“There was talk about giving him an earldom.”
“I’m sure, but the Russians would offer to make him a count, and the Chinese would make a mandarin of him.”
Anderson began to scratch his beard, as if it had begun to itch. “Do not speak with Mr. Stead, for now at least. I need to talk to several people. It is probably too late to stop this, and some men on the committee will be deucedly hard to convince.”
“I will tell Mr. Barker when I see him. Thank you for seeing me without an appointment.”
I was actually in the corridor before he called me back in again.
“Yes, sir?” I asked, having no idea what he was about to say. He was frowning, but not in a way that looked as though he were angry with me, though he did not look me in the eye.
“Look, I just wanted to say if Cyrus should ever retire or you feel the desire to move on, come and see me.”
I stared at him, nonplussed. “Are you offering me employment?”
“Perhaps, if we can reach an agreement,” he said, leaning back in his chair.
“I’d never leave Barker’s employ, sir,” I told him. “The man’s done too much for me.”
“I’m not asking you to. Situations change, however, and if you should ever find yourself at loose ends someday, remember us. You’ve had experience with the Irish and know a primer from a fuse cap. We’re always looking for capable young men.”
That’s because the Irish keep killing them, I wanted to say, but didn’t. “I’ll consider your offer, sir,” I answered diplomatically.
“Do that.” He took up his pen and began to write once more. After a moment, he looked up at me dismissively. “Good day, Mr. Llewelyn.”
I came out of Anderson’s office and down the stairs, my head preoccupied with the offer he had just made and wondering why it had made me angry. Why should anyone assume that Cyrus Barker’s career was over? As long as he drew breath, to cross him off as a has-been, or worse, a never-was, well, it was an insult. Barker’s career was a great social experiment. He was trying to legitimize a profession that still had one foot in the shadows.
Were my employer there, he would have pointed out that I had taken my eye off the quarry. I was so busy preparing a mental defense of my employer that I hadn’t bothered to notice the subtle changes which had occurred in the lobby during my absence. Barker would never have allowed it to happen. I was nearly out the door when I felt cold steel on my wrist, and turning around, found myself staring into the intent eyes of Inspector Frederick Abberline. I found I much preferred them at a distance.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
When they put you in a temporary cell in “A” Division, they cook you until you are done. That is, they give you hours to think over your misdeeds in the hope that you’ll confess and possibly turn on your accomplices. It requires no effort on their part and there is no law against it, as long as it takes no more than a day. Often the delay is legitimate. Inspectors fight for space in the few interrogation rooms as barristers do in the courts. It isn’t personal, but it certainly can feel that way when it is you who are locked in a cell with nothing to do but contemplate the walls and ceiling. Then one feels particularly set aside for punishment.
In the scheme of things, breaking one constable’s kneecap and cuffing him to a rail is not a capital offense. We were wrestling for the truncheon and it could just as easily have been my kneecap that was broken, or so my solicitor would maintain. They could not connect me to the greater charge leveled against Cyrus Barker of murdering Lord Clayton. However, I was worried for both of us. I wondered if Gerald Clayton had followed Barker’s advice and proposed marriage to his cousin. If not, could one witness be enough to convict Barker in court when the time came? I rather feared it might. I hate it when you know something is only meant to scare you, but it succeeds anyway. I may be a criminal, but I will never be a hardened one, I’m sure. Criminals such as the infamous Charley Peace could have done my few hours standing on his head.
The Guv warned there would be days like this. In fact, all things being equal, I am surprised I wasn’t more upset about my predicament. Were I a stockbroker or a clerk in the Admiralty, being arrested might have been the greatest tragedy of my life. As for me, it was, well, just another day at the office.
Eventually, I was taken to the interrogation room. Abberline was there ahead of me and was perusing my file.
“This makes for interesting reading,” he said. “What makes a man go from Oxford University to Oxford Prison in one fell swoop?”
“Try a sixteen-year-old wife dying of consumption and malnutrition. I don’t suppose that’s in the report, is it? Widower at eighteen?”
He was not impressed. An inspector hears everything in his position, most of it barefaced lies. If I were expecting him to break down in tears over my loss, I’d be disappointed.
“Where is Cyrus Barker?” he asked.
“I forget. It was right on the tip of my tongue and now I’ve lost it.”
“That was a neat little joint lock you got me in. I’d heard your employer was clever that way.”
“You would have known that move and the counter to it if he’d been allowed to continue the classes he taught for free in the CID building.”
Abberline nodded absently and then went on reading the file. “It says here you are arrogant.”
“Arrogant? What would I have to be arrogant about? Eight months of a university education? I have practically no possessions and am employed in a situation I am too ashamed to tell my parents about.”
“Perhaps you would make them proud again if you delivered Mr. Barker into our hands.”
“It is not Barker who is the criminal here, Inspector. It is Sebastian Nightwine. Everyone seems to have forgotten that. The world has gone topsy-turvy when a total blackguard is given a police escort and a good man driven from his offices.”
“But your employer did disturb the peace. I was there, as you recall.”
“Where? At Westminster Abbey? You weren’t exactly kneeling in reverent prayer yourself. In fact, as I recall you broke up the service with your squad of blues. You didn’t have to invade the sanctity of such a place.”
“You know it is only a matter of time until we catch Cyrus Barker. We caught you and we found your little garret in Lambeth.”
“I’m interested in learning how you knew I was at the Foreign Office,” I confessed.
“We had an anonymous tip from a good citizen.”
“Did he tell you about the garret, as well?”
“He did.”
“Anonymous. Was it a telephone call, by chance?”
“It was, if that makes a difference. What’s so funny?” Abberline suddenly asked.
“Oh, nothing. You’d have to know Barker. He’s tricked us both, I’m afraid. You see, we ran out of funds a couple of days ago. He sent me to the Foreign Office and then made a telephone call to your offices with the anonymous tip.”
“Why would he do that?”
“To see to my welfare. Either you’ll charge and release me, after which I’ll be a free man, or you’ll keep me here, where I’ll be clothed and fed. I work for him, you see, and he always sees to the needs of his subordinates over his own.”
“What about his own? He’s got no money and, if what you say is true, no roof over his head. Why would a man do that to himself?”
“Because he is tough and resourceful. If he needs anything, he’ll know how to get it. He won’t show his head until he’s quite good and ready to do so. Until then, you don’t stand a chance of finding him.”
“It appears to me that Inspector Poole has allowed your employer too much latitude in many cases. He had no business revealing official CID information to an outsider. That is what got him suspended.”
“To be sure,” I agreed. “The fact that Barker generally solved most of these cases and allowed you chaps to take the credit for what you couldn’t come up with yourselves is really immaterial.”