Will Thomas: The Limehouse Text

“Who exactly is Mr. K’ing?” I made so bold as to ask.

“He is the leader of the Blue Dragon Triad,” my employer explained, “unofficial leader of the Chinese here. He is a very powerful man, by all accounts. He runs the opium dens and fan-tan parlors, extorts money from the Asian merchants in the East End, and lives the life of a potentate. I have seen him twice at a distance, but some say that is merely an actor in the employ of local merchants taking advantage of the superstition to line their own pockets.”

Ho lifted the shabby book off the table and held it out. “He is real, and he will want to see this.”

The Guv took it immediately and thrust it back into his pocket. “That he will definitely not do if I have any say in the matter. That was left to me by Quong. I have promised his father I would find his killer and nothing is going to stop me from doing so.”

Ho answered him in Chinese. Barker nodded once and then stood. He rose straight from the floor on the outsides of his ankles like a marionette, as easy as you please, whereas Bainbridge and I had to unknot our limbs and struggle to our feet, with that feeling of pins and needles one gets from sitting in such a position too long. Without a word, we left the kitchen.

“Sir,” I said, as we were crossing the dining room, “what was that last thing Ho said to you before we left?”

“He said, ‘It is not necessary to dig one’s own grave. There are always others willing to dig it for you.’ It’s an old Cantonese proverb.”

I lit the lamp again in the alcove above the stairs while Bainbridge shook his head and Barker was lost in his own thoughts. I suspected Ho and the book had given him much to mull over, and I was playing catch up myself. Apparently, Quong had a father in the area, the “next of kin” to whom Bainbridge was to return his clothes, though Barker himself had claimed the title.

“I’d take whatever Mr. Ho said about K’ing with a grain o’ salt, young man,” Bainbridge said in my ear.

“He wouldn’t have any reason to lie,” I said. Perhaps because Ho was my employer’s friend, I felt I had to defend him. It was certainly not due to any personal reason he had given me.

“Tha’ knows all these Orientals are natural-born liars. They never say what they really mean, and you never ken what they’re thinking. They’d turn a laundry list into a mystery. If there really is a Mr. K’ing-”

It was the last word he ever said. While I was looking at him as he spoke, a black hole suddenly appeared between his eyes. At first I thought it was a cockroach fallen from the ceiling until the gout of blood poured out and the sound of the shot echoed along the corridor. I watched Bainbridge’s body sag and drop and instinct told me that if the next bullet were meant for me, it would have to pass through the lamp I was holding in front of my face. I ducked just as the glass shattered, the second report rang out, and Barker and I were plunged into darkness in Ho’s tunnel under the Thames.

Barker had been training me these past twelve months, but I was still green enough to stand there like a total fool, an easy target for the assassin’s bullet. It is not every day one is talking with a fellow and one of you is shot between the eyes. If I was frozen in shock, my employer was not; I felt his hand grab my collar and swing me ’round until I hit the wall behind him, sliding down to the hard stone floor.

“What the deuce-”

Barker’s thick fingers clamped over my mouth. Bainbridge’s murderer did not need light to carry on further assassinations. My employer’s hand disappeared and I heard his boots take two steps before there was a sudden slap of impact and then another and then a perfect flurry of them. Barker was engaged in a fight with the killer in total darkness not five feet away from me, and for once he didn’t appear to be winning handily. I got up, ready to run or defend myself, though if the Guv was having trouble I didn’t stand a chance. Barker was suddenly knocked back into me, but I felt him connect with a left and then a right against our invisible foe. A moment later, footsteps echoed quickly down the subterranean tunnel, and Barker pushed himself off the wall. There was a sudden jingle of coins in my employer’s pockets and within seconds they were clanging off the walls and rolling everywhere. Barker was quite accurate with his razor-sharp pennies as a rule, but if he actually struck our assassin, the latter wasn’t generous enough to cry out. We gave chase, but just then it felt as absurd as running into a burning building.

I heard the creak of rusty hinges and light flooded down momentarily into the tunnel, but all that was illuminated was Barker’s stony face as he reached the stairs. My employer continued on gamely, but we both knew what he would find when he reached the top: an empty alleyway.

When I reached the final step I began lighting the naphtha lamps Ho provided there, keenly aware that I’d just done this for Bainbridge a short time before. Poor fellow, I thought. He certainly didn’t deserve such an end. I could imagine him conscientiously attempting to close this case, going over every jot and tittle, and suddenly coming across the wedge of pasteboard in Quong’s cotton jacket. Now he was dead, and in the same manner as my late predecessor, a single bullet between the eyes, which only went to prove one thing: this was not merely an unsolved case but an ongoing one in the midst of which one could quite easily be killed. Did the murderer have a grudge against Barker and was attempting to eliminate all his assistants and friends? Had the bullet that knocked out my lamp really been meant for me?

I jumped when the door was suddenly flung open, but it was merely Barker returning. He grunted, took a lit lamp in either hand, and proceeded down the steps again.

On the bottom step at the other side, Ho sat looking as sour as I have ever seen him, his eyes on the corpse. I set the other two lamps at the feet of the late Inspector Bainbridge, which, combined with the ones Barker had set at his head, gave a macabre, ritual-like look to the corridor. Bainbridge lay supine, legs slightly apart, palms up, his mouth gaping open, dead. I realized I believe in the human soul, for there was something there five minutes before that was not there now, something beyond mere animation. That had been a living, breathing being, full of questions about the case and all sorts of plans, from how he was going to catch Quong’s killer to what he was going to eat for lunch that day. Now all that was left was inanimate clay, fodder for the grave.

Ho stood abruptly, turned, and climbed the stairs to his restaurant, muttering to himself. Once inside, it turned to bellows, in intermittent Chinese and English.

“Chut! Hui! We are closed! Out! Get out now! Watch your step!”

Suddenly, the stone stairway was full of people-diners, waiters, and even cooks-herded unceremoniously out of the restaurant by its volcanic owner. At the foot of the stair, they split into two groups, scuttling along on either side of the corpse like rats in a ship. English, Chinese, Jews, Russians-all were the same now, eyeing, or trying not to eye, the corpse as they hurried along.

“I must send a note to Scotland Yard,” Barker stated, reaching into his pocket.

“I’ll write it,” I said, forestalling him. My employer’s handwriting would have been no more legible to them than Chinese calligraphy. I pulled my notebook and pencil from my pocket. “What shall I say?”

“Ask for Inspector Poole. He, at least, has some understanding of this culture. Tell him Bainbridge has been shot dead. Terry has not been here before. Have him meet you outside.”

“I could send a telegram instead,” I suggested. “It might reach him faster. There’s bound to be an office along the docks.”