“Tobacco!” he cried, and immediately he rushed up two flights of stairs to his aerie. It had been nearly two weeks since he had himself a smoke. I followed at a more subdued pace. Barker was seated in one of his armchairs, holding a large calabash pipe stuffed full of his own tobacco, blended for him in Mincing Lane: toasted Cavendish with perique for taste and a soupçon of latakia for bite. He struck a match and surrounded himself with a halo of smoke. Then his newly grown mustache spread out in a look of pure satisfaction. He smoked silently for about ten minutes, with Harm dozing in his lap, until there was a knock upon the thistle knocker of our front door.
“That will be Abraham,” my employer said. “Go to bed, Thomas. Get some sleep. You’ll need your wits about you in the morning.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
It was all too soon when Jacob Maccabee was poking about in my room and preparing to open the curtains. When he did, however, it was still as black as Barker’s spectacles outside.
“What o’clock is it?” I moaned.
“Four-thirty. You know the two of you must be there at six.”
“Mmmph,” I said.
I got up, threw water in my face, and decided it was still too damaged to shave. Instead, I dressed and tried to batter the short curls that were already sprouting with a pair of handleless brushes the Guv had given me for Hogmanay. In the hallway, I was turning onto the stair when the aroma of fresh coffee assailed my nostrils. I took the stairs two at a time and burst into the kitchen.
“Etienne!” I cried.
“Toast,” he muttered back at me.
“I beg your pardon?”
He took the short cigarette out of his mouth and spat on the flagstone. “The man goes to ’eez death and all he wants is toast and tea.”
“Perhaps his stomach is unsettled.”
“He has no stomach. Just a block of granite. I don’t know why I bother. He would eat bangers and mash for a month entire.”
“I could eat something,” I said.
“But you do not go to your death.”
“Actually, I thought about that in the middle of the night. If Barker dies, it would be two against one. They have no reason to leave a living witness behind to identify them.”
Dummolard snorted as if the thought of my death were rather droll, like something out of a Zola novel.
“Very well. What will you have?”
“Have you got truffles?”
“Un petit peu.”
“And bacon?”
“You would put truffles and the truffle-finder together in the same dish?”
“The pig is beyond caring. A condemned man’s last wish?”
“Spare me the sentiment. Next you will be crying into my omelette.” He turned and took down a copper pot from the wirework overhead.
Outside, Barker was in shirtsleeves conferring with the gardeners, who were repairing the damage that had been done during his absence. Some of his rare penjing trees had gone without water and were in danger of dying. The gardeners had paper lanterns on tall poles, but even then there was a line of silvery-pink on the eastern horizon. The sun would soon be coming up. What would the day bring?
First things first, I told myself, pouring coffee. Etienne understands coffee like no one else in England. His press is even better than the one at the Barbados, my favorite coffeehouse in St. Michael’s Alley. It awakened one as fast as a bucket of cold water, without the ill effects.
After my omelette, which I ate slowly because Etienne considers eating quickly the grossest of insults, I went outside to see Barker. He actually went so far as to put a hand on my shoulder.
“The oldest penjing may live,” he said. “We had to prune it back drastically, and we lost two others, but this one and five more shall live.”
“I’m glad to hear it, sir. Perhaps you can start with a cutting from Kew Gardens or something.”
“I thought that myself, lad. Are you nearly ready?”
“Just need to get my hat and coat, sir.”
“Would you stop for a moment in my room?”
“Of course.”
I followed him up two flights of stairs to his garret room. The dawn was just lighting up the red walls. Barker sat down at his desk, which was covered with various envelopes; ominous-looking envelopes.
“Oh, no, sir,” I muttered.
“Better safe than sorry. My life is in God’s hands now. Here is my will, the deeds of the house and office, my bank statements. Everything that is necessary in the event of my demise.”
“You’re not going to die, sir. You’re going to live. I insist upon it.”
“I’m gambling, lad. He is still twice the swordsman I am. He can triumph yet. You do realize in the event that I die, they might-”
“Yes, I realize that, sir,” I interrupted.
“Do you wish to write a will? Mac and I shall witness it.”
“Sir, I own nothing. A shelf of books worth a few pounds that Jacob is welcome to.”
“Don’t you want to leave a message to someone? Anyone?”
“Who really cares, sir? My family is shed of me. I really am all alone in the world now. It’s probably best.”
“Let us try to keep you alive, anyway, lad, if only for Philippa’s sake. She’s awfully fond of you, you know.”
“Glad to hear somebody is, sir.”
“Let’s go, then.”
“‘Into the valley of Death rode the six hundred.’”
“Will I have to listen to you recite poetry all the way to Hampstead Heath?”
“No. Sorry.”
“Who was that, Browning?”
“It was Tennyson.”
“Still living?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Mmmph.”
Barker believes that all poets should have the decency to be dead at least a century or two. I feel the same way about politicians.
We walked to the stable a half mile away, past a milkman with his tall pails. I had the feeling I sometimes get from a fever that I was unconnected with reality. I could end up that day as dead as the Reverend McClain, yet somehow it didn’t bother me. More correctly, it didn’t interest me. It all seemed vaguely academic.
I thought of my late wife, Jenny, who had died while I was in prison. Would she be waiting for me when I got to heaven? Would I even go there if I died? I had certainly had it in for God after she passed away. It probably wasn’t wise to get angry with the creator of heaven and earth. One would be certain to be in his hand sooner or later. I was still angry with him, but I realized now that everything wasn’t his fault. I’d made choices and mistakes of my own. Not everything he had given me had been dross or else I wouldn’t be so afraid of losing it. So far, I’d call it a draw, which is worlds better than I’d been two years before.
It is a long drive from Newington to Hampstead Heath, such a drive, in fact, that I scarce have been there five times in my entire life. It looks prosaic enough during the day with its hills covered with East End families eating packed lunches and larking about.
In the early morning, however, it appears antediluvian; its furze-covered juttings grasping at tendrils of fog and land covered in scores of wet, glistening species of plants like the tops of a South American tepui. One would hardly believe that man had set foot there, which made it the perfect place for two implacable men to attempt to hack each other to death with good Sheffield steel at six o’clock in the morning.
They were awaiting us under a tree that cut the moving fog like the bow of a ship. From a distance I could see the carriage and Nightwine off to the side in a white shirt, hacking at the fog with his sword. It would not do to appear either too eager or too afraid, so I brought Juno up to him with a steady pace. Psmith suddenly detached himself from a tree he had been leaning against.
“You’ve arrived, then,” Nightwine commented as we alighted from our vehicle. In his white shirt, tan trousers, and knee boots, he looked every bit the military man he was.
“Was there any doubt?” Barker asked as his booted feet landed on the wet grass.