Fatal Enquiry by Will Thomas

clamored lackadaisically in the river breeze. I hadn’t been so naïve as to expect a hotel for the night, but I had at least hoped for a proper room.
    A door opened behind us and a boy emerged, guarding a candle with the palm of one hand. He was Chinese, with a queue down his back, a small pillbox hat, and no shoes. He took in the sight of the three of us lying on his barge with the kind of stoic calm I’ve seen his people exhibit in the face of disaster. Coming forward, he engaged Barker in low conversation in what I assumed was Cantonese.
    I wanted to ask where we were, but couldn’t muster the strength, or perhaps I simply saw the futility of asking. Barker looked in no mood to answer questions, and I doubted the boy spoke English. Luckily for me, Bully Boy Briggs had awakened and favored a more direct approach.
    “Where the hell am I?” he suddenly bellowed into the night.
    I couldn’t have put it better myself.

CHAPTER NINE
     
    Within minutes, the boy pressed small cups of strong, black tea into our hands, and I began to suspect that, all things being considered, I just might live. Briggs had fallen into a sullen silence, probably irked at how easily he had been overcome by my employer. In spite of what he’d called out, he appeared incurious of his surroundings, or of his sodden clothing, but then, he was likely nursing a concussion.
    The boy soon returned with bowls of rice flavored with egg but with neither spoons nor chopsticks to eat them with. Barker dug his fingers into the bowl and shoved a handful into his mouth. Briggs sniffed the bowl suspiciously, decided the contents wouldn’t kill him, and began to do likewise. I followed suit. When we were done, Barker patted his pockets, then remembered his pipe lying on the floor in our offices with its stem broken. He frowned and sniffed, mentally tightening his belt.
    “Lad,” he said. “Leave James and me to talk. There are berths down below. Get some sleep. You’ll need it.”
    I wanted to hear what plan the Guv had concocted, but at the same time, I was cold and exhausted. I nodded and said good night, then went through the door of the makeshift structure and down a narrow set of steps. The boy met me there and led me through an ill-lit corridor to the stern of the ship. There, divesting myself of every stitch of clothing I had, I climbed into the unfamiliar bed, and was asleep almost instantly.
    Hours later, I woke to the sound of the river slapping against the barnacle-laden timbers near my head. The cabin was smoky with the acrid scent of whale oil, and I felt nauseous from the fumes. Pushing myself out of the berth, I looked about for my clothes, but they were gone. Wrapping the blanket around me like a toga, I staggered to the door and threw it open. When I was certain I wasn’t going to be ill, I shuffled down the corridor. Ahead of me I heard a tinkling sound, almost like sleigh bells. In the main cabin, I was treated to a sight which almost made me forget my nausea entirely.
    Cyrus Barker was stripped to the waist and there were stout steel rings suspended from his forearms, seven or eight on each one. They were an inch thick and a little wider than the circumference of his arms. He was performing one of his Chinese forms, like a ballet, but an earthbound one, under the accumulated weight of the rings. So deep was the strain, in fact, that the Guv’s body dripped with sweat and the short hair spiked upon his head. Barker had taught me several rudimentary forms but I had not seen one like this before. I waited until he was done before daring to speak.
    “Where is Briggs?”
    “I let him go,” he said, as he let the rings slide down his arm onto the floor with a musical clatter.
    “You trust him to keep our whereabouts secret?”
    “I trust him to do that which is in his own self-interest. I paid him off with a few damp bills from your trouser pockets. It should buy us some time, at least.”
    “I hope you didn’t give him too many.