The Limehouse Text by Will Thomas Page B

until we get to the middle of the paper, where we discover the head and shoulders of a sinister-looking fellow in a wide-brimmed hat and fur collar who I suspect is Mr. K’ing. Close to the upper right-hand corner, there is another face, larger and very wild: fierce teeth, bristling mustache, rolling eyes, a complete caricature of an Asian face. By the corner of the face is a wooden flail, two sticks connected by a rope. In the middle, there is a form bent over a line, loose, like one of those string puppets. What are they called?”
    “Marionettes, sir.”
    “Yes. The line stretches for some distance across the picture, then coils into a loop of rope. By the figure’s shoulder is a rough shape, which I believe is a coffin. Near the center of the page is a female form, nicely rendered but without a face. She wears a shawl and straw hat, and her hair is cut straight across her shoulders. I presume it is light colored, for he does not appear to have darkened it. Blond or red. The pose, holding the shawl around her, is demure and yet there is some voluptuousness to the figure. Two men are off to the right, in profile, as if watching the girl. One is taller than the other. They are shaded heavily, but I believe them to be Campbell-Ffinch and his interpreter, Woo.
    “On the bottom row, there is a figure slumped on the floor and a group of lines going back and forth away from him, like the teeth of a saw or steps. I adduce it is the image of Jan Hurtz, whom Bainbridge would have seen firsthand. There is a small sketch of a ship, possibly the Blue Funnel ship Ajax. We shall see. Here, where the coil of rope ends are three balls and a ticket, the one we gave to Hurtz’s brother. There is an almost comically menacing face, with a heavy beard, leering and ready to devour the maiden in the center. And here, at the very lower right-hand corner, is the face of my late assistant, whom Bainbridge had the poor taste to show as we found him on that terrible day, eyes half shut, arms thrown wide, and the bullet hole dead center. That is all.”
    “That’s one, two, five…nine figures altogether, and we know but half of them,” I pointed out.
    “Can you draw, lad?”
    “Not this well, sir.”
    “See if you can copy all these images. Let me go get the constable again.”
    He returned a few minutes later with the constable, who scratched his chin at our work. “That’s good thinking,” he admitted. “I would never have thought of it. This is the property of Scotland Yard, however. You won’t be able to take it with you.”
    “We understand that. Do any of these people look familiar to you?”
    “This ugly brute here,” he said, indicating the fierce face in the upper right-hand corner, is Charlie Han. He’s a young tough in Limehouse with a sizable corner of the betel nut market in his pocket. Inspector Bainbridge was always hauling him in on small charges. Now this coffin here and the fellow on the line, I think that’s Jonas Coffin’s place. A Chinaman died there last year. Funny name. Chow, I believe, Luke Chow. Coffin owns a penny hang in West India Dock Road. And there’s no missing who the girl is. We call her the Belle o’ Pennyfields. Works at a chandlery since her uncle was killed a year ago.”
    “Killed, you say?” Barker asked.
    “Yes, sir. He was robbed one evening. New Year’s Day, it was. Found dead behind the counter of his shop, with his neck broke, from what I hear.”
    “What is the girl’s name?” Barker asked.
    “Gypsy name, she has. Petulengro, same as her uncle’s. Hettie Petulengro.”
    The Guv turned to me. “There is your H P, lad.”
    “And what, may I ask, is going on here?” an official voice demanded from the doorway. It was Terence Poole, and he did not look pleased. He dismissed the constable with a glower and then turned on us.
    “That is Metropolitan Police property,” Poole said, pointing at the blotter.
    “We were merely deciphering it,” Barker said. “We have