Some Danger Involved (8 page)

Like a clockwork figure in a Tyrolean timepiece, Racket’s cab came around the corner and stopped in front of us. We climbed in and lounged against the plush seats. I, for one, was exhausted.

“How did I do?” were the first words out of my mouth.

“Passable, lad, passable. At one point you had a vapid grin on your face, but you mastered it.”

“I believe you cracked a couple of my ribs back there.”

“They’d better get used to it. They won’t be the last bones you’ll crack in this business.”

“I liked the service,” I said, changing the subject, “but I missed the flowers and hymns. I might have understood it better in English, of course.”

“No doubt. Many of the verses the rabbi spoke were from the Psalms. The same ones I’ve seen Spurgeon use in his funeral services, in fact.”

“It seems strange to find a Baptist such as yourself so well acquainted with Jewish customs,” I said.

“Yes, well, knowledge is a good thing. If the Bible says that the Jews are His chosen people, we ought to take it seriously.” He banged on the roof overhead with his cane. “Racket! Ho’s!”

A
T THE ENTRANCE TO HO’S, BARKER OPENED
the faded door and immediately plunged in, clattering down the steps in the dark.

“Mr. Barker, sir!” I cried. “The lamp!”

“That’s for initiates!” he called back. “Twenty-one steps down and the same going up! Thirty paces down the hall, thirty-five with
your
legs. Stay to the left, or you’ll stumble into someone coming out!”

Marvelous. When I met the reserved interviewer at 7 Craig’s Court half a week ago, I little imagined he would have such a perverse sense of humor. He seemed to rejoice in giving me just enough rope to hang myself with. I plunged in after him and arrived at the other side with nothing worse than a barked shin and toe and a dusty left jacket sleeve.

“Try a thousand-year-old egg,” he said, after we were served.

I eyed the appetizer dubiously. The “white” was a dark gray, and the yoke a bilious green. The dish was one of Barker’s favorites. I would go very far to please my new boss, but this was one step beyond that. Thanks to Barker, I’d discovered the wonders and subtleties of Chinese cuisine, but I could never bring myself to eat a duck’s egg that had been slathered in lime and tea leaves and buried in the ground a hundred days until it was mummified. “I believe I’ll stick to the rice,” I said.

Soon, the ever helpful waiter was slapping down cups of tea on our roughhewn table, and Barker was reaching for his likeness in meerschaum. I leaned back in the stout Windsor chair, and put my feet against the base of the table, as Barker had done. A full belly and a comfortable chair. What more could any man ask?

“So, how is the investigation going?” I asked.

“Tolerably,” he said, between puffs. “It’s still early days yet. An investigation is like a drop of water in the cleft of a rock. One must remain fluid and take advantage of every quake and opportunity to get to the bottom of it.”

“That sounds like an oriental axiom. You could write a book of them,
The Analects of Barker.”

He continued to puff, once every thirty seconds or so. “I must learn to guard myself from that scalpel-like humor of yours,” he said, finally.

“Sorry, sir. Could you explain how we’re to go about the case a little more clearly?”

“Very well. Our purpose is to discover who killed Mr. Pokrzywa and whether there is an attempt afoot to create a pogrom against the Jews in London, correct? Now, somewhere out there are individuals who perpetrated the atrocity and who want to thwart our attempts. Between us, there are dozens of individuals with bits of information that would be helpful to our case. They may be keeping them secret; they may not even know they are important. Our simple task is to find those individuals, out of the three million people presently living in London, and to pry the information out of them, like a pearl out of an oyster.”

“You make it sound so easy,” I said cynically.

“It’s not as difficult as it seems. People are naturally gregarious. And we’ll have a wee bit of help. There are a few, let us call them ‘watchers,’ in the area. We’ll parlay with them, next. Let’s go brave the tunnel again, shall we? Ho needs the table, and it’s hard to investigate with a hatchet in one’s back.”

Back in the street, which at Ho’s insistence shall remain anonymous, Barker and I set out on foot.

“If I may ask a question, sir, what skills should I develop to become a better detective or assistant?”

“Patience, most of all,” he said, swinging his stick to match his stride. “Patience is the essential quality of a man. Observation. Doggedness. Imagination. It’s all in those books I gave you. Oh, and meditation, or prayer.”

“Prayer?” I asked.

“Of course. If you’re not connected to the source of all knowledge, you’re no better than a telephone when one of these lines is down.” He gestured with his stick at the wires over our heads.

We had reached Mile End Road and were heading east. We were near Limehouse, as far as I could tell, and were walking along a blank wooden wall, painted a dull brown, one like a hundred other such walls in London, when he lifted a latch and stepped into a small courtyard with an old pump. Barker did not hesitate but moved to the pump and drew water. He washed his hands with a small piece of glycerin soap and even wiped a little of the grime from his patent leather boots. I’d noted he had a certain catlike cleanliness. He spoke not a word but passed me the soap and renewed the pump. Our ablutions complete, we entered a tall building whose blackened exterior gave no indication of what we would find inside. Barker opened a door and led me into a large room lit only by windows. In the center, four posts were set up and connected with thick ropes to form a makeshift boxing ring. Hanging bags, jumping ropes, and Indian pins gave evidence that this room was used for physical culture. My employer, still silent, led me across the room to a stair at the far end and began to climb.

The upper floor was also in perfect darkness, and I had to follow Barker by sound alone down some hallways. Finally, we came upon a large, gloomy open space which I recognized, by the dim light of a dirty stained-glass skylight, as being some sort of church. Barker passed briskly between the rows of benches, his big hands drumming against the corner of each pew. At the back of the sanctuary, he opened yet another door, then proceeded down a hallway and into a small room. It was dominated by a desk and illuminated by afternoon light from several windows on the west side. Behind the desk was a man of perhaps thirty-five years. He was bald, but that was all I could tell, for while he wrote furiously with his left hand, he held a large piece of beefsteak to his face with the other.

“What a waste of good meat,” Barker remarked. The man put down the steak and stared at us. His right eye was swollen and discolored, obviously from a blow, and his misshapen nose and swollen ears plainly showed him to be a pugilist.

“I plan to eat this when my eye is done with it.” He smiled, revealing a missing left canine. “Hello, Cyrus. Sportin’ another new assistant, I see.”

“Thomas Llewelyn, the Reverend Andrew McClain, known at one time to the boxing fancy as ‘Handy Andy,’ former heavyweight champion of London. Bare knuckle, of course.”

“Hello,” he said, grasping my hand in a viselike grip. “Don’t believe a word he says about that. Never had a day of formal religious training in my life. Just a calling as a missionary to Darkest Mile End Road. Also, regular sparring partner to a certain private detective.”

“That’s private enquiry agent.”

“As you say. What brings you to the mission? No, don’t answer that. You seek information. You want me to do your work for you.”

Barker leaned against the door frame with his arms crossed. “I pay for the information. You’d still be prizefighting if it weren’t for my contributions to your cash box. But you know I don’t discuss money. I have a problem.”

McClain leaned back and pressed the meat to his face again. “Enlighten me,” he said.

“Not with that cutlet on your eye! Kindly put it down.”

The steak made a slapping sound as it hit the plate.

“Thank you. Now, have you heard about this poor Jewish fellow who was killed last week?”

“A man bearing more than a passing resemblance to our Savior Jesus Christ is crucified a mile from here, and you wonder if a missionary has heard of it? Not half!”

“The Jewish community,” Barker continued, ignoring the banter, “has requested that I look into it. What I’m wondering is whether his resemblance to Christ might have made him a target, and if the speakers in the area are agitating against the Jews. Not personal remarks, you understand, but actual calls for action against them. Anything that smacks of anti-Semitism, any written materials that might have been translated from the German or Russian—”

“Or the French, or the Dutch,” Andrew McClain continued. “I understand. I’ll put my ear to the ground. Stay for lunch?” He regarded the steak.

“Thank you, no, we have dined.”

“Cheerio, then,” he said. “Cash box is on your left as you leave the sanctuary.”

Outside, I ventured a remark. “Seems like a good fellow.”

Barker nodded. “Salt of the earth. Worth any ten men in London.”

“How’d he get the black eye?”

“He has a habit of taking his beliefs to the people directly. Directly, that is, into the pubs on a Saturday night or a Monday afternoon. And since his dramatic conversion a few years back, he’s taken to turning the other cheek, at least to a point. Ah, he’s got a right hook that’ll fair tear your head off. It’s a thing of beauty.”

“So, he’s not officially a member of the clergy.”

“No, but that hasn’t stopped him from trying to evangelize the entire East End, and he’s not doing too bad a job of it. You’d be surprised at how many prostitutes, tramps, and criminals he’s helped turn their lives around. It’s hard to believe he was once one of the worst drinkers and bruisers in all of London.”

We rode an omnibus down Whitechapel Road back to Aldgate. Barker stopped and looked about the Jewish quarter, as if testing which way the wind blew. He dawdled a bit, leading me into one shop or another, chatting with proprietors; some knew him and others did not. Finally, we reached the foot of the Minories, where we found our next destination, the Tower of London.

There were two constables at the entrance to the Tower, and a gatekeeper. The latter was one of the yeoman warders that guarded the Tower. His uniform was not the bright red-and-gold worn on special occasions but the red-trimmed navy uniform known as “blue undress.” In his early sixties, he had the bushy white side-whiskers befitting his office. He seemed to know Barker.

“Hello, sir,” he said. “Good to see you again. The Chinaman is not with you?”

“No,” Barker replied. “Regrettably, he has left my employ. This is my new assistant, Mr. Llewelyn.”

“Suh!” The old soldier tugged at the brim of his round hat in greeting.

“I wonder if one of you could give my assistant a tour, while I speak with the yeoman porter. If possible, I’d like us to meet in the old observatory in an hour or so.” A sovereign or two passed discreetly from Barker’s hand to the warder’s.

“Very good, sir.” He turned and waved to two others, who came forward. At this point, Barker and I were led our separate ways.

In one hour, the warder brought to life the stories of Shakespeare and the histories I had read. These were the stairs where Richard the Third had crept, this the hall where Henry the Eighth had walked, and here was the tower that William the Conqueror had built on old Roman ruins. So much history was here, and such pathos. I was shown to a cell where the little princes had been confined, and where Lady Jane Grey had spent her final hours. Sir Walter Raleigh, Anne Boleyn, and Elizabeth the First all were imprisoned here at one time or other.

The warder showed me through the armory, where suits of armor and weaponry of all sorts hung by the thousands. I conjectured that this was what had first brought Barker to the Tower. Then I saw the British crown jewels, in their heavily guarded cage, including the infamous Koh-i-noor, all 106 carats of her. Finally, I was led to the northeast corner of the White Tower, which once housed the old observatory.

“Best for last,” the warder said, putting his arm out of the window. There was a flapping sound, and when he pulled in his arm, a large black raven was on his wrist. He brought the bird to me. It cocked its eye at me, reminding me of Harm.

“I am the raven master here,” the fellow explained. “As you know, legend has it that the Tower and England itself will fall if the ravens ever leave the Tower. We always keep a dozen or so with their wings clipped. Richard here is an exception. He showed up one day with a damaged foot, which we set to rights. He’s stayed ever since.”

“Why do you call him Richard?” I asked.

“Because he walks with a limp, like Richard the Third. I didn’t have the heart to hurt him any further.”

Barker and the yeoman porter came in, and the raven took the opportunity to fly out the window. Both men were walking with their hands behind them, like old friends. The porter, master over all the guards in the Tower, was a powerfully built man with salt-and-pepper whiskers cut in a perfect square.

“Ah, Thomas,” Barker said. “Excellent. I brought you up to see the view. You can see all of Aldgate from here. There is the High Street and Petticoat Lane. There is where Fenchurch and Leadenhall split, and that large building in the distance is the Bank of England, with Saint Paul’s looking over its shoulder.”

“It’s an incredible view,” I agreed. From here the City still looked medieval, with narrow streets and low buildings.

“It’s one of my favorite spots in all of the Tower,” the porter said. “It makes me feel like we’re still watchmen over the City, guardians, as it were.”

“You have a great responsibility, sir. This place is so full of history, so much of what made this country what it is,” I said. I thanked my guide for giving me a personal tour of the old fortress.

Barker was leaning against the thick stone window frame, contemplating the scene before him. For once, I thought I knew what he was thinking. Somewhere out there were the killers of Louis Pokrzywa.

“Cyrus,” the porter prompted.

Barker left the window regretfully. “Thank you for your time, Robert,” he said, shaking the porter’s hand. “You have my card.”

In a few moments, we were walking along the Tower wall to the entrance again.

“That was just wonderful, sir. Words cannot describe it.”

“Thought you might like it,” he responded.

“Might I take it that the porter was another of your ‘watchers’?”

“You heard it from his lips. He takes his responsibilities seriously. See these little flats along the wall? They are called the Casements. The warders live here, in the Tower itself. The old yeomen are an important part of the City community. They may be aging, but they were once the cream of the Royal Army and Marines. They are old hands at intelligence gathering.”

“Where to now, sir?”

“Let us go back to our office and check the final post, then step round to the Rising Sun for a light meal. I have an interesting evening planned. And look here! It’s John Racket and Juno, right when we need them.”