“What did he say?”
“He didn’t say nothing. That weren’t like ’im, neither. He shut up tight and I couldn’t get nothing out of ’im. Went to bed mad, we did. That was the worse thing. We went to bed mad and ’e never woke up again.”
“Did he make any sound during the night?”
“He cried out in the middle o’ the night and said a word or two in his sleep, but never woke up. I could tell ’e was ill, but I didn’t know what was wrong or what to do. Then ’is kidneys failed ’im, and the blood, oh lands, it was everywhere. Soaked the bed so bad it couldn’t be cleaned. Had to throw it out. Nasty, terrible way for my Alfred to die. No dignity. Hush, you!”
The latter was directed toward the child in her arms, who was alternately wailing and blubbering. Mrs. Chambers-or rather, Mrs. Lynn-seemed to care not a whit that her youngest was crying. Her mind was back on the events surrounding her first husband’s death.
“’Ere now,” she said. “Are you saying there is some connection between Alf’s death and the Chinaman’s?”
“It is possible.”
“Natural causes, they said. You think they’re wrong?”
“That, too, is possible. It’s certainly strange for two men to die of natural causes within twenty-four hours of their arrival in England.”
The woman juggled her baby. “Keep me informed. I may have to speak with my solicitor. Alf didn’t leave me much besides brats. I deserve some compensation. I figure the Blue Funnel can afford it.”
“No doubt.”
By this time, the infant had gone from mewling to full-throated screams. Barker judged he’d gotten what he came for and began to back away. Just then the woman turned the baby around and I was never so shocked in my life. The baby was Oriental.
“Thank you, madam. We’ll let you get back to your bairns.”
We walked a few streets. I tried to keep silent, but I couldn’t. “I thought she said her married name was Lynn.”
“Ling, not Lynn.”
“Why would she marry a Chinaman, sir?”
“They have a reputation among East End women for being good husbands. They work hard, don’t drink, and rarely beat their wives.”
“But socially, sir-”
Barker gave a short cough that passed for a chuckle. “This is the East End, Thomas, not Kensington. People do what they can to survive.”
“All those children and then a little Chinese brother,” I mused.
“I’m sure there are a number of pastors willing to solemnize such a union, but if I may say it, lad, you’re still rather naive. Many of the unions in this area are common law only, and some families have a farrago of children.”
We had passed into West Ferry Road, talking of East-West relations when our minds were suddenly brought forcibly back to the case. A couple of Asian roughs, looking no more than eighteen, came running down the street, chasing each other in high spirits. They barreled into us and would have continued had the Guv not laid hands on the second one. It was one of the oldest dodges in London. The second was a pickpocket, and Barker caught the hand in his coat. That might have been the end of it, but the second snaked his thin leg around his companion and laid a roundhouse kick that caught my employer in the chest. Barker staggered back into a ragged beggar seated against a wall. The latter, in a shapeless coat and hat, put his hands up to ward off my falling employer, but the two men fell over each other. The youths, free again, ran down the street.
“Hey!” I cried. “Come back here!”
“No harm done,” Barker said, rising and dusting himself off, setting the beggar and his cup as they were. I knew what the Guv would ask before he said it, and dropped a shilling into the cup.
“Dratted pickpockets,” I grumbled. “The town is rife with them.”
“That is too much of a coincidence for mere pickpockets, lad,” Barker said. “I think it more likely to be another attempt by Quong’s killer to lay hands upon the text.”
13
Barker blew the steam off a cup of cocoa. The heavens over the waterfront had opened up again and we had taken refuge in a confectioner’s shop. There were no public houses in sight, and the shop afforded some degree of comfort and respectability. The cocoa warmed me better than a pint of bitter could, but the sight of Barker sipping on his cup of Fry’s was certainly a novel one. As a rule, he did not care for sweets.
“What did you think about Poole’s theory that Ho is Mr. K’ing?” I asked.
“It is erroneous but not entirely preposterous. Ho has always run deep. There is an underworld in China of boxers and bodyguards and secret schools of martial training and Ho has always been involved in it.”
“How did you meet Ho, sir, if I may ask?”
Barker put down his mug and wiped his mustache. “It was during the Chinese Civil War. Hong Xiuquan, leader of the rebellion, was out to destroy the monasteries at the time. He believed in a mangled form of Christianity, with himself at the right hand of God. Like most fellows my age, I joined as a soldier. One day, we were marching through a village outside Yangan when we came upon an army of rebels setting fire to a temple and killing the monks. Now, General Gordon was a Christian but he couldn’t stand by and watch a group of monks being slaughtered, even if they were Buddhists. He led us into the fray. What we didn’t know was that there was a second army behind the monastery.
“We fought all day and most of the night. There were heavy casualties on both sides. We had rifles and bayonets to their spears and arrows, but there was plenty of smoke from the burning monastery, and we fought at close quarters. By the end of the night, between my wounds and sheer exhaustion, I could hardly hold my rifle. I wandered among a sea of corpses, blood up to the horse’s bridle, as Revelation says, and the only living man in sight was a monk coming toward me with a spear in his hand. When he got close enough, he threw the spear at me. I ducked, amazed that he’d done it, after I’d just tried to save his monastery. What I didn’t know was that a wounded rebel was standing behind me with a broad sword, preparing to hack off my head. The spear caught him full in the throat. After all this time, I can still picture the look of surprise on the fellow’s face.
“The monk was Ho, of course. His head was shaven and he wore a long saffron robe splashed with gore, but you would have recognized him. He was only in his twenties, but I was not more than seventeen, myself. He put his foot on the chest of the freshly killed rebel soldier and pulled out the spear. We stood and watched the monastery burn. His first words to me were, ‘Perhaps this is a sign that I was not meant to be a monk.’”
I smiled at that image, and then asked, “What shall we do about Mr. K’ing?”
“There is nothing for it, lad. We shall have to beard the fellow in his den.”
“Perhaps Ho could furnish an introduction.”
“That would compromise Ho and possibly endanger him. Surely this fellow has a dwelling in Limehouse and an office where he conducts business. There must be someone who knows where he lives.”
“Dr. Quong?” I asked.
“Quong is an honorable man. I would not feel right about approaching him with such a request.”
“Jimmy Woo, then.”
“Excellent. I believe he is the very man. As an interpreter, he must travel all over Limehouse. I believe the rain has stopped. Let us go to the Asiatic Aid Society and see if we can find him.”
The Asiatic Aid Society was an organization much like the more-well-known Strangers’ Home, whose purpose was to care for aged or infirmed Eastern sailors who had found themselves washed up on our Western shores. Located in East India Dock Road, the building may once have been the mansion of an admiral in the days of Napoleon and Wellington. Now its halls were given over to aging lascars in the early stages of dementia and sad, neglected-looking Chinamen in bath chairs. There was a smell in the air of mold and dry rot, Asian food, and the sickbed that my nose didn’t like and my stomach cared for even less. The atmosphere was bleak and oppressive. I hoped our time here would be brief.