We were passing by the Strand again, and I was just about to make some remark, when there was a sudden clatter of shoes, and I was suddenly knocked off my feet. My head hit the cobblestones, and I tried to struggle, but there was more than one man on top of me. The familiar cold steel of bracelets closed about my wrists. I was thrown over onto my back, a bull’s-eye shone in my eyes, and my throat felt the unwelcome weight of a truncheon. I couldn’t see my attackers behind the lantern or what had happened to Barker, but if he was in a similar situation, we were in a fine mess.
“Sir!” I cried.
“Do not struggle, lad!” I heard my employer’s low voice from a half dozen yards away.
A face came into the light, looking me over carefully. It was a meaty face with a brushy mustache and a blue helmet, a sergeant of the Liverpool police.
“We been waitin’ for you two blokes to come back down here. Glad you could oblige us.”
As Barker and I were hefted to our feet and prodded along, bruised and shackled, to the station in Wapping Street, I reflected on how that which you most fear will happen so often comes to pass.
Breathe in, I told myself. Breathe out. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Anything but dwell on the fact that there were darbies on my wrists again and a truncheon prodding me in the kidneys. No more, I told myself. No more. I’d learned my lesson. I’d sworn I’d never give anyone reason to throw me back in stir. How did I get in this situation? We were just walking down the street, like normal citizens. We hadn’t been doing anything illegal. We would have been safe if only we’d stayed in our beds, but our fool’s errand had brought us in harm’s way.
We were tricked, I told myself. We’d raced out after her, and now we’d been jugged as easily as a hare. Barker couldn’t reveal our identities and our reason for being in Liverpool. I knew we’d promised Anderson we wouldn’t involve the Home Office, but back then, the chances of discovery had seemed so remote. Surely, I thought, the emergency of the situation warranted disclosing who we were to the authorities.
I looked over at Barker, wondering what he was thinking. He was marching along with his hands behind his back, his head down. He might have been wandering in Hyde Park, deep in thought, for all his appearance. I envied him his ability to retreat at any moment to some remote corner of his mind, as cold and mystical as Lhasa or Kathmandu.
Suddenly, Barker did something I’d never seen him do before. He tripped, sprawling face-first in the street. Barker never tripped. He was as sure-footed as a cat. As the men swarmed over him and yanked him again to his feet, I tried to read his expression. His cheek was bruised, and he looked disoriented. Was it defeat, or was he up to something?
We were herded into the entranceway of the constabulary building. A man waited for us as we neared the front door. He was approximately five and thirty, with a thin mustache like a brow across his upper lip and one of the squarest jaws I’d ever seen. He looked at us out of steel-gray eyes and over an aquiline nose. He was dressed in the military-looking green uniform of a Liverpool inspector.
“You’ve got them, eh? Good work, gentlemen. Take them to the questioning room.”
I didn’t like the sound of “questioning room.” British officials are quick to give bland names to menacing places. The euphemisms complemented the chilling humor of the administrators.
We were taken into a room where, despite the fact that we made absolutely no struggle since it had all began, we were thrust roughly down into two chairs. The fellow in the green jacket came in and we were left alone with him and one constable, who had his notebook out. I noticed the inspector had a short riding crop in his hand.
“I am Chief Inspector Johanson,” he stated. “You two gentlemen have been seen in the company of known Irish rebels. I demand to know your names.”
Barker ignored the question and launched a barrage of his own in a thick German accent. “What is the meaning of this? Where have you brought us? Cannot a man walk in this city without being attacked by the secret police? I demand to be released immediately!”
Barker was oscillating his head slightly, and it took me a moment to realize what he was doing. He was pretending he was blind. It was why he had stumbled in the street.
“You have not answered my question,” the inspector warned. “Tell me your name, you.” He held up his riding crop, threatening Barker, but my employer appeared to take no notice. Seeing that warning him didn’t work, he struck the Guv a cutting blow across the face. Rather melodramatically, Barker fell out of his chair. He would have absorbed such a blow without comment under normal circumstances.
“Schwein!” he called from the floor, shaking in anger. “You strike a blind man, without warning? Coward! Why don’t you simply go out in the street and kick children and old women?”
Realizing for the first time that his suspect was blind, Johanson hefted him back into the chair, though he offered no apology.
“Look, man, you are in no position to be calling names here. You watch your mouth or I’ll give you another one.”
“You strike me one more time, Inspector,” Barker assured him, “and you shall be patrolling the quays as a constable by tomorrow. Do you think I am some common street thief you have caught in your dragnet? Nein! It is a whale. I am too big for your little boat. You want to know my name? I shall tell you my name. It is Johannes Otto van Rhyn! You recognize it? Good! Now run along. Get someone of authority in here. I do not talk to … to … What is the word, Thomas? The little fishes, you know.”
“I think the word you want is ‘minnows,’ sir,” I prompted.
“Ja. Danke, Thomas. I do not talk to minnows. Run along, Little Minnow. And I should like some tea if I am to be kept waiting long.”
I could see a thousand thoughts running through the inspector’s head. No prisoner had ever spoken so rudely to him, or they’d have been beaten soundly, but no prisoner ever had spoken with such authority either. Certainly, he’d heard of van Rhyn. The mysterious bomber’s name had been in the newspapers several times. He was well known, indeed. Johanson might receive acclaim for capturing him. On the other hand, he’d struck him. Did Barker really mean that he could have the man demoted? If Barker spoke to the press and made it seem like the Liverpool police had beaten and mistreated a blind man, he might. These were deep waters, indeed. Johanson didn’t want to get in trouble with his superiors. He did have a whale in his net. It would be a great deal safer if he’d simply step down the hall and speak with his supervisor.
“What are you doing?” the inspector snapped at the brawny constable holding the notebook.
The fellow looked up in surprise. “Taking notes, sir.”
“Destroy that!” he ordered.
I dared put in my own oar. “Herr van Rhyn takes milk and two sugars in his tea, Inspector, and I prefer black, myself.”
I could see he’d dearly like to have a swing at my head with that crop of his, but the political ramifications had suddenly filled the room. It was too hot in here. He needed to step out for some cool dock-side air.
“Stand guard outside!” he snarled at the poor constable. “I’m stepping down the hall to talk to the superintendent. Inspector Munro of the Special Irish Branch is here, and I think he’ll want to interrogate this prisoner.”
Both of them stepped outside, and we could hear the inspector going down the hall.
“Quick, lad,” Barker said. “We haven’t a moment to lose.”
20
“Turn around and see if you can reach my waistcoat,” Barker said. “I still have the betty in my pocket.”