Our next stop was the chandler’s shop in Pennyfields. The window was full of large coils of rope, ship’s lamps, and a headless dummy wearing a sealskin jacket. When we stepped inside, Barker inhaled as if we were stepping into some fine restaurant. I sniffed the air myself. Hemp and creosote, salt and mustiness was all I could smell, but then I was a landsman. Seeing my employer, a former ship’s captain, as he stroked a length of rope, made me wonder how much he missed the sea.
“Can I help you?” a woman’s voice came from somewhere. It took me a moment to spot her. She had come through a curtain and was leaning against the counter. Were it not for the contralto voice, I’d have taken her for a child. She had a button nose, kohl-smeared eyes, and an air of impudence. Her hair was henna colored and looked as if it had been hacked off all around at the jaw. She wore a paisley shawl over a white blouse and large, hoop earrings. I recognized her as the girl in Bainbridge’s drawing.
“We wish to speak to the proprietor,” Barker said, removing his bowler hat. I followed suit.
“You’re lookin’ at her, ain’t ya?” she said offhandedly.
For once, my employer was nonplussed.
“Isn’t it rather unusual for a Romany woman to own a chandlery?” he asked.
“If it’s any of your business, which it ain’t, we don’t exactly get together for tea, so I wouldn’t know. It ain’t usual to see two toffs in Pennyfields, neither, but you don’t see me complaining.”
I saw the Guv suppress a smile. This girl was sharp as a knife.
“I am an enquiry agent, miss, and I-”
“Public or private?”
“We are private enquiry agents.”
“Hop it, then,” the girl said suddenly. “I don’t have to answer no questions. Leave, if you ain’t buying.”
This girl had brass, I’ll give her that. She wasn’t bad to look at, either.
Barker seemed to summon himself a moment, meditating or strategizing or communing with his Maker. After a moment he spoke again. “And if we were buying?”
She came down the counter closer to us. “That’s different. You buy one item per question and I’ll talk me head off.”
“Very well.” Barker looked through a selection of jack-knives on the counter and set one before her. “Tell me about your uncle’s murder.”
“Someone broke his neck for him a year ago on New Year’s Day, around closing time. Police didn’t do nothing, ruddy useless peelers. Said it was a burglary. Burglary, my bonnet. Nothing was taken.”
Barker looked both ways, then moved over to a row of books and scooped them up. They were mostly nautical tomes and manuals, though I did spot a collection of sea stories. He set the first book down on the counter.
“Do you keep a log of the items you purchase from sailors?” he pursued.
“Course we do. We’re not total fools.”
He set down another volume. “Did you work here before your uncle died or did you come afterward?”
“I worked at Bryant and May’s match factory, but I worked here as well now and then. Why should Uncle Lazlo hire someone when he can squeeze the work out of his only living relative, right?”
“Did you happen to notice a young Chinaman here around that New Year’s Day? I suspect he might have been looking through these very books.”
The girl thought for a moment. “Nah. Sorry. Can’t recollect offhand. I wasn’t here all the time, you see. Used to have a life, I did. Not like now. I’m about as dusty as these bleedin’ books. I might as well hop up on that shelf you just emptied.”
Barker set another book on top of the growing stack. “Is there a chance I can take a look at the log of incoming items?”
“Not a chance. Not for two boxfuls of musty books. Not for all the musty books in London.”
“What about something more…expensive?” Barker began to look about the shop. “Then can we call it square?”
“Now you’re talkin’.”
Barker walked slowly through the room, examining sextants, harpoons, and fishing nets. Finally he looked out the front window.
“The jacket in the window, lad. Bring it here.”
I obeyed and went over to the window. I unbuttoned the sealskin jacket and brought it to my employer, leaving the headless dummy naked.
“It looks rather small,” I pointed out as I handed it to him.
“You surely don’t think I would wear this thing. I am purchasing it for you.”
“Me!” I protested, but Barker had already thrown it over my shoulders. It was pure white, made of the pelts of baby seals. I didn’t approve of killing the poor beasts just to make a coat, but I knew better than to protest in front of Barker. He was on a case and would not have cared if the coat were made from kittens.
The girl broke into a grin and even gave a whistle. She had very nice teeth, I noticed. “Oooh,” she said to me. “Don’t you look flash?”
“May I see the log now?” Barker asked her.
“Not so fast, your worship. Ain’t seen as much as a sou yet. Three pound even for the coat; three, one and six for the rest. A girl’s got to make a living.”
“Three pounds for a coat?” I asked as I took the money from my pocket.
“Where else in London are you gonna find sealskin?”
“Thomas,” Barker said, “pay the girl.”
“I don’t believe I caught your name,” I said to her.
“Don’t believe I threw it your way. It’s Hestia Petulengro. Hettie to my friends. I don’t number private detectives among me friends.”
“The log!” Cyrus Barker boomed. His patience had come to an end.
“All right!” she bristled back at him. “Keep your shirt on! Is he always like this? You poor blighter. The log is back here.”
She took a large book from behind the counter and set it in front of Barker. While he examined it, Hettie and I played involuntary peekaboo. I looked at her; she looked away. I looked at Barker and felt her eyes on me, then I looked up and it started all over again. I fancied half the East End might be in love with her.
“Here!” my employer said a minute later. “Luke Chow (D) Ajax: one sailors’ kit; one knife; one book, Chinese. Taken in New Year’s Day. What does the D stand for?”
Miss Petulengro seemed disposed to argue for another item, then changed her mind. “Deceased. My uncle often bought dead sailors’ effects from the ships that came through, regular-like. I do remember when that book came in, because it was an English sailor, but the book was Chinese. Come to think of it, it was a funny little book, full of stick figures fighting and foreign letters.”
“Do you have the sailor’s name?”
“No, we don’t ask. Not everything that comes in was purchased legally.”
“What became of the book?”
“Uncle Lazlo sold it later that day. I remember him remarking on it, wondering who’d buy such a thing.”
“Did he say who purchased it?”
She shrugged.
“Have you ever heard of a Mr. K’ing?”
The girl suddenly went cold. She gathered her shawl about her. “Here now, there’s no need to be bringing him into this.”
“So you know of him.”
“This is Limehouse, mister. He owns half the district.”
“Did you know Inspector Bainbridge?”
“Oh, everyone knew old Bainy. He ran Limehouse like a machine. Bit rough if you rubbed him on the warp instead of the woof. He investigated my uncle’s death.”
“Do you get ruffians in here?” I spoke up, remembering the toughs I had seen in Bethnal Green.
“Not this side of Limehouse Causeway. This is triad territory, but I’m sure you know that.”
“Did Inspector Bainbridge ever come back and question you about the case or mention any leads?” Barker asked.
“He’d check on me from time to time. Even made him a cuppa tea once, but I don’t appreciate having policemen underfoot. Never did find my uncle’s killer.”
“You live over the shop, then.”
“I own this whole building,” she said with some pride.
“Your uncle gave it all to you in his will?”
“He did. Fair and square. Not that it’s been a great and glorious thing, being a shopkeeper, I might add. Sometimes I wish I was carefree and working in the factory again. I’m just scrapin’ by here, except for when private detectives come in and want questions answered.”