Anatomy of Evil (4 page)

That was when I knew Israel had lost the fish off his line, if it were ever on. He forgot Barker is a rich man by East End standards. By West End standards, as well, I supposed. He’s got an office in the center of London and a home which, while Newington might not be Park Lane, is half an acre of some of the most beautiful land in England. When Kew Gardens comes to your door asking for cuttings, you know you’re doing something right.

“Thank you for thinking of me, Mr. Zangwill, but I’m afraid I must refuse. There may come a time when I sit back and deduce from the safety of an armchair, but I have no wish to start that career prematurely.”

“Ah,” said Israel, realizing his mistake. “I hope I have not offended you.”

“Not at all.”

“We Jews have much to thank you for. You saved us from a pogrom in London.”

He was referring to my first case with Barker, in which we were hired by the Jewish Board of Deputies, led by Sir Moses Montefiore himself. A Jew had been crucified in Petticoat Lane and it was hoped we would stop a pogrom from occurring there. Barker did, by finding the killer who fanned the flames of hatred, and by organizing a golem squad of able-bodied men to combat a possible mob.

“You are not out of the woods, yet, laddie. There are many that still want to see your people gone, but with the help of the Lord we both worship, we won’t let that happen.”

My friend nodded solemnly. I realized for the first time how much he had at stake. Though an Ashkenazi Jew, he was no import from a Warsaw ghetto. His people had been here for generations. If London became unsafe, and I could not imagine what London would be like then, he could find no haven in Europe. He would have to start again somewhere in the colonies.

I don’t make friends easily. Who would I drink coffee with at the Barbados if he were gone? Could I ever go there again if his people were driven out of a place they had inhabited for two centuries? I couldn’t name the number of times he’d made me laugh so hard I almost fell out of the booth, laughed until the tears streamed down my face. Israel was not only my jester, but my father confessor, as well. He knew all my secrets, mundane as they were, and I knew helping him through Amy Levy’s death may have been the best thing I had ever done.

“I hope I haven’t alarmed you,” Barker said, and for a moment, I thought he was speaking to me.

“No, sir,” Israel answered. “I understand what difficulties a Jew faces here. I’ve known it all my life. Thank you for talking to me.”

“May I request that my name not be mentioned in relation to what we’ve said here tonight?”

“Of course, sir.”

Barker slid out of the booth and was gone in a second, leaving his pipe behind still cooling. He had not asked me to go home with him or even offered me a ride, but then, I’d ridden Juno, and she was stabled not far away. I wondered how Barker had made his way here, to have suddenly jumped out of an alleyway in Underwood Street.

“You work for the strangest man I’ve ever met,” Israel remarked. “He’s going to get you killed one of these days. Surely there is a safer occupation in London.”

“This from a man who coaxed me out of a comfortable bed to hunt monsters at midnight.”

“I thought you were the one who coaxed me.”

“Don’t change the subject,” I said. “I have to go, too. I must be up and ready to leave the house by seven.”

“You and me both, Thomas,” he said, handing all our pipes carefully into Frobisher’s hands. “Thanks for coming out.”

“My pleasure. You acquitted yourself rather well with the Guv.”

“Did I really? I was terrified. It was like sharing a booth with a live tiger. He could have so easily reached over and gobbled me up.”

I mulled over what he said as we stepped out into St. Michael’s Alley. A mist too fine to be considered rain had begun to fall.

“Don’t think he wouldn’t,” I told him, slapping him on the back.

CHAPTER THREE

The morning after the events I’ve just recorded arrived mercilessly early, but we went to work anyway and returned home again after a busy day. Barker’s back garden was beginning to change with the seasons, the Japanese maples turning a fiery red. We’d had our dinner and a steaming bath in the bathhouse, and I sat in the back garden enjoying the cool air in the shaded gazebo by the back gate as the sun set over Barker’s house. His dog, Harm, lay at my feet with his head up but his eyes closed, enjoying the ending of the day as much as I. Etienne, Barker’s chef, had made an apple pie laced with kirsch and caramel, and under my employer’s sardonic scrutiny, I had enjoyed a second slice. I was twenty-four years of age and I felt my constitution could withstand it. Momentarily, all seemed right with the world. However, as we know, Nature abhors two things: a vacuum, and Thomas Llewelyn having too easy a time of it. From the back garden I heard the electric bell on the front door ring. Harm was off the mark, sprinting toward the bridge. I followed at a more sedate pace. I knew our butler, Mac, would answer it, but it was best to be prepared for anything.

Mac was talking to our visitor by the time we entered the back hall. There is a straight passage from the front hall to the back, and from where I stood I recognized Robert Anderson, an old friend of Barker’s who holds a position that sounds Cromwellian when I say it: he was England’s spymaster general. Mostly his work involved tracking anarchists, Irish bombers, and secret societies. In his spare time, he argued numismatics and the eschatological End of the World. Anderson’s position was that despite the verse that says “but of that day and hour knoweth no man,” when Jesus would return to collect his flock, Anderson very well could and did, thank you. However, being the keen observer that I was, I noticed he did not carry his worn and heavily annotated Bible with him that day. This was a professional visit.

“Mr. Anderson,” I said in greeting. Anderson was approaching sixty, I supposed, and was a spare man with a beard and salt-and-pepper hair. He was an Irishman but we did our best not to hold it against him, being a household of outsiders ourselves.

“Thomas,” he said, looking haggard and preoccupied. He bent and scratched the top of Harm’s head. “Is your master in?”

“Up on his perch, as usual.”

“Good. I need to speak to him. You had better come, too.”

That settled that. Something had happened, something that required Cyrus Barker’s unorthodox methods. Whatever it was, I’m sure he would kick in the door, illuminate it, and shake it until its bones rattled. My employer could be subtle when he wished, but so far, this had not been a subtle year.

We climbed the two flights to Barker’s aerie. I noticed the short climb seemed to exhaust Anderson. When we reached the top, he collapsed into a chair and the Guv poured water for him from a pitcher into a tumbler. Barker was in his Asian smoking gown over shirtsleeves. His hair and thick mustache were still as black as the lenses of his spectacles. He seemed ageless, timeless, as solid a sentinel as Stonehenge.

“Robert,” he rumbled in his basso voice. “What brings you here at such an hour?”

Anderson drank off half the glass and coughed twice. “I have some news.”

“Pray tell us then. What has happened?”

“I have been given a new position. As of this morning, I am assistant commissioner of Scotland Yard, in charge of the Criminal Investigation Department.”

“Then I suppose congratulations are in order. Lad, bring the sherry.”

Anderson waved me down again. “There is more. Much more, in fact. I’ve been chosen over the heads of several qualified detective inspectors, so my arrival will not be greeted with wholesale enthusiasm, as I’m sure you’ll understand. Besides that, I am overworked and in poor health. The hours have been long and I’ve had to beg the government for every farthing. I’m afraid I’ve used up all my reserves. My doctor and my wife have ordered me to Switzerland for six weeks’ recovery and for once I am too weak to argue.”

Anderson definitely looked ill. His skin looked ashen and his lips almost bluish. I hoped that it was a rest cure he was being sent to and not his final journey. I liked the old gentleman, and more importantly, Barker did. It seemed a shame if he missed hearing the last trumpet he’d been heralding all these years.

“I’m sorry to hear it, Robert,” Barker said, going so far as to lean forward and pat him on the back of the hand, a rare gesture of affection for so undemonstrative a man.

“Would you consider working for Scotland Yard temporarily? I know it isn’t your cup of tea and you value your independence, but I could really use someone to safeguard my interests while I am gone.”

“In what capacity would I be working there?” Barker asked.

“As my assistant, nominally.”

“They’ll try to push me out,” Barker warned, leaning back in his leather chair and crossing his ankles on a horsehair hassock.

“Then push back. That’s your nickname in the Underworld, isn’t it, ‘Push’? I could find a dozen men to act as a kind of bookmark while I’m gone, but I believe you might actually get something done. Have you read about a couple of murders in Whitechapel, unfortunates who had their throats cut?”

“Aye, there was one named Nichols, I believe. Do you recall the other, lad?”

“Annie Chapman, I think, sir.”

“Detective Chief Inspector Swanson has been tracking the case since the first murder in August. I’d like you to keep an eye on it for me. The newspapers are starting to print speculative articles about it. We need to solve it quickly.”

“Whitechapel’s a nasty little place, full of foreign sailors and the most desperate poor,” I said. “I’m surprised this sort of thing doesn’t happen more often.”

“We are under the assumption,” Anderson went on, “that it is the work of one man, a multiple murderer. There is no incentive for him to stop until we catch him.”

“Did the second murder occur in the street, like the first?”

“Yes, in Hanbury Street. She was a common prostitute. We assume she was plying her trade and the murderer was a client.”

“I understand they were savaged. Was there any apparent reason for stabbing their abdomens?”

“None that we can fathom. They were both women in the lowest rung of their profession. On their way out, if you know what I mean.” He sat back in his chair. “Before you accept, I must warn you, there is a cost. Before I came to ask you, I had to get Commissioner Warren’s permission to bring you in as special agents. I’m afraid he had conditions.”

My employer tented his fingers. Personally, I think he was enjoying himself. “Which are?”

“That you temporarily close the doors of your agency and take down your hoardings. If you work for Scotland Yard, you cannot work private cases as well. Also, all deductions you make in this case become the property of the Metropolitan Police. Warren doesn’t want to pick up the
Pall Mall Gazette
and read ‘Cyrus Barker Apprehends Suspect.’ Do you understand?”

“Of course. I assume I may still keep my chambers as a base of operations? Or am I to be given an old, battered desk within the CID?”

Anderson gave a dry chuckle. “I’m not certain one can be found. We are at full capacity, I’m afraid. Will you agree to these terms?”

Barker considered them for a moment. “Will I be given full access to the files? The lad and I don’t have time to repeat someone else’s work.”

“The files are currently spread out all over London, but I’ll write an order demanding that they be returned to ‘A’ Division.”

“Is there a chief suspect as yet?”

“A few fellows have been arrested, but there is little to hold them on. Each inspector has his own theory, but there is no consensus. Whitechapel is like a bad haircut. We’ve combed it backward and forward and still can’t do anything with it. It has begun affecting our duties in the West End. If our constables are patrolling Flower and Dean Street in pairs, who is watching the jewelry stores in Kensington? This fellow must be apprehended quickly.”

“Even if it means bringing in ‘amateurs’?”

Anderson crossed his arms and tried to suppress a smile. “True, Commissioner Warren dislikes private detectives.”

“Private enquiry agents,” I corrected.

“You see?” he said, poking a thumb in my direction. “Now you’ve got him doing it.”

“It sounds to me,” Barker said, “that you’ll be well out of there and Thomas and I shall be taking the blame for your appointment.”

“I don’t claim this is going to be all beer and skittles, but I believe your shoulders are wide enough to carry a few remarks at my expense.”

“What rank am I to hold?”

“I’ve been considering this since this morning. You will be given a rank equal to inspector. However, you are to liaise with the Queen’s secretary at Buckingham Palace. Her Majesty is very interested in the case. I thought you might make use of that royal connection to anyone short of a detective inspector.”

“Any handle will do to turn a pot,” Barker remarked. “Are you well, Robert?”

Anderson grimaced. “I had pains in my arm last week,” he said. “My doctor told me I am ripe for apoplexy. He enlisted my wife’s aid.”

“A formidable woman.”

“I can argue with one of them, but not both. It is deucedly inconvenient, and will not do my career any good, but I have no choice. I need you there, Cyrus. Scotland Yard has some good officers: Abberline, Swanson, and the others are all fine investigators, but as I told Warren, for my money you’re the best man hunter in London. You’ll crawl down a hole after a wounded badger, if need be.”

Barker said nothing but gave a nod at the compliment.

“And you, Thomas,” Anderson said, turning to me. “This will be harder for you. Most men will not dare confront Cyrus openly, but they will have no problem confronting you. You’ll be in for some ribbing.”

“I’m paid handsomely, sir,” I said. “And I don’t really give a damn what they say or think about me.”

“That’s the spirit,” Anderson said, regarding me with his blue-green eyes like aquamarine stones. He ran a hand over the top of his head. Out of vanity, his own or his wife’s, he had begun combing hair from the side of his head over the top to cover a pinkish scalp.
He’s nervous,
I told myself. He doesn’t want to go, and he needs this Whitechapel fellow trapped quickly.