Will Thomas: To Kingdom Come

We plunged through the door and down the steps. Ho’s restaurant is reached by means of a walkway under the Thames. Beside the entrance there are lamps to light your way, but regulars go through to the restaurant at the far end blind. So far, I had not broken my neck, but it only needs to happen once. Several minutes later, we were seated at a table over our first course.

“There’s a chicken head in my soup, sir,” I said, nudging it with a dubious finger.

“It is just garnish, Thomas. You do not have to eat it.”

“What is that in yours?”

“This is bird’s nest soup. What do you suppose is in it?”

There is always a moment before I begin to eat when I think Ho is trying to poison me. Then I taste my food, and realize what a master chef he is. Ho is a true Chinaman. He’ll serve anything that lives, from seaweed to elephant. In the West End there are restaurants that will take a breast of fowl, cut it from the bone, stuff it, bread it, cook it, cover it in sauce, and garnish it until one is not sure what kind of animal it was to begin with. With Ho, like as not, there will be eyes regarding you from your bowl.

I was still dipping my spoon away from the head when the bowl was wrenched from my hands and the next course served. Ho’s is famous for its service, or lack thereof. The Chinese waiters are notoriously surly, and none more so than the owner himself. He came out in a stained singlet and apron and stood, eyeing us unpleasantly. I suspected he and Barker were close friends, but they certainly were discreet about their friendship.

“We shall be away for a few weeks,” Barker stated, between selecting morsels of Chinese sweetbread with his chopsticks.

“You could use time away,” Ho said. “You are getting sleek and fat.”

I nearly swallowed my tongue. I trembled at the thought of anyone daring to make such a suggestion. True, Barker was a good fourteen stone, but I knew from personal experience in the boxing ring that none of it was fat. Barker only smiled, however. He allowed Ho liberties denied to us mere mortals.

Ho stepped away and disappeared into the gloom. The low room was lit by small penny candles and was full of tobacco smoke. After we finished our main entree-a large, unidentifiable fish, its body cavities filled with some kind of stuffing-Barker contributed his pipe smoke to the general effluvia.

Just then, a man stepped in the door and stood, allowing his eyes to adjust to the meager light. He seemed out of place in this den of anarchists, criminals, and enquiry agents. He looked more like a government accountant or a banker, a thin ascetic-looking fellow, balding at the temples, with a sharp nose, a pointed chin, and very deep-set eyes. He could have played Mephistopheles at the Lyceum.

Having caught my employer’s glance, the man raised an eyebrow, then crossed the room to our table.

“Barker,” the fellow acknowledged coolly, seating himself across from us. “I hear you had some excitement in Whitehall last night.”

“Yes, thanks to your countrymen. Three bombs in one night.”

“That many? I only heard two.”

“Oh, come now, Seamus. It’s not like you to get your facts wrong.”

A waiter appeared out of the gloom and bowed to our companion.

“The usual.” He turned back to us. “We are all fallible, Cyrus. Even you and me.”

“I know I’m fallible,” my employer rumbled, “but it’s nice to hear you admit the same. Still speculating?”

“A flutter here and there,” the fellow admitted. “The pound is strong at the moment.”

“And the business enterprises, are they going well?”

“I’d be lying if I said they weren’t.”

“Is there anything I should know about?”

“Nothing of interest. Is the agency up and running again?”

“Not fully,” Barker admitted. “I’ll need to have some repairs made. I’m thinking of taking a trip for the duration. Vienna is doing some marvelous improvements in criminalistics.”

“Still continuing your oriental studies?” the man asked, stifling a yawn. He seemed like the sort who is interested only in his own pet subjects.

“There is always more to learn.”

“And more to acquire.”

“Word on the street says you’ve been buying some paintings lately.”

“Word on the street should mind its own bloody business,” the fellow snapped. He shrugged his shoulders. “A Bouguereau or two came on the market unexpectedly. I like Bouguereau’s little shepherdesses. Innocence interests me.”

“You have expensive tastes, Seamus.”

“Not at all,” he said silkily. “My tastes are simple. I only like the best.”

The waiter arrived and then did something rather amazing. He set the man’s frugal meal of rice in tea in front of him gently. Where was the rudeness for which Ho’s waiters were famous?

“Stay for lunch?”

Barker shook his head. “We have already eaten, and I’ve got a lot to do before our journey. We’ll leave you to your solitary repast. Come, Llewelyn.”

The Irishman and I bowed to each other, and wordlessly I followed my employer through the door, down the steps, and across the echoing corridor. It wasn’t until we were back on the street looking for a hansom or an omnibus that I broke the silence.

“Was that the fellow on Parnell’s list?”

“It was. He often eats lunch at Ho’s at this time. His name is Seamus O’Muircheartaigh. He’s got his fingers in more pies than a baker: land speculation, stock exchange, high-interest loans, blackmail, extortion.”

“My word!”

“Do you remember Nightwine?”

“Sebastian Nightwine?” I did indeed. I’d met him during my first case with Barker. The fellow was a big-game hunter by trade, but it was rumored he was also attempting to organize London’s underworld.

“He has moved on. Africa, I believe. It’s his one saving grace: he doesn’t stay in one place for long. He sold off his holdings in the East End to O’Muircheartaigh recently, or so I’ve heard. He always turns a profit.”

“So he’s little more than a criminal, then.”

“Yes, but of the first water. A criminal’s criminal. He trained himself by reading Machiavelli’s The Prince. Some of the money he brings in is funneled through to the Irish Republican Brotherhood. I can’t be certain whether he is a true patriot to the cause, or if it is just a good business tactic.”

“But you ate with him!” I protested.

“I did not. You saw me leave the moment his food arrived. I refuse to break bread with the man, and he knows it.”

“You acted very civil toward him. You called him over. You called him by his Christian name.”

“Make no mistake, Thomas. If I could toss him in Wormwood Scrubs today, I would. And if he could splatter my brains across the London cobblestones, he would. We respect each other for our talents and professionalism. We shall treat each other with courtesy until one of us eventually does the other in.”

We returned to our office, and for a moment I felt that everything was as it had been. Jenkins was seated at his desk with the Police Gazette in his hand, the glaziers had completed their work and gone, and all vestiges of dust and debris had been removed from the waiting room by our clerk’s broom and duster. Barker stopped for a moment to discuss with Jenkins a potential client who had appeared in our absence, while I continued into the inner office.

All was not the same here. The carpets were gone, and the vase was still a stack of shards on the corner of Barker’s desk. More obvious was the street urchin who sat in my employer’s chair, with his feet on the blotter and a lit cigar from the box the Guv reserved for guests in his hand.

“How’d you get in here?” I demanded. “Get out of Mr. Barker’s chair before I drag you out.”