The Affair of the Porcelain Dog (12 page)

To someone not paying attention, one Chinese face might look much like the next. However, I make it my business to pay attention--especially when a whore of preternatural persistence lifts a worthless statue from my pocket.

"Who are you?" I hissed.

Behind us, the sparring continued. Wet slaps as skin met skin, the occasional boom of a muscular body on the floorboards. The woman didn't shrink or struggle as I edged her out into the corridor. Rather, she worked her wrist with subtle motions designed to weaken my grip.

"Where's the porcelain dog?"

There was no response except for an insolent rise of her chin. Her cool stare never wavered, not even when strong fingers suddenly tightened around my collar and jerked me backward just as a foot swept my legs out from under me. My head hit the floorboards with the crack of a cannon, or perhaps that's just how it felt.

"Next time, lift your head before it hits the ground."

The stars cleared, and my eyes focused on Zhi Sen's moon-shaped visage. He scowled down at me. Beneath his long string of a mustache, his upper lip curled in a sneer.

"Better yet, stay away from my daughter, and you won't have to worry about hitting the ground."

Daughter?

The room had gone still. Silence hung heavily in the sweat-humid air. Goddard and the students stared as I rubbed the back of my skull. I opened my mouth to respond when the woman let loose with a volley of livid Mandarin. Goddard might well have been able to translate, but he was busy trying to regain control of the class. While Zhi Sen responded in kind, I crawled past them and found a quiet spot against the wall to contemplate this latest set of developments.

Had Zhi Sen sent his daughter to acquire the statue?

If so, had he done it at Goddard's behest, or was he in league with the blackmailer?

Was
he the blackmailer?

That made no sense. He and Goddard had met while Goddard was traveling in China. Zhi Sen was a Wushu master, which was why Goddard had sought him out in the first place. But he had also been instrumental in helping Goddard to expand his opium dealings, so instrumental Goddard had brought him to England and made him his partner. It was an immensely beneficial arrangement for both men. I couldn't imagine either of them wanting to upset the balance. Besides, Goddard had said the blackmailer's threat had to do with "mistakes of youth," and Goddard had been at least thirty when he'd gone to China.

There was no doubt the girl was involved. But when I looked up again, she was gone and Zhi Sen was steaming back into the room, barely concealed fury burning behind his dark eyes.

"Dr. Goddard," Zhi Sen said, pointedly bumping me as he passed. "If your secretary must come to practice unprepared, please ensure he at least has enough work with him to keep him out of trouble."

Goddard gave a deep nod, stepping aside for Zhi Sen to assume control of the class. Disgusted, I stood to retrieve my boots.

"I see that you've managed to impress your Sifu once again," Goddard said, coming up beside me.

"He's not
my
Sifu," I said.

I grunted, tugging my laces loose before shoving my left foot back into its hard, sweaty coffin.

"No, I must correct myself," Goddard continued. "This time you've really outdone yourself. Flirting with the man's own daughter. Tsk, tsk."

His voice was amused, indulgent, but I wasn't in the mood. My head was throbbing, and there was a blister the size of a grape on my right pinkie toe.

"She has the porcelain dog," I said.

"What?"

Goddard was still smiling, but something sharp was in his eyes.

"She was the one who took it from me at Miller's Court after I got it back from Lazarus."

"You must be mistaken."

He took his left hand in right, twisted it to the point where a normal man might scream, repeating the stretch on the other side. When he had demonstrated the unnatural limberness of his wrists, he moved on to elbows.

"No, Cain. I'm sure of it. She was dressed as a whore, spoke like one, too. And she picked my pocket as quick and clean as you please."

"
Mrs.
Wu doesn't speak English, at least not as far as I know."

"She speaks it as well as you or me."

He popped his neck.

"Even if that were true, what would she want with that statue?"

"How should I know?" I leaned closer and lowered my voice. "Listen, do you think that Zhi Sen--"

"No," Goddard said sharply. Then, softening, "No, Ira. I won't hear of it. I trust him as I trust myself."

He shook out his shoulders and stretched his arms above him, bending slowly to each side. To anyone else, it might appear he was merely keeping his muscles warm. However, beneath the movements, I could sense his mind working. The students had paired off behind us to practice their long staff techniques. Bare feet shuffled on the floorboards as they assumed wide-legged stances. Wood knocked gently against wood as they touched the ends of their staves together: a sign that each student respected his partner and was ready to begin.

"Mrs. Wu is a widow," Goddard said. "They pulled her husband out of the Thames a week ago. He ate one lotus too many, they said, walked off a bridge."

"Now,
that
makes no sense," I said. "Someone who eats one lotus too many isn't walking anywhere."

It could only have been a handful of times I had witnessed my mother in an opium-induced stupor. Not even the Salvation Army Band could have roused her.

"Perhaps he had help walking off that bridge," Goddard said. "It's none of our business, at any rate. I offered my assistance, but Zhi Sen was adamant he'd settle the matter himself. As for her, I've no idea why she came, but he certainly didn't seem happy to see her."

I let my eyes wander over to the students clacking their staves together in the eight primary positions. Then I turned back to Goddard.

"If this business about her husband is true, doesn't it bother you?"

"Why should it? I've never met the man."

"Zhi Sen is your friend. Mr. Wu was his son-in-law. You make a lot of money from opium."

"So does Zhi Sen. Besides, I didn't hold him down and put a pipe in his mouth."

"Yes, but--"

He let out a long breath and straightened. Taking the heel of his left foot in his hand, he stretched his left leg out to one side. With a grunt of physical satisfaction, he brought his leg back down and repeated the move on the other side.

"Mr. Wu is an adult, Ira--was an adult. Opium is legal. Are Zhi Sen and I doing anything worse than the man who pours gin at Blue Coat Boy?"

It was a valid argument. And yet the workhouse where I'd spent twelve years of my life had been bursting with children whose parents had chosen gin, or opium, or dice, over them. All of these things were legal, but given the damage they caused, I wondered if they should have been. And though it was arguable that the people like Goddard who pandered to destructive vices were simply fulfilling an economic demand, I couldn't help but feel that they were to some degree responsible for the destruction that ensued.

"It might be legal, but it's not harmless," I said.

Goddard's lips twisted wryly.

"'Harmless' doesn't pay for your eucalyptus baths, dear boy."

He reached out as if to straighten my collar, but let the hand remain for just a moment longer than necessary, the knuckle of his index finger discreetly caressing the hollow of my throat.

"'Harmless' doesn't keep your delicate feet in Italian leather, or fill your lungs with the ambrosial vapors of Egyptian tobacco, hmm?"

He smiled and slowly withdrew his hand, leaving my neck tingling with the traces of his touch. Something stirred deep inside me--and in places not so deep. Goddard and I hadn't touched each other without the taint of foreboding since the first lavender letter arrived. It had been too long.

"Mrs. Wu embroidered the dragon on your new pajamas, you know," he said.

"I'd congratulate her on her handiwork, if I weren't afraid her father would castrate me."

"I'll pass on the compliment. I'm really glad you're here tonight, Ira."

He regarded me with a warmth he rarely allowed himself to demonstrate outside the doors of York Street. Something in my chest clenched. I found myself turning with him as Zhi Sen called the class to attention, reluctant to let go of what had just passed between us.

"Collins said something about an announcement," I said as he stepped back toward the class. He turned.

"I've found a building."

"For the club?"

Goddard had been talking about a separate facility for the Fighting Arts Society for almost a year. Suspended wood floors to minimize injury, brush paintings on the walls, and windows to fill the practice area with natural light--well, as natural as one could find in the heart of London, anyway. To hear him go on about it, one would think he was planning a cathedral. But finding a structure adequate to the task had proven to be a task in itself.

"I found the place a few months ago: a warehouse down by the docks. It's perfect. Nobody knows yet, not even Zhi Sen. I've had workers there for weeks. The opening is Friday night."

"That's wonderful!" I cried.

Zhi Sen cleared his throat impatiently. The students gathered around him looked impatient as well.

"Wait here while I tell them the news," Goddard said with a wink. "Then I have something even better for you."

He padded across to where his motley group of pugilists were anxiously awaiting a word from their mentor. A few of the fresh-faced young men were obviously Goddard's students from King's. There were quite a few others with criminal class accents and oft-broken noses, who would have been at home in Whitechapel. All of them would follow Goddard into the flames of hell itself.

While Goddard shared his news, Zhi Sen stood off to the side, nodding, as if paying rapt attention, but didn't take his eyes off me for a second. I wouldn't have expected anything less from a devoted father protecting his mourning daughter from unwanted attention. But was that all it was? Zhi Sen had no motive for blackmailing Goddard, as far as I could see. His daughter had even less. But she had taken the porcelain dog, and that meant that she was involved. Of this I was certain.

Whether Goddard believed me or not.

∗ ∗ ∗

It was dark when we emerged from the athletic club. A light rain had fallen. Cool, clean air wafted over the playing fields, raising the wholesome smells of earth and grass. The lights of surrounding Fulham shone from the windows of gambling houses and brothels, but the view from Stamford Bridge had a peaceful, almost homely quality. Goddard and I walked down the path to where our hansom was waiting on Fulham Road. The driver took us back through Chelsea in silence. Goddard's incessant toe-tapping signified something was on his mind. When we reached Kensington Road, Goddard signaled for the driver to stop.

Strolling through Hyde Park at night was one of many pleasures to which Goddard had introduced me. Among those who walked the park after dark, allowing one's fingers to brush those of another man was a misdemeanor beneath notice. And though darkness brought danger even to this refined corner of the city, I was safer at Goddard's side than I ever had been in my life. Most importantly, the shadows and trees and the lapping water of the Serpentine combined to create a deliciously public privacy, the craving for which those whose affections are deemed "decent" and "natural" could never understand.

We left the hansom at the entrance, walked through a forest of ionic columns shining like cold flesh in the moonlight, and passed through the central arch. We ambled along the path at first, but gathered speed as we approached the Serpentine. By the time the city lights disappeared behind us, we were practically running.

Goddard's excitement crackled in the air all around us. There was more to it than the mere opening of an athletic facility. The chancellor must finally have recognized his genius and rewarded him accordingly. There was a moment of panic when I considered Goddard might scale back his criminal operations to the point where his income would be affected. If I fancied living like a church mouse--or a professor at a minor London university--I'd have saved myself the trouble and stayed with Lazarus. But as we came to the weeping beech tree that had been the site of many a stolen kiss, Goddard squeezed my fingers, and I felt instinctively he would let neither harm nor inconvenience befall me.

"You can't know how long I've been waiting for this moment," he said as he led me through the branches into a vast bower.

The full moon cast a blue-gray light over the water and through the leaves. Goddard took my hands in his. When he caught my eyes, there was no sound but the beating of my heart and the wet scrape of branches on the grass.

"They gave it to you, then? The professorship?"

Even as I said it, I could feel his disappointment. Disappointment the university had not rewarded his contributions, and disappointment I'd somehow failed to intuit this. He sucked in a long breath and looked away.

"No," he said. "The chancellor had a different offer for me. One he considers more important than mere advancement. He wanted me to co-chair his Committee for the Promotion of Moral Virtue. 'Bringing honesty and piety back to the working class,' he said. Working for a 'higher authority,' and all that."