To Kingdom Come

24

“What is wrong, Thomas?”

“Nothing,” I answered, but I was still upset after the scene with Yeats the day before.

We were standing at the platform at Lime Street Station, waiting for the London train. Maire was seeing us off.

“You seem so distant. Have I done anything to anger you? I’m sorry you had to come in on my parting with Willie yesterday. There was never much between us … on my side, I mean.”

“You owe me no explanation, I assure you,” I said.

“Make me a promise, Thomas!” she said.

I have not the makings of a Le Caron, I’m afraid. There are elements of the spying life I could never ascribe to, such as making promises I had no intention of keeping. I looked warily at the girl.

“What kind of promise?”

“That you’ll come back when your mission is over. I’m not saying come back for good. I have no right to ask that. But at least, come back and say good-bye.”

“I can make no such promise. I could be arrested or even blown up.”

“Don’t say that!” she said, looking terrified. “You’re more important to me than this mission. If you ask me, it’s a mere fool’s errand. Promise me this, then. Come back to me if it is within your power.”

“Very well. I shall come back, if it is within my power.”

She kissed me then, one final time, and she put all of herself into that kiss. It was a kiss of virgin chastity and the promise of passionate nights, a kiss of graceful youth, middle years spent side by side, and of old age together, with grandchildren around us. It was everything a kiss could be, pure and powerful. I could not help but fear it might be our last.

We parted. I watched her walk away through the crowd until she was gone. The whistle gave a plaintive cry that matched my mood exactly, and I was alone with a crushing weight I couldn’t describe. I made my way to the carriage and sat down beside O’Casey and the faction members, who were making jokes among themselves at getting another chance at London. I must have been dull company for the entire journey.

It was the most welcome sight in the world when I saw Barker’s stern, impassive figure on the platform at Euston Station. I hadn’t expected to see him awaiting us.

“Welcome to London again, lad,” he murmured, shaking my hand. I felt as if all my emotional burdens were falling off me. I’d give them all to Barker and let him sort them out. We collected my luggage and soon were in a hansom bound for the Crook and Harp. The rest of the faction would split up and arrive singly in a roundabout fashion, so as not to attract the attention of the Special Irish Branch.

“So, how was Paris?” my employer asked, as we watched O’Casey and his men separate and slip through the crowd.

“I got everything we needed for the work, sir. We got in a little sightseeing at the Louvre and the Tuileries. Oh, and we visited the opera one evening.”

“I don’t care about the itinerary, Thomas. Did you discover anything of interest?”

“Willie Yeats quit the faction, after a break with Maire.”

“Did he, by Jove?” Barker asked, taking the pipe out of his mouth.

“McKeller was inclined to be belligerent, but O’Casey let him go.”

“Faction members have been murdered for trying to resign. O’Casey must have exhibited great control and been very sure that Mr. Yeats wouldn’t inform on the cell. It’s good he got out when he could. I don’t believe these rascals shall come to a good end.”

“So, how are things progressing in London?” I asked.

“Famously. Harm is fine, though I believe he has pined a bit from missing us. He seems to have lost some weight. The garden is coming along well, but I discovered some blight on the Japanese maple.”

We were about to blow up half London, and the Guv was going on about his dog and his garden. I listened patiently while he went over his garden in detail, rattling off Latin names as if I knew a bluebell from a buttercup. Finally, he got around to the part I was interested in, the part about Inspector Poole and Scotland Yard.

“Poole assures me the Special Irish Branch can be in position all around the Crook and Harp at a moment’s notice. He paid an informant to tell him where the various tunnels under the area led. Dunleavy is ensconced at Claridge’s in high style, on a floor higher than Parnell. The hotel now boasts two pretenders to the Irish throne. He has had a setback, however. Apparently, the Pope has answered Parnell’s enquiries and is moderately favorable to a bid for Irish independence. In a way, he has cemented Parnell’s position of authority. It has dampened the colonel’s enthusiasm and resulted in another bout of drinking.”

“So, what are our plans, exactly?”

“We have rooms reserved at the Crook and Harp. It is a shambles of a place, with walls knocked out, steps going up and down, and odd turnings, not to mention the tunnels and bolt-holes. We shall collect the materials from Victoria Station and set them up in a makeshift laboratory on the premises. You and I shall prepare the bombs.”

“You do mean inert bombs, don’t you, sir?” I asked.

“We don’t want to cause an actual explosion, but I suspect they shall want a demonstration that our dynamite works. We might set off a single stick in one of the tunnels. I suggest connecting one stick to a cap and fuse. The difficult part will be bundling each of the inert bombs into the satchels, under the very eyes of the faction. Luckily, the one who really knows explosives is Garrity, who is in Paris.”

It felt very good to be back in London again, but I must state that I didn’t care for the Seven Dials, the area which, along with St. Giles, formed that part of town facetiously called the “Holy Land.” “Unholy” would have been more appropriate. Prostitutes and thieves had staked out their territories along the streets, idly waiting like spiders for flies to fall into their traps. When I saw the faded and sooty sign for the Crook and Harp, my spirits flagged. This would be where I lived and worked for the next few days. If I wasn’t careful, they might be my last.

The cabman charged us extra for having to come into this area, and we had to spring from the moving cab, for he wouldn’t stop. As he passed us, we saw a couple of street arabs already clinging to the cab under the driver’s very seat. We too kept moving, rather than risk standing in our drawers, though I’d like to see them dare try it if Barker were in his regular clothes.

The Dials were where seven streets all came together. It looked as if a three-layer cake had been cut into slices and separated; but if so, it was a most unwholesome one, reminding me of Mrs. Havisham’s wedding cake in Great Expectations, and yet the Dials were within a dozen streets of our respectable offices in Whitehall. It was all one with Barker, who would walk into the vilest warren in Whitechapel the same as into Buckingham Palace.

Barker brushed past a brutish-looking clerk with a splinter of wood stuck in his teeth, and went up some dilapidated stairs. He led me down a hall, and I saw what he meant by the Crooked Harp being made from several buildings. There was a hall going twenty feet, then a step and a floor leaning toward the right, then two steps down and another hall with a leftish slant.

My employer retrieved a key from his pocket and unlocked a door on our left. Inside was an antique cabinet bed, the kind that was all the rage in about 1811. There was a circular table decorated with knife marks and water rings, with a quartet of mismatched and spindly chairs around it, and another bed that had last been aired when Nelson drew breath.

“Couldn’t you have gotten a better room?” I asked.

“This is the best room in the house,” Barker stated. “Would you prefer a garret in Islington?” The latter was a reference to the room I’d been living in when he’d hired me-or, rather, not living, since I’d stolen out without paying the rent. In his tactful way, Barker was telling me not to be so particular.

“It’s fine, sir.” I’d seen worse. Or at least just as bad.

There was a knock at the door, and O’Casey and McKeller came strolling in, as if we were still back at the O’Casey house. The fact that we would soon be blowing up whole sections of London seemed to have affected them not at all. Fergus McKeller even had his hands in his pockets, and he sat down and put his feet up on another chair.

“Good day to you, Mr. van Rhyn,” O’Casey said. “When did you last hear from Mr. Dunleavy?”

“Yesterday. We shared some schnapps at Claridge’s.”

I marveled at the way he could slip into a German accent so easily.

“Cart’s downstairs, to get the parcels from Victoria,” McKeller said, a trifle bored. “We’d better leave soon before everything’s stolen but the shadow.”

“I’d like to show Mr. Penrith the laboratory first,” Barker stated.

“Wouldn’t want to mix the wrong chemicals and surprise St. Peter a few decades early,” O’Casey said. “Lead the way, Mr. van Rhyn.”

The room was in the very highest and farthest corner of the inn, a garret room, empty except for a few tables. It had a large skylight and several west-facing windows which someone had even gone to the trouble of wiping down. It was better than I would have expected.

“This is very satisfactory,” Barker said. “A man could definitely build bombs here. Penrith, why don’t you go along with these gentlemen to the station and collect the packages. We have a lot of work ahead, and I’m sure you are as anxious to get started as I. Later, we shall all go to the public house below and have a meal and drink, if you gentlemen are agreeable.”

“Oh, we’re very agreeable,” McKeller put in. “You’re in luck, Penrith. They have Guinness!”

I’d had enough of trying to keep up with McKeller where drinking is concerned. By then, I was beginning to feel as if my entire circulatory system had been emptied of blood and replaced with the national drink of Ireland. At best, I offered a halfhearted reply.

We rode in the cart to Victoria Station, with McKeller driving. I wondered how my London friends, Ira and Israel, would react if they saw me in the back of a dogcart with a group of Irish ne’erdo-wells. In Liverpool I’d somehow felt I’d be safer once I was in London again. Now, I felt less safe than ever.

The parcels were all waiting to be claimed in the goods shed. I presented my identity papers, all fake from top to bottom, and signed the stack of forms that formally exchanged the responsibility for the parcels from the railway company to me. I wondered if a keen fellow in the railway’s employ could have looked on the cumulative list of materials and figured out what we were up to. If there was such a one, apparently he wasn’t working there that day. The two Irishmen helped me load up the cart and we left without incident.

“You know what I’m thinking, boys?” McKeller asked as we were returning.

“You’re thinking you’ve worked too hard, and you’d like a drink right about now,” O’Casey said with an air of disapproval.

“That’s the problem with having friends,” McKeller said. “Takes all the mystery out of everything.”

“You can have a drink when we get back.”

“I’ll perish by then,” the big Irishman complained. “First pub I find, I’m stopping.”

“But we have a cart full of supplies,” I pointed out.

“This is Charing bleedin’ Cross. Nobody’ll steal nothin’ here. There’s one right now, on our right. Whoa!” He pulled the cart up in front of a pub called the Admiralty Arms.

“We really shouldn’t stop, McKeller,” I urged.

“Just a pint. I’ll drink it fast. Eamon, we’re near the Thames if you’re thirsty.”

O’Casey gave me a look which said I can do nothing with him, and we reluctantly followed him through the blue-and-gold doors. It was mid-afternoon, and the owner was setting out a side of beef on the bar. The smell made me hungry. I supposed it wouldn’t hurt to have a sandwich and a pint of bitters.

“Two pints, publican,” McKeller ordered, as we set our feet on the rail, and our elbows on the polished mahogany. “And bring my teetotal friend some whather.”

The proprietor leaned forward and spoke to us in low tones. “Here, now, clear off, you lot. I don’t want any trouble.”

“Trouble” Mckeller asked. “We don’t want trouble. We only wanted beer. We have money.”

“I don’t want your damned money, Paddy. I want you out of here.

I don’t serve Irish vermin here.”

“Perhaps we’d better leave,” O’Casey said, being the most coolheaded.

“Let’s go, McKeller,” I said, taking his arm, but he shook it off and uttered a string of obscenities. The Irish have a natural poetic gift for obscenities, and in a few dozen words, McKeller had insulted the publican, his bar, and most of his ancestors. The heavily mustached proprietor reached under the bar and hefted a large axe.

“You can go out on your own pins,” the man said, “or you can be carried out.”

Neither McKeller nor O’Casey had brought their bata sticks, and that was probably a good thing or the public house would have been torn apart and the three of us thrown in jail. It didn’t seem fair, I’ll admit, but tempers were running high in London at the moment, and those two men were the actual cause of it.

We crawled back up into the cart, and with a rough lash of the reins, moved off. McKeller was seething and O’Casey trying to calm him down.

“As you can see, Penrith,” O’Casey said drily, “being Irish isn’t all shamrocks and singing.”

“I’ll blow this town to smithereens!” McKeller vowed. He was so angry, he was almost choking on the words. “I’ll raze it. I’ll tear it down to bricks, then I’ll grind them into dust. I’m not leaving London till I’ve seen that publican’s blood spilt! You mark my words!”

“Take it easy, McKeller,” O’Casey soothed. “We’ll each buy you a pint at the Harp.”

McKeller uttered threats and curses all the way back to Seven Dials.

Once there, O’Casey stepped inside the Crook and Harp and found Colin and Padraig Bannon, who came out and unloaded the cart while we went into the pub. Here, we were accepted, but there was more to it than that. Here, we were welcome, even revered. We ordered two pulls of the tap and O’Casey’s water, and tried to get McKeller to calm down.

As I was listening to McKeller’s litany of complaints against the English, I happened to look over his shoulder, where I spotted a familiar face. At the far end of the room, Soho Vic was seated, leaning against a wall, a pint in front of him. He was engrossed in trimming his nails with a pocketknife and seemed not to notice we were in the room.

My spirits rose. One of Barker’s watchers was in residence, and I hoped the police were nearby waiting for a signal. Thanks to the publican at the Arms, the Irish were now demoralized. I almost felt sorry for poor McKeller being tossed out of the public house. Now all we needed to do was build up a few fake explosives, let them get caught by Scotland Yard with them, and that was that. These faction members would be in Wormwood Scrubs and we’d be safe at home.

A hand suddenly came forward and patted my shoulder.

“Hello, Mr. Penrith. Fellows. How are things?”

It was Niall Garrity. I could feel my blood suddenly run cold. It appeared Barker and I would not be making bombs alone after all.