Some Danger Involved (21 page)

C
YRUS BARKER WAS UPSET. I COULD SEE IT
now in the way he sat. He didn’t have that calm demeanor I’d come to expect from him. In fact, he was restless, bouncing about in the cab until I could hear the springs underneath protest. I was about to protest, myself.

“I don’t like it!” Barker said, smiting his thigh like a petulant child. “Perhaps I am vain, but I like to think that when the criminals hear that I am on a particular case, they blanch in fear, or at least alter their plans. This carrying on as if I were inconsequential is an affront to my abilities. To quote Shylock, ‘I shall have my pound of flesh.’ ”

“Have they crucified another Jew?”

Barker seemed not to hear me, but he finally turned toward me. “What? Oh, I beg pardon, lad. I haven’t told you. A body has been found in a quarry wagon on a spur near Aldgate Station. It was buried under rubble. Another message from the Anti-Semite League had been scrawled on the wall by it. It is in a short tunnel of the underground, or it would have been found sooner. I haven’t seen it yet. Inspector Poole sent me a message.”

“Not crucified, then?” I asked. “How was he killed?”

“Stoned. Another Biblical punishment. But it was not a ‘he.’ The victim was a woman.”

“A woman? They killed a woman? How can anyone kill a woman? This is monstrous!”

“I agree.”

The enormity of the whole thing struck me. I pictured a phalanx of angry Englishmen stoning a poor Jewess to death. It made my blood boil. As far as I was concerned, the fair sex was somehow precious, inviolate. Had I not just shared a few brief moments with a daughter of Zion? Somewhere, even now, the poor dead woman’s loved ones were wringing their hands, perhaps, wondering what had become of her.

We spent the rest of the journey in silence. Barker was irritable and I did not desire to have his discontent directed toward me. I had an unusual question on my mind, one that had only occasionally occurred to me during the course of the investigation: what if we failed?

What if
we failed? We’d taken on a seemingly impossible task, hunting down a pack of murderers, a vigilante group, in a city the size of London, with only a few clues and a good deal of hope. What would happen if the league were successful in hiding their identities? Detective work is not like tailoring; when you engage a tailor, he doesn’t have to go out on blind faith, hoping that somewhere in the City there is material of the correct color and yardage sufficient to make a frock coat and trousers. We detectives wander about, making cabmen rich, asking innumerable questions and being tossed out of places, hoping that in the end we don’t look like fools with our hats in our hands. What does one say to a client at the end of a month or so? “Sorry, old man, couldn’t find the blasted fellow?” A couple of those and it’s time to take up your brass plate and see if some barrister in the Middle Temple needs a former detective to clerk and run messages.

Aldgate was the easternmost station of the Metropolitan Line, serviced by the London, Midland and Scottish line. Once we entered the station and walked down the staircase to the lower level, it was only a matter of following the policemen, who, like so many breadcrumbs, were scattered along the line. Of course, it wasn’t as easy as that, because every constable demanded complete particulars. Barker was reasonably pleasant to the first, a little less so to the second, and downright cold to the third. Finally, we came upon a clutch of blue helmets in the tunnel by the tracks, and there in the thick of them was the heavily whiskered face of Inspector Poole, looking somewhat upset himself.

“Have you removed the body?” Barker growled.

“Don’t start, Cyrus,” Poole said, running a hand through his thinning ginger hair. “We’re already in the middle of a jurisdictional nightmare. Scotland Yard maintains that this is part of an ongoing investigation, the city police claim that the murder occurred in Aldgate and belongs to them, and the railway police have announced that the death was on railway property and refuse to give it up. We’re waiting for our superiors to arrive and sort it out. The lord mayor himself may be involved by the end of the day. Still, I think I may get you close enough for a look-see.”

The body lay beside a row of wagons on a siding near the tunnel wall. It was gloomy here but not dark, for the brief tunnel was lit by gaslight on the station side and by sunlight on the other. Nevertheless, the body was lit by a single lamp which lent a strange and macabre air to the proceedings, rather like limelight from a stage. The woeful form before me was a petite woman of indeterminate age, her face marred by bruising, and her aspect made even more bizarre by her hair’s having been shorn close. Poole reached down by her side and lifted what I first took to be a scalp.

“It’s a wig,” Barker prompted. “Traditionally, married Jewesses cut their hair and wear wigs as proof against vanity. Have we any identification?”

“She had no bag, but there was a pawn ticket in her pocket.”

The two detectives discussed the investigation, while I went down on one knee and looked at the victim more closely. Despite the pallor of death and contusions, she had regular features and might once have been attractive. She was not a young woman, perhaps thirty years of age. Her lids were half closed, and the eyes tinged a dark, rusty red. I leaned forward and closed them. They were cool and waxy. I took in her plain, blue dress and stout but serviceable shoes. The last thing I noticed before standing up was the furrow around her ring finger, where a wedding band had once rested.

“Raise the lamp, lad,” Barker ordered.

I picked it up and lifted it high.

“How’d she die?” I asked.

“Back of her head’s caved in. Someone gave her a good wallop with a rock or something. There may be more, but we’re still awaiting the coroner, and I doubt he’ll be stripping the body here.”

The thought that a coroner would dare subject this poor woman’s body to such humiliation I found revolting.

“Over here, lad. Bring the lamp over here,” my employer insisted. “I want to see the message!”

“Sorry, sir!” I’d forgotten about the message. I stepped over to the wall and raised the lamp again. Against the soot-encrusted brick of the wall, the white chalk letters stood out in bold relief: “Lev. 20:10 The Anti-Semite League.”

“Leviticus twenty ten,” I read.

“What say you, Cyrus? Up to the challenge?” Poole asked.

Barker stood for a moment, sifting through chapters and verses in his mind. I’ve always admired people who would memorize long passages of scripture; a cold challenge to snap off a particular line seemed particularly hard. Finally, Barker spoke.

“And the man that committeth adultery with another man’s wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbor’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.”

We all stood for a moment, taking in the implications of the verse. Then, Poole suddenly let loose a string of curses.

“Anti-Semite League—there’s no such thing! It’s just one bloke with a grudge. Pokrzywa was sparking the old fellow’s lady here, and he set up this whole charade to lead us all on a merry chase after Jew-hating phantoms! We’re going to find this woman’s name, and then we’re going to hang her husband by his thumbs until he confesses. Hundreds of hours wasted patrolling Aldgate, trying to protect the Jews from an attack that will never bloody happen!”

“I think there’s more to it than that, Terry,” Barker said. “The East End is like a tinderbox, ready for a match to strike, and this fellow is the match. He’s still out there, trying to stir up trouble. He shot at Thomas here. I think he’s mad at the Jews, perhaps because of a real or imagined relationship between Pokrzywa and this poor woman. He’s intelligent and resourceful enough to rattle the Board of Deputies and elude our collective grasp.”

“Resourceful or not,” Poole said, pulling a notebook from his pocket, “he’s just one man. I’m alerting my superiors to issue a manhunt. Hoi! Over here!”

A young constable had come down the line, almost at a run. He pressed a piece of paper into the inspector’s hand. Poole glanced at it and thrust it into his pocket with casual indifference.

“I believe we’ve seen all we need to see here,” he suddenly announced, changing tone. “The railway police appear to have everything in hand, and this is not our jurisdiction. We shall leave them with the body. Shall we go, gentlemen?” Poole left, as if he were the living embodiment of the Criminal Investigation Department of the London Metropolitan Police Force. Barker and I followed behind him more slowly, as if we were merely headed in the same direction. We caught up with him again in the street.

“Her name?” Barker asked, hungry as a dog on the scent.

“Miriam Smith.”

“There’s your Miriam, Thomas, the one Miss Mocatta spoke of. And the address?”

“Three twenty-seven A Orient Street.”

“Poplar. Not far from the church. Have you a vehicle waiting, Terry? No? Then let us take a growler. It appears Racket has picked up another fare.”

We took the larger vehicle, Poole promising an extra half crown if we arrived in twenty minutes. As we were leaving, I noticed a few burly police officers in peaked caps arriving at the station cab stand with some speed. Poole had beaten the city and the railway police to the information. He looked pleased with himself.

“So, Mr. Llewelyn, how did you come by the name Miriam?” he demanded.

I looked at my employer.

“That information was obtained while questioning people who knew Pokrzywa,” Barker said.

“I suppose asking what you discovered during the course of the investigation is out of the question.”

Barker frowned, or seemed to, behind his spectacles. “You know I don’t answer questions without the permission of my clients.”

“We could compare notes,” the inspector said, hopefully.

“The fact that you offer them so readily shows how little you have.”

“I could drag you down to the station and sweat it out of you,” Poole warned.

“You could try,” Barker said.

This went on most of the journey. The two men were obviously friends but rivals when it came to work. Poole backed off several times and came in on a new tack each time, trying to pry information from Barker, but my employer was as impregnable as a clam. He wouldn’t even give him information we knew to be useless.

“What about you, young man?” Poole said, turning to me. “We know about your little stretch in Oxford Prison. We may need to question you about recent events, perhaps have you spend the night in ‘A’ Division at Her Majesty’s expense.”

It was a good threat, but I was not about to be intimidated. “You know where to find me, sir.”

“That I do!” Poole chuckled. “I could throw a sandwich from my window in Scotland Yard, and it would land on your office roof!”

The inspector alternately wheedled for information and crowed over his small triumphs. Barker balked like a stubborn bull, and I leaned against the cold window and thought of the poor thing that had until recently been called Miriam Smith. To think that days ago, the woman had been pretty enough to have a young scholar in love with her, a man who could have his pick of young women in the City. I pictured her brutal husband murdering her with some blunt instrument, destroying the skull of the woman he had promised to shelter and protect all his days. Who was this fellow? I had seen two bodies now, dead as a result of this man’s hand. Obviously, the wretch thought himself justified in murdering for their betrayal.

When we reached Orient Street, Poole was out of the cab before the vehicle even stopped. Perhaps he hoped to catch the killer at home. The street was respectable, if a little down-at-heel. Number 327A proved to be a residence turned into flats. Our knocking at Smith’s door brought many of the residents out into the hall.

“Has anyone seen Miriam Smith recently?” Poole demanded with authority.

“She gone to see her muvver days ago, now,” a stout woman spoke up.

“You saw her leave?” Poole asked.

“No. Her old man told me Tuesday. What you want wiv her?”

“Mrs. Smith was found this morning, dead at Aldgate Station!” Poole said. He seemed to enjoy causing a sensation. “What is Mr. Smith’s first name?”

“John!” the chorus called out.

“Not a very original alias,” Barker growled in my ear. “You’ll find in the East End that people change names as often as we change suits. It is possible that Mrs. Smith was not even his legal wife at all. We are on the fringe of Anglo-Jewish society here, where Jewish-Gentile couples live, and the few fallen Jewish women ply their trade.”

“When did any of you last see John Smith?”

There was a buzz of conversation, and an old fellow obviously in failing health spoke up. “Three days ago, near abouts.”

“What was Mr. Smith’s occupation?” Poole demanded.

Another murmur arose, accompanied by the shrugging of many shoulders. No words were forthcoming.

“Well?”

“Dunno, sir,” the old man answered. “ ’E told me ’e were in the sugar-making trade like, sir, but Jasper ’ere says Smith claimed to be an ’ostler. Reckon ’e changed jobs reg’lar, as people do, ’ereabouts.”

“What were the Smiths like?” Barker asked.

“Kept to themselves,” the plump woman said. “Bit high and mighty, if you ask me. I fink they was Jews, or at least she was. Been havin’ rows lately. Shoutin’ several times at night. Reckoned she’d packed up and gone home to mum. Looks like he done her in, he has.”

“Does anyone else live in this flat along with the Smiths?” Poole continued.

“No, sir.”

“And they haven’t been here in three days?”

They all agreed neither had been there.

“Then I declare this flat abandoned. Is the landlord here?”

“Not ’im,” the old man cackled. “ ’E’s absentee, every day but rent day.”

“Very well!” Poole called. Turning, he raised his foot and brought it forward against the lock with great force. Barker had trained him well. Part of the door frame splintered, and the door swung open with a crash against the wall. The inspector stepped inside, we followed, and the residents of number 327A Orient crowded around the door and peered in.