Will Thomas - Fatal Enquiry

I was almost out the door when he made a sound like a rusty hinge.

“Excuse me?” I asked, putting my head back in the shop.

“Hokay,” he said, as if it pained him to say it.

I quickly returned before he changed his mind. I learned that trick not from Barker but from my sainted mother. Pennies squeaked before they left her fingers.

I had taken possession of the box when the proprietor looked over my shoulder and apparently didn’t care for the customer who had just come in behind me. He shook his head and waved at him with a cloth that lay on the counter. I turned to find out whom a Limehouse shopkeeper would find so disagreeable. As it turned out, he and I were of the same opinion. It was Soho Vic, Barker’s messenger boy.

Vic wore a battered and rusty bowler hat, an oversized shirt and waistcoat, an evening coat with tails that had seen better decades, excessively tight trousers, and hobnailed boots. He had a fat cigar clenched between his teeth and he frowned over it, ignoring the shop owner and concentrating on me.

“’Ello, Fathead.”

“Wotcher, Ugly,” I responded. One must know how to speak to these fellows.

“Wot’s the idea of leaving me out in the cold?” he demanded. “Hain’t I given good service? Hain’t I been takin’ proper care o’ the agency?”

“I don’t believe you’ve given Push any reason to complain, but he told me he wanted you out of it. Said you have too many mouths to feed.”

“Does he think me too young? I know what o’clock it is,” he said angrily. “I’ve always been quick off the blocks.”

“No one said you weren’t. He knew how tempting that reward money is, and he didn’t want you to have to choose between him and your lads.”

“I’d never peach on the Guv,” Vic insisted. “Never!”

“Oh, come now, this is me you’re talking to. Can you really look me in the eye and tell me you didn’t at least come up with several ways to spend the reward money?”

“Never,” he insisted, but he grinned around the cigar.

“Yes, well, we cannot all be the specimen of Moral Probity you are.”

“The wot?”

“Never mind.” I turned to Mr. Two Poun’ who was still trying to remove the boy from the shop. “He’s with me.”

The shopkeeper went back to his stool and sat on it, watching our every move in the event we stole something.

“Did ’e really say that?” Vic asked.

“He did. I imagine he doesn’t want the current circumstances to end a good working relationship.”

He nodded in thought. I believe he accepted what I was telling him as the unvarnished truth.

“So what you doin’ here, then? Pickin’ out silk curtains for your boyfriend?”

“Satin for your coffin, more like. You and I, we’ve got business to discuss.”

He pretended to open a door behind him. “Step into my office, then.”

“How’d you like to confound Scotland Yard’s new sleuth hound, Abberline?” I asked, handing him the box.

He opened it, and the second he did, a big gap-toothed grin broke out on his dirty face, not a pretty sight under normal circumstances. He reached in and pulled out a pair of black-lensed spectacles, not as fancy as Barker’s, but similar enough from a distance of ten feet. He tried on a pair, looking at himself in the reflection of the window.

“Look at me!” he crowed. “I’m Cyrus Bloody Barker. ‘Come quickly there, lad.’”

“There are over a dozen pair in here,” I said, ignoring his imitation, which I had to admit was spot on. “Do you think you can find a similar number of large, burly men in London to wear these around town? They don’t have to parade or anything, just simply go about their business.”

“I like ’em,” he said. “Where’d you find them?”

“Bought them right here.”

“Did you ask if they ’ad any more?”

“No,” I admitted, “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Gentlemen amateurs. No ’ead for business. Oy!” This latter was directed toward the Chinaman at the end of the counter. “You got any more o’ these specs?”

Two Poun’ shook his head glumly.

“Can you get us more?” I asked. “We’ll buy every pair you find.”

“Mebbe,” he answered with a shrug.

“I’ll have my boys strip the East End of every pair of black specs they’ve got,” Vic said. “We’ll start one o’ them fads. You’re nothin’ if you ain’t a-wearin’ dark lenses this year.”

“That’s the spirit. What’s your price? You know Barker will be good for it when this is over and done with.”

“Just this. You claim it was me what thought of it.”

“Fair enough. I accept.”

Soho Vic took the cigar from his mouth and spat into his hand. The liquid was yellowish and viscous, and my gorge rose, but I followed suit, thankful that I had a pocket handkerchief to wipe my hand upon afterward. We shook solemnly as partners.

“Time’s money, Bonehead, an’ I’m a-wastin’ it standin’ here talkin’ to you. See you round. If the East End ain’t crawlin’ wiff Cyrus Barkers by tomorrow, it won’t be my fault.”

He turned and hurried away with the box under his arm, the tails of his evening jacket fluttering behind him, leaving me to feel as though I had just made a pact with the devil.

As I watched Vic leave the shop, the thought occurred to me that there might be something of interest to the case in Sebastian Nightwine’s former lodgings in Chelsea. It was the only place connected to Nightwine that was large enough for the Elephant Gang to hide. The chances were likely he had given up his lease long ago, but it would be worth the effort to at least cross it from the list. I had gone to the British Museum and was left without anything to do until Barker reappeared. I decided to improvise, and thereby possibly have something additional to offer when I saw him next. I hailed a cab and asked the driver to take me to Cheyne Row. There I paid him and sauntered casually past Nightwine’s old address.

There was no TO LET sign in any of the windows, all of which were covered in heavy drapes. I could not see any light coming from within. I passed by and turned at the end of the street, coming back to the door. Leaning casually against it, I listened for any sound coming from inside. Possibly those were voices I heard, but they could just as easily have been the normal sounds in a settling house. I couldn’t decide. Walking to the end of the street a second time I turned to my left and continued on, eventually finding an alley leading to the back of the row of semidetached villas.

Some houses look very different from the back. Luckily, it was not difficult to spot the white stone of Nightwine’s former residence. I made my way to the back gate and lifted the latch. The garden behind the house looked innocent enough. There was a good-sized larch tree, a couple of outbuildings, and a lawn in need of cutting. An empty wine bottle lay in the grass. Was it left here by an inhabitant of the house, or had someone thrown it from the alleyway? Again, there was no way to be certain. The windows in the back appeared to be covered in some kind of dark paper. One pane was not covered and I looked in where I supposed the kitchen to be. There were signs that it was lived in, crates on the floor and dishes in the sink, like the ones left at our house by the Elephant and Castle gang. I was just thinking to check whether the back door was locked when it opened suddenly and half a dozen rough-looking men swarmed out. I went into a defensive posture, but one of them, presumably the leader, pulled a pistol from the waistband of his trousers and pointed it at me. Some might say the modern pistol has rendered the old blood sports obsolete.

“Oo’ve we got here, then?” the man with the gun asked. He was tall and thin but intelligent looking, in a cunning way. “Looks like an intruder. What’s your name?”