“You know that I have limited experience with children, save perhaps with Fu Ying, who was thirteen when she came to live with me,” my employer began.
“When she came to live with Harm, you mean,” I interjected. The Dowager Empress of China had given this slave girl to the dog to care for him unto death. Harm, in turn, had been a gift for some service the Guv had done the Chinese royal family; but what it was, he would not tell me.
“I was going to say it is amazing how a child upon its birth quickly becomes the focus of its parents’ lives, and not merely the mother’s. Now their focus is lost. Twelve years of intense caring shall be buried in the ground the day after tomorrow. All their dreams for their daughter-to see her grown, married, having children of her own-are all gone now.”
“Perhaps they can have another child.”
“Perhaps,” Barker repeated. “I hope so, for their sake. There are so many alternatives, none of them good.”
“Sir, if I may say it, your plan needs a little working out.”
Those were the words I had wanted to say to Barker about our move, but they weren’t issuing from my own mouth. Rather, they were coming from the mouth of Barker’s factotum, Jacob Maccabee, as he set down a fresh pot of tea in front of him. The Guv frowned behind his spectacles. I couldn’t recall the last time Mac had issued an objection. Perhaps he never had.
“A little working out?” the Guv asked.
“You intend to continue the investigation, do you not, interviewing suspects and the like?”
“Certainly.”
“Then you shall need fresh changes of clothes. How shall you get food?”
“I had assumed we would go to public houses or tea-rooms.”
“Very good, sir,” Mac went on. “But, then, you shall still need meals in the morning and tea in the evening. You gentlemen shall need looking after.”
“Hmm,” Barker said noncommittally.
“Then there is the problem of the two of you trying to keep a twenty-four-hour watch. First of all, you will both be investigating the area, so there is no one watching what is going on during the day. Also, it’s difficult to work during the day and then split a shift at night.”
“I see what you are getting at,” our employer stated.
I did, as well. Mac wanted to come with us. He was concerned for our welfare, or at least for Barker’s, but it was more than that. Mac had very nearly had my position before I arrived, and I believe he coveted the chance to be a part of the investigation. At least it would get him out of the house.
“Well, sir, three is generally better than two in such situations.”
Barker took a sip of his tea and began patting his clothes for his postprandial pipe. “You understand the requirements?”
“Yes, sir.”
“No pampering, no coddling, strictly Spartan, as they say. And no exceptions. Have you got it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Of course, you may live according to your own dietary restrictions. In fact, if it is easier, you may serve us all kosher now and then. The Bucharest is nearby.”
“Mr. Ho’s tearoom is not far, either. If you give me the key now, I can take a lantern and sweep and mop the floors this evening and get everything in readiness.”
“No,” Barker said. “No light. No light at all, in fact. We work in darkness. That goes for you, too, lad. I know you like to read in the evenings, but I do not want to alert Miacca to our presence.”
“Yes, sir,” I said. This entire exercise was beginning to sound like a punishment.
“How many changes of sheets shall you require, sir?” Mac asked.
“None, Mac. No sheets at all.”
I had to stifle a laugh because I knew Mac’s idea of roughing it was a small tent set up in the country with a portable dining table and camp chairs, and a large picnic hamper containing everything from foie gras to Coleman’s mustard.
“And no pillows,” Barker added.
“I do not believe I could sleep without a pillow, sir,” our butler replied.
“I don’t believe I could, either,” I put in. “If it is austerity you want, I believe I could do without a pillowcase, but I wouldn’t want to wake each morning with a crick in my neck.”
“You won’t have to worry about that, Thomas,” Barker said. “I’m giving you the night shift.”
“Thank you, sir,” I replied, putting as much irony into the phrase as I dared.
“I suppose that I may bring a small camp stove, sir?”
The Guv gave Mac a sour look. “For what purpose?”
“For your tea.”
Barker’s face fell. Mac simply wasn’t getting into the spirit of the adventure. On the other hand, our employer couldn’t do without his pots of green tea. It was what that brain of his ran upon, like coal to a steam engine. “Very well. A small stove. But it must be out from sunset to sunrise. As for Mr. Llewelyn, he shall have to suffice upon tea or forage for his coffee. We cannot coddle a man’s whims when we are hunting a killer.”
I bit my lip. He was making sure he had his precious gunpowder green tea, shipped in specially to a merchant in Mincing Lane, but my coffee drinking was somehow too capricious for him and therefore expendable. How did he expect me to wake up in the morning? Oh, I’d forgotten. I had the night shift. Eight hours on nothing but green tea, and cold at that. The mind rebels.
“Drat that Etienne,” I said.
Mac cleared his throat. He is good at it. It had meaning and inflection.
“Very well, I admit it. This is all my fault. I didn’t eat his omelet because I was distracted by a girl.”
“May we bring a book or two, anyway?” I asked. “There should be some light.”
“That isn’t generally the custom,” Barker said. “The standard form of entertainment among the Sicilians is a deck of cards. If Mac takes the day shift, I the evening, and you the night, you shall have very little time to read.”
I did some mathematical figuring in my head, not my best subject. “So if we are working all day while Mac watches, and you take the evening shift while I sleep, then the two of you bed down while I take the night watch, essentially, we will be working a sixteen-hour shift each day.”
“That is correct,” Barker said, emphasizing it with a nod. “The work is its own incentive. Track down our killer quickly and we can return to relative luxury.”
That evening I chose two novels to take with me, Hardy’s A Pair of Blue Eyes and George MacDonald’s Donal Grant. Reading is my chief form of entertainment, and I’d had a bookshelf put in my room to hold my small collection. Barker reads history and philosophy instead of modern fiction. I suppose he thinks the reading of novels something of an indulgence and that my time would be better spent on shooting practice or studying the manuals for self-improvement he often left on my desk. One cannot let these employers always have their way, however, or one should have no time to oneself at all.
My awakening the next morning can only be described as brutal. It was four in the morning when Mac pushed back the curtains. There wasn’t even a morning sun to greet me. Barker was already up and about. For all I knew he hadn’t gone to sleep at all.
We had chosen the warehouse for its good location and view of the Charity Organization Society on Green Street. When we arrived with the rising sun and I looked at the large warehouse, with its scarred old floor and bare brick walls, I sensed a depressing atmosphere and premonitions of doom, but perhaps I was simply in a sour mood.
“Satisfactory,” the Guv pronounced, looking at the empty room with a mattress in its center. Mac had brought his minimum, two trunks and a large hamper. He’d convinced our employer that a supply of food from Fortnum amp; Mason was better than his going out and foraging every night and possibly being spotted by Miacca or someone who might potentially be spying for him. In the hamper there were sausages, cheeses, tinned kippers, olives, Carr’s biscuits, and Barker’s inevitable tea. Mac had also brought a small contraption, a stove that allowed one to boil water. Many of the packages were emblazoned with the royal warrant, purveyors to Her Majesty the Queen and all that. It was about as austere as a hunt club breakfast, but I wasn’t about to protest. At the bottom of the hamper, our butler had secreted a sack full of coffee.