Will Thomas - The Limehouse Text

“Hey!” I cried. “Come back here!”

“No harm done,” Barker said, rising and dusting himself off, setting the beggar and his cup as they were. I knew what the Guv would ask before he said it, and dropped a shilling into the cup.

“Dratted pickpockets,” I grumbled. “The town is rife with them.”

“That is too much of a coincidence for mere pickpockets, lad,” Barker said. “I think it more likely to be another attempt by Quong’s killer to lay hands upon the text.”

Barker blew the steam off a cup of cocoa. The heavens over the waterfront had opened up again and we had taken refuge in a confectioner’s shop. There were no public houses in sight, and the shop afforded some degree of comfort and respectability. The cocoa warmed me better than a pint of bitter could, but the sight of Barker sipping on his cup of Fry’s was certainly a novel one. As a rule, he did not care for sweets.

“What did you think about Poole’s theory that Ho is Mr. K’ing?” I asked.

“It is erroneous but not entirely preposterous. Ho has always run deep. There is an underworld in China of boxers and bodyguards and secret schools of martial training and Ho has always been involved in it.”

“How did you meet Ho, sir, if I may ask?”

Barker put down his mug and wiped his mustache. “It was during the Chinese Civil War. Hong Xiuquan, leader of the rebellion, was out to destroy the monasteries at the time. He believed in a mangled form of Christianity, with himself at the right hand of God. Like most fellows my age, I joined as a soldier. One day, we were marching through a village outside Yangan when we came upon an army of rebels setting fire to a temple and killing the monks. Now, General Gordon was a Christian but he couldn’t stand by and watch a group of monks being slaughtered, even if they were Buddhists. He led us into the fray. What we didn’t know was that there was a second army behind the monastery.

“We fought all day and most of the night. There were heavy casualties on both sides. We had rifles and bayonets to their spears and arrows, but there was plenty of smoke from the burning monastery, and we fought at close quarters. By the end of the night, between my wounds and sheer exhaustion, I could hardly hold my rifle. I wandered among a sea of corpses, blood up to the horse’s bridle, as Revelation says, and the only living man in sight was a monk coming toward me with a spear in his hand. When he got close enough, he threw the spear at me. I ducked, amazed that he’d done it, after I’d just tried to save his monastery. What I didn’t know was that a wounded rebel was standing behind me with a broad sword, preparing to hack off my head. The spear caught him full in the throat. After all this time, I can still picture the look of surprise on the fellow’s face.

“The monk was Ho, of course. His head was shaven and he wore a long saffron robe splashed with gore, but you would have recognized him. He was only in his twenties, but I was not more than seventeen, myself. He put his foot on the chest of the freshly killed rebel soldier and pulled out the spear. We stood and watched the monastery burn. His first words to me were, ‘Perhaps this is a sign that I was not meant to be a monk.’”

I smiled at that image, and then asked, “What shall we do about Mr. K’ing?”

“There is nothing for it, lad. We shall have to beard the fellow in his den.”

“Perhaps Ho could furnish an introduction.”

“That would compromise Ho and possibly endanger him. Surely this fellow has a dwelling in Limehouse and an office where he conducts business. There must be someone who knows where he lives.”

“Dr. Quong?” I asked.

“Quong is an honorable man. I would not feel right about approaching him with such a request.”

“Jimmy Woo, then.”

“Excellent. I believe he is the very man. As an interpreter, he must travel all over Limehouse. I believe the rain has stopped. Let us go to the Asiatic Aid Society and see if we can find him.”

The Asiatic Aid Society was an organization much like the more-well-known Strangers’ Home, whose purpose was to care for aged or infirmed Eastern sailors who had found themselves washed up on our Western shores. Located in East India Dock Road, the building may once have been the mansion of an admiral in the days of Napoleon and Wellington. Now its halls were given over to aging lascars in the early stages of dementia and sad, neglected-looking Chinamen in bath chairs. There was a smell in the air of mold and dry rot, Asian food, and the sickbed that my nose didn’t like and my stomach cared for even less. The atmosphere was bleak and oppressive. I hoped our time here would be brief.

Sometimes I forget how deeply ingrained Barker’s faith is and how seriously he takes it. Perhaps it is because I’ve been present on so many occasions when he has had to resort to violence. To him, it must have been the most natural thing in the world to drop down on one knee beside an old Chinaman’s bath chair and converse quietly with him in Chinese. He actually fussed over the toothless old fellow, pulling up the blanket which had fallen around his knees, making some remark that made the old man’s eyes light up. The old salt, who had been lethargic when we came up to him, began to chatter to the Guv animatedly, nodding his head so his straggly beard wagged. He raised a finger, deformed and crippled from arthritis, and pointed down the hallway with a yellowed nail. Barker stood, they bobbed respectful bows at each other, and we proceeded down the hall.

“It is a pathetic end, lad,” he commented as we passed down the corridor, “but with no living relatives, he’s better here than in China.”

We found Woo in an office off the hall. He was helping a sailor process paperwork at his desk and waved us to a pair of chairs. He got out a seal and appended his name to the side of a document in red ink. Then came the prolonged leave-taking with the individual, with all its bows and grins. Being Chinese, I realized, is all about protocol.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” Woo said, greeting us. “Managed to stay out of the wet? It’s raining cats and dogs, I said to myself this very morning. What can I do for London’s illustrious enquiry agent?”

“We were wondering if you are acquainted with a merchant in Limehouse known as Mr. K’ing.”

Woo’s hand, which was constantly in motion when he talked, stopped suddenly, and he tried to cover it up quickly by shooting his cuffs and adjusting the stickpin in his tie.

“Really, you know, he’s just a myth. There’s no such animal, I assure you. He’s just a creation thought up by certain merchants hoping to keep some of the dockside gangs at bay.”

“Inspector Bainbridge thought otherwise,” Barker pursued. “He even provided a sketch for us.”

Woo blinked twice behind his monocle. “Wouldn’t know about that, myself. I can only say that I’ve never met him, and if anyone would know about him, it would be me. You mark my words; he’s just a clever ploy on the part of merchants to draw some people in and keep others out. Mr. K’ing does not exist.”

“I see,” Barker said, but I was certain he thought otherwise. “Do you work here all day? When do you have time to discharge your duties to the Foreign Office?”

“I am in and out of the office all day and much of the night, as well. My work here is not suitable for my needs and so I must supplement my income with odd jobs. For example, I gave a reporter a tour of Darkest Limehouse just the other day.”

What needs did Woo have? I wondered. Obviously his tailor was one of them. His cravat and handkerchief were silver today, with a black cutaway and striped trousers.

“How is Mr. Campbell-Ffinch of the Foreign Office faring these days?” I dared to ask.