Chapter Seven

Limehouse

McGloury alighted from a Hansom cab. He had left the warm fire of Tasha’s sitting room less than an hour ago, but now, clutching his cloth travelling bag before a dingy, featureless building in the notorious Limehouse district, he was in a different world. As near as he could make out, through the pea soup fog, the entire area was dilapidated, derelict, and dying in squalor. A place of hard beginnings and sad endings, Limehouse was a magnet for immigrants, and had a sizable Chinese community.

McGloury walked to the door of the building and knocked three times, then three times more. A peep-hole slid open and briskly shut. The door opened a crack and McGloury slid through.

The place was long and narrow, with crude wooden berths, suggestive of steerage on an immigrant ship. He walked past the bent, cigar-smoking old woman who manned the door, then entered the smoky opium den. McGloury ignored the dreamers, puffing their pipes, some in strange positions, others mumbling incoherently in monotone, and went, purposely, to a tall, thin man sitting bowed over a small charcoal brazier.

The brazier had coins around its base. McGloury took one and walked to a door on the opposite side of the room. The walls of the place were stained and smudged brown from long exposure to opium smoke. He reached the door and placed the coin in a little slot. The door opened, and there, with a petulant expression, was Coira, the blonde from the Hermes Club.

McGloury entered a palatial room of polished mahogany and glittering crystal. The four midgets from the park murder were playing a game of whist at a gleaming wooden table.

At the far end was another door—this one of burnished, riveted steel.

Behind that door, the briefcase taken from the murdered naval officer in St. James Park had its contents spread across a table of glistening teak. Among them were technical diagrams of a battleship with “H.M.S. Dreadnought—Top, Top, Secret” in red ink atop the paper. A man in his late thirties, with a dueling scar, a thick neck shaved in the Prussian style, and a stiff military bearing, examined the diagram with his monocle. His name was Baron Wilhelm von Traeger, and he was dressed in a proper, almost severe, frock coat that he wore like a uniform. A Teutonic sense of bearing, as well as his heavy accent, betrayed his Prussian origins. “As we have agreed, Priestess, when the Englanders believe that the Germans have sunk their new battleship, they will certainly declare war.”

Deirdre, sitting near Sebastian in front of a fire, was dressed in the white robes of an ancient pagan priestess. At first glance her robes might have been mistaken for Druidic, but there were differences that revealed the similarities were superficial; a scarlet belt accented her slim figure and a crescent-moon dangled near her breast, reflecting the dancing fire. She nodded and added, “Yes. Baron. That is why your firm and your English accomplices …”

“Associates,” he corrected.

She raised her eyebrow; the distinction wasn’t worth a comment. “… have agreed to finance my plan. After all, war is good business when you make your bread and cheese selling steel and black powder.”

“These days, cordite,” he corrected Deirdre once more.

The room around them, the hideaway of the managing director of one of England’s premier defence firms, seemed to give life to her statement. The decoration of the room was devoted to weapons: paintings and models of cannon, rammers crossed like swords, on the wall, as well as shells of various calibres. Above the fireplace was a huge painting of a sprawling armaments factory. Deirdre’s chair was the cut-down bottom of an old-style 32-inch mortar.

Von Traeger tapped a chart of the Firth of Clyde with the edge of his monocle. A ship’s course in red and marked “Dreadnought” skirted the coast of Millport Island. Another course, labeled “U-boat” originated from the island and intercepted the Dreadnought close by. “I will personally pilot the U-boat. We will be rich beyond imagination!”

“Money is of little importance, Baron.”

He snorted, then with an amused smirk, asked her, “Then what you hope to achieve by this war escapes me, Priestess …”

“I have my own accounts to settle. Some with considerable interest.”

Von Traeger’s voice became stern. “Then why do you wish to jeopardize everything with a personal vendetta against this Lady Dorrington? I will not permit it!”

Deirdre sat back in her chair and closed her large eyes, smiling faintly. Sebastian, concerned, inadvertently leaned forward. She said softly, “Do not betray me, Baron Von Traeger. Your own Herr Gottlieb attempted to interfere, and you remember what became of him?”

Von Traeger became subdued. “All they ever found was his monocle—polished.”

“Am I in command, Baron?”

He clicked his heels and snapped to attention. “That was never in question!”

The door behind him opened and Coira entered, motioning toward the outer room. “He’s returned from Lady Dorrington’s.” Her voice was sulky and there was an unpleasant slur on “Lady Dorrington.”

Sebastian spoke up. “Oh, leave it be, Deirdre …” but his determination dissolved as her eyes locked on him. He sat in silence and looked away.

Coira laughed insolently. Deirdre ran her gaze over the pouting girl in an almost masculine appraisal, then, bored, walked to the door. McGloury approached Deirdre the second he saw her, but did not speak until she asked, “Did Lady Dorrington …?”

McGloury grinned and nodded “yes” to the uncompleted question. Deirdre smiled faintly and returned to her chair, commanding the attention of all in the room. “It begins,” she whispered.