Llewelyn?”
“I have an uncle whose surname is Penrith.”
“Penrith. That’s a good Welsh name. What is his first name?”
“Odweg.”
My employer scratched his chin for a moment in thought. “Perhaps we’ll just call you Thomas. Thomas Penrith. That’s easy for me to remember. Your name is Thomas Penrith. You are from Cardiff and are van Rhyn’s assistant, a disaffected student with anarchist beliefs and a grudge against England. You have been trained at Nobel’s factory near Glasgow and have worked with your new employer for six months. You have a certain natural ability with explosives, and you show great promise. Have you got that, lad?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Excellent. The reason Le Caron has succeeded, and all the others have failed, is that he did not try to pretend to be Irish.”
“I say, sir, have we anything else to do this afternoon? I thought I might stop and see Ira Moskowitz and Israel Zangwill. If I may, I’d like to tell them I was leaving town.”
“Certainly, lad. See your friends. I’m going out myself. I’ll seeyou back at home for dinner.”
I didn’t ask where he was going, and I don’t think he would have told me had I asked, but I had my suspicions. My employer kept company with a certain woman whose identity one would almost suppose was a state secret. Mac referred to her only as the Widow and she was never to be spoken of. I didn’t intend to do so now.
I jumped out and was soon walking down Commercial Street, that great aorta of London trade. Three months before, this area on the east side of the City was unknown to me, but now I knew it as well as the Elephant & Castle. If I had taken anything away with me from our last case, other than several torn ligaments and injured joints, it was my friendship with Israel and Ira. A quick cut up Bell Lane, and a few odd turnings, and I was in Spitalfields. The two of them lived in a boardinghouse for Jewish teachers and scholars. I’d visited enough times that I had become a nuisance to open the door to, and so had been given leave to enter as if I were a boarder. I slipped in, climbed the stairwell to the first floor, and rapped loudly on a door. A voice bade me enter, and I stepped inside.
Israel looked up from his studies. If someone had told me a year before that my two closest friends would be Jews, I would have laughed, having never even met one before, but so they had become. Israel is all head on a stalk of a body, with more nose and less chin than he knows what to do with. At the moment, his nose was propping up a pair of half-moon spectacles, for he had been preparing lessons for his third-form class.
“Thomas!” he cried. “What brings you to Whitechapel?”
“I was wondering if you were interested in sponsoring Ira Moskowitz in the club.”
Israel gave me a shrewd look. “You deem him worthy?”
“I deem him unlikely to ever be asked to join any other club,” I said.
“You are right there. But I’m just a humble teacher, not afamous detective’s assistant. The fourpence nomination fee might break me. Besides, I sponsored you. It’s your turn now.”
“Very well, I’ll pay. In fact, I’ll pay for everything.”
“You’ve ended a case?”
“No. Begun one. I’ll explain when we’re there.”
We quickly liberated Ira from his studies at the yeshiva, and spirited him away to our little club. Ira was mystified at his abduction, and more so when we turned in to St. Michael’s Alley, off Cornhill Street, unchanged for two hundred and fifty years. We opened the door of the Barbados, not a private club at all, really, but the most ancient coffeehouse on the street, and bowled him into the dark interior.
The proprietor came forward and bowed. “Good afternoon, Mr. Zangwill, Mr. Llewelyn. Have you brought a guest?”
“We’d like to sponsor this fellow for membership,” I said.
The owner looked Ira over doubtfully from head to toe. He does not have a prepossessing exterior. He is stout and pale
“I have an uncle whose surname is Penrith.”
“Penrith. That’s a good Welsh name. What is his first name?”
“Odweg.”
My employer scratched his chin for a moment in thought. “Perhaps we’ll just call you Thomas. Thomas Penrith. That’s easy for me to remember. Your name is Thomas Penrith. You are from Cardiff and are van Rhyn’s assistant, a disaffected student with anarchist beliefs and a grudge against England. You have been trained at Nobel’s factory near Glasgow and have worked with your new employer for six months. You have a certain natural ability with explosives, and you show great promise. Have you got that, lad?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Excellent. The reason Le Caron has succeeded, and all the others have failed, is that he did not try to pretend to be Irish.”
“I say, sir, have we anything else to do this afternoon? I thought I might stop and see Ira Moskowitz and Israel Zangwill. If I may, I’d like to tell them I was leaving town.”
“Certainly, lad. See your friends. I’m going out myself. I’ll seeyou back at home for dinner.”
I didn’t ask where he was going, and I don’t think he would have told me had I asked, but I had my suspicions. My employer kept company with a certain woman whose identity one would almost suppose was a state secret. Mac referred to her only as the Widow and she was never to be spoken of. I didn’t intend to do so now.
I jumped out and was soon walking down Commercial Street, that great aorta of London trade. Three months before, this area on the east side of the City was unknown to me, but now I knew it as well as the Elephant & Castle. If I had taken anything away with me from our last case, other than several torn ligaments and injured joints, it was my friendship with Israel and Ira. A quick cut up Bell Lane, and a few odd turnings, and I was in Spitalfields. The two of them lived in a boardinghouse for Jewish teachers and scholars. I’d visited enough times that I had become a nuisance to open the door to, and so had been given leave to enter as if I were a boarder. I slipped in, climbed the stairwell to the first floor, and rapped loudly on a door. A voice bade me enter, and I stepped inside.
Israel looked up from his studies. If someone had told me a year before that my two closest friends would be Jews, I would have laughed, having never even met one before, but so they had become. Israel is all head on a stalk of a body, with more nose and less chin than he knows what to do with. At the moment, his nose was propping up a pair of half-moon spectacles, for he had been preparing lessons for his third-form class.
“Thomas!” he cried. “What brings you to Whitechapel?”
“I was wondering if you were interested in sponsoring Ira Moskowitz in the club.”
Israel gave me a shrewd look. “You deem him worthy?”
“I deem him unlikely to ever be asked to join any other club,” I said.
“You are right there. But I’m just a humble teacher, not afamous detective’s assistant. The fourpence nomination fee might break me. Besides, I sponsored you. It’s your turn now.”
“Very well, I’ll pay. In fact, I’ll pay for everything.”
“You’ve ended a case?”
“No. Begun one. I’ll explain when we’re there.”
We quickly liberated Ira from his studies at the yeshiva, and spirited him away to our little club. Ira was mystified at his abduction, and more so when we turned in to St. Michael’s Alley, off Cornhill Street, unchanged for two hundred and fifty years. We opened the door of the Barbados, not a private club at all, really, but the most ancient coffeehouse on the street, and bowled him into the dark interior.
The proprietor came forward and bowed. “Good afternoon, Mr. Zangwill, Mr. Llewelyn. Have you brought a guest?”
“We’d like to sponsor this fellow for membership,” I said.
The owner looked Ira over doubtfully from head to toe. He does not have a prepossessing exterior. He is stout and pale
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