ALTHOUGH LONDONERS WERE SWAYED DAILY BY THE WAR HEAD-lines and accommodated the marching doomsayers on their streets with mounting concern, the partners of Griff & Winshell remained unimpressed. The law was their Bible; the courts were their battlefield; and the gavel was more powerful than any cannon. The clerks remained perched at their desks (now equipped with typewriters rather than inkwells and blotting sand), their spines still arched like those of jockeys atop steeds. The atmosphere of urgency remained, as did the crackling inferno tended by Mr. Tobias Griff with his shining brass goat-headed tongs. The only obvious change was that Mr. Griff's divergent eyebrows were now snowy white, as was his goatee.
When Tom requested a private moment, Mr. Griff deposited a lump of coal on the fire and led him to his office, leaning against the brass tongs for support.
“Perhaps you don't remember me,” Tom began.
“On the contrary, it is my curse to remember everything, Tom Bedlam or, I should say, Dr. Chapel?” muttered Mr. Griff. “Though I cannot remember where I put my spectacles five minutes ago, I do recall the breakfast I enjoyed moments before you first walked into my office. I believe—”
“Then you may recall,” Tom interrupted, “that a baby was brought to you by my father, William Bedlam, about fifty-two years ago. I wish to know what became of him.”
The old solicitor looked momentarily shaken by Tom's inquiry.
“It was half of a cold meat pie, peppered until it was black,” he murmured, for this was the answer to the question he had expected—he prided himself on anticipating his clients' questions.
“Please, I need to confirm the identity of my brother!” Tom cried.
Mr. Griff embarked on a complicated justification for the necessity of privileged information, but Tom cut him short. “Surely you have wished, on occasion, to unburden yourself of the many secrets you carry with you?”
“I have, yes!” replied Mr. Griff. Raising his tongs, he struck the floorboard, and Tom noticed that the floor was pitted with scores of little indentations from such a gesture. “Nevertheless, such information is sacrosanct. My practice depends upon it. My reputation!”
Tom sighed. “Mr. Griff, please. I must know what happened to my brother. Are you aware of his identity?”
Mr. Griff nodded. “I sympathize deeply,” he replied. “But as I said, I have sworn not to let such information pass my lips.”
“I see,” Tom replied, and he sank miserably into his chair.
Mr. Griff turned the tongs in his hand, glanced briefly at his interlocutor, and wrapped his hand below the brass goat's head.
“Imagine if this fellow could talk; there'd be no stopping him. Oh, the things he's heard. Shocking things. Deplorable things. And, of course, things of great illumination”
Tom looked grimly at Mr. Griff, then down at the goat's head. What nonsense was this?
“Of course, goats cannot talk,” Mr. Griff added casually, “though I've heard tell of animals that could signify an aye or a no with one tap or two taps of the hoof.”
The lawyer raised the tongs and struck the floor loudly. Tom looked down at the indentations. There were hundreds, perhaps even thousands. It was a wonder that the boards remained intact. Then it occurred to him that these were not exclamations of Mr. Griff's reputation at all but perhaps the ayes and nos of the past fifty or sixty years.
“Mr. Griff,” Tom began, “would this fellow happen to know the identity of my brother?”
The lawyer peered through the glass window of his door at the clerks bent over their desks. He stroked his chin and slowly grasped the goat's head.
Suddenly the tongs struck the floor with a loud thump.
“Was his name Arthur Pigeon?” Tom asked.
The tongs rose and struck the floor twice.
Tom gasped. “Not Arthur Pigeon? Then he was someone else?”
Another tap from the tongs indicated the affirmative.
Not Arthur Pigeon? Then who could it be? Tom wondered. How could he possibly pose the question in such a way as to discover the truth? He was baffled.
“Is he alive?”
The tongs struck the floor once.
“Have I ever met this man?”
The goat's head repeated its answer.
Tom put his hands to his head in frustration. Griff sat back in his seat, his hand wrapped firmly around the goat's head. Tom thought of Tod-derman & Sons, the billowing smoke, the fiery furnaces, and his acquaintances in the tenement building.
“Brandy Oxmire?”
The tongs struck the floor twice.
“Oscar Limpkin?”
The previous answer was repeated.
Forgetting London, Tom thought of all the boys at Hammer Hall, but it seemed too much of a coincidence for any boy there to have been his brother. He thought of his peers at Holyrood; was it possible that he and his brother shared the same occupation? Then he considered Mr. Griff's role in his life. If Bill Bedlam had been a client of Griff & Win-shell, perhaps the recipient of the baby had been a client too, and there was only one other client Tom was aware of The man with wiry black muttonchops who had swept out of the establishment like a tornado in a black morning coat, the man who had paid for Tom's education as a bribe for remaining silent about the murder of Arthur Pigeon, the magnate who had thought nothing of using his influence for the benefit of his son.
“Is my brother Geoffrey Mansworth?”