“Do you know of anyplace she might have gone?” Barker pursued. “Anyone she might have known, perhaps someone her own age?”
“None with whom she cared to associate,” Miss Levy said, then realized she had criticized a daughter in front of her mother. “I mean, she preferred to read or talk with us rather than to play with the children who came in here.”
Mrs. DeVere’s hackles were up immediately and I thought an altercation was about to occur between the overwrought mother and the caustic volunteer, but Barker brought them back to the matter at hand.
He turned to Miss Hill. “Where is the doctor today?”
“Dr. Fitzhugh volunteers from ten until two, normally. He has recently qualified and hopes to open a surgery of his own in London, so he is very busy.”
“What would he have to gain by volunteering here?”
“You would have to ask him that question, but as we coordinate among a number of organizations, he would have the opportunity to meet some of London’s civic leaders. I feel, however, that the doctor has a genuine heart for the poor.”
“Tell me, Miss Hill, are you a socialist? I hope I do not offend you with the word.”
“Not at all, Mr. Barker, but there are socialists and then there are socialists. I am a Christian socialist. I believe it is our duty when the churches have been unable to help and some people have fallen through the cracks to step in and save them. It is the only alternative to the workhouse.”
“How real do you think the slave trade is in the area?”
“That is the question we have been asking ourselves since yesterday, Mr. Barker. One hears so many rumors, but it isn’t always best to give credence to everything that is said. I could name half a dozen fallen women that claim their degradation began through the deviltry of the white slavers, but I believe them all to be embellishing the sordid truth of their own wanton behavior. However, I must admit that children and young women in the area have vanished without a trace. Some, I thought were the victims of their stepfather’s wrath or lusts, others desperate or resourceful enough to run away, but now and again I’ve seen children vanish from good families. And they all have one thing in common, sir. They never return.”
“Have you ever spoken to an avowed white slaver, Miss Hill?”
“No, I must admit I have not.”
“Nor I, madam. It may be that reports of their activities have been exaggerated, but I believe it is best to play it safe. I have sent a telegram to a gentleman I know in Sussex. He is having the ports watched. Meanwhile, Thomas and I shall be searching the area again, asking questions. We have held up your work. Good afternoon, ladies.”
Outside, we headed down Green Street again. I ruminated upon the fact that my feet were still sore from yesterday’s walk.
“I still find it hard to believe that there are men, possibly even in this street, whose living is made from snatching young girls.”
“Believe it, lad.”
“I thought this was a Christian country,” I said bitterly.
Barker shook his head. “Then you are misinformed. We live on a mean, sinful planet, Thomas, and it shall only get worse if the Lord should tarry.”
Jenkins, our clerk, had awoken during our absence. He had finished his cigarette, the Police Gazette, and tea and was dusting the bookshelves. He had also placed a note on the salver on the corner of my employer’s desk.
Barker looked at it soberly as it lay in the silver tray. It was a grubby-looking envelope, with the office address written in pencil.
“When did it arrive?” he asked.
“Just after three o’clock, sir.”
He lifted it from the salver, weighed it in his hand, then took up his Italian dagger from his desk and slit the envelope open along the flap. He shook the contents onto the desk rather than put his fingers inside the envelope. It was a grayish piece of foolscap. He picked it up, opened it carefully, and began to read.
“Is it a ransom note?” I asked.
He held up a finger and read through the letter again. Then he tossed it down dismissively into the salver and went to his smoking cabinet for a pipe and tobacco. I pounced on the letter. As it turned out, it wasn’t a letter at all. It was a poem.
Old Push was seen down in Bethnal Green,
A-smoking on his ivory pipe.
But what he found, ’neath the mouldering ground,
Had grown most decidedly ripe.
Go home, Old Cy, to your garden wall high,
Don’t be such a nosy Parker,
Or you’ll rue the day that you came my way,
Yours truly,
Mr. Miacca.
“He’s watching us,” was my first comment. “He saw you with your pipe and he knows about your garden.”
“Yes,” Barker said, getting another of his pipes going, this one carved in the likeness of the late General Gordon. “We are starting at a disadvantage in that our quarry knows our identity but we do not know his. He’s been watching us. Quite possibly, he’s been following us about all day.”
I got a creeping feeling in the small of my back that such a loathsome person should know our business and who we were. Barker did not seem as concerned, more curious, but then he is over six foot, weighs fifteen stone, and has faced things I’ll never see.
“Miacca,” he said. “It sounds Jewish or possibly Italian.”
“I believe it is English, sir,” I told him. “I think it’s a fairy tale character.” Suddenly it all fell into place. “Good Lord,” I muttered.
“What?” Barker insisted. “What is it, lad?”
“I remember. Mr. Miacca was a cannibal, sir. He ate children.”
6
“Can you infer anything from the note?” Barker asked.
“The envelope is grubby and of rather poor quality, like the notepaper itself, but the writing is legible enough and it follows the general form of a poem. It reminds me somewhat of Edward Lear.”
“Lear? I am not familiar with him.”
“He writes nonsense rhymes, limericks and such, mostly for children.”
Barker sank back into his swiveling chair and blew smoke toward the ceiling. There was a pause while he made up his mind. “I want you to go to the British Museum,” he said. “Track down this Miacca legend for me and Lear as well.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ll pay a visit to Scotland Yard and see if I can talk Swanson into letting me look at those files in his possession.”
I seized my bowler and stick and stepped out the door into Craig’s Court just as Big Ben boomed four times. Research was my favorite part of the investigative process, the hunting of pertinent facts culled from thousands of others in libraries or public record offices. As I raised my stick to hail a cab, however, I thought about how the killer had possibly been watching us today as we walked about Bethnal Green. It made me stop and survey the street and the dozens of anonymous windows that faced me. It is unnerving to know that someone might be scrutinizing you and meaning you harm.
The study area of the Reading Room in the British Museum is formed roughly in the shape of a wheel. The
