other figures in the drawing.
“Sir, most of this is very much connected to the murders. Here is Jan Hurtz, lying dead, and here is Luke Chow, hanging on the lines. And this fellow with the hat and fur-collared coat is Mr. K’ing. You will note that he’s not even looking at Hettie Petulengro. I don’t think he knows her.”
“I do not believe Inspector Bainbridge was entirely forthcoming with us, lad, or entirely honest. He had secrets of his own, such as why he was content to be working down here in Limehouse the last few years. He and I had a working relationship but not a friendship such as I have with Terence Poole.”
“But, sir,” I pointed out, “you got into quite an argument with Poole just the other day.”
“That proves it, lad. Friends can shout at each other and express their opinions and know their friendship will not be affected by it. It was different with Bainbridge. We aided each other, but we were competitors. He wanted to solve the case himself. He was not about to hand it over to a private enquiry agent. He needed me because he had to know what had been pawned. You saw that he tried first without us. Anything he said to us, then, is suspect. If, for example, he could have connected the murder to K’ing and then brought him in, he would be a hero at the Yard.”
“Are you saying he might have forged such a connection? That he was dishonest?”
“I would not cast aspersions upon the dead, not without evidence, anyway. I do not know his character. In my discussions with Poole, I gather he didn’t know him well, either. Bainbridge kept himself to himself.”
“Perhaps not with Miss Petulengro.”
“Yes, we shall have to speak with her again but not just yet. I shall have to think how best to go about it.”
We gazed at the picture again for a moment. The Guv leaned forward and tapped the paper with a thick finger. “This fellow with the menacing look, what did the constable say his name was?”
I consulted my notebook. “Charlie Han, petty criminal, connected with the betel nut trade. What is betel nut, sir?”
“It is a mild narcotic. Now this other fellow, the bearded one leering at her, he looks unnaturally stiff. Was he that way in the original picture?”
“Yes, sir.”
Barker scratched under his chin in thought. “His eyes look out of focus, though his expression is fierce enough. This is an odd shadow along his neck. Could I see your original sketch?”
I showed him the notebook.
“You know, lad, I don’t think this is a shadow at all. It is a bruise. This is Miss Petulengro’s uncle, drawn from death. I still see no reason for the murder of Mr. Petulengro, unless it actually was a robbery. Quong had already purchased the book. I doubt the killer would have murdered him out of pique.”
I let that sink into my thoughts for a while, then didn’t care at all for what came back. “Do you think Miss Petulengro killed him herself and made it look like a robbery?”
“It is very possible, lad. She had several motives. She feared for her safety. She inherited a good business. She got out of matchstick making, which is a dangerous occupation.”
“So she is a viable suspect.”
“I would say yes, except for the method of death. She is a bold, feisty girl. I would have taken her for a stabber. Do you remember the row of clasp knives in the case? She would have gone for one of them. A club is not her weapon at all.”
“But it was Inspector Bainbridge’s weapon,” I said.
“Yes, lad, it was. He was a devil with a truncheon. But if he were after the text he still had no reason to kill Lazlo Petulengro. Of course, there is another possibility, that they planned Petulengro’s death together.”
“Mind you,” I said, “there is no motive I can see in either of them killing to find the text. I don’t see how they would benefit.”
“True,” Barker conceded. “There is even the possibility that the shop was in fact robbed and he was killed by the thieves, as it appeared. Chandleries are often robbed by the very sailors who frequent them, and New Year’s is a common time for robberies.”
“So, you’re saying Mr. Petulengro was either killed by his niece, Hettie; Inspector Bainbridge; both of them; the nameless killer we are after; or the thieves who appear to have broken in.”
“Aye. Or someone else.”
“Someone else?” I cried. “Who is left? The Lord Mayor?”
“I have not asked for his alibi, lad. No, I am talking about our fierce friend, Mr. Han, the other man leering at Miss Petulengro in the drawing. I believe we shall have to track the fellow down and ask him some questions. I suggest we not be gentle about it.”
Just then Jenkins brought in a message. Barker scrutinized it and then nodded his head in approval.
“Mr. Han must wait,” he said. “This is from Poole. The Yard has finally released Ho.”
15
We pulled up in front of Newgate Prison and alighted from the cab. I was less than comfortable being here, even if it was only to pick up someone else. Newgate had the dismal atmosphere of my own Oxford Prison. I had not the quickening of heart I sometimes felt when entering Scotland Yard. In its place was a kind of institutional misery. I felt wretched just seeing it but wasn’t going to admit it to Barker, who sat waiting patiently.
I turned the case over in my mind. Barker had possessed the text for almost twenty-four hours before he’d passed it on to his “Chinaman.” I’d assumed it was Old Quong, but now I considered the possibility that it had been Ho. Perhaps Ho was merely holding it for my employer. What would the Guv do with such knowledge? He would not wish the text to fall into the wrong hands.
“So, what is your position, sir?” I asked. “Is the text evil, or is it merely knowledge?”
“You are in good form today, Thomas,” he said after a moment’s silence. “You have put your finger on the very question that I have been contemplating.”
Just then, Ho came out of the bowels of the building looking his usual, truculent self. He and Barker nodded, and I followed them out into Newgate Street. Out at the curb, a cabman slowed when he heard Barker’s sharp whistle, then sped by when he caught sight of Ho. Luckily, a second driver was not so reluctant. We clambered in, and within a few minutes were headed out of the City into the East End.
Barker stopped the hansom a street or two away from Limehouse Reach. West Ferry Road was a row of tenements on either side. Ho got out of the cab and shuffled along with his head down and his hands in the pockets of his quilted jacket. At one door, he stopped, pounded twice, then immediately proceeded on his way. A few doors down on the opposite side of the street, he repeated the action. One of Ho’s waiters shot out of the first door, pulling a coat over his tunic. The teashop owner knocked on two more doors in the street, and by the time we reached the alleyway Ho’s restaurant occupies, we were followed by almost a dozen men. The Chinaman slipped a small key from his pocket into the door’s padlock and opened it. Then we followed him inside.
No one needed to light a lamp at the entrance, but for once we needed one at the end, because the tearoom was unlit. The room had a stale odor of trapped tobacco smoke and cooking oil. Waiters and cooks lit gas lamps and immediately began heating water to begin the process of cleaning. The room was still set up for the inquest, and we began to move tables and chairs about to a semblance of their former arrangement. Even I, with my one good arm, pushed a chair or two into place. The odor of stale smoke gave way to strong bleach and soap as the kitchen was treated to a hot scrub. I heard the cooks in the back begin talking in Chinese and laughing as they worked. Ho came out of his office and bellowed something that silenced everyone. If I had thought being incarcerated had not affected Ho, I was mistaken. It had made him even more surly, if such a thing were possible.
Barker clucked over the Pen-jing tree, which had gone without light or water for days. He carried it out to the entrance, cold as it was, to see if sunlight might revive it while Ho lowered himself onto the cushions behind his desk and began running a wire through his smoking contraption.
“Were you in any way mistreated?” I asked.
“I was,” he answered. “Food very bad.”
“It always is in prisons,” I said from experience. “And they half starve you, as well.”
