Will Thomas - The Limehouse Text

I slid on a patch of ice and nearly fell but righted myself and kept on going. Finally, I arrived at the barn. As calmly as possible, I told the stable boy to saddle Juno, for he was as head shy as the horse. He got her tacked up in record time, after I offered him a half sovereign. As sedately as possible under the circumstances, I climbed into the stirrups as the boy opened the livery doors.

“You’ve wanted a good gallop for weeks now, girl,” I said in her ear. “Now is your chance.”

I kicked her and she leapt forward, her iron shoes ringing off the roadway. We galloped along the Borough High Street past rows of anonymous houses. I felt the pent-up energy in Juno being released and the fierce joy of having something useful to do. I understood it because I felt it myself. Between us we swallowed up the streets as we headed toward the river and the bridge that spanned it.

London Bridge was nearly deserted as I urged the horse on. By now, Juno and I had become a single entity. A policeman blew his whistle at me, but I cared not a whit. We squeezed between a couple of draft horses, who voiced their displeasure, and went flying down Gracechurch Street.

“Good girl! Excellent!” I cried into her ear and then I brought her into an easy canter, for she couldn’t keep up this pace forever. We trotted through the City and increased our speed again once we reached Commercial Road. A little more than half an hour after I had left, I was beating on Old Quong’s door.

“Dr. Quong! Dr. Quong! Are you there?”

I assumed he lived above his shop and that he would answer my stout knockings, but there was no answer. It hadn’t occurred to me he might not be home. Perhaps he was out on a call somewhere. I knew not what to do but climbed back onto the lathered bay and began circling the streets of Limehouse. I found him on the fifth or sixth street I passed, sitting on a small stool in the street getting the top of his head shaved by a Chinese barber. I pulled up so quickly, the barber nearly cut off the doctor’s ear.

“Dr. Quong, come quickly. Barker has been stricken. It is his kidneys. I think it is dim mak.”

“Dim mak?” the doctor said, wiping his forehead with a towel. “You are certain?”

“Very. He hovers near death. If anyone can save him, it is you.”

“Take me home. Must get bag.” He used the barber’s folding chair to climb behind me.

Juno’s energy was flagging on the way back, but she came from good Thoroughbred stock and had hidden depths. We did not equal our time on the journey back to Newington, for the town was well awake now and the traffic heavier. Some were stopping to watch two men, one in a cast and the other an Oriental, on the back of a sturdy mare galloping through London. By then Juno was bathed in sweat and there were flecks of foam on her bridle.

We finally reached the Elephant and Castle and I pushed myself off as I reached the familiar alley behind our house. I unlocked the moon gate and tied up Juno there before I hustled the doctor over the bridge and through the back door.

“What’s going on here?” Applegate demanded when the two of us, weary and disheveled, reached the top of the stairs.

“Tell me, doctor,” I said, “do you despair of his life? Be honest, I beg you.”

Barker lay in his bed, his lower torso wrapped in a towel and his skin slick with sweat. Applegate looked at him and frowned.

“Answer me, please!”

“Very well, then, yes, I despair of his life.”

“Then let this fellow have a try. His name is Dr. Quong. He is a Chinese herbal doctor and he cannot do anything to worsen Barker’s condition. I believe, sir, that my employer has been attacked by a secret Oriental method and the only cure is from an Oriental doctor.”

“I’ve been treating Cyrus Barker for five years now,” he growled. “I’ve fixed lacerations and broken limbs and busted heads. But I’ll admit I’m beat. I do not know if there is a cure for this, but if this fellow can find a way, he may try. May I watch?”

Old Quong nodded to him but pointed at me. “Him stay. You go out.”

After all this I was being tossed out on my ear. “Wait! Can’t I-”

“No!” both doctors barked.

“Hang it!” I cried and went downstairs.

“What is happening?” Mac asked as I reached the hall.

“Ask them!” I snapped and went outside into the garden. I had to see to Juno or she would take ill in the cold. I led her to the alley and back to the stable. Once there I removed her saddle and blanket and began rubbing her down. I could have bade the boy to do it, but I needed to do something as much as Juno needed it done. I rubbed and combed her until her muscles, which were bunching and shaking in her breast from the cold and activity, finally began to relax. Then I filled up her hay box and water bucket, shoveled out her stall, and put down fresh straw. Normally she is stall shy, unwilling to be locked in the small enclosure, but for once she went in without protest. She was all in, and nearly asleep before I left the barn.

I returned to the house praying that God would spare my employer. Surely it made no sense to take him when he was doing so much good. I admit he could be a martinet at times, but he was exceedingly bighearted. There was nothing that if I convinced him I had the need of he would not buy, and the very best, too. If there was a benevolent God watching out for us, surely the world would be poorer without this one man struggling down here, this Noah among the forsaken, this Quixote tilting at windmills.

An hour later, Dr. Quong was closing his lacquered case full of bottles and tonics and Dr. Applegate was latching his bag. They had reached a truce, if not exactly a friendship, and both had other patients to see. Mac’s nurse was now looking after her new charge on the upper floor and I had a chair drawn up by his bed.

I reached across to lay a palm on Barker’s forehead and found it hot to the touch. Under that placid exterior, my employer’s body was in a pitched battle for its life.

“S’truth,” a voice spoke behind me.

“Hello, Jenkins,” I said, not looking up.

“’E ain’t dead, is he?”

“No, not dead. Who told you he’d been hurt?”

“Inspector Poole stuck his head into the office. He’ll be along in a bit. Word got to Scotland Yard, I think.”

My mind filled in the blanks after that. I must have been seen and recognized riding into and out of Limehouse. Barker had told me once that information traveled fast in London.

“What?” I asked. Jenkins was speaking to me, but I was lost in my own thoughts.

“I said what’ll I do? The office?”

“What about it?”

“Should I keep it open or refer cases to Hewitt?”

Hewitt was another enquiry agent who sometimes took the cases Barker was too busy for.

“For now, just take messages,” I said. “And put that out!”

Even if I hadn’t smelled the cigarette, I knew he had one. It was like a sixth finger in his right hand, though he limited himself in the office to a few each day. I watched him take a last lungful like a diver before he went under the water, then cross to the dormer window and toss the fag end out into the street. He leaned forward and exhaled through the inch of space between the window and the ledge and then he came back and regarded Barker’s still form solemnly.

“Never seen him like this,” he said. “No tie with the pearl stickpin. No Windsor collar. The least we can do is comb his hair.” Jenkins reached into his pocket and removed a small comb, running it through Barker’s hair. It made me think of corpses, and I wanted to reach over and stop him but stopped myself instead. Jenkins was worried as well and this was making him feel he was doing something, even if it did send a chill up my spine.