Barker himself had claimed the title.
“I’d take whatever Mr. Ho said about K’ing with a grain o’ salt, young man,” Bainbridge said in my ear.
“He wouldn’t have any reason to lie,” I said. Perhaps because Ho was my employer’s friend, I felt I had to defend him. It was certainly not due to any personal reason he had given me.
“Tha’ knows all these Orientals are natural-born liars. They never say what they really mean, and you never ken what they’re thinking. They’d turn a laundry list into a mystery. If there really is a Mr. K’ing-”
It was the last word he ever said. While I was looking at him as he spoke, a black hole suddenly appeared between his eyes. At first I thought it was a cockroach fallen from the ceiling until the gout of blood poured out and the sound of the shot echoed along the corridor. I watched Bainbridge’s body sag and drop and instinct told me that if the next bullet were meant for me, it would have to pass through the lamp I was holding in front of my face. I ducked just as the glass shattered, the second report rang out, and Barker and I were plunged into darkness in Ho’s tunnel under the Thames.
2
Barker had been training me these past twelve months, but I was still green enough to stand there like a total fool, an easy target for the assassin’s bullet. It is not every day one is talking with a fellow and one of you is shot between the eyes. If I was frozen in shock, my employer was not; I felt his hand grab my collar and swing me ’round until I hit the wall behind him, sliding down to the hard stone floor.
“What the deuce-”
Barker’s thick fingers clamped over my mouth. Bainbridge’s murderer did not need light to carry on further assassinations. My employer’s hand disappeared and I heard his boots take two steps before there was a sudden slap of impact and then another and then a perfect flurry of them. Barker was engaged in a fight with the killer in total darkness not five feet away from me, and for once he didn’t appear to be winning handily. I got up, ready to run or defend myself, though if the Guv was having trouble I didn’t stand a chance. Barker was suddenly knocked back into me, but I felt him connect with a left and then a right against our invisible foe. A moment later, footsteps echoed quickly down the subterranean tunnel, and Barker pushed himself off the wall. There was a sudden jingle of coins in my employer’s pockets and within seconds they were clanging off the walls and rolling everywhere. Barker was quite accurate with his razor-sharp pennies as a rule, but if he actually struck our assassin, the latter wasn’t generous enough to cry out. We gave chase, but just then it felt as absurd as running into a burning building.
I heard the creak of rusty hinges and light flooded down momentarily into the tunnel, but all that was illuminated was Barker’s stony face as he reached the stairs. My employer continued on gamely, but we both knew what he would find when he reached the top: an empty alleyway.
When I reached the final step I began lighting the naphtha lamps Ho provided there, keenly aware that I’d just done this for Bainbridge a short time before. Poor fellow, I thought. He certainly didn’t deserve such an end. I could imagine him conscientiously attempting to close this case, going over every jot and tittle, and suddenly coming across the wedge of pasteboard in Quong’s cotton jacket. Now he was dead, and in the same manner as my late predecessor, a single bullet between the eyes, which only went to prove one thing: this was not merely an unsolved case but an ongoing one in the midst of which one could quite easily be killed. Did the murderer have a grudge against Barker and was attempting to eliminate all his assistants and friends? Had the bullet that knocked out my lamp really been meant for me?
I jumped when the door was suddenly flung open, but it was merely Barker returning. He grunted, took a lit lamp in either hand, and proceeded down the steps again.
On the bottom step at the other side, Ho sat looking as sour as I have ever seen him, his eyes on the corpse. I set the other two lamps at the feet of the late Inspector Bainbridge, which, combined with the ones Barker had set at his head, gave a macabre, ritual-like look to the corridor. Bainbridge lay supine, legs slightly apart, palms up, his mouth gaping open, dead. I realized I believe in the human soul, for there was something there five minutes before that was not there now, something beyond mere animation. That had been a living, breathing being, full of questions about the case and all sorts of plans, from how he was going to catch Quong’s killer to what he was going to eat for lunch that day. Now all that was left was inanimate clay, fodder for the grave.
Ho stood abruptly, turned, and climbed the stairs to his restaurant, muttering to himself. Once inside, it turned to bellows, in intermittent Chinese and English.
“Chut! Hui! We are closed! Out! Get out now! Watch your step!”
Suddenly, the stone stairway was full of people-diners, waiters, and even cooks-herded unceremoniously out of the restaurant by its volcanic owner. At the foot of the stair, they split into two groups, scuttling along on either side of the corpse like rats in a ship. English, Chinese, Jews, Russians-all were the same now, eyeing, or trying not to eye, the corpse as they hurried along.
“I must send a note to Scotland Yard,” Barker stated, reaching into his pocket.
“I’ll write it,” I said, forestalling him. My employer’s handwriting would have been no more legible to them than Chinese calligraphy. I pulled my notebook and pencil from my pocket. “What shall I say?”
“Ask for Inspector Poole. He, at least, has some understanding of this culture. Tell him Bainbridge has been shot dead. Terry has not been here before. Have him meet you outside.”
“I could send a telegram instead,” I suggested. “It might reach him faster. There’s bound to be an office along the docks.”
“Good thinking, lad. No telling how long a message would take to reach Scotland Yard from here. Off with you, then.”
I was up the stairs and out the door, keen to serve my employer before I remembered about assassins and flying bullets. The alleyway in front of Ho’s has no means of entrance or egress and nothing to shelter behind. Should the fellow appear at the far end with his pistol or rifle, he could shoot me at his leisure. Luckily for me, the killer had vanished without a trace.
It took only five minutes to locate a telegraph office, it being a matter of following the wires leading down toward the docks. This was certainly not a picturesque part of London. The salt air of the Thames was doing a fine job of warping the clapboards of the buildings and stripping the paint from the graying wood. There were no gaily painted Chinese signs or dragons or pagodalike structures that proclaimed Limehouse was the Oriental quarter of town. It made a satisfactory attempt at being anonymous.
I waited while the message was transcribed and sent and then returned to the restaurant. It was a cold afternoon in February, and as I walked I noted that the sun produced a good deal of light but almost no heat. I went in to find that nothing was standing guard over the inspector’s body but the four lanterns. I continued into the restaurant.
Barker and Ho were seated at one of the tables, drinking tea amid a pile of abandoned dishes. “Help yourself to food, lad. There’s plenty going to waste in the kitchen,” the Guv said.
“No, thank you, sir,” I said. I’d lost my appetite. Instead, I poured myself a cup of lukewarm tea.
“Mr. K’ing must be told,” Ho insisted as I set my cup on the last clear foot of table.
“Oh, come now,” my employer responded. “Why must I inform him? Am I to take all these rumors seriously? They say he has been here for a hundred years and is responsible for half the evil done in London.”
“I believe the last part,” Ho maintained. “He has extorted money from me for years. Two cooks were employed by me at his written request, and though they only worked for me a day or so, I have been forced to pay their salaries ever since.”
“What?” Barker growled. “You never told me this. I am surprised you didn’t snap their necks and hand them back their heads.”
I chuckled at this last remark and it even brought a rare smile to Ho’s lips, but it was true. Despite his stout stomach, Ho could handle himself well, of that I was sure. Ho gave a shrug.
“So, what was K’ing’s group called?” I asked. “This Blue Dragon something or other?”
“Blue Dragon Triad,” Barker answered. “Most of the members are present or former employees of the Blue Funnel Line that steams between Liverpool and Shanghai. London is their layover, so the line is responsible for the Chinese being here in the first place. But is the Blue Dragon a part of any real triad in China, or does K’ing exert influence here based upon his own ability to hold power?”
