Will Thomas - Fatal Enquiry

“This flat belongs to you,” I said.

“Aye. I let it when I first came to England and was looking for a residence and chambers. I kept the lease, in case I should ever need it again.”

Cyrus Barker is not in the least sentimental. He didn’t spare a glance at the mementos, but went down on his knees and pulled an empty drawer completely out of its slides. Reaching into the recess, he retrieved an old pistol and some cartridges. He opened the revolver at the top and spun the cylinder. Like the lock on the door, it could do with a drop of oil.

“This should do us for now. As I recall, there is a grocer around the corner. We can get food there in the morning, but only one of us should go. It isn’t prudent for us to travel in pairs at the moment.”

“I’ll go,” I said. “I see there is a gas hob and a kettle. I could buy some tea and tinned food. If I had a broom and rags, I could even start cleaning up this place.”

He shook his head. “Not worth the effort. Our time would be better spent sleeping.”

“There’s only one bed,” I pointed out. “We’ll have to sleep in shifts.”

“I wasn’t accustomed to beds when I let this room. There is a hammock stowed underneath the bed.”

While he unrolled the hammock, I slowly pulled off the sheet which covered the entire bed, taking the layer of dust with it. The bedding was sound, if a trifle musty. I helped the Guv suspend the hammock from two hooks in the ceiling I hadn’t noticed when we arrived. We had reached the point beyond which words were needed. Quickly, we doffed jackets, braces, shoes and socks and crawled into our beds. I blew out the candle, and we were asleep by the time the wick was cool.

In the morning, the Guv showed little inclination to leave his hammock, but he’d switched back to his black spectacles and looked more like his former self. I purchased tea and bread at a nearby shop and then brewed tea on the hob and began to sort out the place.

In spite of his advice, I gave the room a thorough cleaning. I was hoping to unearth more of his past, right under his nose. The room, empty as it looked, was a potential treasure trove. The most likely spot to find something of interest was the desk, but I wanted to get to that last. I picked up the suit from the hook and looked at the label. It was from a tailor in Hong Kong.

“This will never fit you again,” I remarked.

Barker grunted abstractly from the hammock. Digging into the pockets of the suit, I found three sharpened Chinese coins. They each had a square hole in the center, and were roughly the size of the British coppers he used now. I pocketed them and picked up the hat from the bedstead. It was from Canton, according to the label. These must have been the clothes he had worn on his journey from the Far East.

As casually as possible, I went to the desk and began straightening. The Times for August 1879 had yellowed with age, and the information seemed out of the dim dark past. Disraeli was prime minister and an MP was complaining because the soldiers in Africa had been reduced to rags. I could not make head or tail of the Chinese book, but at the very end of it I found the treasure I was hoping for. It was a studio portrait, octavo-sized, of four men: Barker, Ho, our cook, Etienne Dummolard, and Paul Beauchamp, who maintained Barker’s boat, the Osprey, down in Sussex. This had been the crew of the Osprey, and though none would explain how, each had become rich enough in the China Seas to set up businesses of their own here in England. They all looked uncomfortable in their suits, glowering at the camera in front of a painted trompe l’oeil garden backcloth, and save for Beauchamp, all had put on weight since then. Barker was wearing the suit and the tropical hat was in his lap. I couldn’t help smiling because I deduced why the photograph had been taken. It must have been Mrs. Ashleigh, Barker’s lady friend, who had insisted upon it.

“What are you smiling at?” the Guv demanded.

I was caught. I really should learn to control my emotions, the way Barker does. Ruefully, I surrendered the photograph to him. He looked at it, grunted again, and tucked it into his pocket.

“The kong, ” he said.

“Kong?”

“It means ‘four.’ A quartet. I don’t recall who first called us that.”

“Friends forever,” I said. “Even unto death.”

“Something like that. But even that can change. Nothing stays the same forever, you know. Once, we-”

The Guv hesitated.

“Once you what?”

“Nothing,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “It’s not important anymore.”

He was intractable. Brother Andrew’s death had taken all the wind from his sails. I’d never seen him so defeated. The worst part of it was that his mood was infectious.

The desk drawer which I hoped would provide me with answers to my questions proved to be empty, so instead, I set to work cleaning off surfaces and airing out the room. I opened all the windows and shook out the sheet, happy for something to do. Outside, the larks, sparrows, and robins were singing their collective chorus. The sky was overcast, as gray as a strip of lead, but the clouds were content to keep the rain to themselves. I shook out the rug and swept the floor like I did when I was a child, too young to go down into the mines. I’d helped my mother with the younger children while my father and elder brothers dug coal with pickaxes until they were black as Zulu warriors. My grandfather came and walked me to school. He and my mother were convinced I would become something someday. All their hopes rested on me, and now, here I was, living in an anonymous chamber in the worst part of Lambeth, being pursued like the criminal I was.

Cyrus Barker spent the entire day brooding in his hammock. I’m not sure if brooding is a distinctly Scottish trait, but it certainly was one of his. He lay there as if encased in a giant chrysalis, not moving for hours, not even speaking save to ask for strong tea every now and again. Apart from the tea, he refused all nourishment. I found I could not even draw him into a conversation on the merits and memories of our late friend. His responses were little more than grunts. It made for a very long day.

He wasn’t speaking but I hoped he was thinking, trying to work out an answer for our increasingly dire predicament. We were running out of money. I began to look around to see what items in the flat could be pawned: the tropical suit, obviously, and perhaps the desk. All I needed was the word, but he never gave it. He merely swayed in that hammock of his and brooded.

Hungry as I was, I tried to get the Guv to share the provisions I had purchased. As night fell, I had no choice but to eat them myself. He had seriously begun to worry me.

The next morning found him up and out of his hammock. The worst of his grief appeared to have passed, though it would take more than one day to get over the loss of so good and necessary a man as the Reverend Andrew McClain. At least my employer was on two feet again. Perhaps now the case could move forward.

“Thomas, do you recall what I once said was the difference between a private enquiry agent and a detective?”

“A detective is not above breaking the law to achieve his own ends. Stealing into people’s houses, for example.”

“We may be forced to break that rule today.”

“Oh,” I said, not bothering to hide the disappointment in my voice.

“There is no other way. I must talk to Gerald Clayton. Desperate times require desperate measures.”

“But isn’t Clayton’s estate likely to be well guarded? After all, a pair of dangerous criminals is at large.”

“I did not say it was going to be easy. We certainly won’t be going in the front door.”