Will Thomas: To Kingdom Come

“Oh, s’truth, not the Sun!” He rushed past me and out the door. I heard his footsteps echoing down the court.

“The news is worse this morning,” Barker said, handing me The Times. “Aside from the dozens hurt in Whitehall, fourteen men were injured at the Junior Carlton Club. Also, two servants were blown off their feet at the private residence of Sir Watkin Williams Wynn, across the street in St. James’s.”

“Sir Watkin!”

Barker’s brow sunk between the twin disks of his spectacles.

“You know Sir Watkin?”

“I don’t know him personally, but he has always been revered in Wales. He’s a landowner who has given back much in charity to the Welsh people. Was he injured?”

“I don’t know anything beyond the published account. Have you finished your coffee?”

“Er … yes, sir.”

“Good. We have an appointment at the Home Office at eight o’clock. The ministries are awake early this morning, thanks to the bombing that occurred there last evening. Do try to get cleaned up, Thomas. Your appearance might be suitable for the public houses but not for visiting one of Her Majesty’s government agencies.”

Barker led me to the back room where the cot had been and removed a black leather bag containing toiletries from one of the cupboards. There were brushes for hair and teeth, a mirror, a razor, and a small ceramic bowl. I took it outside to fill from the pump in the yard. In twenty minutes I was changed and clean-shaven again, and my medusa head of curls beaten back into submission.

Jenkins looked unwell when he returned just then, leaning on the arm of Dummolard like an old man. We sat him in his chair while the Frenchman poured him coffee. I thought our clerk might faint.

“I can’t believe it,” he said. “This is a nightmare.”

It took some time to calm him and then to get him started cleaning up the glass about the place. Dummolard left for his restaurant, and soon it was a quarter to the hour.

“Are you ready, lad? Capital. Let’s be off, then.”

Skirting the debris from the explosion, we reached the corner of Downing and Parliament Streets and looked up at the tall, non-descript exterior of the Home Office. The building projected an aura of wisdom and competency, but at the same time, I almost felt it willing us to go away. I saw it for what it was: a vault of secrets. From here, the eyes of the British government were watching. If my few months in Oxford Prison caused me to distrust policemen, my natural antipathy toward spies and spying was stronger still.

Understandably, the guard at the Home Office was reluctant to let anyone as formidable looking as my employer into the building. He let us cool our heels in the lobby and sent a clerk along to deliver our cards to Mr. Robert Anderson. After a wait of a quarter hour, the man himself came out to meet us. He was a mild but capable-looking fellow in his mid-forties with a saltand pepper beard, which belied his official title of Spymaster General.

“Mr. Barker,” he said, giving us a brisk bow. Barker stood, and they shook hands.

“Mr. Anderson,” my employer answered in his foggy voice. “Thank you for responding to my note. May I present my assistant, Thomas Llewelyn?”

“How do you do. Will the two of you care to step down the hallway with me? There is someone I wish you to meet and something I very much want you to see.”

Anderson led us down a carpeted hall, lined with offices containing government employees, all intent upon the latest outrage. I wondered how those men felt this morning when they arrived at work. I don’t believe any violent results of their policies had ever occurred so close to their offices before.

We reached a room dominated by a long table. It seated twenty, by the number of chairs that were around it, and was built of dark mahogany, several inches thick, with heavy legs carved like the limbs of a lion. There were two things I noticed as I stepped into the room: the gentleman seated at one end and the large carpetbag at the other.

“Sir Watkin,” Anderson said, “may I introduce you to Mr. Cyrus Barker and his assistant, Thomas Llewelyn.” Anderson turned to us. “Sir Watkin is here at Her Majesty’s request as a liaison between the Crown and the Home Office.”

Sir Watkin Williams Wynn shook Barker’s hand, then turned to me. I wondered what my father would have said if he could have seen me shaking hands with the great man now.

“ Pnawn da, ” I said, as the old gentleman grasped my hand.

“Good morning to you,” he replied in Welsh. “It’s good to hear the old tongue so far from home, especially on a day such as this.”

Instinctively, Cyrus Barker gravitated toward the bag at the other end of the table. “Is that what I believe it to be?”

“Yes. It was found this morning at the base of Nelson’s Column. So far, we have not notified the gentlemen of the press.” Anderson’s lips curled as he spoke, but whether it was due to the bomb, the press, or the bag’s garish colors, I couldn’t say.

“May I?”

“You may. It failed to go off, and we have had the wires cut by one of our experts.”

Barker opened the satchel and motioned me over to look inside. The first thing I saw was a small clock, the kind one keeps on one’s night table. The back plate had been removed and a pistol wired to it, the muzzle almost facing a small detonator. It had missed by a hairsbreadth and there was a scorched hole in the bag. Beneath the clock were several claylike cakes wrapped in paper with warning labels on them. Dynamite. I had heard of it, seen it in political cartoons of anarchists and Fenians, but this was my first time to see it in person. If this bag were like the one that had been left at Scotland Yard, it contained enough explosives to blow us and everything in this room to kingdom come.

“Atlas Powder Company. American made, like the carpetbag. Probably American funded, as well. Very basic,” my employer commented. “But they didn’t get it right. We can be thankful that the Irish are still tyros at bomb making and that, so far, they have been unwilling to take human life.”

“Not for lack of trying,” Sir Watkin spoke up. “My butler and footman were thrown into the hall by the force of the explosion across the street, and are both in hospital. These bombers are serious. London is shaking in her boots this morning.”

“Nevertheless,” Barker stated, “this satchel proves that their knowledge of making explosives is still rudimentary at best. No doubt you are aware of the failed attempt last month to blow up the English police barracks in Dublin. That is three unsuccessful efforts in half a year, hardly a distinguished record.”

“Now, Mr. Barker,” Anderson said, “perhaps you will explain to us why you felt the need to offer your services to us today. Surely, a man of your experience would know we have our own resources.”

“I am aware of the reach of the Home Office and the abilities of the Special Irish Branch, who no doubt are stinging under the effects of last night’s humiliation. I merely thought it would be remiss of me not to make myself available, as I am something of an expert on secret societies. I assume you’ve read my dossier from the Foreign Office.”

“I have, and, I must say, it made for interesting reading. The consensus seems to be that your methods are irregular, but you generally succeed in what you set out to accomplish.” Anderson paused a moment, to let Barker comment, but my employer merely sat there-blinking, if, in fact, he ever blinked behind those spectacles. He may not have realized he had been given a compliment and merely thought it his due. As for me, I would have liked to read that dossier. I had at least a thousand questions about my employer I’d like answered.