“‘Ah, I do so love pudding,’ Mrs. Miacca admitted, ‘but my husband is always giving our farthings away to good children. We can ill afford it.’
“‘Why, my mother has made a pudding this very morning,’ Tommy Grimes told her. ‘And it is sitting this very moment on the windowsill to cool but a street away. I’m sure she will not mind if I take it. Shall I run and get it?’
“‘Yes, do,’ came the reply. ‘But be quick about it. It shall take hours to boil you tender enough for a stew.’
“Tommy Grimes hopped down from the chopping block and ran out the door. He kept running until he arrived at his own house, safe and sound. That night in his bed, he admitted he had got off cheaply and swore never to be bad again.
“Now, promises are all well and good, but one cannot be good forever. One day Tommy took a step around the corner, and the next thing he knew, he was upside down in Mr. Miacca’s sack again.
“‘That was a shabby trick you played upon the missus and me,’ Mr. Miacca complained as he walked. ‘I shall be sure to watch you myself this time.’
“Once they were in Mr. Miacca’s house, he thrust the boy under the chopping table.
“‘Get under there and don’t move while I cut the herbs for the pot. If you stick out so much as one limb, I shall chop it off with my cleaver.’
“Tommy knew he was in desperate straits, but he was a clever boy. There was a pile of kindling by the chopping block, and he pulled one log under him and began whittling it with his pocket knife. He whittled all the time Mr. Miacca was chopping the herbs and adding spices to the stew.
“‘It’s almost ready, boy. Stick out your leg so I can toss it into the pot.’
“Tommy pulled off a shoe and sock and quickly put them over the end of the log. He poked it out from under the table and yelled when it was cut in twain with the cleaver. While Mr. Miacca was busy simmering the limb, Tommy slipped out unobserved and ran home as fast as his legs could carry him.
“Now, children will be bad from time to time and Tommy Grimes was no exception, but from hence he was only a menace to his own street. He never dared go into Mr. Miacca’s neighborhood until he was a man full grown, and able to care for himself.”
Barker put down my notes and leaned back in his chair in thought.
“What do you make of it, sir?” I dared ask.
“I’m not certain,” he said. “I have no frame of reference. I have never read a fairy story before.”
“Never? Not even when you were a child?”
“No. I was raised in a strict Calvinist home and all we read were the Bible and our clan histories. Reading tales of ogres and such would have been considered desperately wicked. What do you gather from it?”
“It is a variation on the classic giant story,” I said. “A child is caught by a slow-witted giant and through an act of cleverness escapes. It is also a morality tale. Be good and do not wander off or else the bogeyman shall get you. The difference is that the tale takes place in the center of London instead of a castle or at the top of a beanstalk.”
“The tale is rather gruesome,” Barker said. “Boy meat and hacking off limbs.”
“Yes, but that’s the thrill of it. When a child first hears it, it is harrowing. After that, it is humorous-the slow-witted man and his wife tricked twice by a child.”
“Do you think there might have been a Mr. Miacca around whom the legend grew?”
“It is possible. Parents would be sure to point out someone they wished their children to avoid, particularly if he was a foreigner. As you said earlier, the name sounds Jewish or Mediterranean. There’s no telling how old the legend is. It could be centuries old.”
“You’ve made a very good analysis, Thomas. I knew I was not mistaken in hiring a scholar. Is there anything else?”
“Well, sir, there is one other legend about cannibalism in Old London.”
Barker nodded. “Sweeney Todd.”
“Exactly. He’s in the book as well, but he’s under legends rather than fairy tales. I thought I’d call it to your attention.”
“And so you have.” He picked up the verses I’d copied from Lear, and began turning the pages. I watched his brows slowly sink behind his round spectacles.
“Poems,” he grunted. “Limericks. I have heard many a limerick in my time, mostly from sailors. They were generally ribald. These are not, but I do not understand the humor. What is humorous about a man who has birds nesting in his beard? It does not look like Miacca’s note.”
“His longer poems do, sir. Look past the limericks.”
He flipped impatiently through the pages. Finally, he tossed it onto his blotter with more vehemence than he normally gave the printed word and made his pronouncement. “Rubbish. The similarities are superficial. Anyone with a grasp of English could have written the poem. As for this fellow, I cannot understand Lear’s appeal, save to the smallest of tots. Do you have anything else?”
“Well, sir, there is one thing. I was followed from the British Museum.”
Barker leaned back in his seat and pressed his fingertips together. He looked rather like a schoolmaster when he did that. “Continue.”
I told him about Miss Potter and our conversation. I left out any attempts at flirtation on my part, but I knew he was smart enough to imagine it back in again. Here it comes, I thought, the lecture: This agency does not exist to provide you with female companionship, etc.
“She offered to keep an eye on the Charity Organization Society,” he stated.
“Yes, sir.”
“We may take her up on the offer.”
That was all. No lecture.
“Socialists,” he growled.
“You do not approve of socialism? If it makes any difference, I believe the term Miss Hill used was ‘Christian socialist.’”
“Christian socialist,” Barker muttered. “That is even worse.”
“What is the difference, pray, in the good works you do in the Tabernacle and the work of the Christian socialist?”
“It starts with their entire worldview, lad. They believe that man is basically good, and that, given the proper nudge by such crusading women, they can turn the earth into a utopia and usher in the millennium.”
“And you believe-”
“That man, from the time he is born is at heart selfish and any attempt at utopia shall fail miserably. Heaven shall not be attained on earth.”
“But they are helping, sir, are they not? Isn’t Brother McClain over in Mile End Road helping?”
“He is, but he is no socialist. His beliefs are above reproach.”
I wanted to say that that meant they were in line with his. McClain was Barker’s sparring partner and friend. A former heavyweight champion, he now ran a mission in the East End that was known to have some success with alcohol and opium addicts.
“But they do no harm, at least. The people are fed and cared for.”
“I’ll grant you that, lad. Miss Hill has the command of a field marshal.” My employer took a meerschaum from his smoking cabinet and lit a vesta. “But back to Miacca. He’s a depraved monster.”
“You think he is a monster, then.”
“He is an aberration. He has abdicated all rights to be considered human. He should be hunted down like a mad dog and shot. I have feared something like this would happen. Society continues to grow more and more depraved.”
There was a cold supper awaiting us when we arrived home. Mac had set out potted beef and slices of ham on the table, with a thick wedge of cheddar and a loaf of bread. He had brought up one of his small casks of homemade stout from the cellar. It was all perfectly acceptable food, but it was public house fare. After a hard day, I expected one of Etienne’s feasts, quails stuffed with pate de foie gras or salmon in aspic.
“What’s going on here?” I asked Mac, pointing at the table.
Jacob Maccabee had been making a show of it, acting as if this were simply another night. He wilted under my questioning.
“Mr. Dummolard has quit.”
“Quit!”
“Yes, sir. If I recall it correctly, he said henceforth he shall feed the rats of the city, who have a finer appreciation of cuisine than you two…er, gentlemen. He left something for you there.”