'I'm sure you've inspected the hearing and trial records, and I'd rather not speak about the uncomfortable interviews with Lord Glendenning and my parents. Clay's father, a merchant turned peer, brought all of his influence to bear on the case, and the result was eight months' hard labor. I was broken to the treadmill, and my hands shredded from picking apart oakum. I endured beatings and surly treatment from the guards and from the other inmates. Worst of all, I was separated from my beloved Jenny. She came to see me twice before my trial and once in prison. After that, she was too ill to leave her bed and come to see me. The tuberculosis was consuming her from the inside. On the twentieth of March, she died in that squalid little flat and was buried in an unmarked grave.
'Directly after my release, I attempted to find Jenny's family, but they had skipped out on the rent, and I never found them again. Eventually, I drifted to London, looking for work, as my name was thoroughly blackened in Oxford forever. What little I possessed, I pawned for food and shelter. Then, one morning at the British Museum Reading Room, I found your advertisement in the 'Situations Vacant' column of The Times, and you know the rest.'
'I know more than that,' Barker said. 'You'd skipped out on your rent. The suitcase told me as much. And I suspect that you were considering killing yourself that day. I could see it in your eyes.'
'Why did you hire me, sir?' I asked, as Barker replenished my glass yet again.
'I wish you could have seen yourself through my eyes, Thomas. I was watching all of you outside from the bow window. You were the most nondescript fellow I'd ever seen. It was as if you were trying to blend in with the brick wall. I almost overlooked you, standing among all the taller men. I was intrigued when you tossed your suitcase into the dustbin, right under my window. Then you came in and presented me with an Oxford education, or at least the beginnings of one. Better still, you had an eight-month tenure at Oxford Prison, which in many ways is more educational than University. You then sailed through every test as if you'd been practicing for weeks, and you kept your temper in check. A man would have had to be an idiot not to hire you on the spot. Whether you know it or not, you're a natural detective's assistant.'
'I thought I was fit for nothing.'
'You would think that, lad.' He patted my sleeve. 'You undervalue yourself.'
'So, why did you hire Jenkins?' I asked.
I had made Barker chuckle again. 'Jenkins came to fill the position temporarily and never went away again. I can sack him any time, and he can quit. He's an odd fellow, but I've grown used to his ways.'
I sat up and put my glass down. The beer had thoroughly loosened my lips.
'So, tell me, sir. How did a Scottish boy end up in China?'
Barker put down his porter. He'd been matching me glass for glass, but so far, it hadn't seemed to affect him.
'My father was a missionary from Perth. He followed the tea clippers to Foochow soon after I was born. My parents stayed several years, developing a congregation of Europeans and Chinese as well. They died when I was eleven. Cholera.'
'Good Lord!' I said. I could definitely feel the effects of the porter now. I nearly chipped a tooth navigating the glass to my lips. 'So, did you go home?'
'That might have happened in England, lad, and possibly in India, but not in China. The right palms were never crossed, so the gist of it was that I was cut loose on my own.'
'Cut loose, sir? In China, at eleven? What did you do?'
'Whatever I could to survive. I was just another street urchin. I started out on the docks, scavenging for food, looking for odd work, and learning how to defend myself the hard way. Eventually, I signed on as a cabin boy aboard a broken-down clipper, looking about as thin and desperate as you did that first day I saw you.'
I was trying hard to keep up, but the alcohol was swiftly overtaking my brain. If he told me the rest of his story that night, I didn't catch it. After a while, it seemed sensible to rest my hot, throbbing temple against the nice, cool wood of the table. That is the last thing that I remember.
I awoke some hours later. I'd been asleep in my plate, between the bread and the cheese. My head was throbbing and my shoulders ached. Barker was nowhere to be found.
22
The next morning I felt as if my head had been split open with an axe from the Tower and my tongue slathered in coal tar. What had I been thinking, pouring that noxious stuff down my throat? I suspected Maccabee of having designs on my life. Lifting my head off the pillow required far more energy than my poor powers could muster. How did Jenkins survive this ordeal on a daily basis?
I lay in bed for over an hour, half paralyzed, watching the sunlight slowly illuminate the room. My head throbbed, and even my cheekbones hurt. I decided to forgo any future attempts at self-pickling. I haven't the drinker's constitution.
Barker came bustling in, all health and vigor, shooting his cuffs and adjusting his links. He showed no signs of distress from the night before. My stomach threatened to turn as active as Krakatoa at any moment.
'Morning, lad,' he said loudly. 'Beautiful day. Time we were about.' I was in agony, and Barker, it appeared, was in one of his cheerful, telegraph-message moods.
'I fear I'm too sick to move, sir,' I said.
'Nonsense. Get up and walk about. A nice long hike is what you need, and a good soak, to sweat out the impurities, but we don't have the time. Show your body who is master.'
'Yes, sir,' I answered, and rose to a sitting position. A fireworks demonstration began to go off in my head. I swung my limbs over the side of the bed and waited to see what would happen next. Nothing noteworthy.
'I shall be along, presently, sir,' I told my employer, who still stood there, expectantly.
'That's the spirit. Have Etienne make you some eggs and coffee. I'll meet you out front in half an hour.'
'Oh, God, please, not eggs,' I whimpered after he left. 'Anything but eggs.'
Dummolard insisted on a concoction of his own, a greenish sludge that looked as if it had been dredged from the sewers. Who knows? Perhaps it had. I managed to keep it down and even swallowed some coffee and toast, but eggs were quite beyond me. Having broken my fast, I dragged myself up the stairs again and traded my old suit for another of my new ones. I was still employed, despite yesterday's little debacle.
'Ready, lad?' Barker asked, as I stepped down into the hall. Mac was helping him into his coat.
'Ready, sir,' I responded, far more confidently than I felt. I put on my coat myself. I didn't want Mac near me. I don't approve of hiring poisoners as servants.
I moaned as I climbed into the cab and leaned well forward in case the rocking motion made me ill. John Racket gave me a frown from atop his box. He didn't want anyone ill while in his cab, and I am certain that my complexion was as leaden as the sky overhead. Juno was off, and I held tightly to the leather-covered doors.
We didn't go to the office at all but instead went straight to Tower Bridge. Within half an hour we were seated in the Bucharest Cafй again. Barker was enjoying strong Romanian tea and a fairly lethal-looking bialy, while I was nursing a bicarbonate of soda.
'Feeling better, lad?'
'Much better, sir,' I lied. 'What are we doing here this morning?'
'We've been actively pursuing this investigation for several days now, muddying the waters, so to speak. Today, I want us to plumb its depths. We're going to observe the Jews today and the rhythms of their lives. Is there any real evidence of a threat, or is it merely imagined? Was Pokrzywa's death a personal matter or a harbinger of future developments? In a way, we shall be testing the area's temperature.'
I thought it more likely that he had run out of leads, and we were to spend the day sitting idly. However, it was politic to agree. After all, I couldn't do much else at the moment but sit and sip soda water.
Despite his plan, Barker was too restive to sit long. After half an hour's time, he announced that he would explore the Lane again. I seconded his decision. His energy was not exactly calming to my stomach. Like a hound let off his lead, Barker shot into the crowd of Brick Lane. Only then did I begin to relax.
The bicarbonate and the absence of my employer began to work their subtle magic on me. In twenty minutes, I ordered a coffee in one of the glass cups, and within another ten, I got up to explore a little bookstall
