The Hellfire Conspiracy

14

“Lad, cut along and visit miss Potter at the Katherine Building. Bring her to our chambers. If I am satisfied, I shall engage her services, provided she is still serious about her offer.”

“If she’s anything, she’s serious,” I said. “I’m certain she hasn’t changed her mind. I’ll see if she can come.”

I took a smart-looking hansom, hoping to impress Miss Potter, and left Barker to take an omnibus.

The Katherine Building where she worked was in a villainous part of Whitechapel, hard by the docks and the fish market. I let the cab driver curse until the air was blue about soiling his pretty wheels among the fish offal-strewn puddles, but we reached a liberal financial agreement. I went inside and found Miss Potter and explained that Barker wanted to see her. She put up the expected argument; she was busy collecting the rents. In turn, I told her this was her only chance. She conferred with a colleague and soon we were traveling through the City on our way to Whitehall. She was nervous about being interviewed by my employer, and I explained that while going into his office was like approaching a lion in its den, he improved upon closer acquaintance. I wasn’t certain she believed me. I’m not sure I did either.

Once back in Craig’s Court, I sat her in the visitor’s chair and left her to look about the room. She was only the second woman I’d seen in that seat since the year began. Barker was nowhere to be found.

“Jenkins?”

Our clerk was staring at our visitor as if she were an apparition from heaven.

“He hasn’t come through here, Mr. L.,” he said. “Try outside.”

I found Barker in the bare courtyard behind our offices, fingering a small, anonymous wildflower that had grown up through the cracks in the pavement.

“I’m thinking of putting in a small garden here,” he said, not looking up.

“Really?” I said. “That would be jolly.”

“That way, we can do our physical culture exercises out here during our spare moments.”

There’s nothing I would like better, I thought, than to come out to the courtyard in all manner of weather and do Barker’s exercises on the paving stones.

“She’s here, sir, waiting in your office.”

Barker nodded. Before he went inside, he shot his cuffs and resettled his frock coat, like an actor about to go on-stage. He’d eschew such a comparison, but it was apt all the same.

“Good afternoon, Miss Potter,” he said, striding into his chamber. He took her delicate hand in his calloused one, the same hand I’d seen put bone locks on several men in the year or more since I’d begun working with him. Beatrice Potter murmured a greeting. She did her best to look undaunted, but Barker had daunted braver people than she.

“Mr. Llewelyn tells me that you are anxious to aid our efforts to find Gwendolyn DeVere’s killer. Most women your age,” Barker noted, “are concerned with copying the latest fashions from Paris or compiling a list of the eligible young men of their set.”

“I am not most women my age, sir.”

“I’m glad to hear it. Do you think you could convince Miss Hill to have you take over Mrs. DeVere’s duties?”

“I don’t foresee a problem. She was sad to see me go to my present position.”

“Excellent. I realize you have other duties, but if you could contrive to attend at least an hour a day, I would be grateful.”

“Do you suspect someone within the Charity Organization Society of having something to do with Gwendolyn DeVere’s murder?” she asked.

“Miss, I suspect everyone in Bethnal Green and several others who haven’t set a foot inside it. It is not time to begin eliminating suspects just yet. I am hunting facts and opinions and I think you might be well placed to deliver both.”

“I expect this to be a paid position.”

“Certainly. I am not one of your charities.”

“What duration shall be my employment?”

“It shall be brief, merely a week or two, until I find the man who murdered Miss DeVere.”

“You think you shall find him in so short a time?” she dared ask.

“I can but cast my net, Miss Potter, but it is a stout old net, and I am an experienced fisherman. We are no longer looking for a white slave ring. Mr. Llewelyn and I have received a letter from a madman whom we believe has stolen and murdered half a dozen young girls in Bethnal Green.”

“My word,” Miss Potter murmured, clutching her throat.

“We learned that Miss DeVere’s escape from the charity was aided by Miss Ona Bellovich.”

“Might I see the letter?”

Cyrus Barker leaned back in his chair and scratched his chin absently, the way he does when deep in thought. He was not inconvenienced in the least that this girl was waiting for him to make a decision.

“Very well,” he finally said, pulling the note from the wide middle drawer of his desk. “I would appreciate your opinion.”

Beatrice took the letter and read it over a few times without comment. Finally, she set it back upon the desk, facedown.

“Do you believe in woman’s intuition?”

“I have no formed opinion. Perhaps.”

She tapped the note with a nail. “This is pure evil.”

Barker nodded but said nothing.

“He’s very…harsh. His taunts must be unbearable to you.”

I realized then how sensitive the girl was. She was actually concerned over my employer’s feelings.

“I can bear them well enough, miss. Do you recognize the hand?”

“I do not.”

“What about the poetry? Is anyone at the charity a writer of poems?”

“Miss Levy is a published poet. Amy’s work has appeared in several journals. Of course, it’s nothing like this. This is quite crude.”

“I shall accept your opinion of it.”

“Do you really smoke an ivory pipe?” she asked suddenly.

Barker sat a moment, then got up and moved to his bookshelves. He opened his walnut smoking cabinet, displaying two racks of pipes.

“Meerschaum, actually,” he said.

“So I see.”

“I am satisfied, Miss Potter. Consider your services engaged.”

“Is there anything I should look for in particular?” she asked.

“Mr. Llewelyn, have you got the list of victims with you?”

I flipped through my notebook, glad for once that he hadn’t called me “lad” in front of Miss Potter. “Here it is, sir.”

“Thank you. I would like to know if the girls on this list came through the C.O.S.”

“As you wish, sir.”

“I hope your enquiry skills are as satisfactory as your manners. The socialism notwithstanding, you give me some hope for the next generation. That will be all.”

He rose, gave a solemn nod, and then exited the way he came. He wasn’t going anywhere save the empty courtyard again, I knew. Perhaps it was all for Miss Potter’s benefit.

“What an unusual person your employer is,” she said under her breath.

“He is that,” I commented diplomatically.

“He really thinks he’ll find Gwendolyn’s killer in so short a time?”

“If he says so, I believe him. He does not make inflated promises.”