“A second vehicle,” I conjectured.
The Guv crossed to the second entranceway and stepped out. “They came in through Clerkenwell Road and exited into Clerkenwell Green,” he said.
“Should we give chase?” I asked.
“No, they are gone. We must secure the area and alert Scotland Yard. They will not be happy to hear this news, one of their own dead and a guest in our country assassinated.”
Barker handed me the police whistle he always kept on the end of his watch chain and nodded me out the front doors. I closed them to discourage onlookers, then stepped out into the street and blew for all I was worth. It instantly drew a crowd, but I refused to answer questions until I saw a constable coming toward me in that steady, reassuring trot they train the men to use in an emergency. I opened the doors with a brief explanation and waved him inside, pushing them shut behind him. The crowd assaulted me with questions, but the most I would say was “police business.”
A moment later, Barker stuck his head out and requested that I whistle again. I daren’t risk stepping away from the door, so I whistled in the crowd’s faces. There are too many people in London these days, I’ve decided-four million of them in fact-and most of them noisy and inconsiderate. One of the onlookers, seeing how small I was, reasoned that there was little to stop him from satisfying his curiosity. He tried to pick me up and move me aside, and I was forced to use one of the Japanese wrestling tricks Barker had taught me. I stuck my thumbs into the corners of his mouth and tugged outward. He fell back, slurring a curse, and pushed his way out of the crowd, but a second fellow took up his cause, perhaps thinking I’d merely had a bit of luck. He seized my lapel, but a quick poke in his left eye soon disabused him of the notion. I was still blowing the whistle all the while, and was beginning to grow a trifle faint.
Finally, two more constables arrived. One of them stationed himself outside, while the other went in with me, or tried to. The stable door had been barred from within. A knock brought Barker to the door, and we were admitted.
Inside, after being apprised of the facts, the constable volunteered to go to Scotland Yard. Barker gave him Poole’s name as the inspector already working on the case, and the P.C. ran out to find a cab. The second constable pulled me over to the other door, which I noted had also been barred, and questioned me thoroughly.
Barker looked about as I was being questioned, and I followed him with my eyes. He studied the damage to the cab and the bodies. The driver was missing, and he might have had something to do with the murders, but I could not recall his appearance. Barker began patting his pockets, and by the time the constable had finished questioning me, he had his pipe going, standing in a cloud of smoke in front of the carriage.
About twenty minutes later, the stable door squeaked open and Poole’s thin form slipped through. He came over to us almost casually and stood beside Barker, looking at the corpses inside the vehicle.
“You and the boy are under arrest, Cyrus,” he said conversationally.
“I know it,” Barker said in his lowland Scots accent. It was more pronounced when he was angry. “ ’Tis why I’ve been smoking. It may be hours until I can again.”
“How could you let this happen?” Poole asked, waving his hand at the cab. “He was a guest of the Yard, of this country. Commissioner Henderson’s on his way. You cannot be here when he arrives. The two of you are going to A Division in bracelets.”
“I’ve got a case,” the Guv insisted.
“You had one. Now it’s ours. We’re going to open Clerkenwell like a tin of smoked kippers.”
“It’s about time you did.”
“Constable!” Inspector Poole barked, as if the fellow and I had been playing marbles together in the corner. The P.C. stepped forward and tugged heavily on the peak of his helmet.
“Yes, sir!”
“Have you taken down both of these gentlemen’s statements?”
“I have, sir.”
“Then put the little one in darbies and escort him to Scotland Yard.”
“Little one?” I sputtered. “You can go-”
“Lad!” Barker thundered.
“Blast it.” I held out my wrists for the irons, cursing in my mind the constable; Poole; Henderson; Barker’s standards of decorum if not the man himself; and even Mr. Hiatt for his new, constantly improved, patented wrist restraints.
A half hour later I was cooling my heels in an eight by ten foot holding cell in Scotland Yard. It had taken me less than two years to find myself incarcerated again. Perhaps I was fated to spend my life behind bars. I felt like a football in a celestial game being punted from one angry deity to another.
Time palls in a cell, but eventually a sergeant came and took me to an examination room where Poole went over my testimony several times, as if I was trying to trick him. I’m afraid I snapped. Barker would not have been proud. As I recall, I told him he couldn’t find the killer if the two of them had played blindman’s bluff in the holding cell I’d just vacated.
“Shut it, Llewelyn!” he finally shouted at me. “I could have gone a great deal harder on you than I have.”
“You didn’t have to arrest us,” I maintained.
“Oh? And how would you know?” he replied. “Are you an expert on criminal procedures? We’ve just had a guest of Her Majesty’s government murdered by the very people he had come here to flee. A hundred inspectors out of a hundred would have arrested you. If I hadn’t gotten the two of you out of there, Henderson would have fallen on you like a ton of bricks. If he had his way he’d have hoisted you up in that stable and beaten a confession out of you. He’s hated Barker ever since the Limehouse case. I’ll speak plainly so you can get it through your thick skull. The two of you have been involved in the deaths of three officers in one year.”
“Technically, the constable’s not an officer.”
“Shut it, I said! You’re getting my ulcer up. I’m beginning to think a man can be a friend of Cyrus Barker or a member of the Metropolitan Police, but it is impossible to be both.”
“When are you releasing us?” I demanded.
“When I’m ready. And every time you make my ulcer flare, I’ll add another half hour to it.”
“Perhaps I could speak to Commissioner Henderson myself. He doesn’t scare me.”
“The commissioner doesn’t have time to waste on minnows like you. I’m sending you back to your cell. You can rest at our expense until your employer’s fancy solicitor comes to release you.”
Back in my cell, I lay on the bed and leaned back on the bit of stained sacking that the Yard dares call a pillow, staring at the ceiling. Barker and I had just been neatly elbowed out of the way, and I for one was not sorry for it. There were too many death threats being handed about lately. As far as I was concerned, Marco Faldo could keep himself occupied sending notes to the various members of A Division. I might even help him write a few.
15
It is my humble opinion that if one hands out enough money to keep a solicitor on retainer that said solicitor should have the decency to be prompt and not leave a poor fellow wasting away in prison with nothing to do save watch his nails grow. After four hours, I’d managed to dredge up all my old feelings and insecurities about prison life. At least the solicitor Thad Cusp was able to get us off completely, which only went to prove the Yard had had no evidence to hold us in the first place.
“None the worse for wear?” Barker asked when I saw him again. I found him oversolicitous, but then, I was in a foul mood. Did he think I would climb the walls or try to swallow my pillow?
“No, sir,” I replied. We were standing in the corridor of the Criminal Investigation Department. “Did you have an interview with Commissioner Henderson?”
“Aye. ’Twas like facing down a nor’easter. But it was all bluff and bounce, nothing he hasn’t threatened me with in the past. It was Poole who tried to get under my fingernails. He wanted me to tell him everything based upon our friendship.”