“But you have told him everything.”
“Precisely. It’s all a matter of public record. I didn’t give him my private conclusions, of course, which are my own and what I trade upon, but the facts are right there in plain sight.”
“Perhaps he recalls the previous cases when you were not so forthcoming.”
“I genuinely wish to be of service to Scotland Yard when I can, despite the fact that they shut down my antagonistics classes.”
“Technically, sir, they didn’t shut them down,” I pointed out. “They were blown up. Scotland Yard merely took the opportunity to turn the new rooms into offices. According to The Times, they are full to the brim and considering moving somewhere else.”
“I must apologize, lad,” Barker responded. “Apparently you have been reading the newspapers.”
“As for your antagonistics classes,” I went on, “Inspector Poole is very anxious to have you start them up again.”
“If he’s trying to get on my good side, he’s got an odd way of showing it. Four hours wasted. With four productive hours in Clerkenwell, I might have solved the murder of Inspector Pettigrilli. Let’s stop in at our chambers before we go home for dinner.”
“I think Mac’s run through the larder, sir. We’ll have to dine out.”
“Damn and blast it, I forgot. I don’t have time to waste worrying where my next meal is coming from. Mac will have to get the Elephant and Castle to cater until Etienne returns to work. I shall speak to him on the telephone set. People are being slaughtered left and right by Sicilian assassins and all must grind to a halt while I decide what I find toothsome for dinner.”
He was silent and irritable during the short walk back to our offices.
“The last post is on your desk, sir,” Jenkins said as we came through the door.
Still in his coat and hat, Barker selected one envelope from the stack, slit it with the Italian dagger he kept in his desk. Absently, he stroked his mustache as he read.
“What is it, sir?” I asked, as I sat down at my desk.
He offered the letter to me. From across the room I could see the large handprint inked in the center of it. Wordlessly, I took it and read.
Il Brutto, you see what has happened to another detective who stood in our way. Sometimes an example must be made. What we are doing here does not concern you. Should you continue, we assure you that you and yours will suffer a fate no less public. You are warned.
“You know what this means, lad. We shall have to leave town.”
“Leave town?” I asked. “But why?”
“We must marshal our forces and come in from another angle they’re not expecting. Besides, I have responsibilities I must see to. I am not alone in the world.”
“Where will we go?”
“Ah, there’s the question. It would be best not to take a direct route in case we’re followed, though ’twill mean we’ll be forced to go miles out of our way. Jenkins!”
Apparently I wasn’t going to get an answer just yet, but that was nothing new. Jenkins came shambling around the corner and stopped at the desk.
“Yes, sir,” he said.
“We have received a death threat.”
“Ah,” came the lackadaisical response. “Battle conditions, then. Prepare to repel all boarders.”
“Llewelyn and I shall be going out of town for a day or two. Can you alter your routine?”
“It’ll be a hardship down at the Sun, sir,” he pointed out.
Our clerk reigned at a table at the Rising Sun each night, where I take it his personal conviviality had everything it lacked during the day. I’d never had an audience there, and would not try to do so. He liked to keep his professional and private lives separate.
“If it is not too much trouble,” Barker continued, “I’d like to send Thomas along to see you settled.”
“As you wish, sir,” Jenkins replied a trifle neutrally. Why send me along? I wondered.
“Where will you be, sir?” I asked Barker directly.
“I’m going home. Mac must get everything packed and see to the security of the house.”
“Will it be shut up?”
“No, it would only encourage the blighters to set it afire or some such nonsense. Mac knows how to take in the sails.”
“What about Mr. L., sir? How will he get home?” Jenkins asked. Our routine was utterly changed if our clerk was questioning his master.
Barker looked at me appraisingly. “Mr. Gallenga has trained him,” he said. “The lad’ll have to make it back to Newington as best he can.”
“Your vote of confidence quite chokes me up,” I said, wiping an eye.
“Cheek,” Barker responded, shaking his head.
At five thirty, Jenkins put a printed sign on the door that said the agency was temporarily closed and suggested another detective within our little court. I saw that all the shutters were securely fastened and the back door locked and barred. It isn’t every establishment that requires a three-inch wooden beam to secure a door, I thought, or that has standard “battle conditions.” We bade our adieus and left the Guv to lock the front door.
“Where to, Mr. Jenkins?” I asked.
“Right acrost the river, Mr. L., in Lambeth.”
Newington is a respectable, if unfashionable, neighborhood across the river in Surrey, but Lambeth, just to its north, was not much different from the East End. In Shakespeare’s time, this was where the theatres were located, outside the burgeoning city, as well as where the brothels and other unsavory establishments were allowed to be built. Our century had done its best to suppress such vice, but the district still had a reputation as a dangerous place at night when the shops are closed. As we walked over Westminster Bridge, I reasoned that it was a logical place for Jenkins to live on a clerk’s salary, within staggering distance of Whitehall, but I was a little vexed with myself that I had never bothered to ask him where he lived. After all, I worked with the man from one day to the next. I should have tried to take an interest in his life. All I knew of him for certain was that he was a lazy rascal with a taste for cigarettes, a local public house, and the Police Gazette.
“Is it far?” I asked.
“Lord, no, sir,” he said, stopping to light a cigarette with his back to the river. “It’s just on the other side, hard against the embankment.”
Jenkins is a long, loose-limbed fellow, whose hands seem to naturally fit into his pockets. He has a hawkish face with a widow’s peak and thinning black hair cut straight across his shoulders. He’d once told me he objected to work, but that the world being the harsh place it is he had to suffer his lot like the rest of humanity.
Jenkins suddenly stopped in front of a fish shop that spilled the aroma of hot fish into the street and directed me inside.
“The old gentleman won’t be expecting us,” he told me. “Perhaps he’ll think a bit of crisp fish a real treat.”
I had heard that Jenkins lived with his father, but I couldn’t quite recall from whom. I gathered the old man was infirm and that the clerk took care of him.
“Will you do the honor of dining with us, Mr. L.?” he asked. “The two of us don’t get much company.”
“Certainly, but allow me to pay, please.”
“Then you wouldn’t be a guest, now would you? I insist, though I’m sure it don’t matter much. Mr. Barker ‘pays for all,’ as the old pub sign says.”
Loaded with hot parcels of fried fish and chips wrapped in The Times, we stepped out into the street again.
“I hope this doesn’t throw off your routine too greatly, Mr. Jenkins,” I said.
“It’s just plain Jeremy after hours, sir, and you’ll be Thomas, if it’s not too much of a liberty. As for routine, it’s good to be absent from the Sun now and again. It makes them more eager for my return. Here we are, sir. I told you ’twas just acrost the river.”
We found ourselves in front of an old clapboard building thrust between two larger ones, like a book pushed casually between companion volumes. It was painted black and had no outward ornamentation, as if it were doing its best not to be noticed. Jenkins pulled a large brass key from his pocket, unlocked the door, and bowed, inviting me in.