Will Thomas - The Limehouse Text

“Aye. Or someone else.”

“Someone else?” I cried. “Who is left? The Lord Mayor?”

“I have not asked for his alibi, lad. No, I am talking about our fierce friend, Mr. Han, the other man leering at Miss Petulengro in the drawing. I believe we shall have to track the fellow down and ask him some questions. I suggest we not be gentle about it.”

Just then Jenkins brought in a message. Barker scrutinized it and then nodded his head in approval.

“Mr. Han must wait,” he said. “This is from Poole. The Yard has finally released Ho.”

We pulled up in front of Newgate Prison and alighted from the cab. I was less than comfortable being here, even if it was only to pick up someone else. Newgate had the dismal atmosphere of my own Oxford Prison. I had not the quickening of heart I sometimes felt when entering Scotland Yard. In its place was a kind of institutional misery. I felt wretched just seeing it but wasn’t going to admit it to Barker, who sat waiting patiently.

I turned the case over in my mind. Barker had possessed the text for almost twenty-four hours before he’d passed it on to his “Chinaman.” I’d assumed it was Old Quong, but now I considered the possibility that it had been Ho. Perhaps Ho was merely holding it for my employer. What would the Guv do with such knowledge? He would not wish the text to fall into the wrong hands.

“So, what is your position, sir?” I asked. “Is the text evil, or is it merely knowledge?”

“You are in good form today, Thomas,” he said after a moment’s silence. “You have put your finger on the very question that I have been contemplating.”

Just then, Ho came out of the bowels of the building looking his usual, truculent self. He and Barker nodded, and I followed them out into Newgate Street. Out at the curb, a cabman slowed when he heard Barker’s sharp whistle, then sped by when he caught sight of Ho. Luckily, a second driver was not so reluctant. We clambered in, and within a few minutes were headed out of the City into the East End.

Barker stopped the hansom a street or two away from Limehouse Reach. West Ferry Road was a row of tenements on either side. Ho got out of the cab and shuffled along with his head down and his hands in the pockets of his quilted jacket. At one door, he stopped, pounded twice, then immediately proceeded on his way. A few doors down on the opposite side of the street, he repeated the action. One of Ho’s waiters shot out of the first door, pulling a coat over his tunic. The teashop owner knocked on two more doors in the street, and by the time we reached the alleyway Ho’s restaurant occupies, we were followed by almost a dozen men. The Chinaman slipped a small key from his pocket into the door’s padlock and opened it. Then we followed him inside.

No one needed to light a lamp at the entrance, but for once we needed one at the end, because the tearoom was unlit. The room had a stale odor of trapped tobacco smoke and cooking oil. Waiters and cooks lit gas lamps and immediately began heating water to begin the process of cleaning. The room was still set up for the inquest, and we began to move tables and chairs about to a semblance of their former arrangement. Even I, with my one good arm, pushed a chair or two into place. The odor of stale smoke gave way to strong bleach and soap as the kitchen was treated to a hot scrub. I heard the cooks in the back begin talking in Chinese and laughing as they worked. Ho came out of his office and bellowed something that silenced everyone. If I had thought being incarcerated had not affected Ho, I was mistaken. It had made him even more surly, if such a thing were possible.

Barker clucked over the Pen-jing tree, which had gone without light or water for days. He carried it out to the entrance, cold as it was, to see if sunlight might revive it while Ho lowered himself onto the cushions behind his desk and began running a wire through his smoking contraption.

“Were you in any way mistreated?” I asked.

“I was,” he answered. “Food very bad.”

“It always is in prisons,” I said from experience. “And they half starve you, as well.”

“No bath for days. I feel very dirty.”

“I’m sure the Guv would want you to use the bathhouse tonight.”

Ho shook his head while he stuffed his water pipe with tobacco from a glass jar. “There are bathhouses in Limehouse.” The tearoom owner sat with his hooded eyes closed, savoring the smoke from his pipe. I thought as long as I was here, I would ask him some questions.

“Have you ever heard of a fellow named Charlie Han?”

“Betel nut,” he responded without opening his eyes.

“Yes. The police are looking for him in connection with the case.”

“He won’t be found if he does not wish to be found.”

“That sounds like Mr. K’ing,” I said. “Does Han work for K’ing?”

“Han works for Han. I’m certain he is paying for the privilege of working in triad territory. No one lives or works here who does not pay Mr. K’ing.”

I reached into my pocket and, taking out my notebook, flipped it to the page containing the sketch of the man in the Astrakhan-collared coat and wide-brimmed hat. I set it in front of Ho.

“Is this a good likeness of Mr. K’ing?”

The hooded eyes twitched and opened a little. A plume of smoke issued out of the corner of his mouth. He grunted.

“Does that mean yes?”

“Stop bothering my smoke with questions! You know it is K’ing. Is this the only copy?”

“No. The original is at Scotland Yard.”

Ho closed his eyes again.

“Did you know Quong well?” I asked.

“I knew him,” came the reply.

“Do you know Dr. Quong?”

“Very well. Personal friend.”

“How did you-”

“Questions, questions. All the time questions. Talk less, listen more. Let me smoke in peace! I have wheat cakes to bake.”

“Of course,” I said, getting up quickly. I’d strained his patience to the breaking point, but then I didn’t think his patience was particularly great.

I found Barker kneeling in the alleyway, fussing over the tiny potted pine.

“Is it dead?”

“It has suffered deprivation, but the branches are still supple. I believe it shall come through alive.”

Six people were dead, at least, and my employer was concerned with a shrub.

“Ho says he knew of Charlie Han but doesn’t know where he is now. He also said he and Dr. Quong are good friends.”

“I already know that, Thomas. You should have let him smoke.”

I sighed. “It’s hard to tell what to do with the Chinese. There’s so much protocol. I wouldn’t want to set back Anglo-Sinese relations.”

“I doubt there is any way to set them back further. Right now the Western powers are carving up China in the name of imperialism. Even young countries such as America are joining in. There is a town along the north coast of China, I hear, built by the Germans using Chinese labor, that so replicates their country, one would swear one was in Bavaria.”

“I had no idea,” I said.

“Aye. But everyone is working under a misapprehension. They are assuming the Dragon is dead, but it is like this Pen-jing tree. It only sleeps. One day, the Dragon shall awaken and when it does, God help us all. It shall feel as though Armageddon is upon us.”

“You think there shall be war?”

“Oh, there shall be war. You may be sure of it.”

“Between China and England?”

“England, France, Germany, and all the others that are attempting to interfere with China at the moment. They don’t trust one another, but they’ll band together if it is in their interests.”

“Wouldn’t that be a slaughter?” I asked. “After all, the Europeans have guns.”