Will Thomas: The Hellfire Conspiracy

I recognized the sound, though I had never heard it before. I was in the middle of the agency’s account books, totaling figures, when it came. The window was open because it was warm in our chambers, and outside, the horse traffic in Whitehall Street was heavy. Inside, Cyrus Barker was at his desk answering correspondence, while Jenkins, our clerk was having a low conversation with a prospective client in the outer office. The agency had been doing well; we were busy and would no doubt be busier still. It was shortly after one o’clock on Friday, the twenty-sixth of June, 1885, and when I heard it, I thought to myself, That’s the sound of a saber being drawn.

Barker’s pen rolled off the edge of his desk and fell to the floor, and I heard the whisper of the revolver, holstered beneath his chair, clearing leather. I was not as well prepared. For one thing, the account book was in my lap, and for another, my pistol was tucked away in one of the drawers of my roll-topped desk. By the time I’d dropped the book to the floor and had my hand on the pull of the drawer, Jenkins was already backing slowly into our chambers.

“Visitor, Mr. B.,” he stated with as much sangfroid as one can muster with the point of a saber thrust against the Adam’s apple.

“Thank you, Jenkins,” the Guv stated with the same aplomb. “Won’t you come in, sir?”

Our visitor came into the room, spurs jingling and eyes resolute. He was a sight in his gleaming helmet and breastplate-one of Her Majesty’s Life Guards, her personal troops, the most highly trained soldiers in England, if not the world. Their parade grounds were just down Whitehall Street, but I had never seen one without a horse under him. Needless to say, we’d never had one in our offices before, taking a sword to a harmless clerk.

“He says I don’t have an appointment, ” the man snapped. “Why does everybody need a bloody appointment these days?”

It’s strange what goes through one’s mind during a dangerous situation. In a moment, the fellow could be gutting our clerk and then my employer would be sure to shoot the man dead, but all I could do was stare in fascination at the officer’s mustache. It was a deep, fiery red, waxed in the shape of a “W,” and it quivered when he shouted.

“It is not necessary that you have an appointment,” Barker said, setting his pistol on his desk. “But it is necessary that you cease threatening my clerk. Put away your saber, before you do someone harm.”

The point of the saber came out from under the knot of Jenkins’s tie, wavered in the air for a moment as if seeing what other mischief it could find, and then the major thrust it back into its scabbard with a loud snick of metal against metal. His features suddenly went slack and his epauletted shoulders slumped forward.

“He’s going,” Barker warned. Just then the officer’s knees gave out, and I caught him, or tried to. He was six foot to my five four and outweighed me by at least three stone. His weight pressed me down until I lay on the Oriental rug with him splayed across me. He hadn’t quite fainted. I still saw the gleam of his eyes under the shadow of his helmet, but he was obviously in a state of shock.

“Jenkins,” our employer said as he came around the desk, “fetch the brandy.”

“Right, sir,” the clerk said, moving quickly to one of the back rooms of our chambers. It was the fastest I’d seen him move before three o’clock in the afternoon. He was generally feeling the effects of the previous night’s liquor in the mornings, but it was remarkable how having one’s tie pared with a saber will bring out the latent industry in one’s character.

By the time Jenkins got back, we’d managed to get the slack-limbed soldier into the visitor’s chair. His face grew as red as his tunic, and we feared under the circumstances he might break down. Barker looked at me from behind his black spectacles and his brows disappeared behind them in a frown. I believe we were thinking the same thing, which was that neither of us knew if his uniform contained such a thing as a handkerchief. We tugged them from our own breast pockets and proffered them simultaneously, but he shook his head, refusing both.

It is in a man’s nature when faced with an emotional crisis to prepare for flight. If the person in crisis is a child, he feels he cannot possibly help the tot as well as its mother; if a woman, that he has blundered yet again and is not only unequal to repairing the situation but also probably could not even correctly diagnose the problem. But, if the emotional person is another man, it is the worst possible catastrophe. The societal fabric has been rent. A man would rather be shot by a firing squad than to break down in front of his fellows, and to witness such a breakdown is almost as bad a breach of decorum as to break down oneself.

The guardsman sat for a moment with his head in his hands, breathing heavily, and I feared he might pass out again. My employer, for once, was at something of a loss, looking away and drumming a finger on his blotter while waiting for the man to gain his composure. Jenkins stood beside us, holding the small snifter of brandy. If someone wasn’t going to drink it soon, I would. Barker kept it strictly for medicinal purposes, but all this was getting on my nerves.

“Get hold of yourself, man!” my employer suddenly bellowed, and we all jumped. It did the trick. A soldier is accustomed to taking orders. When he jumped, he was as slack as a rag doll, but when he landed in his chair again, he was every inch a guardsman. He sat ramrod straight, and nothing but the redness of his stony face left evidence that anything had occurred.

“Good. Now say it out plain. Speak up, now!”

It took the man a moment to compose himself before he finally got it out. “She’s gone, sir! They’ve taken my daughter, Gwendolyn.”

“Who has?”

“I don’t know, sir. White slavers, I think. She’s been abducted.”

“I see. How old is your daughter?”

The guardsman frowned. “Eleven. No, twelve. Her birthday was in April. We got her a tea set. The little kind, you know. And a doll. It’s still at home, but she isn’t.”

“From where was she abducted?” Barker questioned, trying to keep him calm.

“The East End,” he stated. “Hypatia-that’s my wife-volunteers in the East End once or twice a month. Says it does her soul good to help the poor, and she has made friends there. She takes our daughter along, says it is good for her to see how the other half lives. What was she thinking? She had no business taking Gwendolyn to the East End. Anyone could see how dangerous it is. She-she-”

“Drink!”

As if it were an automatic response ordered from the baser parts of the brain, the major took the glass from Jenkins and emptied its contents down his throat. He gave a shudder afterward, as the heat from the alcohol rose up his throat, and he absently wiped his lips with the back of his gloved hand.

“What is your name, sir?”

The man seemed to consider it, but the words took a moment to sink below the surface. “What? Oh, sorry. It is DeVere. Major Trevor DeVere.”

“Very well, Major DeVere. From where in the East End was she abducted, specifically?” Barker had retrieved his pen and opened his notebook, but he was tapping the pen against his blotter impatiently. So far the major had not been very coherent, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt that he would be of more use on the battlefield. He had a missing daughter, after all.

“Bethnal Green, at the corner of Green Street and Globe Road.”

My employer had a cabman’s knowledge of London streets as well as a statistician’s grasp of crime. “That area has its share of criminal activity, but it is not quite the Black Hole of Calcutta. Do you know for certain she was taken? Perhaps she just met a local girl and is off playing in the street somewhere.”