleaning off surfaces and airing out the room. I opened all the windows and shook out the sheet, happy for something to do. Outside, the larks, sparrows, and robins were singing their collective chorus. The sky was overcast, as gray as a strip of lead, but the clouds were content to keep the rain to themselves. I shook out the rug and swept the floor like I did when I was a child, too young to go down into the mines. I’d helped my mother with the younger children while my father and elder brothers dug coal with pickaxes until they were black as Zulu warriors. My grandfather came and walked me to school. He and my mother were convinced I would become something someday. All their hopes rested on me, and now, here I was, living in an anonymous chamber in the worst part of Lambeth, being pursued like the criminal I was.