“What exactly is a triad?” I asked.
“They are criminal fraternities that control the opium trade and other interests in China. They began as benevolent organizations whose purpose was to overthrow the Manchu dynasty. They have been corrupted from their original purpose, and their influence is beginning to grow beyond China. There has been evidence of the group’s expansion into Formosa, Manila, Sydney, and other port towns. Now K’ing claims his own little branch here. Does he do anything else besides extort money?” he asked Ho.
“I have heard a few people have disappeared without a trace. On the other hand, he has funded some festivals here and given money to the Asiatic Aid Society. I believe he will be sponsor of the New Year’s festival in a few days.”
“New Year’s?” I asked. “It is February.”
“Chinese New Year, lad,” Barker said. “February fifteenth.”
I was at my post in the alley outside Ho’s door fifteen minutes later when a four-wheeler clattered to a stop and disgorged Inspector Poole and three constables so alike in size and appearance they might all have been stamped in a press. I raised a hand and he nodded brusquely in my direction. Terence Poole was one of Barker’s closest friends and a member of his physical culture classes at Scotland Yard until the bombing last year by the Irish Republican Brotherhood had put an end to them.
“Where is he?” Poole asked in a monotone. Whether he meant Barker or Bainbridge, I did not ask, merely pointing to the door at the end of the alleyway. If I was in any doubt as to the inspector’s mind, he made it perfectly clear a moment later. Coming upon a small piece of crumbled brick on the ground, he gave it such a savage kick it spun across the alleyway and shattered when it hit the wall. Though he had never been to Ho’s before, he pulled open the door and headed down the unlit steps like a regular.
For a moment the passage was filled with the sounds of our ten shoes. Finally reaching the lamps around the inspector’s body, he ignored Barker and Ho, who were now both sitting on the bottom step, and went down on one knee, examining the face of his late colleague.
“Ah, Nevil,” he said, as if the man were still alive. “Who’s done this to you, old fellow, and however shall I tell the missus?”
Barker stood and came over to us, but all he got for his efforts was a glare from Poole, as if this were all our fault.
“How did he get in this godforsaken tunnel?” the inspector asked.
“We were coming out of Ho’s when he was shot from the other end.”
“Is it always this dark?”
“Sometimes it is darker. The regulars often come through here in pitch darkness.”
Poole gave him a look, as if he had come upon a club of eccentrics. “Who was here when the shots were fired?”
“Llewelyn, Bainbridge, and me, and the killer, of course.”
“Did you see anything?”
“No,” Barker stated. “The only light was from a single lamp in Thomas’s hand, which was shot out by a second bullet from over there.”
“So, he was on the stair behind me as you all walked toward him, about twenty-five yards with wavering light. Not a bad shot.”
“Very professional,” my employer agreed.
Poole looked about at the small, overlapping circles of light created by the lamps. “This glass is crushed. It looks like a herd of elephants has been through here.”
“Yes, well, I’m afraid the restaurant was full, and the only way of egress is this tunnel. Ho thought it best to run them through quickly.”
“This is a murder site!” Poole barked. It was obvious he was looking for someone to blame. “I do not care how long they had to wait, I do not care if they had to sit up there all day, you shouldn’t have let them walk across evidence!”
“These were not the sort of individuals-”
“I don’t bloody care!”
There was an awkward silence for a moment. I thought Poole was being unfair. Actually, it was Ho who had sent the patrons off, and the circumstances were perfectly understandable. Also, as Barker tried to say, the clientele was not the easiest to marshal or contain. Some were criminals, some political revolutionaries, and others lived in the shadowy world of exiles, spies, and secret societies. It was amazing that Ho had gotten them all to obey him.
“I take it this is the owner,” Poole finally said, jerking a thumb in Ho’s direction. “Does he speak English?”
“When it suits him.”
“Here, you!” Poole called, which was not a safe way to address the Chinaman. Ho had upper arms the size of a good roast joint and I’d seen him throw a meat cleaver with some accuracy. “Did anyone come in after Inspector Bainbridge and these two entered the tunnel? I was wondering if he might have secreted himself among the crowd and left with them.”
“No one came in,” Ho stated. Seated on the bottom step, his arms folded across his thick stomach, he looked like a dyspeptic Buddha.
“Blast. Why was Nevil here?” he asked, addressing us. “Were you helping him with a case?”
“He was getting back to me with the results of an investigation regarding my late assistant’s death last year.”
Poole looked at him shrewdly. “Ah, yes, that’s right. Your man was shot between the eyes like Nevil, wasn’t he? You think it’s the same man?”
Barker shrugged.
“Had you come across new evidence?”
“He merely came to inform me that the case was closed. Apparently, we were wrong.”
Poole shook his head and toyed with the hanging ends of his long side-whiskers in frustration. Finally, he sighed.
“You’ll be at home or at your chambers?” he asked.
“Yes,” Barker answered. “I am setting aside all our other cases temporarily. I believe we can go forward with the supposition that the same man killed both my late assistant, Quong, and Inspector Bainbridge.”
“Limehouse,” Poole muttered. “It would have to happen in Limehouse. By gor, I hate the place. I don’t know what Nevil saw in it, I really don’t. You ask for directions or the time of day here and everyone suddenly forgets English and shuts up like an oyster. There is going to be a lot of pressure from upstairs to solve this one quickly. Nevil was a bit unorthodox, but he was an inspector, after all, and Commissioner Henderson does not take kindly to the death of a constable, let alone an inspector. If I do not clear this up quickly, he might put me in charge here permanently, blast the fellow.”
Barker’s stony face showed no expression at the outburst.
“You there,” Poole said, indicating the first constable. “Go fetch a cart to transport the body to K Division.” He turned to another. “You take a lantern and walk along the tunnel and look for clues.” He pointed to a third. “And you come with me and take notes. Shall we go into Mr. Ho’s restaurant, then, and talk, gentlemen?”
Poole questioned us, requestioned us, and then separated us and cross-questioned us. He asked the same questions in so many different ways, I began to get mixed up in the minor details. When he finally let us go two hours later, I’d told him everything. Everything, that is, that my employer wished me to say, for I noted that the one thing Cyrus Barker had been very careful to omit was the existence of the book we had just discovered, the cause of our present misery and of a good deal more to come.
3
When we arrived at Barker’s home in Newington, he shot up the stairs while I was still removing my coat. I was certain the little package had been burning a hole in his breast pocket the entire day. I went outside to the
