“Their intent,” Barker explained to the editor, “is to do you harm.”
“I am prepared for that,” Stead said coolly. “My subordinates have copy for the next two days, and if we are broken into and the press smashed, I have arranged with the Standard to borrow theirs for a limited run.”
“How capable do you think they are of carrying out their threats?” Booth asked my employer.
“They are hirelings and only in it for the purse. I doubt there are many in the crowd genuinely perturbed over the ‘Maiden Tribute’ article. However, we cannot control the crowd. If they are agitated, we could have a riot on our hands. How well are you prepared for a siege?”
“We have food and water for a day or so,” Stead said. “If they make a concerted effort to break in the door, we can push the press in front of it.”
There was a crash of glass behind us, as one of the upper windows was shattered by a paving stone.
“Did you expect such a response?” I asked.
“Oh, yes,” Stead said.
“They shall certainly have to force a bill in the House of Commons after today,” Booth stated. “The edition has sold out. Half of London has read it.”
“Shall you bring the child you purchased back to England now?” Barker asked.
“Soon,” Stead replied.
Booth cleared his throat. “She’s in a Salvation Army property we own in the north of France.”
“Eliza is a smart little thing,” the Gazette editor said, referring to the child in question. “She should do well if she is to speak at my trial.”
“You believe it shall come to that?”
“It may, that is, if I survive this night.”
There was a sudden thud at the outer door.
“Woodbury!” Stead called. “What is that racket?”
A young and frightened-looking clerk came shuffling into the room. “They’ve pulled a stout table from one of the pubs, sir, and are trying to use it as a ram.”
There was a second crash against the door and a third. Barker looked over at me, as if to say it is only a matter of time now. Then suddenly, it stopped.
“What the deuce?” Barker asked.
Woodbury came shuffling in again.
“The police, sir! They’ve just arrived. It looks as if some of the crowd is going away.”
“Thank heavens,” Booth said, and Stead gave a sigh of relief.
Our celebration was premature, however. The Yard had not come to save W. T. Stead at all.
“Stead! Open this door and surrender yourself,” a voice boomed from a speaking trumpet in one of the inspector’s hands. “You are under arrest for transporting a child out of the country.”
Stead drummed his fingers atop the blotter of his desk and rose. “I suppose that is it, then,” he said. “You know what to do, Booth.”
“I shall arrange counsel,” the general said, shaking his hand. “God bless you, William.”
“Thank you, Bram. Mr. Barker, they might have hanged me waiting for the police to arrive. I owe you a debt.”
Booth’s guardians at the front door allowed the police in, and soon we were all being questioned about the event of the evening, while Stead was put in darbies and escorted to Scotland Yard. The Gazette office was in complete disarray, and I did not envy the staff the tremendous work and expenditure necessary to get it looking as respectable as it once did, but I noticed that the press never stopped cranking out endless copies of the next edition. Booth took over Stead’s chair and fired off messages and before we left, I noted that most of the staff was seated in front of typewriting machines, taking down the events they had witnessed firsthand that evening for the later edition.
By the time Barker and I left, the crowd had almost dispersed. People loitered about here and there, looking at broken brickbats and an inch-thick carpet of broken glass in front of the Gazette ’s door. Of our friends, the Ratcliff Highway Boys, there was no sign.
34
I was lying on my bed with my arm behind my head and a copy of Donal Grant in my hand. I wasn’t doing MacDonald justice, idly turning pages, but then he was not the sort of author to read when one is feeling down. After another ten minutes, I tossed the book down on the bed and began counting the beams in the ceiling.
“Am I interrupting, sir?”
Mac had come in. I don’t know what he puts on all the hinges in the house that all the doors open soundlessly, but it is faintly unnerving.
“I was working up a thought, but I don’t believe I have the right equipment, and it hardly seems worth the effort. What do you want, Mac?”
“There is a young lady who wishes to speak to you.”
Until I am dead, I shall always consider those to be agreeable words.
“Pretty?” I asked. For some reason, I’ve always considered Mac a fine judge of women.
“Yes, sir. Quite attractive.”
“Did she give a name? Is it Miss Potter?”
“No, sir. Your visitor is Miss Amy Levy.”
“Miss Levy?” I asked, putting my feet over the side of the bed and pulling on my first boot. “How extraordinary. I wonder what she wants. We cannot speak in the street. Show her into the garden and pick a flower for her, Mac. Recite poetry until I get there.”
Mac rolled his eyes. “Very good, sir.”
Lacing my other boot, I debated putting on a new pair of spats I’d recently purchased. Granted, I had no romantic plans for Miss Levy, considering her Israel Zangwill’s girl; and, though she seemed rather sharp at times, how often does one find a girl at one’s doorstep, delivered like a parcel? I straightened my tie before going downstairs.
Out in the garden, Miss Levy’s petite form was turned away, surveying the miniature vistas in front of her. She wore a blue-gray dress with a white collar and seemed the kind of no-nonsense woman that eschewed artifice of any kind.
“Good day, Miss Levy.”
She turned but did not smile, which was not a good sign.
“What an odd garden,” she eventually said.
“It is Oriental.”
“I know it is Oriental, Mr. Llewelyn. I am not ignorant. Tell me, does Mr. Barker enjoy torturing the trees?” She pointed to the corner where the Guv’s Pen-jing trees stood on display.
“I think he rather does,” I said, wondering if she had a reason for coming here other than to discuss Barker’s trees.
She regarded me with her dark eyes. “I came here to slap your face for breaking Beatrice’s heart, but it hardly seems worth the effort now. One hears how painful it is to be slapped, but nobody ever talks about how it hurts to slap someone. Why is that?”
“I scarce can say.”
“My word, those are the ugliest spats I’ve ever seen.”
We looked down at my boots. She was right. What had I been thinking?
“You cut me to the quick. I presume you have some information to impart, that is, if you’ve resolved one way or another whether you shall slap me.”
“I’m still mulling it over. I came here with the express purpose of doing so, but something about being here has changed my mind.”
“The garden does do that to people. Shall we go and sit in the pavilion?”
We crossed the little bridge that spans the brook and made our way up the rock steps to the pavilion where Barker spends of good deal of his time in fair weather. In the very center of it, Harm sat, mildly twitching his tail.
“And who is this?” Amy Levy asked.
“It is Harm, the guardian of the garden.”
“He did not guard against me,” she noted. “He never even left this spot.”
“He likes women. It is men he attacks. He tried to bite Israel the one time he came out here.”
“I’ve wanted to bite him myself once or twice. You are correct about the garden, by the way. It’s very peaceful out here. I can hardly believe I’m in Newington. But that is not the reason I came here. I want to tell you about Beatrice.”
I felt a tightening in my stomach. “What has happened to her?”
“She has had a nervous collapse, I’m afraid. She has given up her room and position at the Katherine Building and her volunteer work entirely and has gone back to live with her family.”