The Limehouse Text

2

Barker had been training me these past twelve months, but I was still green enough to stand there like a total fool, an easy target for the assassin’s bullet. It is not every day one is talking with a fellow and one of you is shot between the eyes. If I was frozen in shock, my employer was not; I felt his hand grab my collar and swing me ’round until I hit the wall behind him, sliding down to the hard stone floor.

“What the deuce-”

Barker’s thick fingers clamped over my mouth. Bainbridge’s murderer did not need light to carry on further assassinations. My employer’s hand disappeared and I heard his boots take two steps before there was a sudden slap of impact and then another and then a perfect flurry of them. Barker was engaged in a fight with the killer in total darkness not five feet away from me, and for once he didn’t appear to be winning handily. I got up, ready to run or defend myself, though if the Guv was having trouble I didn’t stand a chance. Barker was suddenly knocked back into me, but I felt him connect with a left and then a right against our invisible foe. A moment later, footsteps echoed quickly down the subterranean tunnel, and Barker pushed himself off the wall. There was a sudden jingle of coins in my employer’s pockets and within seconds they were clanging off the walls and rolling everywhere. Barker was quite accurate with his razor-sharp pennies as a rule, but if he actually struck our assassin, the latter wasn’t generous enough to cry out. We gave chase, but just then it felt as absurd as running into a burning building.

I heard the creak of rusty hinges and light flooded down momentarily into the tunnel, but all that was illuminated was Barker’s stony face as he reached the stairs. My employer continued on gamely, but we both knew what he would find when he reached the top: an empty alleyway.

When I reached the final step I began lighting the naphtha lamps Ho provided there, keenly aware that I’d just done this for Bainbridge a short time before. Poor fellow, I thought. He certainly didn’t deserve such an end. I could imagine him conscientiously attempting to close this case, going over every jot and tittle, and suddenly coming across the wedge of pasteboard in Quong’s cotton jacket. Now he was dead, and in the same manner as my late predecessor, a single bullet between the eyes, which only went to prove one thing: this was not merely an unsolved case but an ongoing one in the midst of which one could quite easily be killed. Did the murderer have a grudge against Barker and was attempting to eliminate all his assistants and friends? Had the bullet that knocked out my lamp really been meant for me?

I jumped when the door was suddenly flung open, but it was merely Barker returning. He grunted, took a lit lamp in either hand, and proceeded down the steps again.

On the bottom step at the other side, Ho sat looking as sour as I have ever seen him, his eyes on the corpse. I set the other two lamps at the feet of the late Inspector Bainbridge, which, combined with the ones Barker had set at his head, gave a macabre, ritual-like look to the corridor. Bainbridge lay supine, legs slightly apart, palms up, his mouth gaping open, dead. I realized I believe in the human soul, for there was something there five minutes before that was not there now, something beyond mere animation. That had been a living, breathing being, full of questions about the case and all sorts of plans, from how he was going to catch Quong’s killer to what he was going to eat for lunch that day. Now all that was left was inanimate clay, fodder for the grave.

Ho stood abruptly, turned, and climbed the stairs to his restaurant, muttering to himself. Once inside, it turned to bellows, in intermittent Chinese and English.

“Chut! Hui! We are closed! Out! Get out now! Watch your step!”

Suddenly, the stone stairway was full of people-diners, waiters, and even cooks-herded unceremoniously out of the restaurant by its volcanic owner. At the foot of the stair, they split into two groups, scuttling along on either side of the corpse like rats in a ship. English, Chinese, Jews, Russians-all were the same now, eyeing, or trying not to eye, the corpse as they hurried along.

“I must send a note to Scotland Yard,” Barker stated, reaching into his pocket.

“I’ll write it,” I said, forestalling him. My employer’s handwriting would have been no more legible to them than Chinese calligraphy. I pulled my notebook and pencil from my pocket. “What shall I say?”

“Ask for Inspector Poole. He, at least, has some understanding of this culture. Tell him Bainbridge has been shot dead. Terry has not been here before. Have him meet you outside.”

“I could send a telegram instead,” I suggested. “It might reach him faster. There’s bound to be an office along the docks.”

“Good thinking, lad. No telling how long a message would take to reach Scotland Yard from here. Off with you, then.”

I was up the stairs and out the door, keen to serve my employer before I remembered about assassins and flying bullets. The alleyway in front of Ho’s has no means of entrance or egress and nothing to shelter behind. Should the fellow appear at the far end with his pistol or rifle, he could shoot me at his leisure. Luckily for me, the killer had vanished without a trace.

It took only five minutes to locate a telegraph office, it being a matter of following the wires leading down toward the docks. This was certainly not a picturesque part of London. The salt air of the Thames was doing a fine job of warping the clapboards of the buildings and stripping the paint from the graying wood. There were no gaily painted Chinese signs or dragons or pagodalike structures that proclaimed Limehouse was the Oriental quarter of town. It made a satisfactory attempt at being anonymous.

I waited while the message was transcribed and sent and then returned to the restaurant. It was a cold afternoon in February, and as I walked I noted that the sun produced a good deal of light but almost no heat. I went in to find that nothing was standing guard over the inspector’s body but the four lanterns. I continued into the restaurant.

Barker and Ho were seated at one of the tables, drinking tea amid a pile of abandoned dishes. “Help yourself to food, lad. There’s plenty going to waste in the kitchen,” the Guv said.

“No, thank you, sir,” I said. I’d lost my appetite. Instead, I poured myself a cup of lukewarm tea.

“Mr. K’ing must be told,” Ho insisted as I set my cup on the last clear foot of table.

“Oh, come now,” my employer responded. “Why must I inform him? Am I to take all these rumors seriously? They say he has been here for a hundred years and is responsible for half the evil done in London.”

“I believe the last part,” Ho maintained. “He has extorted money from me for years. Two cooks were employed by me at his written request, and though they only worked for me a day or so, I have been forced to pay their salaries ever since.”

“What?” Barker growled. “You never told me this. I am surprised you didn’t snap their necks and hand them back their heads.”

I chuckled at this last remark and it even brought a rare smile to Ho’s lips, but it was true. Despite his stout stomach, Ho could handle himself well, of that I was sure. Ho gave a shrug.

“So, what was K’ing’s group called?” I asked. “This Blue Dragon something or other?”

“Blue Dragon Triad,” Barker answered. “Most of the members are present or former employees of the Blue Funnel Line that steams between Liverpool and Shanghai. London is their layover, so the line is responsible for the Chinese being here in the first place. But is the Blue Dragon a part of any real triad in China, or does K’ing exert influence here based upon his own ability to hold power?”

“What exactly is a triad?” I asked.

“They are criminal fraternities that control the opium trade and other interests in China. They began as benevolent organizations whose purpose was to overthrow the Manchu dynasty. They have been corrupted from their original purpose, and their influence is beginning to grow beyond China. There has been evidence of the group’s expansion into Formosa, Manila, Sydney, and other port towns. Now K’ing claims his own little branch here. Does he do anything else besides extort money?” he asked Ho.

“I have heard a few people have disappeared without a trace. On the other hand, he has funded some festivals here and given money to the Asiatic Aid Society. I believe he will be sponsor of the New Year’s festival in a few days.”

“New Year’s?” I asked. “It is February.”

“Chinese New Year, lad,” Barker said. “February fifteenth.”

I was at my post in the alley outside Ho’s door fifteen minutes later when a four-wheeler clattered to a stop and disgorged Inspector Poole and three constables so alike in size and appearance they might all have been stamped in a press. I raised a hand and he nodded brusquely in my direction. Terence Poole was one of Barker’s closest friends and a member of his physical culture classes at Scotland Yard until the bombing last year by the Irish Republican Brotherhood had put an end to them.

“Where is he?” Poole asked in a monotone. Whether he meant Barker or Bainbridge, I did not ask, merely pointing to the door at the end of the alleyway. If I was in any doubt as to the inspector’s mind, he made it perfectly clear a moment later. Coming upon a small piece of crumbled brick on the ground, he gave it such a savage kick it spun across the alleyway and shattered when it hit the wall. Though he had never been to Ho’s before, he pulled open the door and headed down the unlit steps like a regular.

For a moment the passage was filled with the sounds of our ten shoes. Finally reaching the lamps around the inspector’s body, he ignored Barker and Ho, who were now both sitting on the bottom step, and went down on one knee, examining the face of his late colleague.

“Ah, Nevil,” he said, as if the man were still alive. “Who’s done this to you, old fellow, and however shall I tell the missus?”

Barker stood and came over to us, but all he got for his efforts was a glare from Poole, as if this were all our fault.

“How did he get in this godforsaken tunnel?” the inspector asked.

“We were coming out of Ho’s when he was shot from the other end.”

“Is it always this dark?”

“Sometimes it is darker. The regulars often come through here in pitch darkness.”

Poole gave him a look, as if he had come upon a club of eccentrics. “Who was here when the shots were fired?”

“Llewelyn, Bainbridge, and me, and the killer, of course.”

“Did you see anything?”

“No,” Barker stated. “The only light was from a single lamp in Thomas’s hand, which was shot out by a second bullet from over there.”

“So, he was on the stair behind me as you all walked toward him, about twenty-five yards with wavering light. Not a bad shot.”

“Very professional,” my employer agreed.

Poole looked about at the small, overlapping circles of light created by the lamps. “This glass is crushed. It looks like a herd of elephants has been through here.”

“Yes, well, I’m afraid the restaurant was full, and the only way of egress is this tunnel. Ho thought it best to run them through quickly.”

“This is a murder site!” Poole barked. It was obvious he was looking for someone to blame. “I do not care how long they had to wait, I do not care if they had to sit up there all day, you shouldn’t have let them walk across evidence!”

“These were not the sort of individuals-”

“I don’t bloody care!”

There was an awkward silence for a moment. I thought Poole was being unfair. Actually, it was Ho who had sent the patrons off, and the circumstances were perfectly understandable. Also, as Barker tried to say, the clientele was not the easiest to marshal or contain. Some were criminals, some political revolutionaries, and others lived in the shadowy world of exiles, spies, and secret societies. It was amazing that Ho had gotten them all to obey him.

“I take it this is the owner,” Poole finally said, jerking a thumb in Ho’s direction. “Does he speak English?”

“When it suits him.”

“Here, you!” Poole called, which was not a safe way to address the Chinaman. Ho had upper arms the size of a good roast joint and I’d seen him throw a meat cleaver with some accuracy. “Did anyone come in after Inspector Bainbridge and these two entered the tunnel? I was wondering if he might have secreted himself among the crowd and left with them.”

“No one came in,” Ho stated. Seated on the bottom step, his arms folded across his thick stomach, he looked like a dyspeptic Buddha.

“Blast. Why was Nevil here?” he asked, addressing us. “Were you helping him with a case?”

“He was getting back to me with the results of an investigation regarding my late assistant’s death last year.”

Poole looked at him shrewdly. “Ah, yes, that’s right. Your man was shot between the eyes like Nevil, wasn’t he? You think it’s the same man?”

Barker shrugged.

“Had you come across new evidence?”

“He merely came to inform me that the case was closed. Apparently, we were wrong.”

Poole shook his head and toyed with the hanging ends of his long side-whiskers in frustration. Finally, he sighed.

“You’ll be at home or at your chambers?” he asked.

“Yes,” Barker answered. “I am setting aside all our other cases temporarily. I believe we can go forward with the supposition that the same man killed both my late assistant, Quong, and Inspector Bainbridge.”

“Limehouse,” Poole muttered. “It would have to happen in Limehouse. By gor, I hate the place. I don’t know what Nevil saw in it, I really don’t. You ask for directions or the time of day here and everyone suddenly forgets English and shuts up like an oyster. There is going to be a lot of pressure from upstairs to solve this one quickly. Nevil was a bit unorthodox, but he was an inspector, after all, and Commissioner Henderson does not take kindly to the death of a constable, let alone an inspector. If I do not clear this up quickly, he might put me in charge here permanently, blast the fellow.”

Barker’s stony face showed no expression at the outburst.

“You there,” Poole said, indicating the first constable. “Go fetch a cart to transport the body to K Division.” He turned to another. “You take a lantern and walk along the tunnel and look for clues.” He pointed to a third. “And you come with me and take notes. Shall we go into Mr. Ho’s restaurant, then, and talk, gentlemen?”

Poole questioned us, requestioned us, and then separated us and cross-questioned us. He asked the same questions in so many different ways, I began to get mixed up in the minor details. When he finally let us go two hours later, I’d told him everything. Everything, that is, that my employer wished me to say, for I noted that the one thing Cyrus Barker had been very careful to omit was the existence of the book we had just discovered, the cause of our present misery and of a good deal more to come.