Onyx City (The Lazarus Longman Chronicles Book 3) by P. J. Thorndyke

that Britain won’t throw its support behind the Confederacy tomorrow. Then it will only be a matter of time before mechanicals will be replacing us in the factories, taking over the docks and walking shoulder to shoulder with us in the streets. I say, more tea, Comrade Clumps?”
    They left the club with Kovalev. It was still early and the shadows had only just begun to lengthen. “Why did you not introduce us to Mr. Levitski earlier?” Lazarus asked their host.
    “Because not all of my comrades are worth your time. Levitski is an untrustworthy fellow. He talks big but contributes little. The others put up with him, but I don’t like the man.”
    Lazarus felt that there was more to this dislike than Kovalev was letting on, but did not press it. They bade each other good night and the old Russian headed off to his home in Mile End.
    “Well, Comrade Clumps,” said Lazarus. “I don’t know about you, but I’m dying for a drink. All that talk of class war and economic enslavement has my ears ringing and the air in that place parches the throat.”
    “Do you think that any of those fellows are the dangerous men Morton is interested in?” Mr. Clumps said.
    “Hard to say. I wouldn’t trust any of them overly, I’ll say that much, but there seems to be an awful lot of pipesmoke being blown about in that house and very little in the way of real plans. They are all eager to debate the ‘inevitable class war’, but then they adjourn for tea and merry renditions of French revolutionary songs. I don’t think any of them are serious enough to warrant my filing a report on them with the bureau. Still, I’d like to probe a little deeper.”
    “Maybe you could drop some hints insinuating that you are made from sterner stuff,” said Mr. Clumps. “That way you might draw out the real hardliners, if there are any.”
    Lazarus was genuinely surprised. “Mr. Clumps, old boy, you are learning fast. Now, let’s see about that drink.”
    Whitechapel Road often surprised the newcomer by its apparent respectability. The pit of filth and degradation as depicted in the newspapers was largely exaggerated. It was certainly not an upmarket high street but the friendly hawkers and market stall owners, public houses, shops and gin palaces were a far cry from the Sodom or Gomorrah painted by the press.
    Steam from the nearby railway hung in great white plumes above the gabled rooftops, while the tune cranked out by an organ-grinder drifted across the street. Men smoking pipes leaned in doorways and in the entrances to dim and gloomy alleyways. Children spent away their pennies in shooting galleries, and some stood in awestruck fascination as a foreigner did tricks with a white rat. A variety of colorful characters shouted out the benefits of whatever they were selling; new and improved boot-polish, curiously strong mints and pamphlets of poetry for only 3d. In the window of a Jewish shop, Lazarus saw books in Hebrew amidst various objects pertaining to synagogue worship. Even at the tail end of the day the whole street was alive with the multi-layered colors of life.
    But underneath this façade of noise and bustle, the reminders of what had occurred in those black passages beyond the shop fronts in the darkest hours of the night were ever present. A fat man with a waxed moustache drew in customers to a ghoulish waxworks show depicting the recent killings in as much gory detail as possible. A notice in a shop window offered a reward of a hundred pounds for the apprehension of the perpetrator. A newspaper boy wandered past waving a folded paper that promised more on the brutal monster that stalked the shadows of the night.
    As they stepped off the high street into one of the alleys, Lazarus immediately felt as if they had trespassed into another world. It was instantly darker and colder. The tall, shabby buildings loomed over the narrow cobbles, blocking the sunlight. The sounds were different here; an old woman’s pneumonic coughing, a