Some Danger Involved

14

I was still sitting there, wide-eyed, when the trap opened overhead and Racket's anxious face looked down at me.

"Mr. Llewelyn! Tell me you're not dead!"

"I'm all right!" I called. "I wasn't hit!" There was a sudden violent wrench to the entire hansom and I heard the sound of footsteps. Racket had dismounted and was running somewhere. Juno looked back at me, her eyes white with fear. By the rippling along her withers I could tell she'd been terrified by the shot. I thought for a moment she might bolt, taking me with her, but she'd been trained well. She didn't move a step while her master was away from the cab.

As for myself, I was in shock and covered in glass. I looked to my right, where the small portal was nothing but shards, then looked to my left, where a tiny hole perforated the elegant scarlet padding. I raised a hand to my cheek, and it came away with blood. I'd been cut by a sliver of glass. Suddenly, I wanted to laugh, laugh loud and hard at cheating death, but I mastered myself. If Juno could do it, so could I.

Racket came back, winded from his exertions. He stepped up on the footboard and surveyed the damage.

"Oh, my cab!" he said, almost in tears. "Oh, my beautiful, beautiful cab! What has he done to ye, old girl?"

"Did you see the man who did it?"

"I did. He was a great big fella with a loud suit and a black beard. I think he looked Italian. He put the pistol back in his pocket and light-footed it down the street. Thought I'd catch up with him, but he just disappeared. Crikey! I'll have to patch this up, temporary like. The window's easy to fix, but I'll need all new wood and fabric for this side. One hole and it never looks right, you know. You have to replace the whole panel. He couldn't just break the glass. No, not him! He has to damage the woodwork!"

The fellow was talking about cab repair one minute after I'd just narrowly missed spattering his cab with my brains.

"I'm covered in glass, Mr. Racket," I pointed out. "Is there somewhere nearby I can get cleaned up?"

"My stable ain't more than a mile from here. You sit tight, and I'll have you good as new in fifteen minutes. Then, I'll take you home and send word to your boss. He'll get that blighter. Nobody shoots at Racket's cab and gets away with it."

I sat in a daze, still covered in glass. Through the shattered window, I heard the rubber tires humming along the road. The thought occurred to me that my assailant might have an accomplice waiting to finish me off. I became convinced that I was in imminent danger of a second bullet's tearing through the cab, and that this one wouldn't miss. Like most fears, it was groundless. Without any further mishaps, we arrived.

Racket's stable was in the Minories in Aldgate, not far from the Tower. The cabman opened the large double doors, then led Juno in by the bridle. It was dark and silent inside, and restful on my jangled nerves. Racket crossed to the far end and pushed open another set of doors, allowing light to stream in. Then he came back and helped me out of the hansom.

"We'll have you right as rain in no time, Mr. L.," he said, taking a brush to my suit. "Wisht I could say the same for my cab."

"This is a nice stable you have here," I said. It was built of old beams and had a high ceiling with a loft. Fresh hay was strewn over the floor, and a couple of stalls had rope, harnesses and tack hanging from hooks. I stepped over to the open back doors. Instead of a mews, there was a drop of twenty feet down to tracks belonging to the underground.

Racket lay a heavy hand on my shoulder, and I jumped, almost precipitating down onto the tracks below.

"Watch your step," he said. "You just missed one killing."

"This is a bit dangerous here, don't you think?" I asked.

"I ain't fallen yet," Racket responded, looking down with me. "It's handy being so close to the rails. I can hoist hay bales into the loft direct from the wagons below, and I've got a hook in front as well and can lift bales from the street. The rent's low, and I can reach the West End in a matter of minutes. Lend me a hand here?"

Between the two of us, we lifted a panel of raw wood from a pile of lumber and eased it into the cab. I held it while Racket hammered it into place with some stout nails. Then I brushed the glass out of the cab while he fed Juno a bucket of oats to soothe her a little.

"We're almost done here. I'll have you home in half an hour. 'Struth. The strain-and-strife will have all kinds of words to say when she sees the state of this here cab."

"Where did you say your wife was?"

"The missus is in Dover, looking after her ailing mum. I been using the time to work extra hours while she's gone. I've even been sleeping here o' nights. Don't hardly seem worth it, going home with her gone."

Racket judged the cab serviceable, and within the prescribed half hour, he deposited me at Barker's front door in Newington.

"What happened?" Maccabee asked at the front door. He was wearing half-moon spectacles perched on his elegant nose. I informed him about the shooting. He took off the spectacles and tapped them on his other wrist for a moment, deep in thought.

"Why don't you sit down in the front room here while I poke about," he said. "I believe we've got a bottle of restorative somewhere on the premises."

He led me into the sitting room and left me in an easy chair. I had glanced into the room once or twice but had never been seated in it before. Most of the furniture was Chinese or Anglo-Indian, lacquer and rattan with lots of pillows and potted palms. The wallpaper looked like it had been stenciled in gilt with peacock feathers.

Mac glided in with an oversized balloon glass containing an opaque liquid the color of cafй au lait.

"What's this?" I asked, suspiciously.

"Brandy and milk, sir. It will help calm your nerves."

I hazarded a sip. I've never been much of a drinker of spirits, but it seemed to me the mixture was particularly vile. At Mac's insistence, however, I drank it down.

"Wonderful, sir. Are you hungry? No? Perhaps you should go upstairs and rest a while. I must say you are getting on famously. Less than one week! It took Mr. Quong months before his firstЕ uhЕ experience."

Usually I would have come back with some retort after such a remark, but it wasn't in me at the moment. Once in my room, I undid my collar and tie, removed my jacket and shoes, and slid my braces from my shoulders. I lay down on the bed and slid into a fitful slumber.

I awoke several hours later. The room was dark, save for a shaft of moonlight coming in from the back window. The silver beam illuminated my employer, who sat in my desk chair by the window, fiddling with some coins in his hands. He was deep in thought, as far as I could tell. What had brought him here? Ah, yes. The shooting. I'd almost forgotten. Was he standing guard? If so, he was a little late.

"What o'clock is it?" I asked.

"Almost ten," he responded. "How do you feel?"

I sat up, and swung my stockinged feet over the side of the bed. "I feel fine, sir," I said. "Why do you ask?"

"You've just been shot at," he growled.

"Yes, but they missed. I'm fine, really."

He sat for a moment, manipulating one of the coins through his fingers like a conjurer. "You're dissembling," he decided. "I'm taking you off the case."

"Why, sir?" I asked. "Have I not given satisfaction?"

"It's too dangerous for an untrained man."

"Begging your pardon, but until today, the only danger I encountered was barking a shin in the tunnel on the way to Ho's. 'Some danger involved in performance of duties' was clearly printed in the advertisement. I didn't enter your employment merely to push papers about."

"You entered my employment because you were desperate. I could see it in your eyes."

"Yes, sir, I was, but you hired me, and I accepted the position. You can't change the rules of the game now."

"It's not a game, Thomas. I came within a hairbreadth of losing an assistant this afternoon."

"Of course, it's your decision, but I don't believe I should be penalized because of the last fellow," I said bitterly.

"You know about Quong, then," he stated.

"Yes, sir, though you've been at some pains to keep it from me."

Barker ran his fingers through his hair. Then he began tapping his pockets for his pouch. He filled and lit his pipe. I watched the smoke drift through the permanently open window. "Quong was a good man, and a good assistant," he said, blowing out his match. "Being Chinese, he couldn't go everywhere, but he had a knack for being unobtrusive and silent. His death three months ago was a blow. I had to tell his father that he had died. I'd rather not have to do that again."

"How did he die?"

"I sent him out on a routine assignment, following a merchantЧ a merchant of all things! He never came back. His body washed up on the Isle of Dogs two days later. One bullet between the eyes. The merchant knew nothing; he wasn't even aware he'd been followed! The case is still unsolved. I've followed lead after lead. Quong was like a son to me. Don't believe my advertisements, that I solve every case that comes my way."

"You blame yourself for his death."

"Mea culpa."

"Sir, London is a dangerous place, but you didn't send him on a dangerous mission. It was routine work. His getting shot was justЕ random."

"But today was not. You were almost assassinated. I shouldn't have left you alone. You're still new."

"Mr. Barker, I know I'm new, but I'll be all right. I survived eight months in Oxford Prison and I've lived through today so far. I may be as green as Ireland, but I'm a grown man. Heaven knows I've made a grown man's mistakes already. I realize now how serious this work can be and I shall endeavor to be more careful in the future. But you cannot solve this case and be occupied with my safety at the same time. You can't ride one ass to two fairs."

Barker gave another of his wintry smiles. "Where did you pick up that one?"

"It was in one of your Jewish books, sir."

"I still don't like it," Barker said between puffs, but I could see he was wavering.

"Well, I prefer not to be shot at, but I suppose an assistant to a private enquiry agent would be subject to the same dangers as his employer. I accept that, and so should you."

He stood, extended his pipe out the small open space in the window, and knocked the ash from the bowl. Then he carefully wrapped the pipe and tobacco up in the sealskin pouch and returned it to his pocket.

"Agreed," he said, and turned to leave. He was almost out the door, in that way of his, when I made a sound in my throat. He stopped and turned, inquiringly.

"Nothing, sir," I said. "A minor annoyance. I've slept hard these few hours. I shall probably be up all night now."

"Try the library," he suggested.

"We have a library? Where?"

"You're the private enquiry agent's assistant. Find it yourself."

I accepted the challenge. There were only a few doors in the house I hadn't tried. The two on the first floor turned out to be a guest room and a lumber room respectively. That left two on the ground floor. The first, hard by the front door, I took to be Mr. Maccabee's personal domain, which only left the one by the back door, across the hall from the kitchen. My deduction was correct.

The door was ajar, so I stepped in, turned up the gas, and looked about. The room had built-in bookcases on all sides, from floor to ceiling. Two comfortable chairs in studded green leather flanked an Arabian octagonal table, with an oil lamp. There was a fireplace in marble, with a fendered grate, and a faded Persian carpet that dominated the room in an abstract design of red and green. A ladder on rollers navigated most of the shelves, by means of a circular track. It was all a bibliophile could want. I ran a finger along one shelf, and it came away clean. Mac must dust the shelves weekly.

I haven't mentioned the books, of course. Hundreds of books, thousands, in fact. Any subject, any language; novels, philosophy, classics, language primers, and instructional books on just about everything. There was a shelf full of manuscripts, another of ragged scrolls, and a third fronted with glass to preserve the ancient volumes therein. I settled on Eliot's Daniel Deronda, as I thought it might be pertinent to the case, and was just about to sit down when there was a warning growl from behind me. I was about to sit on Harm. I let dozing dogs lie and moved to the other chair.

I was almost immediately engrossed in the book and was coming to the part when Daniel comes into the casino and inadvertently makes Gwendolen lose her money, when the door burst open. It was Mac, in a pajama sleeping suit and robe. He had his shotgun in hand, but all form of menace was gone for he (oh, how priceless) was wearing a silk hair net.

"Oh, it's you," he said, simply.

"Yes. Barker woke me, and I couldn't get back to sleep. I thought I might try reading."

"Of course."

I was aching to mention the net, but I controlled myself. "Thank you for the brandy and milk. It did the trick."

"Not at all, sir." It came to him suddenly. He ripped the net off his head and stuffed it into a pocket of his gown. "I'll leave you to your reading then. Deronda, is it? Did the Guv suggest it?"

"No, I chose it on my own. Is it a good book, from your point of view?"

"Oh, yes. Not bad, really, for a Gentile author." He let me alone after that. There are some people one can get along with immediately, and some that one never shall. I began to think Mac might be one of the latter. At first, I had assumed it was because he was Jewish, but I'd gotten along well enough with Zangwill and Moskowitz. No, I decided it was just Mac.

Around midnight the rest and reading had settled my spirit enough that I was hungry again. Harm and I decided to raid the larder. It proved to be a roomy cupboard in the kitchen with louvered doors and shelves stacked to the ceiling. Dummolard went in for glass-domed servers; there must have been a half dozen. I saw mutton pie, game pie, some sort of quiche covered with rashers of bacon, and a venison stew. The dog and I agreed on the quiche.

Considering how cold and aloof Harm had been to me over the last week or two, I was amazed at the sudden transformation in him. He now wanted to be my best friend. While I searched for a plate and silverware, the Pekingese began making aerial leaps a Chinese acrobat would envy. When I sat down with my slice, he stood beside my knee on his back limbs, waving his paws and gurgling like a baby. What can one do after such a performance? I split the pie with him, then we mutually agreed we needed a second slice. After that, we each had some water and went back to reading. That is, I went back to reading while he dozed in the other chair.

I must confess I thought him useless as a watchdog, snoring in the chair as he was. At less than a stone, he didn't meet my standards in regard to size, though my ankles attested to the sharpness of his teeth. I noticed, however, that at the slightest sound, the settling of the house, perhaps, or a late-night cab passing through the Elephant and Castle Circle outside, he woke from his slumbers and looked about with those goggly eyes of his. The little dog taught me a lesson about Barker, and all the satellites that revolved around him: they may look harmless enough, and perhaps even a trifle ridiculous, but there are hidden abilities behind the outward appearance. Did I dare hope that the same could be said of me?