In spite of his advice, I gave the room a thorough cleaning. I was hoping to unearth more of his past, right under his nose. The room, empty as it looked, was a potential treasure trove. The most likely spot to find something of interest was the desk, but I wanted to get to that last. I picked up the suit from the hook and looked at the label. It was from a tailor in Hong Kong.
“This will never fit you again,” I remarked.
Barker grunted abstractly from the hammock. Digging into the pockets of the suit, I found three sharpened Chinese coins. They each had a square hole in the center, and were roughly the size of the British coppers he used now. I pocketed them and picked up the hat from the bedstead. It was from Canton, according to the label. These must have been the clothes he had worn on his journey from the Far East.
As casually as possible, I went to the desk and began straightening. The Times for August 1879 had yellowed with age, and the information seemed out of the dim dark past. Disraeli was prime minister and an MP was complaining because the soldiers in Africa had been reduced to rags. I could not make head or tail of the Chinese book, but at the very end of it I found the treasure I was hoping for. It was a studio portrait, octavo-sized, of four men: Barker, Ho, our cook, Etienne Dummolard, and Paul Beauchamp, who maintained Barker’s boat, the Osprey, down in Sussex. This had been the crew of the Osprey, and though none would explain how, each had become rich enough in the China Seas to set up businesses of their own here in England. They all looked uncomfortable in their suits, glowering at the camera in front of a painted trompe l’oeil garden backcloth, and save for Beauchamp, all had put on weight since then. Barker was wearing the suit and the tropical hat was in his lap. I couldn’t help smiling because I deduced why the photograph had been taken. It must have been Mrs. Ashleigh, Barker’s lady friend, who had insisted upon it.
“What are you smiling at?” the Guv demanded.
I was caught. I really should learn to control my emotions, the way Barker does. Ruefully, I surrendered the photograph to him. He looked at it, grunted again, and tucked it into his pocket.
“The kong,” he said.
“Kong?”
“It means ‘four.’ A quartet. I don’t recall who first called us that.”
“Friends forever,” I said. “Even unto death.”
“Something like that. But even that can change. Nothing stays the same forever, you know. Once, we-”
The Guv hesitated.
“Once you what?”
“Nothing,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “It’s not important anymore.”
He was intractable. Brother Andrew’s death had taken all the wind from his sails. I’d never seen him so defeated. The worst part of it was that his mood was infectious.
The desk drawer which I hoped would provide me with answers to my questions proved to be empty, so instead, I set to work cleaning off surfaces and airing out the room. I opened all the windows and shook out the sheet, happy for something to do. Outside, the larks, sparrows, and robins were singing their collective chorus. The sky was overcast, as gray as a strip of lead, but the clouds were content to keep the rain to themselves. I shook out the rug and swept the floor like I did when I was a child, too young to go down into the mines. I’d helped my mother with the younger children while my father and elder brothers dug coal with pickaxes until they were black as Zulu warriors. My grandfather came and walked me to school. He and my mother were convinced I would become something someday. All their hopes rested on me, and now, here I was, living in an anonymous chamber in the worst part of Lambeth, being pursued like the criminal I was.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Cyrus Barker spent the entire day brooding in his hammock. I’m not sure if brooding is a distinctly Scottish trait, but it certainly was one of his. He lay there as if encased in a giant chrysalis, not moving for hours, not even speaking save to ask for strong tea every now and again. Apart from the tea, he refused all nourishment. I found I could not even draw him into a conversation on the merits and memories of our late friend. His responses were little more than grunts. It made for a very long day.
He wasn’t speaking but I hoped he was thinking, trying to work out an answer for our increasingly dire predicament. We were running out of money. I began to look around to see what items in the flat could be pawned: the tropical suit, obviously, and perhaps the desk. All I needed was the word, but he never gave it. He merely swayed in that hammock of his and brooded.
Hungry as I was, I tried to get the Guv to share the provisions I had purchased. As night fell, I had no choice but to eat them myself. He had seriously begun to worry me.
The next morning found him up and out of his hammock. The worst of his grief appeared to have passed, though it would take more than one day to get over the loss of so good and necessary a man as the Reverend Andrew McClain. At least my employer was on two feet again. Perhaps now the case could move forward.
“Thomas, do you recall what I once said was the difference between a private enquiry agent and a detective?”
“A detective is not above breaking the law to achieve his own ends. Stealing into people’s houses, for example.”
“We may be forced to break that rule today.”
“Oh,” I said, not bothering to hide the disappointment in my voice.
“There is no other way. I must talk to Gerald Clayton. Desperate times require desperate measures.”
“But isn’t Clayton’s estate likely to be well guarded? After all, a pair of dangerous criminals is at large.”
“I did not say it was going to be easy. We certainly won’t be going in the front door.”
“I’ll be surprised if we will be going in through the ground floor,” I said.
“Good man! Now you’re thinking like a detective. We shall see if we can scale the brick and climb into an upper window.”
“I far preferred it when we were private enquiry agents and had at least a certain level of dignity.”
“Desperate times,” he repeated.
The Clayton family, I understand, has a large estate in Derby, into which their London property could be dropped like a stone in a well. For London, however, the property would be considered substantial. I hazarded a guess that the Claytons had performed a service for the Tudors or William of Orange, and had been doing well ever since. Certainly they had ingratiated themselves with someone to afford the large stone structure with its elaborate gardens and statuary, set back from the world and guarded with spear-topped iron railings and at least one constable, idly tapping on the iron tracery with his truncheon as he passed by.
“I don’t like the look of those bars,” I said. “No footing for almost six feet.”
“Let us reconnoiter, and see if we can find a more secluded spot to climb. This is far too public in the light of day.”
We circled the fence-enclosed property and found that it extended all the way around, save for a gate in front and back. The back gate was lower than the fence and was neatly hidden from view by a brace of old elms on either side, set within, which could aid us as we left the property. If there was any proper way in, I reasoned, this must be it.
“I suppose we-”
“Get back!” the Guv shouted.
I jumped off the lower rung of the gate just as something struck it from the other side with great force, something large and black and hideous, that sprayed me in drool from its gaping maw.
“Bullmastiff,” Barker said, leading me down a quiet side street, as the creature began baying at us.