Some Danger Involved

6

Racket's cab was waiting for us as we came into Duke's Place. It was uncanny the way he and his "magic carpet" turned up at a moment's notice. His beautiful chestnut mare, Juno, stood comfortably in her shafts, her mane and tail glossy from brushing. John Racket was now taking the brush to his wheels. Many hansoms still had metal wheels, and a passenger could have an unforgettable ride when the cab went over cobblestones, but forward-thinking cabmen like Racket had installed rubber tires. They allowed a passenger to glide along the city streets, as if he were in a gondola in Venice. The cabman turned as we approached, scampered up onto his perch, and set the mechanism that opened the doors in the front for us.

"You again, Mr. Racket?" Barker asked, looking up at him over the reins.

"Aye, sir," Racket replied. "Wife's on holiday. Thought I'd make an extra bob or two."

"Brick Lane, then," Barker bellowed as we took our seats, and in a moment, Juno was clopping down the street with us in tow. We were back in Aldgate Street in a moment.

As we came up on Petticoat Lane to the left, I leaned forward. It was close to five now, and the once tumultuous street was nearly deserted. A few forlorn merchants stood staring at nothing, the hawkers had left off their cries, and the stalls were being dismantled for another week.

Barker sat silently across from me, his thoughts turned toward the new case, no doubt. It was my first moment to myself all day, and I took the time to reflect as we rode. So this was what a private enquiry agent's life was like: the sudden start of an investigation; the visits to morgues and conversations with the police; the formal summonses to clients and the hiring process; the questioning of witnesses; the endless walks and cab rides; the skipping of meals. As far as situations went, it was satisfactory. I wasn't locked up in chambers all day, and there were frequent changes in scenery. I could do without the gruesome bits, but presumably I'd grow accustomed to that. It was even rather thrilling. There was something daring about being an enquiry agent, or at any rate, an enquiry agent's assistant.

Racket brought us up in front of another foreign restaurant. I would have complained, were it not for the fact that the "good British fare" I'd been experiencing at Barker's residence over the past few days would have choked a pariah dog.

It was an outdoor cafй this time, called the Bucharest. We were seated at a table not far from the curb. Having not eaten all day, I was ravenous. Nothing save the coffee looked familiar on the menu, but it was in English at least. As my eyes bounced between the moussaka and the goulash, my employer seemed distracted, though I knew he hadn't had so much as a cup of his precious green tea all day.

Barker actually spoke English to the waiter this time and ordered coffee. The silken tassels which peeked out from under the waiters' waistcoats told me they were Romanian Jews. I remembered the note the old man at Bevis Marks had given Barker. This was to be a rendezvous, obviously.

"Should we dine, or is the cook expecting us at home?" I asked.

"We shall eat presently," Barker responded, still holding his cards close. "Have a bialy to tide you over."

A bialy turned out to be a flat, yeasty roll, whose center was filled with onions and poppy seeds. The Jewish community often had them for breakfast, and while they weren't bad, I'd need a strong cup of coffee before facing one over the breakfast table. The coffee arrived in little glass cups with metal handles.

"Bialy!" an unfamiliar voice called in my ear, and a fellow out of a Tolstoy novel sat down beside us, helping himself to the rolls and my coffee. A long beard spilled down his coat front, and his greasy hair splayed out in all directions from beneath a disreputable fur cap. He wore a long and ancient green coat with an almost military stamp to it, and his boots had seen better decades. Barker shook his hand and made the introductions.

"Rebbe, this is Thomas Llewelyn, my assistant. Thomas, Reb Moishe Shlomo, Mr. Pokrzywa's rabbi."

The rabbi held out a none-too-clean hand and pumped mine vigorously.

"Who should want to hurt poor Louis?" he asked. "Such a waste, a waste of good life, I have never seen. A more promising Talmud scholar you couldn't find in all of London. I held great hopes for that boy."

"Tell us more about him," Barker prompted. "We need to know what he was like."

"He was born in Smyela, south of Kiev, and came here six years ago. His parents were killed in the pogrom there, and he fled the country with just what he could carry. He came overland on foot to Amsterdam, and then took the ferry to London because he heard a young fellow can get ahead here. He applied himself diligently. Had you met him, you would not have noticed the slightest trace of an accent. You'd have thought he'd been brought up in Whitechapel."

"Did he have any close friends or a sweetheart?"

"Oh, he was well liked by everyone in the community. His special friends were the boys of his chevra and the other teachers at the Free School. As to sweethearts, he could take his pick. He was not an ugly fellow, and his earnestness was very charming. He had so many mothers throwing daughters at him, the air was thick with them. But Louis was a good Jew. He would choose no bride until he finished his studies and became a rabbi. Now some poor girl has lost herself a fine husband, and Zion a future leader."

"Can you think of any way in which he could have brought danger upon himself?"

The rabbi bawled for more coffee and turned over the matter in his shaggy head.

"He hadЕ what do you call it? A warm heart? A soft heart! He wanted to solve everyone's problems. He gave away too much of his meager salary to the schnorrers. He could never keep a winter coat. He worried about the Jewish women in Whitechapel, that poverty might cause them to lose their virtue. He went about doing good works and listening to everybody's problems. He overtaxed himself, always trying to squeeze two days into one."

"It is a hard life as a rabbinical student, I'm sure."

"Oy, you have no idea! Such a life I wouldn't wish on a dog. The Board of Deputies has scheduled the funeral for the morning. The Jews' Free School cannot have so disreputable an old scholar as myself to perform the service, but I shall be there just the same, to see my boy is put into the ground properly. Of course, both of you shall come. I insist upon it."

"Had Louis seemed in any way secretive in the past few weeks?"

"The chevra boys would know better than I, but he did cancel a lunch I was to have with him last week."

"What is a chevra, if I may ask?" I put in.

"It is a burial society," the rabbi said. "They collect money for your funeral while you are alive."

"But it is more than that," Barker added. "The members of your chevra are your brothers and closest friends. It is a fraternal organization."

The waiter brought a new cup of coffee. It was strong and sweet in the Turkish manner. I rather liked the relaxed atmosphere of the outdoor cafй, as you sipped and let the world parade before you. Barker watched a drab woman in a shawl walk by.

"I know that very few Jewesses are harlots, but how many do you suppose there are?" he said.

The rabbi shrugged his shoulders. "Who knows? A dozen or more at least, perhaps."

"Could any of them have had a ponce, a man who looked after them and to whom they paid the money? Someone who might be angry if Louis urged a girl to quit?"

"Not in Whitechapel," the rabbi said, smiling at the idea. "This is not the West End. Rachel's sisters make little more than a few pints of ale and a roll per night. No one is willing to enter into any partnership with the women here. There is no money in it."

"And there is no chance that LouisЕ" He left the sentence dangling.

"Nyet! Louis would not make use of a prostitute. Apart from it being forbidden to him, he feared, as all young Jewish men fear, the diseases. Any weakness or lapse on their part could be ultimately fatal."

Barker gave up on the coffee after a few sips and began patting his pockets. His pipe helped him think. He was back to smoking the one with his own image, which I had come to think of as his traveling pipe. Reb Shlomo stopped chewing his roll to stare at the miniature version of the original. He tipped me a wink, as if to say, "Your boss is some fellow!" Barker took no notice, being deep in thought. I liked the smell of the tobacco I had brought him on my first day. According to the tobacconist, it was a "mostly aromatic blend, with a hint of sweetness and a mere touch of latakia for balance." That was the kind of nonsense one hears when pipesmen get together. They are as bad as vintners.

"Would you say," Barker asked the rabbi, as he twirled the vesta around the bowl, "that Louis Pokrzywa spoke to strangers every day, that he went out of his way to be helpful to people?"

"Yes, of course."

"Did he speak to Jew and Gentile?"

"He did."

"Married and single Jewesses?"

"Yes."

"Ashkenazi and Sephardi?"

"I sense you are hinting at something, Mr. Barker."

"Louis was a good-looking fellow, Rabbi. Women fall in love, it is their nature. Some women have boyfriends, or even husbands. Some are very needy and attractive. Rabbinical students are often naive and romantic. Do you see what I'm getting at?"

"Of course I do, Mr. Barker, I'm not an idiot. But I think you are mistaken."

Barker pushed his sealskin pouch toward the rabbi, almost as a peace offering. "Shmek tabac?"

The rabbi shrugged, pulled an old and disreputable briar from his pocket, and charged it from the pouch. He borrowed a match as well. Our coffees were replenished and we were ready for another round of questions.

"Did Louis do any proselytizing?"

"Not consciously. He was a zealot, and his enthusiasm was infectious, but I don't think he was specifically out to convert Christians."

"What about the so-called Messianic Jews?"

"Oh, they are fair game. There are Jews, and then there are Jews, you know. Some will welcome Messianics into their homes as brothers, and others will cut them dead in the street, figuratively speaking, of course. I think Louis believed that a Jew who turned Christian was still following most of the tenets of his faith, but he also enjoyed a good argument, and the splitting of hairs."

"Have you noticed evidence of anti-Semitism in London lately?" Barker spoke plainly.

"I was knocked down this morning, if that is what you mean. They were a band of youths, perhaps in their early twenties, in cloth caps. By the time of day, I'd say they were out of work."

"English?"

"English, Irish, Scottish. You all look the same."

Barker and I both smiled at the remark. I bet the rabbi could have listed twenty differences between a Latvian and an Estonian Jew.

"Do you have an address at which you can be reached, should we need to speak to you again?"

"I have what your police call 'no fixed abode,' but ask around. I can always be found. Now, gentlemen, I would like to pray over you and your search."

Reb Shlomo stood, raised his hands palms up, and began speaking a Hebrew prayer in a loud voice. People stared at us as they walked by not three feet from our table, and I was a little embarrassed. He finally finished his blessing and turned to Barker.

"Good hunting," he said, then clapped a hand on my back. "Stay alive, Little Brother. And keep away from trapdoors."

He stuffed the last roll between his fierce teeth and launched himself into the passing crowd. Barker picked up a menu and began to look it over, while I sat there puzzling. Trapdoors? What did he mean by trapdoors? I thought the fellow a little touched in the head.

"The rabbi seemed a bit primitive for a scholar like Pokrzywa, from what I've seen," I remarked. "I would think a fellow like Da Silva would be more to his liking."

"The Ashkenazim have always prized their little country rabbis. The more dirty and superstitious they are, the better they like them, even the sophisticated Jews from the cities. You will often find an educated Moskovite bending a knee to the latest near-illiterate holy man. Sometimes the more outrageously they act, the better they are liked. Not that I include Shlomo in that category. He seems rather wise. Shall we tuck in then, lad?"

After a satisfactory dinner of moussaka, Barker announced that we'd done enough for the day. Racket, who had been lurking about, picked us up for the long ride south. Once we were settled in our seats, Barker made a rare comment.

"The hansom cab," he said, "presents you with drama, of a sort. The cab is like a proscenium arch, and the town of London the stage. It's fascinating, if you know where to look. I can't tell you how many pedestrians I've seen on the street who are wanted men, or how often I've witnessed a crime committed in broad daylight. I've seen dozens of watches and wallets stolen, and confidence men plying their trade. Several times I could have stepped from the cab and collared someone Scotland Yard would very much like to see."

"Why didn't you?" I asked.

He shrugged. "Often I was on an investigation of my own, and Scotland Yard isn't exactly gracious when a private agent nabs a suspect for them. It makes it look like they're not earning their shilling."

Once home, Barker sent the cabman to his well-deserved rest with a handful of silver. We retired to our rooms, but I was restless. Barker had sent up a new stack of books. They were all Jewish titles: Zionism and the Jewish Question; The Chosen People; Anti-Semitism in Medieval Europe; and Yiddish Folklore. The latter, of course, interested me the most, but I was not in a reading mood. I was just about to chuck it across the bed and stare at the ceiling, when there was a knock at the door.

"Come in!"

My employer stuck his large head into the room. "Reading already, are you? Good lad. I won't interrupt you, then."

"No, no! Please do!"

"I was just wondering if you'd like to try a little shooting practice."

I sat up. That's what I needed, something to stir my blood. So far I'd felt like a counterfeit detective, driving about, watching Barker ask questions, reading out of books. Perhaps the scent of gunpowder in my nostrils would convince me of what I was to become.

"I've never shot a gun before," I admitted. "Is there a firing range in the area?"

"I have one set up in the cellar. Come along."

On the ground floor, in that long hall which ran a straight line from the front door to the back, there was a blank-looking door which led down a set of steep steps. The cellar was a single large room, with a section set off as a kind of lumber room. The walls and floor were lined with thick padding, which might have given the room a sinister appearance, if it weren't for the Indian clubs, medicine ball, and other accoutrements of physical culture. On the far wall was a circular paper target. I looked about but didn't see any pistols. Instead, Barker picked up an Ulster coat from the stair and held it out for me to put on.

"This was a little late in arriving, being specially made for me. The Krause brothers did the tailor work, while another friend of mine made theЕ modifications. Reach into the right pocket. What do you feel?"

"The butt of a pistolЕ and something else. Stiff leather?"

"Correct. The holster is built into the pocket. Look at the lining along the right, inside. What do you see?"

"A buttonhole. What's a buttonhole doing here?"

"Your patience, a moment longer. Put your hands in both pockets and face the target. Good. Now spread your feet, shoulder width. Step forward with your right foot. Raise your right arm, still with your hand in your pocket, firmly grasping the pistol, and pull your left arm behind you, shifting the entire coat."

I did as he said, moving the entire overcoat behind me as I stepped forward, and an amazing thing happened. The barrel of the pistol pushed out through the buttonhole.

"Fire!" he yelled in my ear, and I squeezed the trigger almost involuntarily. The shot went low, about a foot below the target. It was intensely loud in the small chamber.

"Really, Thomas," he said in mock disapproval. "Shooting a fellow in the vitals. Not very sporting. It takes too long for him to die, and it's a painful and ignoble death."

"Sorry, sir. The coat is rather heavy."

"It is. There is lead padding in the chest and back. I won't guarantee that it will stop a bullet, but it may at least slow it down. There are four more shots in your revolver, which, by the way, is a Webley Irish constable issue, with the site filed down. Let us see if you can hit the target this time."

I placed all four of them on the target, but only one within an inch of the bull's-eye. I thought the coat ingenious but not, as Barker would say, "sporting." A fellow might already be shot before he realized you had a gun.

"Better," my employer said. "There are a half dozen ways to aim and shoot, but the best is still to point as if one were pointing a finger. Too much thinking slows one down. Here is a box of rounds. There's cotton here for your ears' sake. Open that window to the garden when you're done or the whole house shall smell of powder. Keep practicing a few times a week, and you'll be as good as I."

"And how good is that?" I wondered aloud.

He stopped on the step and looked back over his shoulder. His hands moved up under his arms. He whirled, pulling two revolvers from out of nowhere. Bullets spat in unison not inches from my face. Emptied, the pistols were thrust back under his arms, where I heard them strike leather. Then his hands moved down to his pockets. His coat moved, the barrel appeared through the little eyelet in his coat, and a half dozen shots went off like firecrackers. Then he shifted the coat around and fired from the left side. The room reeked of gunpowder. Barker nodded good evening and left. If he said anything, I couldn't hear it. I couldn't hear anything.

Need I even mention that the bullets were clustered round the bull's-eye like four-and-twenty blackbirds? As I looked at the neat ring of holes, I remembered that, in prison argot, "barker" was the word used for a pistol. I thought he rather deserved the name.