Fatal Enquiry (7 page)

“What’ll it be, then?” the barber leered, brandishing his scissors.

I sighed. “Cut it short.”

“Righto.”

As the first lock tumbled down the sheet, I felt like a sheep being shorn. It reminded me exactly of my first haircut in Oxford Prison prior to my employment with Barker. It never occurred to me that such a humiliation could happen twice in one lifetime.

I was so concerned with the state of my own head that I hadn’t noticed the Guv’s.

When I finally looked his way, his face was being patted with a towel. Gone was the heavy black mustache that reached to his chin. His face looked naked without it, his upper lip pale against his swarthy chin. My hair was short, the familiar curls gone, but the barber had reduced his to mere stubble.

It was demeaning to pay these fellows for the butchery they had done to us, but I did so, clapping my bowler on my head, where it promptly slid down over my ears. Stepping out into the sunshine I had so admired that morning, I turned back and bowled the hat back inside, where it kicked up layers of dust and hair on the dirty floor.

“This gets better and better. We should have had them pull a few teeth, as well. No one would recognize us then.”

“Step in there a moment, Thomas,” the Guv said, pointing to a villainous-looking alley, black with soot.

I obeyed, wondering what further indignity I was about to endure. Immediately, the April sunshine disappeared and the temperature dropped sharply. Barker reached into the pocket of his coat and took out an eye patch.

“Where did you get that?” I asked.

“From the millinery shop we were in earlier.”

“I don’t recall paying for it.”

“You didn’t. I stole it,” he said.

“You
stole
it?” I asked. Barker’s integrity is so exaggerated that he would walk a mile to pay back tuppence. “Why didn’t you simply pay for it?”

“Scotland Yard will trace the cabman who brought us to the City. They will track down the barber and find out how we’ve changed our hair. I needed something else to alter my appearance that they couldn’t possibly know about.”

Looking away from me, he removed his spectacles and put them in his pocket before tying the patch over his right eye, the one bisected by the scar. Then he turned back to face me.

I had never seen Barker’s eyes before. Either from a habitual squint or heredity, his left eye was little more than a horizontal slit in his face. The iris looked black as coal.

“Well?” he asked.

“Excellent,” I replied. “No one would recognize you.”

My employer stepped out into the street again and regarded his reflection critically in the window of a pawnshop, running a hand over his stubbled head. Whatever he saw didn’t fully satisfy him, because he pushed me back into the alleyway again.

“We still look too much like ourselves. I’m afraid we must lose our collars and ties.”

“But this is my favorite tie, sir!”

“It can’t be helped, Thomas.”

“Blast!” I cried, and ripped off the collar. Somewhere, perhaps even now, some down-and-outer is wearing my best tie.

“Satisfactory,” he growled. “Now, we must get out of the City, but we do not dare use a cab. I’m afraid we will be walking the rest of the day.”

“Where should we go? Ho’s restaurant? Reverend McClain’s?”

The Guv shook his head. “Terry knows them both. He also has Fu Ying’s address in Three Colt Lane.” Bok Fu Ying was Barker’s ward, who also cared for his prized Pekingese, Harm. She lived in Limehouse in the middle of the Chinese district, a few streets from the tearoom of Ho, my employer’s closest friend.

“Would Poole give that information to his superiors?”

“Of course. He would have to. You know he is CID through and through. He was walking a beat when you were in short pants.”

“Then why did he warn us, if he bleeds Metropolitan blue?”

“Because we are friends. He felt it his duty to warn me, but he would not go so far as to obstruct an investigation.”

“Then where can we go?” I asked. “We certainly can’t check into a respectable hotel anymore, dressed like this.”

“I know a place, but it will mean several miles’ walk. Be glad that it isn’t pouring rain.”

“Not yet, anyway,” I remarked.

“There’s that Welsh pessimism.”

“I don’t believe you know anything at all about Wales, actually.”

We put our heads down and walked. When we finally reached the bridge, there were half a dozen policemen there, attempting to set up a cordon to capture a certain pair of desperate enquiry agents, but it was proving a challenge due to the high volume of traffic that fills the bridge at all hours. Barker strode ahead and engaged a perfect stranger in conversation, a slatternly looking man who already appeared drunk before noon. I fell back, searching the crowd for a traveling companion of my own, but found none. Instead, I followed along closely behind a family, trying to look like a wayward brother, until we had crossed the bridge. It worked well enough. I was scrutinized, but passed over unmolested.

In Southwark Street, the Guv parted from his companion and made his way to an ironmonger’s shop. I stepped back from the group and followed him in.

“Hunting that Barker fellow?” the proprietor asked Barker immediately. “You’ll need a good lantern.”

“What Barker fellow?” the Guv asked.

“There’s this bloke named Barker who killed a lord. He sapped three peelers and is at large in the City. Someone’s put up a reward for whoever brings him in. Two hundred and fifty quid. I’ve sold six lamps so far. Only got two left.”

“Two hundred fifty quid is a lot of money,” Barker said. “A fellow could retire on that.”

“You’ll ’ave to catch him first. He’s a slippery one from what I hear. Some kind of detective. And you’ll ’ave to fight off a few hundred other people out looking for him, too.”

“What’s he look like?”

“Big fella. Dresses like a toff. Mustache and dark-lensed spectacles.”

“That don’t sound too hard to find. Where was he last seen?”

“Right here in Lambeth, headed north by cab. It’s been a boon to business, I don’t mind saying, though I wisht I was out looking myself. I could find something to do with that reward money.”

“Why don’t we make that two lanterns, then?” Barker asked. “Who’s giving this money away? Scotland Yard?”

“Not bloody likely they’ll want our help, is it? No, it’s private, like.”

“Could it just be a rumor, then?” I asked. “Is it in the newspapers?”

“Not yet,” the man admitted. “But it’s all over London. Common knowledge by now.”

“Is he traveling alone?” I asked.

“Far as I know. Reward’s only for Push hisself.”

“Push?” Barker asked.

“It’s ’is moniker. Rhyming slang. Push-Comes-to-Shove. Guv.”

“So you know him, then.”

“Oh, everyone knows Barker. Don’t expect ’im to just walk up and let you clap irons on him, though. He’s stubborn as two mules and kicks harder.”

“Ta for the warning.”

A few minutes later we were walking down Southwark, swinging our unlit lanterns.

“First the police are after us and now there is a reward,” I said, shaking my head. “Your bank accounts are frozen and half of London is out hunting for us. Nightwine’s behind this, too.”

“Aye. It’s no coincidence that the Irishman and I have both been brought low on the same morning.”

“Why don’t we catch up with Vic and find out what he’s heard?”

Barker has watchers all over London who provide him with goods and information, most of whom answer to the phrase “Barker sent me.” My least favorite among them was a street Arab and constant irritant that went by the name Soho Vic. As I understood it, he was a miniature Fagan, running a warren full of underage messengers in Whitechapel.

“That’s the last thing I want to do,” Barker countered. “Two hundred and fifty pounds might not be much to us under normal circumstances, but it’s a fortune for Vic. I don’t want to put him in the way of so much temptation, especially with the number of mouths he has to feed. Besides, people know he delivers messages for us and will be following him, hoping he’ll lead them to us.”

“So, we’re alone, then. Cut off from all effectual aid. Nightwine certainly knows what he’s about. What o’clock is it?”

“Nearly four,” he said, consulting his old repeater. I’d left my pocket watch back on my desk in Craig’s Court, the special one given to Barker by the Prince of Wales.

“If we were to have a pint at the right kind of public house, we might learn more about this reward.”

“Thomas, that is a canny suggestion, the first one you’ve made today. I know just the place.”

Ten minutes later we were sitting in a dark tavern with pint glasses in front of us. I was glad it was dark so I couldn’t see how dirty the table was, or what was crawling about underfoot. I was also relieved I hadn’t ordered any food, even though we’d missed lunch. I’d hoped for a better class of public house, but understood that matters such as a rumored reward would be more likely to be discussed openly in a tavern like this one in George Street, which was called the Regency Buck.

“They say the Irishman will live,” someone said at a nearby table.

“Take more than a bit of poison to bring him down. Seamus is a tough old bird. So’s Push, for that matter.”

“I’d have paid cash money,” another man said, “to see the Guv take apart three blues and chain them like a necklace ’crost Charing Cross footbridge.”

“Where’d ye s’pose the Moor’s got to?”

“Bound to be somewheres. Can’t have one wiffout t’other.”

“Is it true there’s a big reward, then?”

Barker had hoped to slip the question in unobserved, but in a place like this, one has to establish one’s bona fides before being allowed to participate in such rarefied conversations. However, it was a juicy question, one that everyone wanted to discuss anyway, and so they let it slip by, which I’m sure was what the Guv had intended.

“What reward might that be, mister?” the publican asked, coolly.

“Two hundred and fifty quid for Barker’s head on a pole, that’s what reward. Personally, I don’t believe it. Somebody’s pulling our leg.”

“That’s where you’re wrong then, mister. The Elephant and Castle gang have been spreading the message, and swore the bloke that started it spread out the entire amount in front of them in ten-pound notes, to show he had ’em.”

“What did he look like, this chap with the notes?”

“They didn’t say and I didn’t ask. Who wants to know?”

“Name’s Shadwell,” Barker said. “Me and my boy are up from Surrey. We don’t wanna waste our time. How many are out lookin’?”

“Go back where you come from, then,” one of the crowd advised. “There’s hoondreds of us. Some ’ud hunt down Cyrus Barker for nothin’, just to knock him off his bleedin’ perch. Put my cousin in Holloway two months ago, he did.”

“Isn’t the Met looking for him, as well?” Barker asked.

“That’s why we’re here,” one man said. “The manhunt starts in about harf an hour on the embankment in front of Scotland Yard. We’re gettin’ our last drinks in before we sign up.”

“What do you say, boy?” Barker asked. “Shall we hunt this detective fellow or go home?”

“Whatever you say, Da,” I replied, trying not to look intelligent, which my contemporaries will tell you is not difficult.

“Wouldn’t hurt to look about for an hour or two, would it? Might bump into this Barker bloke by accident, like.”

“Who’s this Moor fellow, then?” I asked.

“Barker’s assistant,” the publican explained.

“Wha’, is he a blackamoor?”

“Nah, though he’s dark enough. Stands for: More-the-Merrier, Barker’s terrier!”

Everyone enjoyed a laugh over that. The problem with nicknames, I’ve always thought, is that one never gets to invent one’s own.

“Shall we go?” Barker asked.

I put down my sour beer, and dropped a few coins upon the ringed and dirty table. “Gladly.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Instead of retreating to the anonymity and relative safety of the east or south once we were in the street, Barker herded me back along the Thames toward the embankment again.

“Surely you don’t intend for us to go back to the bridge?” I asked, alarmed.

“Thomas, I didn’t shave my mustache and put on this eye patch merely to cower in a corner somewhere. We’re heading along the river for a few miles, and the easiest way to reach it is by the embankment.”

“But it’ll be swarming with constables.”

“Constables who will be looking for a pair of desperate fugitives, not men offering to help in the search. The trick is to be bold as brass. Now, stop dawdling.”

A quarter hour later we were standing where we had begun our journey that morning, at the Charing Cross Railway and Footbridge. What a change a few hours had wrought. Though it had stood near empty hours before, the far shore now teemed with people milling about like ants on a mound. I wondered how the rumor of the reward had already reached into every corner of London. Had not one person come forward to defend the reputation of Cyrus Barker?

“Shall we cross?” he asked, though it was obvious he had every intention of doing so.

“In for a penny,” I quoted.

“Exactly.”

When we reached the bridge it had been barricaded completely, and a queue had formed. Constables questioned anyone attempting to cross.

“Your name, sir?” a bored constable asked as we came forward.

“Shadwell,” the Guv replied. “Robert Shadwell. Bruiser Bob, they call me. This here’s me son, Alf.”

“Shadwell,” the constable wrote on a clipboard. “And your purpose for being here?”

“Come to hunt for this Barker bloke like everyone else. Heard there might be a reward.”

He made a notation on the form and nodded.

“Very well, gentlemen, you may pass.”

As we neared our offices and Scotland Yard, I could hear a man below addressing the crowd in a loud, clear voice.

“Again, we have not established the rumor of a reward for the capture of Cyrus Barker. Scotland Yard disavows any knowledge of such an offer and, frankly, we doubt its veracity. A definite source has not been located. Also, the Yard will brook no interference in this investigation. We will arrest anyone whom we believe to be hindering this manhunt for personal gain!”