Death and glory, p.20
Death and Glory, page 20
“Perhaps. But in their eyes, it had to be done if the government were to accept the treaty as genuine.” The Guv turned and regarded me solemnly. “Thomas, are you armed?”
“Yes, sir,” I said, feeling the cold steel against my back.
“I’d like you to go to the Northumberland Hotel in half an hour. Go out the back door and return the same way. I’ll go to Scotland Yard and return as well.”
“What will that accomplish?”
“It will provide two decoys for Jeremy, who will carry his findings to Downing Street.”
“Me?” our clerk bleated.
Barker nodded. “I shall write a letter to Lord Rosebery explaining everything, along with the signatures here.”
“Sir, I couldn’t go to Downing Street,” Jenkins pleaded. “I’m sure Mr. L. can go.”
“No,” the Guv argued. “You won’t have to speak to the prime minister yourself. There will be someone at the door to receive letters and parcels.”
“I’m not sure I can do it, sir. I think I’d faint.”
“You’ll do no such thing, Mr. Jenkins.”
Mr. Jenkins, he’d called him. A small measure of displeasure. A lapse of the bonhomie.
“Yes, sir,” our clerk said.
Barker turned to me. “Thomas, take a letter.”
CHAPTER 23
An hour later a note arrived for me via messenger. Barker gave me a penetrating look, or at least I assume he did. I opened the note.
Old Boy,
I’ll be having lunch at the Spaniards at noon.
Do come if you can spare the time.
St. Ives
“It’s the brigadier,” I said, turning toward the Guv. “He wants to meet me at the Spaniards public house.”
Cyrus Barker leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on the corner of his desk. He kept a small coaster there so as not to scratch the surface. It was the only informal act that he did regularly, but I suspect it helped him think.
“I see,” he said. “The question is, has Whitekiller had a chance to tell him that we’ve been seen with Flynn.”
“Based on past experience, he doesn’t spend every moment with the delegation. It’s possible he doesn’t know yet.”
“He has revealed one or two things about their plans before,” the Guv answered. “Though whether that was intentional or due to his drug-addled brain, I’m not certain.”
“I’ve never seen one man consume so many dangerous substances, and in such large quantities,” I remarked. “Did I tell you he wears a small vial of strychnine on a chain about his neck?”
“You did,” Barker said. “Woodson and Beaufort are circumspect but plainspoken. Whatever they say is a lie or the truth, but you can understand what they are saying. Mr. St. Ives is an enigma. His conversations careen about. I can barely communicate with the fellow, but you seem to understand him. He likes you, but that doesn’t mean he trusts you. You shouldn’t trust him, either. Do you still have your Webley?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Take two,” he cautioned. “You don’t want to be caught out.”
I took a cab to the old Spaniards Inn. It was once a favorite public house of Keats and Shelley, and before them, that old highwayman Dick Turpin. I’m sure St. Ives couldn’t resist the reputation. I had never been there before, but I knew it was one of the oldest pubs in London. The smell of fresh hops and a grilling cutlet greeted me when I entered the premises. My eyes had to adjust to the dark interior, and I looked about the room. When I saw the brigadier, he was tucking into a grilled kidney and some buttered sprouts. He was half through his meal when I arrived and eating with gusto. I sat and waved for coffee.
“I assume you put away several drinks again last night,” I said.
“Of course,” he answered, as if the act was logical and necessary.
I shook my head. “Yet, you sit here calmly working your way through a meal that would choke a ploughman.”
He speared a sprout with his fork.
“I am blessed with a cast-iron constitution,” he boasted.
“I admire that,” I admitted. “I could have used one once or twice in the line of my work. Have you heard anything from the prime minister regarding the treaty?”
“We have,” he answered, nodding. “Your government sent a rather churlish note this morning. The general is very put out. He has decisions to make. I slipped out before the thundering sounded.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. That meant that St. Ives did not yet know that Barker and I had been working with John Flynn of the Treasury Department. It also meant that the government had not answered their demands to their satisfaction before Lord Rosebery received Barker’s note sent just an hour before.
“Forgive me, but you put a lot of faith in General Woodson,” I said. “Yet he told me he was just an uneducated farmer.”
“The war was his education,” St. Ives stated. “He began as a bushwhacker and worked his way to being a marauder not only in his native state, but across much of the country. He had a merry band who would do anything he asked, a veritable Robin Hood. He still does, in fact. We are loyal to him. The entire fate of our nation is in his hands.”
“General Pike must have trusted him to pass on the leadership of the Knights of the Golden Circle,” I remarked. “I must make a confession to you, sir. I am a consumer of American dime novels, particularly those that describe the West: Bill Cody, ‘Wild Bill’ Hickock, and the immortal Jesse Woodson James.”
“Heroes, all,” St. Ives said, taking a swig of his ale.
“Speaking of gunmen,” I said. “I happened to meet one the other day, a curiosity calling himself Corbett.”
The brigadier paused with a morsel in front of him before downing it whole. “Is he still about? I thought I left that rascal in Tupelo.”
I shrugged. “The man tells quite a tale.”
“Ha!” St. Ives said, swallowing the last of his ale.
“The man actually claims you are John Wilkes Booth.”
“I’ve heard that drivel from him a dozen times,” he replied. “Pay no attention to him. The man is a lunatic.”
“Is he honestly Boston Corbett?”
“He may be, but I cannot understand why he believes that I am Booth, when Corbett shot the man himself.”
“It must be terrifying to be followed about by a madman.”
“One can grow bored with anything,” the brigadier said. “He’s followed me all over the Americas. Once he tried to assassinate me at a theater performance in Rio de Janeiro. It nearly ruined a performance of Othello, as I recall. ‘No way but this, killing myself, to die upon a kiss.’”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“He isn’t trying to kill me,” St. Ives replied. “He’s trying to convince me to kill myself.”
“Why?” I asked.
St. Ives shrugged. “As I said, the man is mad. He is also a religious fanatic. I understand he immolated himself in a paroxysm of religious fervor. I am what is called an idée fixe.”
“But where does he get the money to follow you about?” I asked.
“I have no idea,” he admitted. “He has written an article or two about Mr. Booth being alive, which was published in the gutter press, of course. It merely got poor Boston run out of town on a rail.”
“They put him on a train?”
“No, they hog-tied him to a rail and carried him out into the wilderness. Somehow, he managed to cut himself loose. He’ll take a shot at me now and again, but I believe he misses intentionally. I’ve heard he is an excellent marksman, a true sniper. He can pip an ace at a hundred yards.”
I took that in for a moment. What a life this fellow leads, I thought. I would not have it for my weight in gold.
St. Ives raised a hand, then asked the publican for two brandy glasses. He reached into his pocket and retrieved a flask. When the glasses arrived, he poured the amber-colored liquid into both of them, then tapped the rim of his to mine, though it was still on the table. He swallowed down the brandy.
“You are a scoundrel, sir, making me like you so much,” he said. “You have played me ill and no doubt been relaying every word I’ve said to Mr. Barker. I can only forgive you based upon the fact that I am a bigger scoundrel than you and have had many more years of practice.” He set the drained cup down. “My compliments to your lovely wife. I must leave you now. I have work in São Paulo I have been neglecting. Goodbye, Mr. Llewelyn. Very kind of you to treat me to lunch.”
He shook my hand and strode out the door. I have met many men during my life: famous men, accomplished men, witty and intelligent men, and dangerous men. But in David St. Ives, I met all in one.
As predicted, I told Cyrus Barker all that was said at the lunch.
He nodded his head. “You understand, lad, that it was more than a mere leave-taking that he was giving you.”
“Yes, sir,” I answered. “It was a warning. ‘Let slip the dogs of war.’”
My partner nodded. “Let us make certain they aren’t loosed after us.”
* * *
A short while later, I felt the slight shift in air that marked the front door of our offices opening. There was a murmur of voices, and then Jenkins entered without his tray.
“There’s a woman asking to speak to you, sir.”
“Then show her in,” the Guv stated.
The woman came to the door of our chambers and we both rose to our feet. It was Mrs. Bella Boyd. I had forgotten her after the night of the ball, but she must have been part of this enterprise from the beginning.
“My good madam,” Barker said, which she certainly was not. However, my partner will always observe the proprieties. “Won’t you have a seat?”
“There are those two handsome gentlemen, who stole my heart and then cruelly walked away,” she said.
“Our apologies,” Barker replied. “We were escorting our companions.”
She planted the tip of her parasol in the thick of the carpet in front of Barker’s desk, then lowered herself into a visitor’s chair. The daylight revealed a few lines around her eyes that I had not noticed on the evening of the ball. Her hair was too auburn to be natural.
“Mr. Llewelyn, how is your lovely little wife?” she asked.
“We’ve had some good news in our house,” I replied. “We’re going to have a baby.”
“Why, I am pleased to hear it,” she said, smiling. “I hope she remains in good health. Is it your first?”
“It is,” I answered, feeling incredibly proud. I’m sure that has never happened to a new father before.
“My sincerest congratulations.” She turned to the Guv. “And Mr. Barker, I had long hoped to make Lady Ashleigh’s acquaintance. She was quite the handsomest woman in the room of mature years.”
My partner ignored the remark. “I am certain that position would be taken by you.”
He felt no such thing, of course, but the two were fencing with words.
Bella Boyd broke out in a laugh, a full laugh instead of the appropriate titter. “I did not expect so rough-hewn a man to be so gallant,” she said. “But then, you are full of surprises.”
“They are my stock-in-trade, madam,” the Guv rumbled.
“Clever, Mr. Barker,” she conceded.
“Have you spoken to General Woodson recently?” Barker asked.
“Not a half hour ago,” she answered. “He sends his compliments.”
She smiled. The woman was sly, I told myself. Dangerous to a fault around any man. She considered herself a Southern patriot, and we were the potential enemy. I ventured she had a pistol in her reticule and if not, a dagger.
“Would you like some tea?” Barker asked. I imagine it was Philippa who taught him the niceties of society.
“Oh, no, sir,” she said. “You needn’t bother. I’m not going to stay long. The general gave me a letter to deliver to you since I was passing.”
“We’ve never had so genteel a messenger.”
She opened her reticule and removed an envelope, setting it on the edge of his desk. She pushed it as far as she could and then Barker took it.
He lifted it, weighed it in his open palm, even shook it. We’d been menaced twice by ricin—derived from castor beans, ricin can kill a man in days. The little I experienced of it was terrifying.
Barker reached for the stiletto. It had once been used to kill a man, and, as he told me, he was rehabilitating it. He sliced across the top of the envelope as if through butter and looked inside, but I saw no letter from where I sat. He turned the envelope over and some sort of black seeds fell onto his blotter. He opened the envelope wider and saw something written inside the envelope flap. It said “KKK.”
Mrs. Boyd blanched. Then her face began to color, and her hand went to the necklace at her throat. She plucked at her lace collar as if it were choking her.
“Mr. Barker!” she cried. “I honestly had no idea. If I had known these were in the envelope, I would have refused to bring it to you. He handed it to me as if it were a harmless and casual matter. I assumed the general was inviting you to dinner!”
“What kind of seeds are these?” Barker asked, lifting one and examining it.
“They are watermelon seeds, sir.”
“And the letters, ‘KKK’?” he asked, though I knew he was familiar with them.
“They are the military arm of the Knights of the Golden Circle. It stands for Ku Klux Klan. They are killers, sir, who will not allow anyone to stand in their way. Many men have been found hanged or shot for ignoring this warning.”
“Interesting,” Barker said, as if we were discussing an article in that morning’s edition of The Times.
“They’re dangerous, sir,” she continued. “You have no idea how dangerous. I would rather face a cottonmouth snake than receive this chilling warning.”
He pushed the seeds about with his fingers. They were large, black, and flat. They could not be easily felt inside a thick envelope.
Our guest sat, shaking. After a moment, she spoke.
“Please, Mr. Barker, do not think ill of me,” she said. “I did not come intending to issue a threat. I have only done what the general requested. Sir, these men mean to kill you both! What’ve you done to have stirred up his wrath?”
“My duty, Mrs. Boyd,” Cyrus Barker replied. “I have been working for my own government, who will not submit to the threats of a secret society that may, for all I know, not even exist. I suspect General Woodson, no, Mr. Woodson, is nothing more than a confidence trickster, and this scheme one of a dozen common methods of extorting money from other governments.”
She leaned forward and put her hand on the edge of his desk. “No, Mr. Barker, this organization is real, and they mean you harm. They are violent men. I have seen white men shot and Negroes hung as a warning to others. I know it! I have seen them!”
My partner frowned and concentrated his gaze upon our visitor. True, it was from behind black-lensed spectacles, but the force was there.
“How many, Mrs. Boyd?” he asked. “How many men does Woodson have in London?”
“How many?” she asked. “Twenty at least. Twenty against the two of you!”
Barker gave a cruel smile. “We prefer such odds, do we not, Mr. Llewelyn?”
“We do,” I stated, with some hidden trepidation.
Barker opened the center drawer of his desk and took out a pen. He dipped it, and began to write on the envelope:
General James Woodson
Holborn Hotel
He dried the words with his wooden blotter. Then he flipped the envelope and wrote on the flap.
I’ ll see you in Hell.
Cyrus Barker
Bella Boyd gasped when she saw what he had written.
“Sir, please!” she said, raising her voice. “Don’t do this! You are in mortal peril!”
“Tell him I will not accept his puny threats. Tell him I consider him a boaster and a coward. Ask him if he will meet me on the battlefield like a man or merely spit watermelon seeds at me like a child.”
The woman covered her ears. “I won’t! I can’t!”
He put the seeds in the envelope and folded the corner of the flap inside it.
“Take this back to the general, Mrs. Boyd, with my compliments.”
Mrs. Boyd tucked the envelope into her bag and fled. She could take no more. We sat in silence for a few minutes.
“Those were brave words,” I finally ventured.
He laughed, a grating sound. “Aren’t they, though? At least they’ll get the man’s attention.”
“Should I warn Hesketh Pierce?”
“Probably.”
“You’re putting us all in danger, you know.”
“No doubt,” he agreed.
“That was a bit bold, calling him a coward.”
“He’s been dragging his feet too long,” the Guv said. “We haven’t got all month. I have chrysanthemums to plant in the garden.”
I shook my head and reached for the telephone set. Whoever threatens Cyrus Barker reaps the whirlwind, especially if it interferes with the spring plantings.
CHAPTER 24
We returned to Barker’s home in Newington promptly at six, according to our customary schedule. The Guv took Harm out into the garden and threw a rubber ball about until supper. We dined on pheasant, glazed carrots, wafer potatoes, rice and apple cake, and cucumber salad, served with coffee. I’d have thought it just another evening if it weren’t for two facts. Mac was looking concerned, and Barker does not usually have coffee in the evening. The latter was particularly strong.
“What is our plan for tonight?” I asked.
“We are going to the address in Richmond Road that we found in Whitekiller’s room,” he said.
“Do you have any idea what we will be facing?”
“I suspect it’s some sort of trap. If Woodson is involved, something has been meticulously planned. If St. Ives is involved, it will be flamboyant and theatrical. And Beaufort’s part will make it as deadly and violent as possible.”
“Have you still got the address from Whitekiller’s flat?”
He retrieved it from his suit pocket and passed it to me.
