The Affair of the Porcelain Dog (28 page)

The hands lifted me to my knees and wrenched away my pistol. The air was hot and smelled of blood. Someone groaned. I caught sight of Lazarus slumped in a chair at the back of the room before the hands forced my face straight ahead.

Edward Acton sat behind a desk at the back of a sparsely but expensively furnished office. In the center of the desk was a paraffin lamp turned low, and behind that an immaculate blotter. A black leather case sat on atop the blotter--too large for spectacles, but too small for papers. Beside it was a small, stoppered bottle. From Lazarus's story, I'd expected a giant. Acton looked more like a pixie, with his delicate limbs and translucent skin, which, seemed to glow in the lamplight. He was dressed in a silk
robe de chambre
, though his cloud of hair and thick silver mustache had been combed, and his ice-blue eyes were bright.

"I've seen you in Dr. Goddard's company, of course, but what on earth are you doing here?"

I glanced from Acton to Lazarus seated behind him. Lazarus's left eye was purple and swelling. Someone had broken his nose again. Blood spattered the scarf they had used to gag him, as well as the front of his once-white shirt. As he met my eyes, he shook his head almost imperceptibly.

"You'll forgive my caution, Mr. Adler," Acton went on. "I'd no idea when I retired to my rooms this evening, that fate was about to drop two of my greatest irritants into my lap--Dr. Parker, there," he nodded toward Lazarus. "And Zhen-zhen Wu. When I heard the front door, I wondered, quite frankly, if it weren't that useless son-in-law of mine, coming to make the evening complete."

"Sinclair's dead," I said.

Acton's eyebrows shot up.

"Dare I hope?"

"I killed him," I said.

"Well, then." Acton's tone was suddenly warm. He made a gesture, and the hands at my elbows, now gentle, lifted me to my feet. "I suppose I owe you a debt of gratitude. How kind of you to inform me in person."

"Actually," I said, "I'm looking for Mrs. Wu. I saw your men apprehend her, and followed them here."

"Oh?"

Acton folded his arms across his chest and leaned back in his chair. I hadn't intended to ingratiate myself to the man, but he seemed so pleased I'd snuffed Sinclair I wondered whether I might be able to broker Lazarus's freedom as well as Mrs. Wu's.

"Zhen-zhen Wu and her friends have made it their mission to disrupt a very lucrative arm of my business," he said. "I was looking forward to dispatching her in the same way that I had her husband. What's your business with her?"

Up until that evening, my only interest in Mrs. Wu had been the porcelain dog. But if I was correct, she and Nate had been working together to get the brothel children to safety. There was no doubt Pearl could eventually find a place for them in a workhouse or an orphanage. But if Mrs. Wu had better plans, she had to have the chance to execute them.

Of course I couldn't tell him that.

"Sinclair stole something that belongs to Dr. Goddard," I said. "A porcelain statue. I recovered the statue from Sinclair, but Mrs. Wu recovered it from me."

"I see." He steepled his fingers beneath his chin. "And what's the significance of this statue?"

"It's not my business to know. However, Dr. Goddard is very anxious for its return."

Lazarus moaned softly in his corner. What had he been thinking, coming to beard Acton in his den with nothing more than a decade-old service revolver and a tintype of his girl? He was lucky I was there, and not at the bottom of the canal. I shifted my weight from foot to foot. The leather was cutting into the sides of my feet. My toes felt like pincushions.

Acton cleared his throat.

"Dr. Goddard has been a valuable associate for a long time, and you, Mr. Adler, have done me a great favor. I shall extract the location of your statue before I send Mrs. Wu to hell to see her husband. Morrison?"

The man behind me made an affirmative grunt and moved toward the door.

"Wait," I said. "Time is of the essence. Dr. Goddard is most insistent about that. If you'll release Mrs. Wu long enough to lead me to the statue, I'll take care of her once I have it."

He cocked his head. The man definitely wasn't stupid. I wondered whether I had just signed my own death warrant.

"That's a kind offer," he said after a moment. "But I have plans for Mrs. Wu, just as I do for Dr. Parker. All the same, for Goddard's sake, I suppose I could postpone my enjoyment for an hour or two." He stood. "You may borrow Mrs. Wu to find your statue, but I'll send a man with you. Once you have what you need, you'll disappear, and Mrs. Wu shall return to me."

"Agreed," I said. It wasn't optimal, but it was better than nothing. "May I have my gun back?"

Acton laughed.

"I'm generous, Mr. Adler, but I'm not naive."

Acton instructed Morrison to prepare a car, and to put Mrs. Wu in it. I followed him to the door, then stopped and turned.

"What are your plans for Dr. Parker, if I might ask?"

Acton frowned. "I can't see how that's any of your concern."

My heart raced. As quick as Acton had been to extend his good graces, he would be even quicker to retract them. But he was going to kill Lazarus, and I had used up my favor. I hoped what I was about to do wouldn't bode ill for Goddard.

"Dr. Parker is a friend of mine," I said. "As was Nate Turnbull, before you had him killed."

Lazarus's eyes went wide as I took the little Afghan doll from my pocket, tossed it into the air, and caught it in the other hand.

"You may not be aware that Nate was keeping records of your basement visitors at Fitzroy Street. When he died, those records came to me. If you release Dr. Parker, I shall turn them over to you. Otherwise, they'll be on some constable's desk by morning, whether by my hand, or by that of the friend whom I've instructed to deliver them, in the event that I don't return."

Acton's face went white. When he spoke again, his voice was quiet with fury.

"I wonder what your employer would think if he knew he had a blackmailer on his staff."

"Dr. Goddard employs several blackmailers," I said. "We're cheaper than assassins and get better results."

Behind me came the metallic click of a pistol. A cold steel barrel pressed into the base of my skull. I wasn't sure which was more appalling--the gun at the back of my head, or the fact the law that nearly sent me to prison might now save my skin.

"Labouchere's amendment is four years old," I said, trying to keep my voice steady. "But no one has forgotten why they passed it. If you think that your connections can protect you once word about those children reaches the papers, you are delusional."

Mr. Labouchere's opus had addressed indecency between men. However, its success had come from equating, in the mind of the public, adult indecency with the sort of exploitation of children that Nate had documented. Once proof of Acton's crimes had been published, he would never be safe again, and he knew it. Hatred seethed behind his ice-blue eyes.

"Very well," he said through clenched teeth. "Morrison, you shall accompany Mr. Adler and Mrs. Wu to retrieve the statue and the documents. If there's any foolishness, shoot Mr. Adler with his own gun." He turned to me. "Satisfied? Then get out. Not you, Doctor," Acton said as behind him, Lazarus began to rise.

Acton removed a hypodermic needle from the leather case on his desk. The light of the paraffin lamp danced over the metal as he drew clear liquid from the bottle into the chamber. Two men wrestled Lazarus to the desk.

"I, too, employ blackmailers, Mr. Adler. It pays to take precautions when dealing with them."

Lazarus struggled, but Acton's man held him tightly, while another rolled up his sleeve and held his arm still against the desk. Acton pushed the plunger home, withdrew the needle, then turned to me with a cold smile.

"Dr. Parker will remember the impressive effects of elapid venom upon the human constitution. Fortunately, in the years since he witnessed it, an antidote has been developed. Bring me the documents, and I will administer the antidote. You have two hours before he loses consciousness, but if he really is your friend, Mr. Adler, you'll be back well before then."

The men pushed Lazarus back toward his chair. He stumbled, collapsed against the wall, then slid to the ground beside it. As he looked up at me imploringly, a large drop of blood gathered below one nostril.

"I'll hurry," I promised him.

"Yes," said Acton, "And in the meantime, I shall decide to what degree I shall allow this incident to reflect upon your employer."

Acton's carriage cut through the darkness as silently as a shark. The chassis rose slightly, then dipped as the smooth streets around St. James's gave way to more-traveled pavement. On the bench across from mine, Mrs. Wu clutched her bag in her lap.

"I'm surprised they left us alone in here together," I said.

"Morrison knows better than to shut himself in a small space with me."

The carriage swayed, and the curtains swung open, briefly bathing her bruised face in gaslight. She'd learned Zhi Sen's fighting system at his knee, and I'd no doubt Morrison had come out the worse for their struggle. He'd been disappointed when Acton had instructed him to bring us back alive.

Before they'd packed us into the carriage, Mrs. Wu had told the driver the statue was back at the shop on Dorset Street. I couldn't fathom why she'd return it to the very place from which it had nearly been stolen, but as long as I'd eventually have it in my hand, I supposed it didn't matter. She glanced at me warily. She had no reason to trust me. She'd picked my pocket, and her father was stabbing Goddard in the back. She probably thought I'd rescued her from Acton's wrath so that I could indulge my own.

"All I want is the porcelain dog," I said. "Then I'll find some way for you to slip away."

"Why would you do that?"

"To thwart that prick, Acton, for one."

I was also doing it for Nate's sake. Not to mention Pearl would be stuck with four Afghan orphans if Mrs. Wu wasn't able to eventually retrieve them.

I rubbed my bleary eyes, shuffled my throbbing feet. The stink of the river was thick inside the carriage. If I had it to do again, I'd still have jumped in after the boat, but selflessness wasn't going to spare me a world of pain.

"That, and Nate told me everything before he died. The opium, the children, everything," I said.

"You were there when he died?" she asked.

"I was at the clinic when Sinclair tossed him out of a carriage. Nate was a friend of mine. He wasn't alone."

"I'm glad," she said.

I opened the thick curtains on each side of the carriage and secured them. The shadows and treetops of the embankment gardens flashed past on the left. To the right, the new road rolled by beside the river.

"Nate was a good man," Mrs. Wu said. "He used to carry messages between Sinclair and my father. That's how we met, how he became involved with my husband's organization."

"The organization that's been such a thorn in Acton's side."

She nodded. "The children are casualties in a much larger war. I'm not certain if you're aware, Mr. Adler, of the devastation that opium has caused in my homeland. Since your government will not listen to reason, and our own has been overruled by force, our group, and others like it, have taken matters into our own hands."

"You blew up the warehouse," I said.

"The Duke of Dorset Street didn't choose that location for his school simply because he liked the view."

It made sense. Goddard rarely used anything, or anyone, for only one purpose. I wondered if Zhi Sen knew.

"It would be a convenient place for receiving and distributing shipments," I admitted.

"And for exporting high-alkaloid opium back to China," she said.

"Does your father know about your group?"

She shook her head bitterly.

"Zhi Sen is blind to everything but his own ambition. He'd probably hand me over to Acton himself if he knew what we'd done. Of course, that's exactly what you'll do once you have what you want."

True, it's what Goddard would have done. Acton was his master, and Mrs. Wu was an annoyance on a number of levels. But I wasn't Goddard. I couldn't pretend his indifference to suffering, and I couldn't see human beings as commodities to be bought and sold. I'd spent the better part of the last two years building a life around Goddard's philosophy, and yet it hadn't taken but this short, strange week to show me how meaningless such a life actually was.

"No. I meant what I said," I told her. "Get me the statue, and you'll go free, if we have to kill those two with our bare hands." I gestured toward the seat at the front of the carriage, where the driver and Morrison sat. "I already know you're good in a fight."

This earned a small smile.

"You're an honorable man, Mr. Adler," she said. "We, too, strive for honorable goals. You should join us. Change the world, rather than living at the sufferance of those who control it."

Goddard's words came back to me:
saving the world is a losing battle, and not nearly as much fun as running it
. But it wasn't about fun anymore. My friend was dead, and I'd come face-to-face with four young people whose innocence had been the price at which my life of luxury had been purchased. At the same time, I was still living at Goddard's sufferance. He might have found my new scruples amusing, but he wouldn't tolerate them for long if they began to interfere with business.