Will Thomas - The Limehouse Text

There was a snapping sound in the silence, but it was Jack who snarled in his throat. Barker’s hand had found his fingers and snapped two of them. There was a third snap before the man reluctantly let go. Barker seized the fellow’s wrists and braced his feet against the Chinaman’s hips, leaning out at a forty-five-degree angle. Then he suddenly pulled himself back into Jack’s embrace with a thud. Barker jumped down and turned to face his opponent, his arms raised defiantly, his fingers claws. He’d been silent during the fight, but now he gave a defiant roar.

The huge man frowned and tried to raise his right arm, but he grimaced in pain. He raised his left, but that was too painful also. It took me a minute to figure out what had happened. Barker had broken the man’s collarbone with the back of his head. The Chinaman bellowed in anger, trying to throw a kick at Barker, but he ended up falling on his side. My employer went over and put his boot on his opponent’s chest, many of the crowd calling for the coup de grace. Instead, he turned and walked toward Mr. K’ing, raising his fists in triumph. All the men in the room began crying out, myself included, as K’ing stood and acknowledged the end of the match. Barker had won, if just barely. The Guv bowed to Mr. K’ing and limped out of the ring. A litter was brought out and the huge Chinaman moved onto it. It took six men to lift it.

The hall was abuzz with men discussing the fight. Ho had a triumphant look on his face, and I soon found out why when a man came up and handed him his winnings. Had I asked him, I’m sure he would have said he had known Barker would win all along. I was merely glad the Guv had survived.

Straddling the handrail and landing in the ring, I went looking for Barker. It was dark in the short tunnel under the seats, until I came to a fork, going right and left. I tried the right, bursting into a room. A Chinese doctor was treating Manchu Jack’s injuries, but Barker was nowhere to be found. I ran out of the room and down the hall to the left, running into a room on the opposite side. There I found my employer, seated at a table, looking rather the worse for wear, while Dr. Quong attended to his wounds. Across from him sat Mr. K’ing himself. They were drinking tea as if the two were old acquaintances instead of adversaries.

Something told me I was being rude, blundering in like this, so I bowed without thinking. Mr. K’ing nodded his head and Barker gave me a wan smile with the corner of his mouth. His jaw was swollen and he had abrasions all over his neck and face.

“Come, sir,” Mr. K’ing said to me, “and try some tea. Miss Winter has been released and sent home in a cab. I was just telling your employer that I have never seen a better fight. It was a treat to see the great Shi Shi Ji in the ring, and every man here tonight shall have a story to tell his grandchildren. This fight shall be discussed in ports and river towns around the world.”

I took one of the dishes of tea and tossed it off in one gulp. Like all Chinese tea, it tasted like dishwater.

Barker got up the next morning, determined to go to work. Despite Mac’s and my protests at the breakfast table that he needed more rest, he refused on the pretext that he had already dressed and going back to his bed and nightshirt would show a lack of progress. He had his way, of course, but I noticed he was slow getting into the cab. His face bore several sticking plasters and his jaw was swollen, but he paid them scant concern.

At our chambers, Jenkins raised his eyebrows, as if it were my fault the Guv was there. Barker sat down in his big chair with a contented sigh and tented his fingers. He wished Jenkins a good morning and received one in return. Then he picked up The Times and began to read the morning news. It reminded me of an anecdote I’d heard once about a Scottish lord who finished his breakfast each morning by going out in front of his castle and announcing that he had broken his fast; the rest of the world was now free to eat. Cyrus Barker wasn’t going to let simple matters such as kidney failure or a fight with a Chinese giant stop him from solving a case.

Barker seemed inclined to think that morning, which was a relief. No one was beating down the door searching for the book. No prospective clients arrived on the step to beg the Guv’s custom. After reading The Times and the Pall Mall Gazette front to back, he drew designs on the corner of his desk with his finger, then got up and went to his smoking cabinet. He took down a meerschaum pipe and, stuffing tobacco into the lion-head bowl, sat to smoke. Nothing was heard for the next half hour but the scratch of my nib on the ledger: cab rides, meals, maids and nurses, doctor bills and more doctor bills. I was wondering again where Barker got the money for this office and his house and garden, and, oh, yes, the wages of his employees, as well.

Barker got up, knocked out his pipe, ran a pipe cleaner through it, and put it away. Then he reached for another. The Guv rarely smoked two pipefuls in a row. It was a little Chinese Mandarin’s head this time, with a hole in the crown of his pillbox hat. He filled it, lit it, and settled into his chair again. Nothing was happening of any import. Or so I thought.

“Ah,” he suddenly said five minutes later. “You little beggar.”

I looked up, but he wasn’t speaking to me. He got up and began pacing, which is always a good sign. He went to his pitcher and glass behind him. They were empty.

“Thomas, get me some water, would you?”

I would, of course; anything to help with the case. I went out the back door and when I did, I saw something there. I’m not the sort to believe in signs. I like to think of myself as a practical person, but there was a robin on the handle of the pump. It was a little thing, a mere morsel of life, barely worth the Lord’s time and effort, but its appearance cheered me immensely. The sun picked up the vibrant red in its breast. I dared not move from the doorway. It cocked its head this way and that, and finally it flew away, up and over the wall. It was a harbinger, I thought, a harbinger that the blasted winter was going away and that spring would eventually come. Death was dead and life would spring anew, and, yes, this case would soon be over and the Guv would finally get to the bottom of it all.

I pumped the water into the jug so quickly it overran and I had to pour some out. I brought it in and hurried back to my desk. Barker was seated again, but he was humming to himself off-key, another good sign. I poured him a glass and he drank it. Ten minutes went by. Fifteen. Then he spoke.

“Lad, run along and fetch Terry Poole. If he balks, tell him I’ll solve the case without him.”

I was out the door in the time it took the robin to fly over the wall. I sprinted into Whitehall Street and ’round the corner into Great Scotland Yard. Poole was not in his office, but I found him talking to a sergeant in the hall, looking harried and irritable as usual. I gave him the message and watched as he frowned at the ultimatum and heaved a sigh. What else could he do but comply with the Guv’s request?

“Tell him I shall be along directly.”

I nipped back to the office and dropped into my chair again. Barker was humming “How Can I Sink with Such a Prop as My Eternal Lord” from Spurgeon’s Our Own Hymn Book. As usual, he was mangling it, but I wouldn’t have stopped him had my life depended on it. I don’t know if miracles happen in our day and age, but sometimes it seems as if the Guv occasionally gets a divine message or two.

Poole appeared shortly thereafter, looking like a fellow who’d just come in second in a race.

“What is it, Cyrus?” he asked, pulling up one of the chairs in front of the desk.