Some Danger Involved by Will Thomas

slathered in lime and tea leaves and buried in the ground a hundred days until it was mummified. “I believe I’ll stick to the rice,” I said.
    Soon, the ever helpful waiter was slapping down cups of tea on our roughhewn table, and Barker was reaching for his likeness in meerschaum. I leaned back in the stout Windsor chair, and put my feet against the base of the table, as Barker had done. A full belly and a comfortable chair. What more could any man ask?
    “So, how is the investigation going?” I asked.
    “Tolerably,” he said, between puffs. “It’s still early days yet. An investigation is like a drop of water in the cleft of a rock. One must remain fluid and take advantage of every quake and opportunity to get to the bottom of it.”
    “That sounds like an oriental axiom. You could write a book of them, The Analects of Barker.”
    He continued to puff, once every thirty seconds or so. “I must learn to guard myself from that scalpel-like humor of yours,” he said, finally.
    “Sorry, sir. Could you explain how we’re to go about the case a little more clearly?”
    “Very well. Our purpose is to discover who killed Mr. Pokrzywa and whether there is an attempt afoot to create a pogrom against the Jews in London, correct? Now, somewhere out there are individuals who perpetrated the atrocity and who want to thwart our attempts. Between us, there are dozens of individuals with bits of information that would be helpful to our case. They may be keeping them secret; they may not even know they are important. Our simple task is to find those individuals, out of the three million people presently living in London, and to pry the information out of them, like a pearl out of an oyster.”
    “You make it sound so easy,” I said cynically.
    “It’s not as difficult as it seems. People are naturally gregarious. And we’ll have a wee bit of help. There are a few, let us call them ‘watchers,’ in the area. We’ll parlay with them, next. Let’s go brave the tunnel again, shall we? Ho needs the table, and it’s hard to investigate with a hatchet in one’s back.”
    Back in the street, which at Ho’s insistence shall remain anonymous, Barker and I set out on foot.
    “If I may ask a question, sir, what skills should I develop to become a better detective or assistant?”
    “Patience, most of all,” he said, swinging his stick to match his stride. “Patience is the essential quality of a man. Observation. Doggedness. Imagination. It’s all in those books I gave you. Oh, and meditation, or prayer.”
    “Prayer?” I asked.
    “Of course. If you’re not connected to the source of all knowledge, you’re no better than a telephone when one of these lines is down.” He gestured with his stick at the wires over our heads.
    We had reached Mile End Road and were heading east. We were near Limehouse, as far as I could tell, and were walking along a blank wooden wall, painted a dull brown, one like a hundred other such walls in London, when he lifted a latch and stepped into a small courtyard with an old pump. Barker did not hesitate but moved to the pump and drew water. He washed his hands with a small piece of glycerin soap and even wiped a little of the grime from his patent leather boots. I’d noted he had a certain catlike cleanliness. He spoke not a word but passed me the soap and renewed the pump. Our ablutions complete, we entered a tall building whose blackened exterior gave no indication of what we would find inside. Barker opened a door and led me into a large room lit only by windows. In the center, four posts were set up and connected with thick ropes to form a makeshift boxing ring. Hanging bags, jumping ropes, and Indian pins gave evidence that this room was used for physical culture. My employer, still silent, led me across the room to a stair at the far end and began to climb.
    The upper floor was also in perfect darkness, and I had to follow Barker by sound alone down some hallways. Finally, we came