The Hellfire Conspiracy

12

“Do you still have the address of the estate agent, Thomas?” Barker asked on the walk back to Bethnal Green.

“Yes, sir,” I said, pulling out my notebook and flipping pages. “His name is Ezra Levitt. It’s on Commercial Street.”

“Excellent. He is Jewish. His offices will be open today. I want to see that property as soon as possible. If it all works out, we shall move in tomorrow.”

We found Mr. Levitt’s office and discussed our need for a short-term rental of the property. The estate agent countered that such a thing was irregular but finally agreed it was best to have some revenue coming in. A possible fee was discussed for a months’ use, the Guv counteroffered, and a price was agreed upon, pending approval. Then the agent took us to the site.

There was not much to recommend it. It was an empty warehouse, dusty from disuse, with three floors and a ladder going up to a roof hatch. The grimy windows offered an excellent view of traffic heading east and west along Green Street, and by moving to the window on the far east side, one could see all the way down Globe Road. We were so close to the charity that had I opened a window and shouted, I would have attracted attention from everyone inside the building. Barker pronounced it satisfactory, and we marched back to the agent’s office to sign the lease.

Someone said to me once that enquiry work was just the sort of work for men who could not handle routine, implying that we lacked stamina for the eight-to-six workaday world, as if we never fully grew up somehow. Sitting in an office all day, filling out endless reams of paper while gradually emptying inkpots, was obviously his idea of being a man. In my defense, I told him that my position required taking dictation, keeping records, and filling out forms as he did, and that the only difference between our positions was that he didn’t have to stop writing every now and then to duck a bullet or receive a fist in the face. I don’t know whether I convinced him or not. In any case, sitting in the estate agent’s office, filling out forms, signing, countersigning, initialing, stamping, and sealing made me glad for once that I had such an unusual occupation. A week shut up in that office and I’d have been moved right into the lunatic asylum.

After shaking hands with the fellow twice over, we finally quitted the establishment. It was just after six. We stopped at the Prospect of Whitby and had our dinner. A hot leg of lamb with plenty of mashed potatoes was just the thing to drive the dust of the warehouse and the more figurative dust of the estate agent’s office from our lungs. The meal, however, was still tempered by the terrible sight we had seen on the dock at Wapping Old Stairs that morning and now that our business was concluded, we naturally fell to talking about it again.

“I expect the funeral shall be in two days,” Barker said, pushing back his plate and taking a sip of his tea.

“I hope the DeVeres have close friends and relatives to help them through this,” I said. “I cannot see either of them in any condition to attend their daughter’s funeral.”

“You know that I have limited experience with children, save perhaps with Fu Ying, who was thirteen when she came to live with me,” my employer began.

“When she came to live with Harm, you mean,” I interjected. The Dowager Empress of China had given this slave girl to the dog to care for him unto death. Harm, in turn, had been a gift for some service the Guv had done the Chinese royal family; but what it was, he would not tell me.

“I was going to say it is amazing how a child upon its birth quickly becomes the focus of its parents’ lives, and not merely the mother’s. Now their focus is lost. Twelve years of intense caring shall be buried in the ground the day after tomorrow. All their dreams for their daughter-to see her grown, married, having children of her own-are all gone now.”

“Perhaps they can have another child.”

“Perhaps,” Barker repeated. “I hope so, for their sake. There are so many alternatives, none of them good.”

“Sir, if I may say it, your plan needs a little working out.”

Those were the words I had wanted to say to Barker about our move, but they weren’t issuing from my own mouth. Rather, they were coming from the mouth of Barker’s factotum, Jacob Maccabee, as he set down a fresh pot of tea in front of him. The Guv frowned behind his spectacles. I couldn’t recall the last time Mac had issued an objection. Perhaps he never had.

“A little working out?” the Guv asked.

“You intend to continue the investigation, do you not, interviewing suspects and the like?”

“Certainly.”

“Then you shall need fresh changes of clothes. How shall you get food?”

“I had assumed we would go to public houses or tea-rooms.”

“Very good, sir,” Mac went on. “But, then, you shall still need meals in the morning and tea in the evening. You gentlemen shall need looking after.”

“Hmm,” Barker said noncommittally.

“Then there is the problem of the two of you trying to keep a twenty-four-hour watch. First of all, you will both be investigating the area, so there is no one watching what is going on during the day. Also, it’s difficult to work during the day and then split a shift at night.”

“I see what you are getting at,” our employer stated.

I did, as well. Mac wanted to come with us. He was concerned for our welfare, or at least for Barker’s, but it was more than that. Mac had very nearly had my position before I arrived, and I believe he coveted the chance to be a part of the investigation. At least it would get him out of the house.

“Well, sir, three is generally better than two in such situations.”

Barker took a sip of his tea and began patting his clothes for his postprandial pipe. “You understand the requirements?”

“Yes, sir.”

“No pampering, no coddling, strictly Spartan, as they say. And no exceptions. Have you got it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Of course, you may live according to your own dietary restrictions. In fact, if it is easier, you may serve us all kosher now and then. The Bucharest is nearby.”

“Mr. Ho’s tearoom is not far, either. If you give me the key now, I can take a lantern and sweep and mop the floors this evening and get everything in readiness.”

“No,” Barker said. “No light. No light at all, in fact. We work in darkness. That goes for you, too, lad. I know you like to read in the evenings, but I do not want to alert Miacca to our presence.”

“Yes, sir,” I said. This entire exercise was beginning to sound like a punishment.

“How many changes of sheets shall you require, sir?” Mac asked.

“None, Mac. No sheets at all.”

I had to stifle a laugh because I knew Mac’s idea of roughing it was a small tent set up in the country with a portable dining table and camp chairs, and a large picnic hamper containing everything from foie gras to Coleman’s mustard.

“And no pillows,” Barker added.

“I do not believe I could sleep without a pillow, sir,” our butler replied.

“I don’t believe I could, either,” I put in. “If it is austerity you want, I believe I could do without a pillowcase, but I wouldn’t want to wake each morning with a crick in my neck.”

“You won’t have to worry about that, Thomas,” Barker said. “I’m giving you the night shift.”

“Thank you, sir,” I replied, putting as much irony into the phrase as I dared.

“I suppose that I may bring a small camp stove, sir?”

The Guv gave Mac a sour look. “For what purpose?”

“For your tea.”

Barker’s face fell. Mac simply wasn’t getting into the spirit of the adventure. On the other hand, our employer couldn’t do without his pots of green tea. It was what that brain of his ran upon, like coal to a steam engine. “Very well. A small stove. But it must be out from sunset to sunrise. As for Mr. Llewelyn, he shall have to suffice upon tea or forage for his coffee. We cannot coddle a man’s whims when we are hunting a killer.”

I bit my lip. He was making sure he had his precious gunpowder green tea, shipped in specially to a merchant in Mincing Lane, but my coffee drinking was somehow too capricious for him and therefore expendable. How did he expect me to wake up in the morning? Oh, I’d forgotten. I had the night shift. Eight hours on nothing but green tea, and cold at that. The mind rebels.

“Drat that Etienne,” I said.

Mac cleared his throat. He is good at it. It had meaning and inflection.

“Very well, I admit it. This is all my fault. I didn’t eat his omelet because I was distracted by a girl.”

“May we bring a book or two, anyway?” I asked. “There should be some light.”

“That isn’t generally the custom,” Barker said. “The standard form of entertainment among the Sicilians is a deck of cards. If Mac takes the day shift, I the evening, and you the night, you shall have very little time to read.”

I did some mathematical figuring in my head, not my best subject. “So if we are working all day while Mac watches, and you take the evening shift while I sleep, then the two of you bed down while I take the night watch, essentially, we will be working a sixteen-hour shift each day.”

“That is correct,” Barker said, emphasizing it with a nod. “The work is its own incentive. Track down our killer quickly and we can return to relative luxury.”

That evening I chose two novels to take with me, Hardy’s A Pair of Blue Eyes and George MacDonald’s Donal Grant. Reading is my chief form of entertainment, and I’d had a bookshelf put in my room to hold my small collection. Barker reads history and philosophy instead of modern fiction. I suppose he thinks the reading of novels something of an indulgence and that my time would be better spent on shooting practice or studying the manuals for self-improvement he often left on my desk. One cannot let these employers always have their way, however, or one should have no time to oneself at all.

My awakening the next morning can only be described as brutal. It was four in the morning when Mac pushed back the curtains. There wasn’t even a morning sun to greet me. Barker was already up and about. For all I knew he hadn’t gone to sleep at all.

We had chosen the warehouse for its good location and view of the Charity Organization Society on Green Street. When we arrived with the rising sun and I looked at the large warehouse, with its scarred old floor and bare brick walls, I sensed a depressing atmosphere and premonitions of doom, but perhaps I was simply in a sour mood.

“Satisfactory,” the Guv pronounced, looking at the empty room with a mattress in its center. Mac had brought his minimum, two trunks and a large hamper. He’d convinced our employer that a supply of food from Fortnum amp; Mason was better than his going out and foraging every night and possibly being spotted by Miacca or someone who might potentially be spying for him. In the hamper there were sausages, cheeses, tinned kippers, olives, Carr’s biscuits, and Barker’s inevitable tea. Mac had also brought a small contraption, a stove that allowed one to boil water. Many of the packages were emblazoned with the royal warrant, purveyors to Her Majesty the Queen and all that. It was about as austere as a hunt club breakfast, but I wasn’t about to protest. At the bottom of the hamper, our butler had secreted a sack full of coffee.

“I’ll have to use the same pot for both,” Mac told me sotto voce. “Then I’ll have to boil water in the pot afterward to get the coffee odor out. You know how sensitive the Guv is about his tea.”

It was true. Barker is a mass of contradictions, and no more so than when food is involved. Though he kept a chef, it was more for Dummolard’s benefit than his own. The Guv had saved his life on several occasions when they were aboard the Osprey, and Etienne felt he was repaying a debt. The fact that Barker could have lumped all his courses into one pile in the middle of his plate and shoveled it down by the spoonful, so careless was he about food, infuriated Etienne. My employer’s tea was another matter. He was a stickler for it. The tea had to be the proper color and strength, it had to be at the proper temperature, and it had to be served in the handleless cups he had brought from China that matched his teapot with the bamboo handle. It all went to prove my theory that the austerity was to be observed only on my side.

“While we are here,” Barker said, “it would be an excellent time to do some physical culture, gentlemen. Perhaps we can get a skipping rope and some Indian clubs in. Thomas is in training for a match, after all.”

It was overcast that morning, and the clouds marched slowly across the leaden sky like chained prisoners. It began to rain, giving me a more practical problem. Barker’s austerity had extended to our not bringing umbrellas.

“Are you coming?” he asked after we were settled in. We had work to accomplish, and an archfiend to track down.

“Yes, sir.” I turned up the collar of my coat, knowing it would be wet shoes and shoulders for the rest of the day for us, anyway. Mac would be watching as best he could from our window. It would not do to call attention to himself during hours of clear visibility. At night, we could not be seen. I seriously doubted that he could see anything out that window save pelting rain, but I knew Jacob Maccabee would not desert his post for the next eight hours.

We exited the building through the back door, down an alleyway one had to walk sideways to get through, and came out on Globe Road. The moving part of the day was over. It was time to get back to business.

“Swanson!” Barker cried, catching sight of the inspector coming out of the C.O.S. building just after nine o’clock. The man had the common sense to open an umbrella.

“Hallo, Cyrus. Any leads as yet?”

“Nary a one,” the Guv admitted. “We’re dining on scraps so far. Tell me, have your men been exploring the sewers?”

“They have until today. I’m sure they are rejoicing that this rain is washing them out and they don’t have to go down today. I do not think they had any reason to complain. I saw that they were provided with waders.”

“Are Dunham’s lads watching the river?”

“Aye,” Swanson acknowledged. A grim smile came to his lips. “It is river police business, but I just happened to have a few lads standing about with little to do.”

“It would be a shame for the good citizens of London to pay for idle constables simply because of a little rain.”

I would have felt sorry for them were I not out in the wet weather myself on the same errand as they. At least these two men led by example. So far, the rain had not penetrated my macintosh or my leather boots, but it was only a matter of time. I was careful to keep my head down, for one quick look upward would send a brimful of water down the back of my neck.

“I would have thought,” I put in, “that Scotland Yard would have put more patrols in the area. In the streets, I mean, not the sewers.”

“Politics,” Swanson said, putting as much loathing into the word as possible. “If they put more constables into an area, that would be admitting there is a problem; and if word gets out about this Miacca fellow stealing and killing children, it would set off a panic in every house in the East End. That’s thousands of women, and don’t think the ones in Wimbledon or Kensington shall feel safe just because the blighter has so far confined himself to Bethnal Green. Every West End mother shall want a bobby on her doorstep, and if they don’t get it, the MP will put whatever pressure he has upon the commissioner.”

“Then it is in the Yard’s interest not to let this get out,” Barker said.

Swanson smoothed his mustache. “It may be too late for that. Stead is sniffing about, and you know how he is. This is just the sort of thing for him to smear across the front page of his rag and set off a panic London would never forget.”

“So what brought you to the C.O.S.?” Barker asked.

“I was letting them know the sad news. Oh, haven’t you gentlemen heard? Mrs. DeVere killed herself last night. Woke up from her laudanum dreams just long enough to swallow the rest of a new bottle.”

“Oh, no!” I cried.

“Aye, and your client has gone mad with grief. His servants say after he found her, he threw on his coat and ran out the door. He hasn’t been heard from since. I sent word ’round to your house this morning. Apparently, you were out.”