Latvian and an Estonian Jew.
'Do you have an address at which you can be reached, should we need to speak to you again?'
'I have what your police call 'no fixed abode,' but ask around. I can always be found. Now, gentlemen, I would like to pray over you and your search.'
Reb Shlomo stood, raised his hands palms up, and began speaking a Hebrew prayer in a loud voice. People stared at us as they walked by not three feet from our table, and I was a little embarrassed. He finally finished his blessing and turned to Barker.
'Good hunting,' he said, then clapped a hand on my back. 'Stay alive, Little Brother. And keep away from trapdoors.'
He stuffed the last roll between his fierce teeth and launched himself into the passing crowd. Barker picked up a menu and began to look it over, while I sat there puzzling. Trapdoors? What did he mean by trapdoors? I thought the fellow a little touched in the head.
'The rabbi seemed a bit primitive for a scholar like Pokrzywa, from what I've seen,' I remarked. 'I would think a fellow like Da Silva would be more to his liking.'
'The Ashkenazim have always prized their little country rabbis. The more dirty and superstitious they are, the better they like them, even the sophisticated Jews from the cities. You will often find an educated Moskovite bending a knee to the latest near-illiterate holy man. Sometimes the more outrageously they act, the better they are liked. Not that I include Shlomo in that category. He seems rather wise. Shall we tuck in then, lad?'
After a satisfactory dinner of moussaka, Barker announced that we'd done enough for the day. Racket, who had been lurking about, picked us up for the long ride south. Once we were settled in our seats, Barker made a rare comment.
'The hansom cab,' he said, 'presents you with drama, of a sort. The cab is like a proscenium arch, and the town of London the stage. It's fascinating, if you know where to look. I can't tell you how many pedestrians I've seen on the street who are wanted men, or how often I've witnessed a crime committed in broad daylight. I've seen dozens of watches and wallets stolen, and confidence men plying their trade. Several times I could have stepped from the cab and collared someone Scotland Yard would very much like to see.'
'Why didn't you?' I asked.
He shrugged. 'Often I was on an investigation of my own, and Scotland Yard isn't exactly gracious when a private agent nabs a suspect for them. It makes it look like they're not earning their shilling.'
Once home, Barker sent the cabman to his well-deserved rest with a handful of silver. We retired to our rooms, but I was restless. Barker had sent up a new stack of books. They were all Jewish titles: Zionism and the Jewish Question; The Chosen People; Anti-Semitism in Medieval Europe; and Yiddish Folklore. The latter, of course, interested me the most, but I was not in a reading mood. I was just about to chuck it across the bed and stare at the ceiling, when there was a knock at the door.
'Come in!'
My employer stuck his large head into the room. 'Reading already, are you? Good lad. I won't interrupt you, then.'
'No, no! Please do!'
'I was just wondering if you'd like to try a little shooting practice.'
I sat up. That's what I needed, something to stir my blood. So far I'd felt like a counterfeit detective, driving about, watching Barker ask questions, reading out of books. Perhaps the scent of gunpowder in my nostrils would convince me of what I was to become.
'I've never shot a gun before,' I admitted. 'Is there a firing range in the area?'
'I have one set up in the cellar. Come along.'
On the ground floor, in that long hall which ran a straight line from the front door to the back, there was a blank-looking door which led down a set of steep steps. The cellar was a single large room, with a section set off as a kind of lumber room. The walls and floor were lined with thick padding, which might have given the room a sinister appearance, if it weren't for the Indian clubs, medicine ball, and other accoutrements of physical culture. On the far wall was a circular paper target. I looked about but didn't see any pistols. Instead, Barker picked up an Ulster coat from the stair and held it out for me to put on.
'This was a little late in arriving, being specially made for me. The Krause brothers did the tailor work, while another friend of mine made theЕ modifications. Reach into the right pocket. What do you feel?'
'The butt of a pistolЕ and something else. Stiff leather?'
'Correct. The holster is built into the pocket. Look at the lining along the right, inside. What do you see?'
'A buttonhole. What's a buttonhole doing here?'
'Your patience, a moment longer. Put your hands in both pockets and face the target. Good. Now spread your feet, shoulder width. Step forward with your right foot. Raise your right arm, still with your hand in your pocket, firmly grasping the pistol, and pull your left arm behind you, shifting the entire coat.'
I did as he said, moving the entire overcoat behind me as I stepped forward, and an amazing thing happened. The barrel of the pistol pushed out through the buttonhole.
'Fire!' he yelled in my ear, and I squeezed the trigger almost involuntarily. The shot went low, about a foot below the target. It was intensely loud in the small chamber.
'Really, Thomas,' he said in mock disapproval. 'Shooting a fellow in the vitals. Not very sporting. It takes too long for him to die, and it's a painful and ignoble death.'
'Sorry, sir. The coat is rather heavy.'
'It is. There is lead padding in the chest and back. I won't guarantee that it will stop a bullet, but it may at least slow it down. There are four more shots in your revolver, which, by the way, is a Webley Irish constable issue, with the site filed down. Let us see if you can hit the target this time.'
I placed all four of them on the target, but only one within an inch of the bull's-eye. I thought the coat ingenious but not, as Barker would say, 'sporting.' A fellow might already be shot before he realized you had a gun.
'Better,' my employer said. 'There are a half dozen ways to aim and shoot, but the best is still to point as if one were pointing a finger. Too much thinking slows one down. Here is a box of rounds. There's cotton here for your ears' sake. Open that window to the garden when you're done or the whole house shall smell of powder. Keep practicing a few times a week, and you'll be as good as I.'
'And how good is that?' I wondered aloud.
He stopped on the step and looked back over his shoulder. His hands moved up under his arms. He whirled, pulling two revolvers from out of nowhere. Bullets spat in unison not inches from my face. Emptied, the pistols were thrust back under his arms, where I heard them strike leather. Then his hands moved down to his pockets. His coat moved, the barrel appeared through the little eyelet in his coat, and a half dozen shots went off like firecrackers. Then he shifted the coat around and fired from the left side. The room reeked of gunpowder. Barker nodded good evening and left. If he said anything, I couldn't hear it. I couldn't hear anything.
Need I even mention that the bullets were clustered round the bull's-eye like four-and-twenty blackbirds? As I looked at the neat ring of holes, I remembered that, in prison argot, 'barker' was the word used for a pistol. I thought he rather deserved the name.
7
The next morning, Monday, I was awakened to the sound of men working in the garden. Barker's bass rumble could be heard, offset by the tenor chatter of Chinese workmen. I seemed fated to be surrounded by Orientals these days. I got up and dressed and was on the ground floor, nearly to the end of the hall, when I was stopped in my tracks. The heavenly aroma of fresh coffee was in the air, pungent and earthy, the last thing I expected in Barker's house. My olfactory sense led me to a door on the left and through it. I found myself in the kitchen.
It wasn't a remarkable room; everything was functional rather than decorative. All the tools of a well- stocked kitchen were there, as well as vegetables in baskets, onions and garlic in strands, and herbs drying in
