Death and glory, p.7
Death and Glory, page 7
“You must rate Mansfield’s attempt at proper English,” St. Ives warned as we took our seats.
“Believe me,” I replied. “I shall.”
The play began subtly. Nothing was particularly gothic, or appalling, save for an infamous scene where Mr. Hyde deliberately steps on a young girl in the street. The newspapers had discussed this, however, so I was prepared to see it.
“What do you think?” I murmured to St. Ives after a few scenes.
“First rate. How is Mansfield’s English?”
“Not bad,” I answered “Better than I expected.”
Then the transformation began. At first the actor postured, and I feared I’d be disappointed, but then somehow, he became a completely different person, a terrible brute with hollow eyes and disheveled hair. The rest of the show was pure melodrama, but melodrama at its best.
“How?” I asked as we left at the end of the performance. “How was it done?”
“I suspect subtle lighting changes, both in the footlights and overhead,” St. Ives answered. “They were in addition to the standard gas lamps, so you didn’t notice. Also, there was solid acting. It was all very impressive. In fact, I’d like to step backstage and thank the actor for his performance, one American to another.”
I followed the brigadier backstage. As I said, Mansfield had toured the country with this play and now there was no crush as had been reported in the newspapers years before. The actor was pleased to meet another American with an appreciation for theater, so the two held an animated discussion on it that extended to drinks at Gattie’s, which the actor actually paid for. Like everyone else, he was entranced by our flamboyant companion, and I wondered if he was taking impressions for a new character.
As we left the restaurant, we passed under a gaslight and for a mere moment St. Ives’s face was illuminated. His face was blanched, his eye sockets hollow. It set my mind racing. He reminded me of Dr. Jekyll, who at any moment could become a monster. If I were proven to be working against the Confederates, would he have any compunction about putting a bullet through my head? No. It would be all for the cause. The man believed himself a patriot. Patriot, I thought, a stirring term for the willingness to kill another human being.
Exhausted by his performance of the evening, which I knew was quite taxing, Mansfield left us to our coffee and tortes. St. Ives lit a cigarette by the candle on our table and sat back, momentarily content.
“Fine show,” he pronounced. “And the man himself is intelligent. It was good of him to pay for our drinks.”
“I’d call it remarkable,” I said. “So, are we for home?”
“Not on your life,” St. Ives replied. “I must see the Whitechapel district, where your so-called Ripper plied his trade.”
“Did you know we got him?” I asked. “The news was quashed by the Palace itself.”
His brows knit and he leaned forward. “Was it? Scotland Yard caught him?”
I nodded. “In a manner of speaking. Barker and I did, anyway. But they were working with us, not against us that time.”
“Were you?” St. Ives looked impressed. “You must tell me immediately. No, better yet, we’ll get a cab, and you can show me all the sights while you tell me everything. Soup to nuts!”
We did just that. It took almost two hours. We visited the sights of the murders and even the wretched hovel in Goulton Street where the insane man lived. Meanwhile, the brigadier seemed as enthralled as he had in the balcony of the Variety.
“Sensational!” he boomed. “If you get permission from the Queen, you should take this information to the States. You could give lectures across the country like Mr. Dickens. You’d return a rich man, you know.”
“I’ll consider it,” I told him, knowing I would do no such thing. “Where would you like to go next?”
“Limehouse and the Docks,” he replied. “I do love Chinatowns! They help shake off this wretched ennui. Sometimes I feel as if I’ve seen everything!”
I looked at his silhouette by the light of a gas lamp.
“Is that a challenge?” I asked.
I saw the flash of his white teeth in the darkness. “Why, sir, I do believe it is. In fact, I’ll wager a five-pound note you can’t show me something I’ve never seen before.”
“I’ll take that wager,” I replied. “Driver! Narrow Street!”
The cabman agreed, but reluctantly. He feared for his cab in that godless district. Eventually, we came to the battered door that leads to the tearoom of Barker’s closest friend, a Chinaman named Ho who had been his first mate in the China Seas. St. Ives was happily mystified when we stepped into a long tunnel under the Thames and came up into the tearoom. When we were seated, I asked to speak to the owner.
“You know the man?” my guest asked, looking about. The décor was not interesting, but the clientele was.
“He is a friend of Barker’s,” I said. “He served aboard Barker’s sea vessel, the Osprey.”
“Your partner was a ship’s captain?”
Once again, St. Ives was delighted with this information.
“Yes, it was a tramp steamer plying the China Seas.” I glanced up. “Here comes the owner now.”
Ho came to our table, looking the same as usual, his hair shaven into a thick queue he wore down his chest, the lobes of his ears weighted down with gold rings which one day would pay for his funeral. He looked out of temper, but then he always did.
“Where’s Barker?” he demanded.
“At home sleeping the sleep of the just,” I replied. “This is our guest, Brigadier St. Ives, of the Confederacy.”
“Ni hao,” the American said, bowing his head.
“Why I do declare,” Ho responded. “A gentleman of the South.”
St. Ives looked at him, then reached into his pocket and wordlessly handed me the five-pound note we had bet.
“We’ve dined,” I told Ho. “We didn’t yet know we’d be coming. I am hereby requesting a small plate of your most exotic fare, which I challenge my guest to eat, without knowing what it is.”
“I will bring it for free if you eat it as well,” Ho stated.
“Done,” I said.
“Done,” St. Ives agreed.
Ho nodded. “And done.”
“We’re in for it now,” I muttered. “I’m already as stuffed as a Christmas goose.”
“It’s your fault, Mr. Llewelyn,” St. Ives drawled.
The meal arrived a quarter hour later. There were fried chicken’s feet, sea snails, Szechuan food hot enough to satisfy Virgil, thousand-year-old eggs, a favorite of Barker’s, and several dishes Ho had made to confound me. Some I couldn’t tell if they were animal, vegetable, or mineral.
My guest, or rather, Ho’s guest, picked up a pair of chopsticks as if he had just arrived from Peking and we began. There were two portions of each item, but many and flavorful, to be washed down with plum wine. I recalled a rumor that no cat lived within half a mile of the place. I’ve also heard they eat rats in China, but that may be only a rumor. Regardless, St. Ives ate like a trencherman, and in spite of a full stomach, I wasn’t going to be outdone. When the plates and the bottle of wine were empty, Ho threw us out. I explained to St. Ives that this was how I normally left the premises.
I marched the American past the Grapes and the Prospect of Whitby, two classic pubs I recommend, and down the Old Stairs of Wapping. I showed him the Thames police dock and the table where the bodies lie after being fished from the river.
“No bodies today?” my companion complained, as if we could pull one from the wings for his edification.
“No, sir,” the night sergeant told us. “Better luck tomorrow night. But then, I’m sure you’ve seen your share of bodies and mysteries, sir.”
“Mine and someone else’s,” he replied.
We stepped out onto the docks. By then it was nearing midnight.
“What’s that building there?” he asked, pointing to a three-story structure hard by the river.
“That’s the Inn of Double Happiness,” I said, cocking my head. “It’s a gambling house and opium den.”
“Opium den,” St. Ives repeated with delight.
My heart sank. I’d had my own encounters with opium in the past. I was once shanghaied and given a steady diet of laudanum during a case. That incident took weeks to get over, weeks of trembling and pain. It can take as little as two days together to become addicted to the stuff. Once hooked, you’d be willing to give up your occupation, your money, and your blessed mother to possess it.
“Very well,” I said. “We’ll look around, but I won’t partake. I don’t care for it.”
“Have a single bowl with me, and then be on your way,” St. Ives urged. “I’ll hail a hansom in the morning.”
“You’re staying all night?” I asked, incredulous. “Are you up to it?”
“Oh, the pipe and I are old friends. New York, San Francisco, even Rio de Janeiro. It doesn’t have much effect on me the following day.”
I thought it bravado, but I wouldn’t argue with a guest. We walked to the inn. It was near the river, and the night was cool. I’d overeaten and was afraid I’d be ill once we encountered the fumes. The brigadier, however, was like a child at a country fair. I’d never seen a man of mature years having such a rollicking time. He exhibited boundless energy.
We passed through an ornate set of doors, and by a large plaster dragon that projected from the wall in bas-relief, to the front desk, where three young and beautiful Chinese women stood in traditional costume. Their expression was indifferent, as usual. They were there to provide service but would not feign interest in the guests.
“The den is downstairs,” the oldest one said.
“I plan to gamble first,” St. Ives informed me.
I shrugged. “As you wish.”
I’ve never asked Barker how Mr. K’ing, the owner, was able to hold his doors open when all the licensed public houses nearby were forced to close at midnight. I’m sure baksheesh was involved. St. Ives played whist for an hour, betting heavily. He lost twice at baccarat afterward but seemed undisturbed by his losses. I’m the sort that considers the loss of twenty pounds to be a catastrophe, no matter how much I make for a living. He acted as if his pockets were bottomless pits. Perhaps they were, thanks to the donations his organization received.
An hour later St. Ives stood, the victor by thirty pounds at least. He declared himself satisfied and did not give the house a chance to earn its money back.
One of the women led us to the den downstairs. There is no room in London more elegant or suited for the vice. There are numerous couches with pillows and brocade quilts. A bar at the end of the room was overseen by a Chinese guard who glowered at the clients while another filled the pipes. A boy in a silk suit and cap carried the pipe to the customer and helped light it. Opium smokers are not the most coordinated lot after two bowls.
“Two, please,” St. Ives said at the bar as he set down some bank notes. We took a seat on a low divan. There were no Chinese men there apart from those who worked at the establishment. Mr. K’ing will not allow it. England had successfully addicted a tenth of China to the drug in exchange for tea, a terrible crime, and K’ing was evening the score one foreign devil at a time. He, too, considered himself a patriot.
The boy lit a pipe for me, but I shook my head. I needed as clear a head as possible. The brigadier sucked the smoke down like it was a delicacy. I coughed once or twice from his fumes as the man behind the bar glowered at me. Amateur, he was probably thinking. One of the women from the entrance appeared behind us in her hobbled dress and bowed to me.
“Mr. K’ing wishes to speak to you,” she said in a singsong voice.
I turned to St. Ives.
“I’ll return in a few minutes,” I told him.
He waved me away, being at the Threshold of Dreamland, where beautiful women beckoned, and fantastic dragons flew overhead.
I climbed the stairs and was led into K’ing’s presence. He is an unusual creature, ascetic looking, and very thin. His head was shaven, and he had a small mustache. He wore a pillbox hat and there was a web of scar tissue across half his face from a fire that had occurred a few years earlier. He used to be a handsome fellow who preferred an English suit, but now he dressed only in native garb. His purpose in life, as far as I could work out, was to bring down the Manchu government and restore the Chinese to power. Destroy the Q’ing and restore the Ming, it was said. The English were merely tools to reach his objectives.
“Why are you here?” he enquired. Unlike some, he did not flatter.
“I brought a guest,” I replied. “I hoped to drag some information out of him. He’s being primed as we speak.”
“Anything for my benefit?” he asked.
“Probably not,” I answered. “He’s an American.”
“North or South?”
“Both at once.”
K’ing raised a brow. “How is Mr. Barker?”
“Well enough,” I said.
“If anything of interest occurs in my line,” the Chinaman said, “I hope you will mention it to Mr. Ho.”
“I shall.”
Ho worked for K’ing, or rather, they shared the same interests and were members of the Blue Dragon Triad as well as several other Chinese societies. Secret societies, that is. It is the same the world over. All the important plans and decisions are made behind closed doors.
“Go,” he instructed. “Or your quarry will be senseless.”
When K’ing tells one to go, one goes. I returned to the den, realizing that I might be too late already. St. Ives was in his shirtsleeves. His tie was undone, and his collar opened. I noticed a chain about his throat, but whatever hung from it was obscured by the collar of his crisp white shirt.
“What have you got about your neck?” I asked.
St. Ives closed his eyes and lifted something from inside his shirt, a very small glass vial attached to a gold chain containing some kind of white powder.
“What is that?” I asked. “Cocaine?”
“Strychnine, old man.”
I gasped. “You carry strychnine about your throat? Why?”
“Sometime, I will have sucked all the juices out of life and be left with nothing but the pulp,” he replied. “I cannot abide the pulp, Mr. Llewelyn.”
The boy brought another pipe and replaced the brigadier’s with it. The latter took another puff. I could see the drug was taking its effect.
“How long have you known the general?” I asked.
“I don’t discuss business during my leisure hours,” he answered. “We shall talk of such things at a more convenient time.”
There was unexpected mettle in his voice. I was getting closer to the real character of David St. Ives. The pulp, if you will.
I shrugged. “I was just making conversation.”
“Well, don’t.”
Barker, Ho, K’ing, and now St. Ives. I am surrounded by prickly men. He stopped talking completely, so I rose and paid the bill. I gave him one final look and left the inn.
I arrived in Lion Street at two o’clock reeking of smoke and looking disheveled. I reported to Barker, then went upstairs. Rebecca, however, wasn’t pleased. No amount of explanation could convince her that my duties sometimes took me to places where proper citizens never go.
“Gin palaces?” she demanded. “Opium dens? Houses of ill-fame?”
“I didn’t go in the last one,” I said in my defense.
“That hardly matters,” she replied. “What would your mother say?”
I had to admit my mother would be aggrieved.
“You recall the lengths Mr. Barker went to wean you from opium the first time?” she continued. “Now you walk right back into the dragon’s den. I’m putting my foot down, Thomas. Charming though he may be, St. Ives is a devil. You are not to go out cavorting with him anymore, charming or not.”
I could do nothing but obey.
CHAPTER 8
A mere four hours later, I was out in the garden doing exercises with Barker again. I admit I was having trouble finding both the energy and the motivation together. The fact that someone else expected me to do anything at that moment meant less than some might think. Certainly, I would do whatever Rebecca asked, even on a whim, and of course, any task Barker required I would do. Other than that, for the most part the rest of the world could go hang. I’m busy, especially at six o’clock in the morning.
We were in our shirtsleeves on a bit of lawn by the bridge that spans Barker’s stream. He’d step out and make a move, and then I tried to follow his example, generally with poor results. Some moves made perfect sense from a defensive point of view. Others seemed quite ludicrous. Even I couldn’t work out how they could be utilized for my safety or benefit. We were performing dozens of defensive moves put together so they could be memorized. I understood that, I did, but after only four hours of sleep, it seemed less immediate.
Somewhere in that house, I told myself, there is a slice of pie or a pain au chocolat in the larder that I staked a claim on. There is coffee steaming on the hob and fresh cream in the icebox. Such is the staff of life.
One more stretch, I told myself. One more posture and I’ll be done. You don’t have to like this, I thought; you simply have to do it. Act as if you enjoy it and it will all go away. That’s generally my credo in life.
“Ah, that’s fine, lad,” Barker said at last. “We’ve done enough for today, I think.”
“Already?” I asked. “Yes, sir.”
I walked to the bridge and over it. It wouldn’t do to seem too eager. All the same, I’m sure the Guv knew what I was thinking. He usually did.
Inside I found lemon curd tarts cooling on a wire rack. I reached out to take one and Etienne smacked the back of my hand with a ladle. I glanced about. It looked as if he were cooking a small banquet. Baking would be the correct word. The kitchen was full of eclairs and madeleines, each perfect, warm and sweet.
“Please,” I asked. “Are you going to make me beg?”
He gave me a sour look but nodded. I seized a tart and poured a cup of coffee.
Ten minutes later Barker entered the house, having inspected the garden. He could do that for hours, I knew, but he keeps to a schedule, and we had an office to go to. I stood, finished the last of my coffee and wiped my mouth with a serviette. I met the Guv in the hall and we proceeded to the front door. Just at that moment, it burst open. A very handsome woman arrived with a man in tow. In fact, she hadn’t even knocked.
