gathering enough to follow.”
“I see. And the address?”
She demurred another moment, but finally came to a decision in Barker’s favor. “Wait here. I shall look up her file and bring it to you.”
She disappeared into the building while we stood on the pavement and watched traffic on Green Street and Globe Road. It was a warm day, warm enough to be uncomfortable in my cutaway. As usual, the building was lined with applicants using the walls for support, as if they had been glued there as ornamentation.
Miss Levy soon returned and pressed a note into Barker’s hand. There was a bloom in her olive cheeks. If I had known how many attractive girls the charities employed, I might have become a socialist long ago.
“Thank you,” Barker said gruffly.
“You will be gentle, won’t you?” Amy Levy asked.
“I am a professional, Miss Levy. Leave it to me.” We raised our hats and left her standing there looking pensive.
“They live in Cheshire Street,” Barker said, thrusting the note in his pocket. “Now, here is what I want you to do. When we get inside, stand in front of the door and hold your stick in front of you. I want you to do your best to look as imposing as possible.”
“That does not sound gentle to me,” I said.
“I made no such promise to Miss Levy, if you will recall, lad. This woman and child may be the only people who can lead us to Gwendolyn DeVere, but I fear they shall not give information to us voluntarily. They are Lithuanian, and as such have been subjected to raids by Cossacks and secret police their entire lives. They will not trust us, no matter what inducements we may give.”
“How shall we get the information, then?” I asked.
“By giving them what they expect. We must frighten them into giving us the information.”
Cyrus Barker smote the rickety door of a squalid tenement in Cheshire Street. His cane, like my own, was malacca with a brass head. Malacca cane is very flexible, and with the weighted head it provides a hard thump, whether on a wooden door or a human skull.
The door was jumping on its hinges, in danger of falling in, but still nobody answered our summons. It wasn’t hard to picture Barker as some sort of secret police officer or Russian Cossack. All he needed was a fur hat. Granted, England didn’t have secret police, but I’m sure fear of authority had been instilled in them since birth.
Finally, a shrill, quavering voice came from inside and the door opened to reveal a wide-eyed woman of about five and thirty, in a smocked dress with a kerchief tied around her head. Barker pushed his way in, speaking what I assumed was Yiddish. I followed Barker’s instructions, closing the door and standing in front of it, my cane held horizontally and a fierce expression on my face. I don’t think that I was going to frighten anyone, but I didn’t need to. Barker was doing an excellent job of that all by himself.
It was a squalid room full of broken furnishings, and it reminded me of my past. The dining table was heaped with the makings for paper flowers, a depressing little industry in which my late wife’s family had been employed. One had to make hundreds in a day, and then sell those hundreds to people who had little use for them, in order to make even the most negligible of profits.
Barker spoke gravely with Mrs. Bellovich for several moments. The poor woman was so terrified, she was trembling. She kept shaking her head as if to confirm that her daughter was not there.
“Ona Bellovich!” the Guv called out in English. “You had better come out at once. I would hate to take this good woman down to police headquarters.”
Svetlana Bellovich stared apprehensively at my employer, though it was obvious she didn’t understand what he had just said. What a life she must have lived already that the presence of officers of the law, real or spurious, was enough to turn her into a quivering mess. What terrors and deprivations she must have gone through before arriving on our comparatively safe shores.
“Miss Bellovich!” my employer went on in a loud voice. “No one holds you responsible for Miss DeVere’s disappearance, but if you do not show yourself, we may be forced to search the house.”
Someone began knocking at the door behind me, and I heard men’s voices calling out in a foreign tongue. The handle jiggled, but I dug in my heels and refused to allow anyone to enter.
“Very well,” Barker said, heaving a sigh. “Mr. Llewelyn, take Mrs. Bellovich to jail. I’ll start searching the rooms.”
“Nyen!” a voice cried from somewhere in the house. A girl of about twelve years old came running out, into the arms of her mother. The two spoke to each other quietly for a moment, while outside the beating on the door continued.
“Miss Bellovich, I have no wish to cause harm to you or your mother, but you must come forward and speak to the police. I work for Gwendolyn’s parents and am trying to find her. You have information that may help us. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” she said meekly. The girl looked like a younger version of her mother and wore a similar print dress and kerchief.
“Do you speak English?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Why don’t you tell the gentlemen outside that you are safe and that we are only going to talk to you? Lad, open the door.”
When I did, three men fell in, almost at my feet. They rose quickly. One seized my wrist and I was about to clout him with my stick, while the other two went for Barker, when Madame Bellovich raised her hands and spoke. Whatever she said convinced them to leave with nothing but mutterings and frowns in my direction.
Barker and the mother and daughter sat down at the wobbly table, and Ona began to speak quietly. My employer put questions to the girl, while her mother left and returned minutes later with cracked mugs full of strong, evil-tasting tea. Our assault upon their house began to take on a more domestic aspect. Barker shook his finger in Ona’s face like an uncle admonishing his niece. By the end of it, the Guv had both the girl and her mother nodding and smiling, though there were still tears in Ona’s eyes and strain on her mother’s face.
Barker pushed himself out of his chair, which squeaked in protest. He shook hands with both women, and when he gestured toward me, I raised my bowler in response. When we opened the door, all three men were waiting outside, but we merely made our way past them, like rent collectors on the first day of the month. It confounded them enough to let us pass freely down the stairs and into the street unmolested.
“So let me get this straight,” I said, after we were settled into the vehicle trundling down Commercial Street. “Miss DeVere borrowed a dress and kerchief from Ona Bellovich and slipped out of the C.O.S. without being seen. A sailor suit would have been noticed by dozens of people in those streets, as would a cloak in this warm weather. But why did Ona help her?”
“She complied because Gwendolyn insisted upon it. Apparently, this was to be her grand exit. She planned to run away with Ona and stay hidden for the rest of the day, all night, if necessary, until her mother agreed to quit the volunteer work. Ona says Gwendolyn thought her mother’s duties to be degrading. She had planned everything rather well, but of course, she had not planned on Mr. Miacca.”
“You think he has her?” I asked. “He has definitely not stated as much. It might still be white slavers. With her peasant clothes they might have taken her for a poor girl.”
“The slave trade would have tried to get her out of the country by now, and, as I said, I have an associate guarding the ports, with a competent crew. Scotland Yard is watching Newhaven and Dover, as well. I don’t believe anyone could have successfully smuggled her out from under our collective noses. More likely, Miacca has her here, and you know what he does to bad children.”
9
“’Lo, push!”
The street arab I’d caught the day before came running toward us with a note in his hand. He was out of
