These old shops sold lacquered parasols with kanji painted upon them, small scenes of pagodas carved in cork, paper wallets, carved ivory and jade, chopsticks, landscapes painted on silk, and porcelain figurines. Delicate-necked teapots, silk jackets one would be afraid to wear for ripping them, and paintings that make one long for places one will never visit. Asian shops are always stacked to the ceiling and crowding the aisles in the hope that one will break or trod on something and have to purchase it.
One of those I came upon had a few items in a dirty window, or rather, many windows, since no one north of the river could afford plate glass. Something there caught my eye and I walked in, nodding at a dour-looking Chinaman behind the counter. I went straight to the window display and found a box containing over a dozen pair of black spectacles similar to the ones my employer always wore. An idea began to form, and I lifted the box and took it to the counter.
“How much for all?” I asked.
The owner held up two fingers.
“Two pounds?” I demanded. “As much as that? A pound, surely.”
“Two poun’.”
“One pound fifty, then. The highest I can go.”
“Two poun’.”
“Two poun’, two poun’! Blast you! Let me see how much I’ve got.”
I reached into my pocket, extracted my last pound note and several coins, knowing I had more money tucked away in my back pocket. I counted them on the counter with excruciating slowness.
“Let’s see. That’s one pound, two shillings, and ten pence. Roughly one sixty-five.”
“Two poun’.”
“This is getting us nowhere. I’m just going to take all this lovely money from your counter, and carry it down the street to one of your competitors, and see if he feels like turning a profit today. Good day, Mr. Two Poun’.”
I was almost out the door when he made a sound like a rusty hinge.
“Excuse me?” I asked, putting my head back in the shop.
“Hokay,” he said, as if it pained him to say it.
I quickly returned before he changed his mind. I learned that trick not from Barker but from my sainted mother. Pennies squeaked before they left her fingers.
I had taken possession of the box when the proprietor looked over my shoulder and apparently didn’t care for the customer who had just come in behind me. He shook his head and waved at him with a cloth that lay on the counter. I turned to find out whom a Limehouse shopkeeper would find so disagreeable. As it turned out, he and I were of the same opinion. It was Soho Vic, Barker’s messenger boy.
Vic wore a battered and rusty bowler hat, an oversized shirt and waistcoat, an evening coat with tails that had seen better decades, excessively tight trousers, and hobnailed boots. He had a fat cigar clenched between his teeth and he frowned over it, ignoring the shop owner and concentrating on me.
“’Ello, Fathead.”
“Wotcher, Ugly,” I responded. One must know how to speak to these fellows.
“Wot’s the idea of leaving me out in the cold?” he demanded. “Hain’t I given good service? Hain’t I been takin’ proper care o’ the agency?”
“I don’t believe you’ve given Push any reason to complain, but he told me he wanted you out of it. Said you have too many mouths to feed.”
“Does he think me too young? I know what o’clock it is,” he said angrily. “I’ve always been quick off the blocks.”
“No one said you weren’t. He knew how tempting that reward money is, and he didn’t want you to have to choose between him and your lads.”
“I’d never peach on the Guv,” Vic insisted. “Never!”
“Oh, come now, this is me you’re talking to. Can you really look me in the eye and tell me you didn’t at least come up with several ways to spend the reward money?”
“Never,” he insisted, but he grinned around the cigar.
“Yes, well, we cannot all be the specimen of Moral Probity you are.”
“The wot?”
“Never mind.” I turned to Mr. Two Poun’ who was still trying to remove the boy from the shop. “He’s with me.”
The shopkeeper went back to his stool and sat on it, watching our every move in the event we stole something.
“Did ’e really say that?” Vic asked.
“He did. I imagine he doesn’t want the current circumstances to end a good working relationship.”
He nodded in thought. I believe he accepted what I was telling him as the unvarnished truth.
“So what you doin’ here, then? Pickin’ out silk curtains for your boyfriend?”
“Satin for your coffin, more like. You and I, we’ve got business to discuss.”
He pretended to open a door behind him. “Step into my office, then.”
“How’d you like to confound Scotland Yard’s new sleuth hound, Abberline?” I asked, handing him the box.
He opened it, and the second he did, a big gap-toothed grin broke out on his dirty face, not a pretty sight under normal circumstances. He reached in and pulled out a pair of black-lensed spectacles, not as fancy as Barker’s, but similar enough from a distance of ten feet. He tried on a pair, looking at himself in the reflection of the window.
“Look at me!” he crowed. “I’m Cyrus Bloody Barker. ‘Come quickly there, lad.’”
“There are over a dozen pair in here,” I said, ignoring his imitation, which I had to admit was spot on. “Do you think you can find a similar number of large, burly men in London to wear these around town? They don’t have to parade or anything, just simply go about their business.”
“I like ’em,” he said. “Where’d you find them?”
“Bought them right here.”
“Did you ask if they ’ad any more?”
“No,” I admitted, “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Gentlemen amateurs. No ’ead for business. Oy!” This latter was directed toward the Chinaman at the end of the counter. “You got any more o’ these specs?”
Two Poun’ shook his head glumly.
“Can you get us more?” I asked. “We’ll buy every pair you find.”
“Mebbe,” he answered with a shrug.
“I’ll have my boys strip the East End of every pair of black specs they’ve got,” Vic said. “We’ll start one o’ them fads. You’re nothin’ if you ain’t a-wearin’ dark lenses this year.”
“That’s the spirit. What’s your price? You know Barker will be good for it when this is over and done with.”
“Just this. You claim it was me what thought of it.”
“Fair enough. I accept.”
Soho Vic took the cigar from his mouth and spat into his hand. The liquid was yellowish and viscous, and my gorge rose, but I followed suit, thankful that I had a pocket handkerchief to wipe my hand upon afterward. We shook solemnly as partners.
“Time’s money, Bonehead, an’ I’m a-wastin’ it standin’ here talkin’ to you. See you round. If the East End ain’t crawlin’ wiff Cyrus Barkers by tomorrow, it won’t be my fault.”
He turned and hurried away with the box under his arm, the tails of his evening jacket fluttering behind him, leaving me to feel as though I had just made a pact with the devil.
As I watched Vic leave the shop, the thought occurred to me that there might be something of interest to the case in Sebastian Nightwine’s former lodgings in Chelsea. It was the only place connected to Nightwine that was large enough for the Elephant Gang to hide. The chances were likely he had given up his lease long ago, but it would be worth the effort to at least cross it from the list. I had gone to the British Museum and was left without anything to do until Barker reappeared. I decided to improvise, and thereby possibly have something additional to offer when I saw him next. I hailed a cab and asked the driver to take me to Cheyne Row. There I paid him and sauntered casually past Nightwine’s old address.