‘We’ve arrived,’ Karim said. As he swung down from the chaise, I could see he had his hand at his belt, around the hilt of his sabre. ‘Shall we go?’
I Mash and Bend Myself
‘This is it?’ I stared incredulously at the building down the road which Karim had pointed out. ‘This is where the wealthiest man of the British Empire keeps a document that is so important he has killed people for it?’
‘Second-wealthiest,’ Mr Ambrose commented coolly. ‘I am the wealthiest man of the British Empire, not that reprehensible individual who calls himself a lord.’
‘Oh, who cares?’
‘I do.’
Rolling my eyes, I turned to Karim, ignoring my employer. ‘This is it?’
With both hands, I gestured towards the house. It was a two-story brick building, slightly slanted, with dark stains on the front wall. The noise of cheap piano music came from inside, and over the door hung a sign which designated the establishment to be The Plough and Anchor.
Karim simply shrugged. Lord, I just had it up to here with men who couldn’t open their mouths to give me a straight answer!
Looking around again, I got a fuller impression of my surroundings. The place might not look like what I expected Lord Dalgliesh’s fancy headquarters to look like, but it certainly seemed evil enough to be the lair of a lord of the criminal underworld. The houses around us were dilapidated. Black smoke hung over the area, although none of it actually came from the houses' chimneys, which were cold empty. Washing lines criss-crossed between the roofs, or at least I assumed they were washing lines. The things that hung from them didn’t look much like clothes to me, but I didn’t think anybody would bother hanging old rags up to dry.
In a doorway not too far down the street sat a thin figure, wrapped in just such rags. It didn’t move. I shivered.
‘Where are we?’
My voice wasn’t nearly as forceful as before.
Mr Ambrose looked around, his eyes coolly assessing the neighbourhood. Nobody’s eyes were better for cool assessment than his.
‘Norfolk Street,’ he said finally, pointing to a dirty street sign I couldn’t for the life of me decipher.
‘Where’s that, Sir? I’ve never heard of such a street before.’
‘It’s only natural that you wouldn’t have. It’s near the docks - in the East End.’
The East End.
Every child in London knew that name. The worst fear of every wealthy citizen of London was to get lost and end up right here: in the stinking, rotting liver of London, where all the refuse its heart didn’t want to deal with was dumped until further notice. It was a labyrinth of small streets and dirty houses where poor people crowded together because they had no money to go anywhere else. They looked for work at the docks or at one of the numerous factories. The smoke, unending hard labour and poisonous food slowly killed them off, one by one.
And when they happened to stumble across some unlucky member of the upper classes in their home territory, they weren’t shy about expressing their displeasure at these circumstances. Sometimes with the help of knives and cudgels.[46]
Shuddering, I took in my bleak surroundings once more, then looked back the way we had come. Maybe…
‘Do you wish to return to Empire House?’ Mr Ambrose asked curtly. ‘Karim can drive you back, Mr Linton.’
I hesitated. A scream sounded in the distance. It wasn’t the kind of harmless little scream that came from a sleepwalker just having put his foot in a puddle of water, either. Wind howled through the street, driving the fog past us. It seemed thicker here, somehow, than in the rest of the city. Darker. As if a thousand sinister things were hiding in its depths.
Mr Ambrose seemed to sense my hesitation.
‘It is no problem,’ he said, and there might actually have been something akin to compassion in his voice. ‘You can leave if you are afraid.’
Immediately, I raised my chin and met his eyes.
‘I? Afraid? Of course not, Sir. What do we do now?’
A muscle in Mr Ambrose’s jaw twitched. It seemed, just for a moment, as though he might be going to argue. In the end, though, he turned towards Karim.
‘Where in this building is the file?’ he snapped.
‘I do not know, Sahib. Warren told me that they had found what we had been looking for, and I rushed to you without delay.’
‘I see. Then call Warren. Now.’
Not taking his right hand from his sabre, the Mohammedan raised his left to his lips and put two gnarled fingers in his mouth. He blew twice, and the whistle-tones echoed from the dilapidated houses.
Suddenly, Warren appeared out of the darkness. He was dressed in dockworker clothes and had a man on either side of him.
‘Sir.’ He gave a little bow to Mr Ambrose.
Mr Ambrose didn’t waste any time on social niceties. ‘The file, Warren. Where is it?’
‘I do not know, Sir.’
‘But you said-’
‘I said we had found what we had been looking for. But not the file. Not exactly. We found the man who bought the file from Mr Simmons. The middle man of the deal.’
Mr Ambrose took a step forward.
‘I dislike inaccurate reports, Warren,’ he said, pinning the other man with his eyes of dark ice. ‘I know you have not been in my employ long, so I tell you now: I dislike them intensely.’
Warren swallowed and hastily bowed again, while I tried to hide a grin. I could have told Warren that much. ‘Yes, Mr Ambrose, Sir. Of course, Mr Ambrose, Sir.’
‘This man… He’s in that pub now?’
‘Yes, Sir. The Plough and Anchor, Sir. We have the place surrounded.’
‘By how many men?’
‘A dozen.’
‘Only a dozen?’
Mr Ambrose’s mouth, normally a thin, exquisite line, turned into nothing more than a scratch on his chiselled face. Other people might not have noticed the minuscule change in expression - I, however, had learned to read the signs foretelling of approaching storms.
‘Tell me, Mr Warren, how often have you conducted investigations in the East End before?’
‘Um…’ Warren nervously tugged at his collar. ‘Never before, to be honest, Sir. I was mostly employed in the more reputable parts of London, seeing as my clientele were wealthy citizens. To be honest, I expected that in your employ, too, Sir, I would not be venturing into these-’