services of a local gang. This may be dangerous for you.”
“I thank you for your concern, sir, but I have already taken such a possibility into account. I expect siegelike conditions upon these offices when it is announced. To be frank, Mr. Barker, I would appreciate your support. I’m told you are a good man in a scrap.”
“Those sound like Andy McClain’s words. Is he involved in this?”
“Not directly,” Stead answered. “He has been occupied these last few days but said I could count on him if things grew violent.”
I felt bad then, having wasted McClain’s time on a personal quarrel, when such large events were brewing.
“Alas, I cannot guarantee my participation,” Barker said. “I am after a murderer, and that must take precedence. If I can be here, I will, but I wish you to understand that I do not believe in a socialist platform, merely in this one issue.”
“Understood,” Stead said, rising. The two men shook hands.
“It is another dead end, but I am pleased to take you off my list of suspects. Come, Thomas.”
27
We had just come back from Stead’s office. Some of the swelling had gone down in my face, but now muscles that had been silent before began to ache, and I was glad for a few moments rest. Barker was halfway through one of his exercises in the back of the empty room, moving slowly and deliberately. I was content to watch him from the mattress. Mac was boiling hot water for tea while keeping an eye on the activity in the street and announcing arrivals and departures from the charity as it began to close for the day.
“Mrs. Carrick is coming back from delivering an elderly man, probably to the Stranger’s Home. Miss Levy is informing the poor applicants that the charity is shutting down for the day and shooing them away.”
“What do you think Israel’s chances are with her?” I asked as he handed me a fresh cup of the nearly colorless green tea.
“Let us see,” Mac said, who as a Jew might offer better insight. “She’s from a better family than he, she’s devilishly attractive, she’s the first Jewish female to attend Cambridge, and she’s a published poet. As for Israel, he’s from Whitechapel, works as a reporter, and is a known socialist. Were you a matchmaker, what would you think?”
“That he doesn’t stand a chance,” I said, but I wasn’t thinking of Israel and Miss Levy just then. I was thinking more of Miss Potter and myself. Did I really think our relationship might go any further? What had I, an enquiry agent’s assistant and a former felon, have to offer a beautiful, ambitious, and intellectual girl of good family-or any girl at all, for that matter? How would she feel if she saw me now, I wondered, with my face mottled and bruised?
Barker finished his final movements and then took a dainty sip from his cup. A man his size could have used a bowl instead, but he used small, handleless cups from the Orient that held almost nothing.
“Dr. Fitzhugh is leaving,” Mac returned to his narration. “He’s turned left. That’s not his usual route. He’s heading toward Cambridge Road.”
“Come, lad,” Barker said, actually tossing his empty cup onto the mattress at my feet. “Any deviation in Fitzhugh’s routine is of interest to me.”
I pulled myself out of bed, and the two of us took the staircase quickly. We sprinted across the road and when we reached Cambridge Road, Barker waved me across. I walked one side of the pavement, while he took the other. Our quarry was easy to spot because of a new silk top hat he wore that caught the late afternoon sun. The first way to convince the populace that one is a respectable doctor is to dress like one, I suppose. The problem was, I soon discovered, Dr. Fitzhugh was not as respectable as I thought he was.
Barker’s method of stalking his prey is to hang back enough to avoid being noticed, and to wait until it goes to ground. In this case, Fitzhugh turned into a brick building around the corner in North Street. Barker crossed the street as I reached the door he had entered.
“Old Sal,” Barker said. “I would not have believed it.”
“Sal?”
“Sally Forth. Not her real name, of course, her professional name. She’s an abbess.”
“Some sort of religious organization?”
“You’re being marvelously dense this evening, lad. She keeps a brothel.”
I knew such an establishment provided a constant source of temptation to men, young, old, and even married. Illicit pleasure could be sampled for just a few shillings, even less from the prostitutes of Whitechapel, but such moments of pleasure had another, higher price. Too many men, even highborn ones, had contracted diseases for which modern medical science had no cure. Young men I had known had slid into dementia and eventual death. Word of such catastrophes were discussed among youths and mentioned in vague terms by clergymen as object lessons. Despite the fact that young women in better establishments received regular examinations to verify that they were disease free, as an acquaintance once warned me, it only had to happen once.
“Shall we wait for him to come out?”
“We don’t have time to wait,” Barker said, and before I could prepare myself, he was pushing me through the front door.
“Welcome, gentlemen,” a robust, blond woman with large teeth cried, swooping down on us. Then she recognized Barker. “Oh, it’s you, Push. What in hell are you doing here? Have you come to shut me down? Because if you have, you’d better think the better of it.”
“No, Sal. I shall leave that to the Moral Purity League. I have a question or two to put to Dr. Fitzhugh.”
“He’s in the back. Last door on the right. And do go out the back way. You’ll scare off the customers!”
A painted girl clad only in bloomers and a chemise had come up and was attempting to catch my attention. I was doing my best to ignore her, despite her lack of proper clothing. When Barker gave the signal to follow, I took the opportunity to do so.
Barker and I reached the end of the corridor, and he roughly threw open a door. I came in after him and, despite our locale, was surprised at what I saw.
Fitzhugh had been engaged with a young woman wearing an outfit much like that of the girl I had seen in the hall. At our entry, he stumbled back and flushed a deep crimson, but the girl took it as a sort of joke, tying up her clothing and laughing harshly at us before leaving.
“I thought it was something like this,” Barker said, leaning against the doorframe.
“Surely you don’t think-” Fitzhugh blustered. “I don’t avail myself of these women, sir. I work here. These women must be examined and certified to be free of disease. It’s the only way I can make enough money to both live and save for my own surgery.”
“And the work at the charity?” Barker asked.
The doctor sat down on the edge of a bed. “It is to assuage the sense of guilt I feel over the work I’m forced to do. I despise this, gentlemen. I cannot put it any more plainly. I’ve been searching for a junior position with an established physician, but there are none to be had. I’ve got close to a dozen letters out at the moment. I’ve written to doctors as far away as Edinburgh, but there has been a large crop of new physicians this year.”
Fitzhugh turned to a ewer and bowl, poured water, and lathered his arms up to the elbow. It was as if he was trying to scrub his own soul.
“So you examine these women to determine if they have any disease,” Barker prompted.
“Yes. If I find anything wrong, I report it to Miss Forth and the police to make certain the girl doesn’t work. I’ve treated some with mercury, though I find it an unsatisfactory treatment in most cases and downright dangerous. The various venereal diseases are fatal, you understand.”
“And that is all you do here?” The Guv continued to push him.
Fitzhugh dropped his head and shook out his hands before taking a towel. “I suppose I should make a clean breast of it. I also issue certificates of virginity.”
Barker went as cold and immobile as I’ve ever seen him. “And how exactly does that work?”
