“I think sometimes I could just jump aboard a ship and say good-bye to London, even after all these years,” Woo said, “but then I come to my senses and remember I’ve got responsibilities here.”
Woo showed us to the front door and we passed a group of old salts content to sit around the square tables, playing endless games of mah-jongg. It was pretty to look at, but it made chess look as easy as draughts by comparison.
“Well, I must take my leave. The Finch expects me to translate for him within the hour, and, if I know him, I’ll be fetching and carrying, as well. Pleasure seeing you chaps again.”
Off the fellow scampered like Alice’s White Rabbit. He really was one of the most eccentric fellows I’d ever met. Barker and I walked several streets to the tram, which took us out of Limehouse again.
“What did he mean by the two of you understanding each other?” I asked.
“Have you noticed Woo’s voice?” my employer asked.
“It is rather high and strident.”
“The Forbidden City is not open to normal males, since it contains the Prince’s wives and consorts. It is heavily populated and run by eunuchs.”
“Are you saying?”
“Yes. To anyone familiar with China, the voice is a dead giveaway.”
“He’s a…castrato?”
“Not castration, lad, I mean a complete sacrifice.” He made a cutting gesture with his hand, like a cleaver.
“My word!”
“It is the price young men in China must pay if they are intelligent, talented, and ambitious.”
Ambition is one thing, I thought, but that is a price I consider too dear merely to get ahead.
14
The next morning, the Sabbath, I stopped just long enough to down a cup of coffee and snatch a brioche before stepping outside. My employer was directing one of the workers in how he wanted the algae removed from his fish pond before it froze, with the aid of a long-handled bamboo rake. He stopped on seeing me and gave me an appraising look. I had grown very good at estimating his moods based upon the raising and lowering of the brows behind his spectacles and the crinkling of his eyes at their corners. He shot a glance toward his Pen-jing collection, and I followed his gaze to where Miss Winter stood in her heavy veil, brushing Harm on top of a flat-topped rock Barker used to prune his miniature trees. The dog, at least, had manners enough to yip a greeting at me while Miss Winter brushed the dog’s fur as if I weren’t there. It was chilly in the garden that morning and I didn’t merely mean the weather. I waited until I received the smallest of grudging nods from my employer, who went on discussing the removal of the algae, as if it required Pythagorean mathematics. It was all the permission I required. I took off my hat and offered my most sincere bow.
“Miss,” I ventured, “I apologize for the unfortunate turn of events of three days ago. It was not my intention to enter into a disagreement with your maid, and the circumstance that resulted in her lying on a mudflat was entirely an error in judgment on my part. I was concerned over the welfare of the dog, you see, which of course, was stupid of me, for he obviously could not have been in better hands.”
The woman stood there stock-still, as they say, with her brush still buried in Harm’s fur, while I waited, hat over my chest, for her forgiveness. Ducking one’s ladies’ maid in the river was certainly a breach of etiquette, I reasoned, but it was not exactly a crime. Not an unforgivable one, anyway. Would she accept my apology?
She stood there a moment or two, lost in thought. Finally, she finished her stroke, set the dog on the ground, and put her brush away in a little leather box she had brought with her. Even from a distance of five feet, her veil was impenetrable, but as I was noting it, she leaned forward and lifted the heavy tulle from her face.
“I have no maid, Mr. Llewelyn,” she stated.
A shiver ran down my spine that wasn’t due to the fact that it was cold in the garden. How was I to know that the Chinese girl I had fought and the girl who tended after Harm at our home once a week were one and the same?
“I-I’m so sorry,” I stammered.
She said nothing but regarded me out of black, almond-shaped eyes. I wanted to protest, but couldn’t find the words. How could I have known? For that matter, what was a Chinese girl doing dressed up like an Englishwoman-though I had to admit she was attractive in her close-fitting widow’s weeds. Some movement of my face must have betrayed my thoughts, for she suddenly stepped forward and before I could move, slapped my face hard. It reminded me of the fact that I myself had already been ill-used. True, I had tossed her in the Thames, but she had half kicked me down a stairwell, not to mention trying to scratch my eyes out. I thought we were about to have another set-to, but thankfully Barker had finally finished communicating the exact formula for extracting algae from a fish pond and came up beside me.
“Miss Winter, I believe you have already made the acquaintance of Mr. Thomas Llewelyn. Thomas, may I present my ward, Miss Winter, or as she is known in Chinese, Bok Fu Ying.”
All fierceness deserted her face, as a cat retracts its claws, and she curtseyed graciously to me.
“How do you do?” she asked without a trace of an accent.
“I’m pleased to make your acquaintance. Did you say ward?” The last, of course, was directed toward the Guv. A full year’s service I had put in, and never once had he mentioned having any such thing.
“Yes. I am her guardian,” Barker stated, as if it were the most logical thing in the world, and perhaps it was in China. “I have been for over five years now. Miss Winter is in mourning. She was betrothed to my late assistant.”
The young woman cast down her eyes and seemed to retreat into herself.
I believe until that time it hadn’t really registered in this poor brain of mine that Quong had been a real person. I sleep in his room, even have worn his coat and hat a time or two, but there was nothing personal to remind me of his having come before, no photographs or mementos. Certainly nothing as personal as a girl he had left behind. Poor fellow, I thought. He once had an interesting career and a beautiful fiancee, and then one day he came across that blasted text and by end of day was a corpse floating in Limehouse Reach. So much promise of a good life, ended too soon.
“I regret your loss, miss. I’ve heard nothing but good things about Mr. Quong since I came here.”
The girl bowed her head gravely, and there was nothing left to be said. She left in her carriage while Barker and I walked across the road to the Metropolitan Tabernacle. Spurgeon preached upon forgiving thy neighbor. I wished Miss Winter had been in attendance.
After lunch, a joint of mutton in herb sauce prepared by Madame which was at least as good as her husband’s, Barker reached into the sideboard and pulled out a large pad of paper. “Get out your notes, lad, and see if you can reproduce Bainbridge’s blotter. Perhaps it will give us some clue as to who the killer is.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, and set to work. I had no training in art beyond a lesson or two in draftsmanship during my school days, but I persevered for over an hour, copying with my notebook in front of me, using both it and my memory to copy Bainbridge’s work as closely as possible.
When I was finished, Barker waved me out of my chair and propped up the tablet against the back. Then he pulled the visitor’s chairs away from the desk and we sat down and looked at my work, or more precisely, my interpretation of Bainbridge’s work.
“This entire sketch is about Hestia Petulengro,” he stated. “She is key to this entire picture, and yet she has little or no connection to the book that I can find. There can only be two reasons for her to be here on the blotter. Either she is actually key to this investigation and we don’t know how, yet, or-”
“Or,” I said, continuing the thought, “Bainbridge had some sort of infatuation or relationship with Miss Petulengro. I notice he didn’t dare try to reproduce her face, as if he were not worthy of the attempt.”
“I’m afraid you are correct. These initials in the corner are personal rather than professional. It is a schoolboy’s habit to turn the object of one’s affections’ initials into a talisman, copying them endlessly. And him a married man. Och, this is not pretty, lad.”
I was about to say, neither was Mrs. Bainbridge, but that was not fair. Instead I concentrated on some of the
