Will Thomas: The Limehouse Text

An hour or so later, Vic came breezing through our office, helping himself to one of Barker’s cigars for his trouble. He leaned on my rolltop desk causing the lid to crash down on my fingers as he looked all innocence. It was another notation for the list. What really annoyed me, of course, was that Soho Vic had just been on an errand and Barker had not told me what it was about. He was one up on me, and I hated nothing more. My employer read the message he brought and handed Vic another shilling. The last I saw of the street arab, he was outside, passing by our bow window, puffing on the cigar and flipping the coin in the air as carefree as a lark in spring.

Barker read for the next hour at his desk. It was one of the Scotsman George Macdonald’s pastorals, Donal Grant, I think the title was. It could not be related to the case at all, but something was brewing, I knew. The Guv only read at the office when he was marking time for an appointment.

At three o’clock, Big Ben chimed in our ears and Barker put a thin strip of tartan in his book and set it down before rising.

“You coming, lad?”

“Yes, sir,” I said, reaching for my coat. Half of my job is to be intuitive and the other half to just look like I know what is going on. This was definitely the latter.

Our destination was the Reading Room of the British Museum, one of the places in London I love best. It was here that I had whiled away my hours before I found employment and it was here also that I first spied Barker’s advertisement offering “some danger involved in performance of duties.” The Reading Room is the British equivalent of the fabled library at Alexandria, containing the sum of all modern wisdom and the accumulated knowledge of the ages. It is the repository for all of the important books in the world, and in a way, I thought of it as home.

The Guv pulled the repeater from his pocket and opened it. It was an old watch, grime having worked its way into the crevices of the filigree, but apparently it had sentimental value to him, for he rarely kept anything that was not in pristine condition.

“Three o’clock to the minute,” he stated. “I hope our appointment shall not keep us waiting. Look, I believe that is the man there.”

Barker pointed to someone standing between two rows of books in a suit of brown check. He was turned away from us, and all I could see was that he had black hair and spectacles with thick tortoiseshell rims. I recognized the bent shoulders of the inveterate scholar. We crossed the room to where he was standing, and when we were a dozen yards away he turned toward us. The fellow was Mr. K’ing.

“Thank you for coming,” Barker said to him, as if actually grateful to this man who had come so close to ordering our deaths.

“Of course. I must say, Mr. Llewelyn looks rather stunned.”

“I’ll admit to being curious myself. Is this your normal attire or is the other?”

“I am inclined to say both. I feel more comfortable in silk when I am in Limehouse, but I prefer normal English attire when I am conducting business in the West End.”

K’ing looked about the room at the readers and shelves and the thousands of books.

“I thank you for suggesting this place. I used to come here often, but lately I have been too occupied. I am afraid I have another appointment at the Bank of England in half an hour.”

“I believe,” Barker said, “that should give us enough time. May we sit?”

We found two desks together between a stout man with a beard and an anemic aesthete with a drooping mustache. I was obliged to pull a chair over from nearby.

“Thank you for responding to my request,” Barker said.

“Are you sure you have come to the right man?” K’ing asked.

“Of all the people whom I questioned concerning the manuscript yesterday, you gave the only satisfactory answer. I believe you are the man I can trust to see that it gets safely back to China.”

“Ah,” K’ing said, nodding. “Who is the recipient?”

“Huang Feihong of Canton.”

“Was it he that taught you? I should have recognized the Tiger Crane style. Might I be permitted to know what Feihong will do with this…package?”

“He shall see that it is delivered to the Xi Jiang Monastery. I shall send a telegram by steamer today so that he can expect its arrival. He shall wire me when the mission is complete.”

“China is far, far away, Mr. Barker. How do you know that I can guarantee its safe delivery?”

“You will do so by placing it in Blue Dragon Triad hands, aboard a direct Blue Funnel liner. That, along with suitable threats and inducements, should secure its safety. I assume your power extends to Canton, at least aboard ship.”

“I shall see that it is safely delivered.”

My employer then reached into his pocket and held out the book. “Be careful,” he said. “It bites.”

“So I understand,” K’ing replied, tucking it into his coat pocket. “The courier I assign will be careful and discreet.”

“Thank you.”

We all rose. Barker bowed, little more than an incline of his head. K’ing gave him one in return.

“I must apologize, Mr. Barker, for underestimating you. To think that Manchu Jack, by his very size, could best you. I had counted upon the fact that you had been long away from China and might be out of condition. Obviously, such was not the case.”

“Until we meet again, sir,” Barker said, and we went our separate ways.

Outside, Barker stopped, raised both arms over his head and stretched. The men and women streaming in and out avoided him like the other eccentrics that sometimes inhabit the museum.

“Ahh!” he exhaled. “I was never so glad to rid myself of anything in my life. May all hidden texts remain well and truly hidden and never cross my path again.”

“If all goes according to plan,” Barker said, “in a little over a month and a half, the Xi Jiang Monastery shall send word to the Forbidden City that the manuscript has been found misfiled. It never officially left the grounds.”

“And Jimmy Woo?”

“A former imperial eunuch who died in an accident. London’s dockyards can be a most dangerous place for Chinamen, as most of them know.”

“That all sounds very convenient,” I couldn’t help saying.

“Do you know what one does with a mystery in China, lad? One buries it in a foot of rubble, then two feet of soil, and one plants a public garden over it so that no one shall ever dig it up again. I think we’ve done enough for one day. Let us go home and have some tea.”

“I think I’ll have Darjeeling, sir,” I said, as Barker raised his stick for a cab. “I’m rather off the Chinese at the moment.”