“You sound as if you’ve got this all planned out,” I said to my employer, after Mac had slithered away in abject misery. “Would you mind telling me a bit more about our itinerary?”
“First thing tomorrow, you’re going to Aldershot to study bomb making under Johannes van Rhyn for a week,” Barker informed me. “And then, in the evening-”
There was a sudden sharp rat-a-tat of someone beating his stick on the front door. Despite the fact that we have a perfectly good knocker-a brass affair in the shape of a thistle-the fellow smote the wood. It set the dog off immediately, shrieking until Mac tossed him into the library and closed the door before answering the summons. Not knowing what to expect, I removed a stout cane from the stand, just in case.
“Yes, sir?” Mac asked our visitor upon opening the door.
“I wish to speak to Mr. Barker,” an angry voice answered.
“Who shall I say is calling, sir?”
“Chief Inspector James Munro of the Special Irish Branch, my man.”
Barker came up beside his butler.
“Thank you, Mac, that will be all. Good evening, Chief Inspector. Won’t you and your colleagues step in?”
Three sturdy men entered our hallway. The inspector was the smallest but also the most commanding. He was a bullet-headed little fellow, with a thick mustache and a beetling brow. His assistants could not be taken individually. They were oversize bookends to the inspector’s single compact volume.
“Barker, I need to know what was discussed at the Home Office yesterday morning.”
“Mr. Anderson is in charge,” my employer stated. “You must take it up with him.”
“Don’t cut up clever with me, Barker, or we can discuss this at Scotland Yard.”
“Certainly not in your office,” the Guv retorted, “unless it is to be an outside meeting.”
Munro turned red, trying to control his temper. “This is a Special Irish Branch case. We don’t need an outsider coming in and gumming up the works.”
“The Home Office seems to think otherwise. Robert Anderson hired me to work for them and I intend to do so. I suppose you could say Llewelyn and I have joined the secret police.”
“You can’t expect to investigate a case from inside Newgate Prison,” Munro blustered.
“On what charge, may I ask?”
“On suspicion. You’d be surprised at how long I can hold someone on suspicion.”
My stomach seemed to drop away from me. One cannot understand how a former prisoner feels when confronted by incarceration again.
“Should you attempt to detain me, Munro,” Barker said as easily as if they were discussing a game of whist, “I will see that my solicitor calls on Mr. Anderson. He in turn shall call upon Prime Minister Gladstone and the Prime Minister shall summon Commissioner Henderson and Superintendent Williamson. The superintendent shall then summon you and ask you what you are about, locking up hired agents of the Home Office. Have you been apprised that Scotland Yard will get the credit should we succeed?”
“I am highly suspicious of your little arrangements, Barker.”
“I certainly don’t want credit for capturing and imprisoning Irish terrorists,” Barker said. “It would be like putting a price upon my own head. I have nothing like your resources, and still your offices were blown up.”
Munro stepped forward, toe to toe with Barker, though my employer was a good head taller. “Why are you getting involved?” he demanded. “You’ve lost a little glass. You can afford it.”
Barker shrugged his beefy shoulders. “I don’t need to give my reasons to you, Chief Inspector. Anderson offered a price and I accepted it. That is hardly your concern.”
“We shall take the blame if you foul things up.”
“Foul things up?” Barker rumbled. I could see his own temper rising. “Foul things up! You haven’t successfully protected your own offices, let alone London. Didn’t the danger of having public lavatories so close to Scotland Yard occur to you? A child could see it!”
Munro stepped back and glowered as menacingly as he could. “When the corner of Scotland Yard is rebuilt, I shall see to it that the former gymnasium is turned into offices. Your precious physical training classes shall be a thing of the past.”
“Very well, but you can’t blame me the next time one of your constables snaps the neck of a fellow while trying to subdue him, when his only crime was a few too many pints of a Saturday evening.”
“You’d best watch your step,” the chief inspector threatened.
“That will be impossible, since my assistant and I shall be out of town for a month or so. Would you like an itinerary, or shall I just send you a carte postale along the way? I promise to send word when we return, in plenty of time for you to claim all the credit and glory.”
Munro opened his mouth to reply, could think of nothing more to say, and stormed out, leaving his satellites standing like maids at the gas-fitters’ ball awaiting a dance. They nodded to each other and left. Barker closed the door with his foot, then slammed the bolt home with an angry fist.
“‘But whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.’ Matthew five: twenty-two,” he growled, still trying to control his temper. “Some verses are harder to keep than others.”
7
Barkersaw me off at Waterloo Station the next morning. I had to admit I was going with some trepidation, though I tried not to show it. I’d never been at a military barracks before, and van Rhyn was a complete cipher to me. The thought occurred to me as well that if I mixed two parts A with one part B, instead of the other way ’round, I might not be coming back at all.
“You’ll get on, lad,” my employer assured me, as if reading my thoughts.
“Yes, thank you, sir,” I said, but my mind couldn’t help but go back to something he’d said to me during our first adventure: You’ll get on. Or you won’t.
I boarded the Great Western express, and by the time I found my seat, Barker had slipped off. I sat, let out a sigh, and suddenly wished I’d brought one of my books to study. I spied a bookstall among the other shops in the station and jumped out, knowing I had but a moment or two. The stall specialized in mystery thrillers and women’s publications. I’d been hoping for something more classical. Just when I was about to give up and jump back on the train empty-handed, I spied a book on old Irish legends. I handed over a few shillings and hopped on the footboard just as the final command to board was shouted out. I settled in my seat and began to read.
Since childhood, my brain had been steeped in the old Welsh legends, of Prince Pwyll and the underworld of Annwn, not to mention Arthur and his Round Table. The book in my hand was full of tales new to me, featuring the Irish heroes, Cu Chulainn and Finn MacCool, as they faced giants and Grendel-like monsters in the misty land of old Hibernia, and all this just a short boat journey from Pwyll’s kingdom. Times were certainly exciting in those ancient days, though they were not exactly a stroll through Hyde Park now, considering where I was headed at the moment.
I received the first sign that I was nearing my destination half an hour later when we passed a brigade of soldiers in their scarlet tunics and chalky helmets, marching in full kit. I was accustomed to seeing the Horse Guards rattling through Whitehall on their chargers, gold helmets gleaming, but the lads marching on this road in the drowsy June sun would soon be fighting the Mahdi’s fanatical hordes in the blistering heat of North Africa.
Ought I to join them? The thought of going for a soldier had never really occurred to me before. I’m certain that several of the lads I’d gone to school with were even now in the Sudan, and some had already given their lives while I’d been at university, wrestling with nothing more dangerous than Paradise Lost. Now I was employed by Barker. Were the words on the placards at the station correct? Was it my duty to go and fight for my country? As I sat in the railway carriage, I realized that I was already a soldier, a mercenary one, newly hired by Her Majesty’s government to safeguard the English way of life, and the Irish were a good deal closer than the Mahdi’s Muslims in the Sudan that the papers were thundering about. Suddenly, I missed my Milton.