To Kingdom Come (33 page)

“What of that?” I asked. “She was a beautiful woman.”

“I will not say otherwise, but think of it. If she had the world at her feet, if she could have her pick of any man in England or Ireland, why would she choose a little Welsh bomb maker? That is not the decision of a beautiful young woman but the thinking of a leader trying to build a strong faction.”

That was a trifle harsh,
I thought. I sat there for a moment, trying to look at it all objectively, but it was difficult.

“So you don’t think she genuinely cared for me.”

Just then, Harm trotted in the room. He came up to me, but when I reached for him, he avoided me, convinced, perhaps, that I was going to blubber in his fur again. He settled into Barker’s lap and fell asleep.

“Believe what you like,” my employer pronounced, scratching the dog’s fur absently. “But it was deucedly convenient. It was that more than anything that made me consider her as a possibility.”

“Before we get into that, what about Yeats and Garrity?”

“I’ll admit I thought hard about them both. An innocent student would be a good pose to assume, and Yeats did deliver messages to and from Dunleavy, but he was a callow youth. Garrity was not. Ah, I missed that sound.”

The sound to which he was referring was Harm’s snores. I had to admit, I’d grown accustomed to them. The dog ran to some sort of schedule every night. He began on the ground floor, arrived on my bed around midnight, then vacated it for Barker’s nest upstairs sometime in the wee hours. It never happened any other way for one very good reason: the Imperial Dog could climb stairs, but he could not go down them.

“Garrity,” I prompted.

“Yes, Garrity,” Barker went on. “It would not have been difficult for him to run the faction from Paris, with a puppet like Dunleavy in his hands. But he is already a respected member of the I.R.B. Were he ambitious enough to wish to run his own faction, he could have formed one himself among the Irish in Paris.”

“Surely you suspected Seamus O’Muircheartaigh,” I said.

“Of course I did,” Barker said. “When I get that man behind bars, I’ll feel I’ve accomplished some good for humanity. When I looked over those letters a little more closely, I saw that the final one was written last year, when O’Muircheartaigh was in Dublin. The last was very accusatory. It is possible they had not communicated until the Americans notified Dunleavy that the money would not make it in time. The money that sent you to Paris was likely a loan from him. Yesterday, one of Soho Vic’s boys spotted her but couldn’t get word to us of it until this morning. A careful reading of O’Muircheartaigh’s letters showed that his feelings were not reciprocated, but they parted amicably enough for her to appear at his door and receive aid at a moment’s notice.”

“Yes, but, hang it all, you make her sound so—so mercenary. This was a girl who cooked for her family, who was sentimental—”

“Sentimental about Ireland, lad.”

“I can’t believe it,” I said with a sigh. “I mean, I do believe it, but it’s rather hard. She was so sincere.”

“I did not doubt her sincerity,” Barker said, “not for the Irish cause, anyway. As for you, who can say? She is gone and cannot tell us either way. Perhaps she genuinely cared for you. For your sake, it would have been better that she didn’t, for I would have brought her to justice all the same. Now, come, it is time we left. I believe we need a barber’s attention before we visit the Home Office to report.”

29

I
WINCED AS THE FIRST LEECH BIT INTO THE TEN
der skin under my eye. It is an eerie sensation, feeling the blood draining away. One would think in this age of science, with the latest developments in antiseptics and pharmacology, that there would be a better remedy for a black eye than the humble
Hirudo medicinalis.

“Would you like me to pull any teeth while you are here?” the barber asked solicitously.

“No, thank you.”

He reached into his apothecary jar again and attached another of the bloodsuckers to the skin under my other eye. The jar was pink and had the word “leeches” written on it in gold. Perhaps the beauty of the jar was an attempt to disguise the loathsome contents therein. While he set about doing the more mundane part of his work, I glanced over at my employer. He was smiling at my discomfort.

Barker was swathed in a sheet. The gray solution had been rinsed out of his hair and the stiff length pruned back to its more austere form, like one of the Guv’s Penjing trees. His beard was
gone, and he was back to wearing his usual spectacles, round disks with a high bridge connecting them in the Chinese manner, with sidepieces of tortoiseshell.

“Here,” he said, reaching into his pocket after we were done. He handed me the spectacles he’d worn while impersonating van Rhyn. “You might wish to wear these.”

“You’re joking,” I said.

“Would you rather go about London looking like an owl?”

He had a point, I had to confess. My face in its present condition would scare governesses and small children. Reluctantly, I put them on. I glanced at myself in the barber’s mirror. The spectacles might have been appropriate for Barker, but I looked ridiculous. Having custody of Barker’s wallet again, I paid our bill and we left.

We waited a full thirty minutes in the lobby of the Home Office, under the suspicious eye of the porter. I thought it shabby treatment for two fellows who had just saved London. Was Anderson aware we were out here waiting? I wondered. Had he decided the entire affair had been an unmitigated disaster and was dreading speaking to us? I had to admit to being rather nervous, like a prisoner awaiting a verdict.

I need hardly mention how Barker was. He might as well have been waiting for an omnibus. He was sitting in a hard wooden chair, staring abstractedly into nothing, and whistling tunelessly, as he did when thinking. The only good thing I can say about it was that it was bothering the porter even more than me.

“Gentlemen.” Robert Anderson appeared and bowed. I immediately tried to gauge his mood. Did he seem satisfied or displeased? Neither or perhaps both. He led us down the hall to the large table with the lion’s feet again. There was no Sir Watkin or carpetbag to balance out the ends that morning, only a folder in the middle of the table. Anderson seated himself in front of the folder, and motioned for us to be seated. Then he looked over the items in it and did the one thing I’d been dreading: he cleared his throat.

In between my release from Oxford Prison and my employment with Cyrus Barker, there were several months in which I looked unsuccessfully for employment. I answered advertisements seeking secretaries, clerks, scriveners, librarians, and shop assistants. I offered myself as a domestic. I attempted casual labor and dock work. Everywhere I went, I was met with the throat clearing, which, along with the inevitable widening of the eyes when they saw Oxford Prison among my bona fides, meant I was already late for the pavement. Throat clearing never signals good news. No one does it before telling you that you have just been promoted or are about to inherit five hundred a year. Barker himself is an expert at throat clearing, and the very action of doing it sets the hairs on the back of my neck on end. Understandably, then, my stomach fell when Anderson did it.

The bureaucrat browsed through the file, shuffling this paper to the front, and that one farther back. He ignored us completely, which, if anything, increased my apprehensions still further. Finally, he removed the top sheet of paper and slid it over in front of Barker.

“We’ve had several complaints about your handling of the case,” he informed us. “This is a telegram from Inspector Munro, stating that you hampered his investigation severely. In Liverpool, you injured a guard, and there is reason to believe you were responsible for damage to a piece of property in Wales. According to this, it was a lighthouse.”

Barker took the telegram and looked over it as casually as if it were a tailor’s bill.

“And this,” Anderson said, adding a second yellow sheet on top of the first, “is a telegram from Superintendent Williamson of the Criminal Investigation Department, complaining that we hired a private detective, who is known for advertisements in the newspapers, suggesting that you mismanaged—no, excuse me, you
bungled
the case severely, and had the Yard not come along at
the proper time to take control of a desperate situation, London would now be no more than a memory. He says he is consulting with solicitors at Temple Bar about proceedings against you.”

Barker took up the second, with no more interest than the first, but I was concerned. Proceedings? What sort of proceedings? My word, was Barker about to be arrested?

“Enquiry agent,” Barker said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I prefer to be called an enquiry agent.”

Anderson frowned. “Mmm, yes. I’m not finished. Here, you will be interested to see, is a third telegram, also from the Yard. It is from the office of Commissioner Henderson, superseding the other two and informing me that on advice from counsel, they will let the matter drop, and they hope for better relations with the Home Office in the future. Ha!” Anderson broke into a big smile. “Mr. Barker, can you imagine the reason for the sudden reversal of their decision?”

“I assume that the Prince wrote a letter to the Yard, commending their efforts in saving him from being blown up.”

“Exactly.”

“And you know that because the Prince is no fool and was able to ferret out the truth of the matter, which is that Scotland Yard had little to do with it. Were I not a Baptist, I would wager that you have a letter from Buckingham Palace in that folder, also.”

“Not much gets by you, Mr. Barker, does it?” Anderson asked, extracting the letter. I saw it bore the Royal Crest at the top.

“One almost did, but as the Bard said, ‘All’s well that ends well.’”

“So,” I put in, “Scotland Yard is no longer upset?”

“Mr. Llewelyn, I assure you I couldn’t give a tinker’s mended pot how the Yard feels. We’ve trod on each other’s feet far too often for that. Here is your check,” Anderson said, handing the bank draft over to us. Barker naturally avoided it, so I pocketed it quickly.

“Is there any further business?” my employer asked.

“Just one. The opinions of my superiors are rather mixed. Some believe you showed initiative, while others thought you were reckless. The dossier from the Foreign Office said your methods were irregular, and that has certainly proven to be the case. Most important, you have succeeded in stopping the faction, and that was something the Yard could not have done without your aid. My question to you is whether you might wish to make this a permanent arrangement. There is always more work to be done, and I could use another spy of Le Caron’s caliber. Your work was most satisfactory. I would like the opportunity to work with you again.”

Barker raised a finger and ran the nail along the skin under his chin, a gesture I’d seen him make when he was considering something. Then he gave a sudden shake of his head, as if coming out of a reverie.

“No, thank you, sir. The idea is intriguing, and there is no one I would rather work with in Her Majesty’s government, but I’ve been captain of my own ship for too long. I’ve worked hard to make a success of my agency, and I am proud of it. This case was such that I felt it would be churlish of me not to offer my services, but I have people who depend upon me in this city, and I would not wish to disappoint them. I decline your offer, though someday I hope to work for you again.”

“May I at least call upon you should something else of extreme importance occur and Mr. Le Caron is otherwise occupied?”

“Certainly, sir,” Barker said. “I did not mean that I would not entertain a request for aid, merely that I did not wish to become a government agent.”

As if of one accord, the two men stood and shook hands. We left the table, the room, and then the Home Office itself. Barker and I walked down Whitehall to our offices.

In a few moments, we arrived at our refurbished chambers. The change was startling. The outer room had been rather dark
when I had first applied for employment here, but now the walls had been wainscoted in white, replastered, and painted, and the yellow doors varnished to a high gloss. There was a kilim rug leading from the door and a new side table for cards and messages.

The clerk’s desk was the same, but where once stood a row of wooden chairs, there was a long leather settee and a potted palm almost as tall as I, holding court. There was also a painting after the French fashion which looked like something seen through a rain-streaked window. It was a riverside landscape.

“A Constable,” I noted.

“O’Muircheartaigh is not the only one who can collect art,” he stated.

“I doubt it will be the last constable we see in these offices,” I said drily.

“Thomas, do restrain yourself.”

The door opened and Jenkins came out, looking rumpled and half sleepy, but glad to see us.

“Sirs! Welcome back! Come in, I beg you.”

We entered our offices. The glazier had obviously returned and replaced the glass a second time. The floors had been sanded and varnished, my desk repaired, the rugs cleaned, and gas lamps had been installed over my desk, as well as a new chandelier. We looked quite the modern professional agency. The only thing that was the worse for wear was the assistant Barker had brought in with him.