“Yes, I know. I was forbidden to let my beard grow and couldn’t wear my yarmulke. I can’t explain it well. I like order, and I like being a part of something larger than myself. Being a servant is not a bad living, and one always has room and board. Some butlers retire with more than a clergyman or a colonel. If one likes the work, it is not a bad occupation.”
“Forgive the interruption.”
“Not at all. As I said, I was a second footman. Quite often, I was sent on errands, to get spices for the cook, perhaps, or to carry a message for the lady of the house. One day, I chanced to speak with a young lady about my own age who lived in the neighborhood. Her name was Alice Padgett. She was the daughter of an admiral who had died at sea, and lived with her uncle under reduced circumstances. She spoke to me occasionally after that, and some of the staff would chaff me about having a lady friend in the neighborhood.”
“I was waiting for a woman to come into it,” I said.
“Are you going to comment on everything I say?” he said severely. “She never became my lady friend because she was murdered.”
“Murdered?” I had expected romance.
“Yes. One terrible morning, the police came to the house and spoke to the master. I was summoned, and the next thing I knew I was being locked in darbies and elbowed into a Black Maria. They told me Alice was dead and I was Scotland Yard’s main suspect.”
“Because you are a Jew, I suppose. That is monumentally unfair.”
“They took me to Scotland Yard and put me in a room and berated me for hours. They accused me of slitting Alice’s throat, a lover’s quarrel, they said; but of course, we weren’t. Lovers, I mean. I liked her very much, but we had only spoken in the street. Anyway, they kept saying it would be better if I confessed. Obviously, they didn’t care about finding her real killer. They just wanted a confession, and they weren’t scrupulous about how to get it. They beat me badly and said I had resisted arrest. I broke down and cried. I was very frightened. When I still didn’t confess, they locked me in a cell and brought me pork sausages. Pork sausages, for every meal. It was that or nothing.”
“Monstrous.”
“The next morning they brought in a newspaper. The newspaper had all but convicted me, and with good reason, too. The knife, the murder weapon, covered in Alice’s blood, had been found in my room, wrapped in one of my shirts. The inspector in charge interrogated me again brutally. He said he would beat a confession out of me, if he could not get it any other way. When I didn’t speak, he sent me back to my cell to think over my confession. He demanded it by morning. I seriously considered giving him one, just to stop the beatings.
“Later that day, I was taken out again but not to the interrogation room. I went to another room, where a man stood waiting to see me. He said his name was Cyrus Barker, and he was a private enquiry agent who had been retained by the Board of Deputies to look into the matter of my arrest.”
“So, the first case the Guv had with the Jewish Board of Deputies was actually your case.”
“Yes.”
“What did he look like-the Guv, I mean?”
“Much the same. A bit rough around the edges, to be truthful. He had a beard and wore those spectacles, of course. He was at least a stone lighter. He looked alien, like a recent arrival, which in fact, he was. Perhaps that is why the Board of Deputies hired him in the first place.”
“I’m sorry. I’ve interrupted again.”
“Yes, you have,” Mac said, looking vaguely annoyed. “After that, Scotland Yard tried even harder to get me to confess, but I noticed they were less likely to slap me about. A solicitor named Abram Salomon came to speak with me and said if they really had anything to charge me with they’d have done so already. They had the murder weapon, but the evening Alice was murdered, my time was accounted for. I shared a room with the first footman, you see. While Scotland Yard swarmed over the house looking for trapdoors and sliding panels, I hoped the odd- looking private enquiry agent was out in the streets looking for the real killer of my friend.
“Close to a week went by after that. It’s hard to tell in prison. The inspector had gone through all his questions and was merely repeating them, hoping I’d break down. Then one morning, I was released and practically tossed into the street. Barker was there, waiting for me, with my parents, Mr. Salomon, and a reporter from the Jewish Chronicle. The Guv had found Alice’s murderer, a lodger in the next street, who had developed an interest in her that bordered upon mania. He hated me, having seen her speaking with a Jew, and had contrived to gain entry into the house by flattering the charwoman. She also provided an alibi for him; but under questioning, Barker had broken it, and she confessed.
“I was free but completely unemployable. None of the newspapers who had blackened my name had the slightest interest in printing a retraction, though they covered the subsequent trial. Nobody wanted a footman who had been involved in a murder, and so my career was over. Then one day the Guv appeared at my parents’ house in Newgate and said he’d purchased a home in Newington and required a manservant. Was I interested? I took charge and at his request ordered all the furnishings for the house. I also suggested he might find more custom if he shaved his beard and that he try a tailor of mine in Holborn.”
“Krause brothers?” I asked, remembering the shop Barker had sent me to my first day.
“Indeed. Mr. Dummolard was in France, attending a cooking school, and Mr. Ho had not yet purchased his establishment, so we had most of our meals in from the Elephant and Castle.”
“What about his ward, Bok Fu Ying?”
“Apparently when he and Dummolard and Ho arrived in the Isle of Dogs, Barker bought the first vacant building he found in Three Colt Street and installed them both there. When he moved to Newington, she came with him but found the area not to her liking and returned to Limehouse.”
“When did he acquire the office in Whitehall?”
“Shortly after he bought the house. I don’t know where he got the money for it or Dummolard for his training or Ho for the tearoom he would shortly purchase. I assumed, like many gentlemen, they had acquired their fortunes in the East.”
“I suppose Quong and Jenkins came along next,” I said.
Barker suddenly stepped onto the roof, and Mac snapped to attention. I realized that was all of the secrets I was to learn that day.
17
“Lift your guard, Tommy.”
Barker had sent me on to McClain’s as soon as breakfast was over. The time grew short until the match.
“What, so you can batter my liver again?” I asked the reverend, bobbing and weaving.
“Liver, kidneys-makes no difference, boyo.”
I ducked and lashed out but caught Handy Andy only on one of his stony shoulders.
“Don’t you have anyone my size?” I asked.
“All the kiddies are still abed.”
“You should be in the music hall. Boxing and comedy in one act.”
“And anyway,” he went on as if he hadn’t heard, “your opponent isn’t your size, as I understand it.”
“Is there any chance-Ow!”
McClain had got one over my flimsy guard and caught me across the brow. “Quit jawing while I’m smiting you.”
I hopped ’round the ring, sweating like a horse after a mile run. This was no way to win a match against anybody. Twenty-two, and I was to be cut down in the prime of life. I tried to get by; and suddenly I was against the ropes, Andrew McClain hammering me in the stomach and ribs, with an occasional smack to the jaw and nose. I couldn’t take much more of this. In fact, I didn’t. My opponent hooked me with a right to the ear, and the next I knew I was down on one knee, shaking my head. McClain lifted me by the shoulders and dropped me down on the wooden stool in the corner.
“It’s a good thing your boss isn’t here. He’s not overjoyed about this challenge you’ve gotten yourself into
