Desperation and Decision (4 page)

"Lady Phoebe, lookee what the rain blew in!"
Oliver Twist pulled me to my feet and dragged me forward. Mrs.
Moore-Campbell whirled and quickly extended a hand to me.

"Your highness! Oh, no. Again I must beg your
forgiveness!" she cried. "We were so worried when Mac and Rose
didn't meet us outside the theater, and then we came upon them
after this pickpocket attacked Mac, and Rose was drenched, and Mac
was bleeding, and we just -- "

I burst out laughing and patted her hand. The
warmth and love of this group had touched me deeply and I could not
muster my usual reserve. "No apology is needed, surely Madame, when
you put your family and their comfort and safety ahead of a mere
stranger," I protested.

"Prince Florizel of Bohemia, may I present my
husband's cousin, Mrs. Rose Campbell?" Mrs. Moore-Campbell seemed
determined to carry through with formal introductions so I kissed
the hand of the little blond woman. "Her husband, Doctor Alexander
Mackenzie Campbell, and my husband, Mr. Archibald Campbell, have
gone downstairs to speak with a constable who took custody of the
pickpocket. And this is Mowgli, from India."

"I confess I overheard your husband's earlier
introduction of this gentleman." I nodded to him. He raked his
intensely black eyes over me and nodded back.

"What is Bohemia?" he demanded.

I was taken aback. "It is a kingdom in
Europe," I replied.

"What is Europe?" he asked.

"What -- what is Europe?" I stammered. I
tried to see if he jested, but I recalled some of his odd speech
about jungles and forest gods and wolves and thought perhaps he
truly did not know. His English was indeed heavily accented and so
I opened my mouth to try to explain when Mrs. Moore-Campbell
laughed.

"Mowgli delights in pretending ignorance but
he knows quite well what Europe is," she reassured me. "I am not
certain he knows where Bohemia is, but neither does he really need
to know. Is that not so, Mowgli?"

Instead of responding, Mowgli opened his
mouth and gave vent to an ululating, shrill sound. Mrs.
Moore-Campbell parted her lips and I found myself looking about the
room for the mourning dove that had called before I realized the
sound had issued from the lady's throat. Mowgli responded with
another strange but vaguely birdlike sound. They both seated
themselves on the hearth with Mrs. Campbell's chair between
them.

"Do you intend to explain this?" Doctor Mac's
voice issued from the lift as it hissed upward.

"Phoebe will, if she has a mind," responded
Mr. Campbell as they stepped back into the sitting room.

"Phoebe will?" Doctor Mac echoed. "What has
Phoebe got to do with naked fellows and black panthers running
around London in the dead of night?" They quieted when they saw me
at last and shook my hand, but then spotted Mrs. Moore-Campbell and
the mysterious Indian crouching together on the bricks at Mrs.
Campbell's feet. From the throat of the beautiful
gypsy-complexioned woman issued the calls of the lark, the
whippoorwill, the robin, the bluebird, and a dozen others.
Alternately the strange black-clad fellow would make sounds both
eerie and beautiful, cries of birds no American or English sun had
ever risen upon.

"That is Chil the kite," explained the Indian
after the last.

"And the one before?" Rose Campbell glowed
with the fire's warmth and her captivation with their new
acquaintance.

"Darzee the tailor-bird. He cries so when the
cobra threatens his nest."

A sound vibrated through all the suites of
rooms, one far stranger than exotic birdcalls. It was a rumble that
could be felt more than heard and ended in a thin, barely audible
wail. We all started violently and the one called Mowgli dashed out
of the room faster than the eye could follow into the fourth
adjoining bedroom.

"What was that?" Rose cried out. "It shook my
very bones!"

"Oh, I did not wish to do this so
topsy-turvy, but I suppose it must be. Prince Florizel, Doctor
Twist, please join us here," Mrs. Moore-Campbell and her husband
quickly rearranged the chairs and the divan in the room and created
a conference circle.

"My little mistress," she began, "we have
something to propose to you as head of the Alexander Campbell
Foundation."

"You've done a wonderful work with the
'decayed gentlewomen' and the orphans," Mr. Campbell said eagerly,
also addressing Mrs. Campbell, "and all the other stuff you've got
involved with. And you've helped us establish orphanages, churches,
and mission works all around the world. This idea is a little
different, though."

"We want to set up an organization to fight
evil," Phoebe said.

"To fight evil?" Rose echoed. "What do you
mean?"

I strained forward, since finally the subject
had come round to what I had supposedly been summoned to hear.

"Look here, you two." Doctor Mac picked out
from his medical bag a pipe and a tobacco pouch. Before I could
stop myself my greatly overtaxed brain finally pushed a memory to
the surface and I vaulted up.

"The rosewood and amber pipe!" I shouted.
Everyone turned to stare at me. Doctor Mac burst out laughing.

"The tobacconist!" he responded. "This is
your mysterious Prince Florizel, Phoebe-Bird? He fixed my pipe
right handily, and he's quite ignorant about world-famous
chanteuses and their longsuffering lyricists, so I like him just
fine, but what makes you think he can fight evil?"

Everyone laughed at that and I sat down,
scarlet-faced. The good doctor found he couldn't manage his pipe
with his grumpy puppet bandage. Glad of a distraction from my
self-inflicted humiliation, I quickly filled the pipe and lit it
for him.

"We'll get to the Tobacconist of Bohemia
issue shortly. For now, Mr. and Mrs. Campbell, you're approaching
the foundation." Doctor Mac drew and puffed and set the pipe into
that crooked tooth of his. "That means you have to have a clear and
concrete proposal. Fighting evil's a noble but mighty vague
concept."

"Right, right," Mr. Campbell nodded. "Of
course, we're muddling this. We had everything all set up in a tidy
presentation. It's only that we just located Florizel, and what
happened to you two tonight underscored the problem and the
solution so clearly."

"You encountered a thief," Mrs.
Moore-Campbell said. "He tried to steal from you, and when you
resisted him, he tried to harm you. You chased him, tried to subdue
him, but he attacked you."

"He might possibly have killed you, since you
were so persistent," Mr. Campbell said soberly.

"I didn't expect that," Doctor Mac admitted.
"It griped me that the little snake tried it and I wanted to teach
him a lesson. I never heard of a pickpocket who would kill his
mark."

"We have," Mrs. Moore Campbell said. "Long
before we arrived in London. I don't know if the constable was
honest with you ...? "

"He wasn't," Mr. Campbell said grimly. "You
see we didn't get the boy back. I pray it's not kidding ourselves
to hope we still will."

"What happened with the constable?" Mrs.
Campbell asked.

Doctor Mac related the tale.

The constable, a rather short, bowlegged
fellow with thick black sideburns, stood at tireless attention,
dripping on the black and burgundy oriental hall rug with his back
against the burgundy and gold flocked wallpaper of the circular
hall. His helmet was pulled low over his eyes and his dark,
bronze-buttoned coat collars were tucked up tight. Just the bare
edges of bronze goggles glinted beneath the helmet.

Thick side-whiskers already obscured his
face and he stood directly under the gas lamp, throwing his face
into a deep shadow that made it impossible to guess what he looked
like. He grasped firmly by the collar a small street urchin in
ragged tweeds that seemed once to have been green. The cap looked
even larger, overshadowing the boy's face in the harsh hall
gaslights.

"Can the gentleman identify the attacker?"
The boy twisted aside and tried to avoid my gaze. The constable
pinned him against the wall by grabbing his jaw and wrestled with
the boy's right hand, knocking the cap to the floor and exposing
wild, matted dark hair and a gaunt little face.

"Easy there, officer." The man's apparently
callous brutality startled me. Archie nudged me and pointed out
that the man had just extricated a small blade from the boy's hand,
still stained with what I took to be my own blood.

"It's 'constable,' sir." The policeman
straightened again while still restraining the boy. I confined
myself to studying the pale, drawn, mud-streaked face of the boy in
the constable's grip.

"Yes, that's him. I remember that venomous
little face leering up at me. Pickpockets don't usually try to
spear their targets, do they?"

"Property missing?" The constable ignored
the question.

"Well, I have my watch back." I showed it to
the constable. The pickpocket dropped his jaw at the sight of
it.

"Oy tol' yew!" shrieked the boy. "It were
'at cove wot 'ad nuffink on. 'E pinched it, not me. Oy'm walkin'
about an' moindin' me own business when this yere toff –" he
indicated me "-- whips 'is stick 'tween me legs an' upends me in
the dustbins. Then Oy sees – Oy sees a thing loik a big black dog
on'y crouchin'-like an' wit green oiys. Then this other cove wit
'air everywhere an' nuffink on gets a'tween us an' Oy gets the
blame for pinchin' wot Oy nivver pinched!"

"Enough nonsense, me lad." The constable
shook the boy roughly.

"What makes you carry a knife, son?" I asked
the pickpocket.

"Gerrout. T' save me 'ide from perishin' big
dogs an' coves wit nuffink on wot attacks a chap, that's wot."

Archie prompted me with another prod from
his elbow. "Constable, since I've got my watch back and there's no
serious harm done, do you suppose the boy could be released?" I
asked belatedly.

"Complaint has been recorded. Have to take
him in and process him, sir."

"Right," Archie persisted. "But could we
stop by the station later and perhaps see him?"

"No law forbids it." The constable marched
the boy off.

"First of all," Madame Moore-Campbell began
again, "I had originally meant to stay at home and just be a wife
and mother, never to pursue my singing career any further, after I
married Archie."

"Always thought that was a stupid idea,"
Doctor Mac snorted. "Talent like yours should be used for the Lord.
The opportunity to travel, to be a blessing and an influence for
Christ was too good to miss, no matter that you got all the hackles
up again on the Aunt Hill when you decided to tour."

"It started out to be just for the reason you
said." Madame Moore-Campbell blushed. "We just wanted to honor the
Lord. Archie's business training with his father made him a perfect
manager and we were also able to hold revivals and evangelistic
meetings, as you know. We spread Rose's foundation works to other
places and set up schools and churches to disciple those we were
able to minister to along the way.

"But as we traveled we could not help seeing
the criminal activity. We began to notice a new and frightening
pattern. The kind of thing that happened to you has been happening
a lot lately.

"Pickpockets have become aggressive, violent,
and actually murderous. It's happening in any number of cities here
in England and across the British Empire"

"The authorities don't believe that these are
connected gangs under a single leader," Mr. Campbell said. "We've
stuck our noses in despite opposition from every possible
government agency. Our contacts believe that there is a central
organizer, and that he resides in London."

"Organized pickpockets?" Doctor Mac scoffed.
"Why on earth would anyone do such a thing? I mean, sure, small
lots, one fellow controlling the boys and fencing the profits, I've
heard of that. But how can the profits from handkerchiefs and
watches support an international organization?"

"It's far beyond watches and handkerchiefs,"
Madame Moore-Campbell informed him. "So-called ordinary pickpockets
are stealing government documents. Negotiable bonds go missing and
are cashed out. Engineering plans and vital business documents are
being held for extortive sums or sold to competitors – "

"Well, this makes our experience pale by
comparison," Doctor Mac said.

"But it fits the pattern," Mr. Campbell
insisted. "And it's 'way beyond just pickpockets. We believe
prostitutes, housebreakers and drug traffickers are also being
organized. We think this organization gets very young children and
starts them out with small jobs. They graduate to bigger things and
get sent all around the world. What connects them is that they are
all drilled in a common system protocol – respond with violence and
kill if necessary to keep free and prevent identification."

"Then our chap failed miserably," Doctor Mac
commented.

"Right," Mr. Campbell nodded. "But I don't
think they counted on your getting help from a half-naked jungle
denizen and a black panther."

"Yes, about that -- " Doctor Mac began.

Mr. Campbell interrupted him. "Phoebe, when
are the others due in?"

"All through the night," Phoebe replied.

"You're sure none of them need to be
met?"

Phoebe replied, "Sue has her own
transportation, of course. The river authority was reluctant, but I
was persuasive."

"Mmmm. You can be very persuasive." Mr.
Campbell bent down and kissed his wife.

Madame Moore-Campbell tapped his nose to come
up for air and went on. "Mowgli and his family came to London with
us, of course. Dr. Twist insisted on making all the other
arrangements. I only hope he doesn't frighten any of them
away."

I glanced sidelong at Doctor Twist, who
grinned and rubbed his hands together as if he looked forward to
frightening these mysterious "others".