The Tiger in the Well, Page 20

  "Where are we going?" she said.

  "Soho," said Katz.

  He said little on the omnibus, little on the crowded pavement of Oxford Street where they got off, little on the way down Dean Street, and only when they were outside the lodging-house would he tell her who they were going to see.

  "His name is Jacob Adler," he said, "though he's got other names besides. You see, he's wanted by the police in some countries - not for what you would consider a crime, I think. In this house, in this country, and for now, he's known as Goldberg. Daniel Goldberg."

  "The journalist?"

  She'd been about to climb the steps. Now she paused.

  "You've heard of him. Then you'll know why he's not popular."

  "I'm not going to speak to a journalist. Especially. . ."

  "Especially a socialist one?"

  She didn't reply. She felt caught: whatever she did now would be foolish. But having come out, it would be wrong not to see him; and as for the socialism, what she'd seen today had made her uncomfortable about many things, and that was one.

  "Very well," she said.

  "Have you enough money to get back to Whitechapel? I shall not come in: I have other calls to make."

  "Yes. But why -"

  "You'll find him in the room at the top of the second flight of stairs. That's his window there." He pointed up to a small window which was lit; she could see a shadow moving across the ceiling. "Just go in. This is a meeting-place; people are always going in and out. No one will take any notice. Goodnight to you. . ."

  And before she could say anything, he had vanished into the crowd outside the little theatre next door.

  She turned back to the house. The door was open, and as Katz had said, people seemed to be coming and going. A placard by the steps announced a lecture in English and in a language whose letters she didn't recognize: not Russian; Hebrew?

  She climbed the steps and pushed through the crowd outside a room where a short, bearded man in a plum-coloured jacket was addressing a packed meeting. His voice was rich, his gestures operatic, his eyes magnetic, and the audience was applauding, cheering, whistling, hooting with laughter - and eating and drinking and smoking and arguing with the speaker, with each other, with those outside who couldn't get in.

  On the first floor Sally saw a room with a number of men and women sitting at tables reading newspapers, or writing, or playing chess. It seemed more like a club than a lodging-house. She heard three languages she recognized and several she didn't; and no one took the least notice of her.

  She climbed the second flight of stairs. It was darker here, and quieter. She felt her heart beating fast: suppose it was a trick? They'd duped her - Katz had lured her here and then gone back to Whitechapel and taken Harriet -

  What had possessed her to come here? What a fool! Would she never learn?

  Her fingers sought the pistol under the shawl in her basket. It was there, firm and heavy and loaded. She took it in her hand, rested the handle of the basket on her wrist so that she could shoot freely, and knocked at the door with the line of light underneath it.

  "Ja," came a voice. "Yes. Come in."

  She opened the door and slowly went in.

  Chapter Seventeen

  JUST A MAN WORKING

  Goldberg looked up. She stood in the doorway, trembling, intent as a tigress, an electric nervousness in every line of her. Her clear eyes glittered, her fair hair shone. She was extraordinary: desperate, frightened, but undaunted. And, he saw at once, so pretty - no, far too weak a word: she was magnificent.

  He'd never seen her before, yet he knew at once who she was. He stood up.

  "Miss Lockhart - come in. Welcome. Do you know how long I've been looking for you?"

  "I. . . A man called Mr Katz brought me here. But -"

  "I asked him to look after you. Did he take you to Miss Robbins's Mission?"

  She nodded helplessly. Goldberg brought forward a chair for her, and turned to the sideboard.

  Sally looked around, bemused. The room was full of life - she felt it to be thronged with busy people, like the Stock Exchange, the House of Commons, backstage in a great theatre - the place was glowing with activity, alive with excitement and energy and purpose.

  And yet it was only a man who'd been writing at a table.

  He turned from the sideboard and said, "You'll take a glass of wine?"

  Without waiting for an answer, he poured two small glasses of something rich and gold. His desk, she saw, was littered with open books and journals, and the floor was covered with paper, for he had a simple system: as soon as one sheet was written (one side only), he dropped it on the floor and took another. He was halfway through one now; strong swift writing, blots and splashes of ink. . . A fist-sized stone held down another pile of papers, and a mug full of pens and pencils stood beside them.

  He handed her the glass and sat down.

  He was younger than she'd expected Daniel Goldberg to be: late twenties, she thought, with a mass of rough dark hair in which were blended some streaks of grey at the temples. He was strongly built, with powerful shoulders and hands that looked capable of tearing one of those official reports in half; and his expression made her think he'd enjoy doing it. His eyes were dark, the network of laughter-lines around them already complex. His nose was powerful, with flared nostrils, and his mouth was wide and mobile. He was hardly handsome; but he was more alive than anyone she had ever seen.

  He held up his glass.

  "Confusion to our enemies," he said.

  She sipped. The wine was intense and sweet.

  Then they both spoke at once, and smiled, and she let him say, "The child - is she safe?"

  "Yes, she is. But . . . how do you know of me? And our enemies, you say. . . Is Parrish your enemy too? Please, Mr Goldberg - just what is going on?"

  "Parrish is a criminal. I'm investigating a fraud, a colossal plot against Jewish immigrants. Someone's defrauding them by selling them fake steamship tickets, by making them pay for couriers who don't appear, by forcing them to pay non-existent taxes and transit charges and God knows what else. God? I know what else - a hundred and one little cuts that bleed and bleed, thousands of people swindled and robbed and cheated. I've seen it working from St Petersburg all the way to Wapping and Hull and Liverpool, and I know it goes beyond, to New York. The Russians don't need much encouragement to persecute the Jews at the moment, but I believe that this - oh, conspiracy, organization, plot, whatever - is even engaged in stirring up pogroms to start off another wave of immigration. You know what a pogrom is? Looting, terror, destruction.

  "All right, now someone is organizing this. I've seen him, but I don't know his name. They call him the Tzaddik - it's a Yiddish word, it means righteous man, holy one. Ironic, you see. Now the Tzaddik has agents in every European country, and no doubt in America too. And his agent in London is your Mr Parrish."

  Sally caught her breath. "Go on," she said.

  "He's ideally placed. A commission agent - it's such a vague title, such an open kind of job, no? - with money flowing in and out all the time, so it would be hard to prove he was doing anything wrong. But he is. For instance, when they arrive in London, some immigrants have an address to go to - a cousin, a brother, something like that. But many haven't. Parrish has men at the docks who lead them - for a fee, of course - to a landlord who lets them have a room - for a high rental, a month in advance. Next week, maybe next day, they find out from neighbours or relatives what a fair rent should be - but it's too late, they can't get it back from the landlord, and when they leave - pah! Plenty more on the next boat. There are many, many kinds of fraud and extortion he's running, and he hasn't even begun to move into the sweatshops yet, though he's planning it.

  "But he's got other golden geese besides the Jews. There are six houses in the West End which pay him each week something between sixty and seventy pounds each. To rent a house this size, say, would cost what? Two guineas? Three guineas? But he takes sixty, seventy pounds a
week from each of them. Gambling, of course. Prostitution. I know about them because I arranged for his rent-collector to be robbed a couple of weeks ago." He saw her expression, and said cheerfully, "Oh, yes, I'm in the criminal business too, as well as journalism. I haven't killed anyone yet, but I wouldn't want to make it a principle. The money in this case went to the Jewish Shelter in Wapping. What I wanted was this - the rent book."

  He opened a drawer and took out the greasy little book which Bill had taken from Mr Tubb. Sally looked through it: details of money passed over for months back, addresses. . . She looked up, dazed.

  "But we've got him!" she said. "With this, I can - if he's a criminal, they'll never let him have Harriet! And he'll have to give my money back--"

  "You'd testify against him, would you?"

  "Of course, with this!"

  "Think again. In the court's eyes, you're married to him."

  "Oh. . ." she realized bitterly. "A wife can't testify against her husband. But surely -"

  He took the notebook back. "I'm keeping this safe. We shall use it - but not yet."

  "How. . . Why did you become interested in me and my . . . situation?" she said. "I've got nothing to do with Jewish immigration."

  "Anything that concerns Parrish is interesting to me. And when I heard that he was applying to divorce a wife and gain custody of a child, I naturally wondered why. So. And the more I thought, the more crazy it seemed."

  "It is crazy," she said. "I thought I was mad. Why? Why me, why Harriet? There was no explanation at all unless, I don't know, unless it was somehow true and I'd forgotten it. . . People do forget the most extraordinary things; I know, it's happened to me. . . But to forget that, I'd have to be insane, and there were times when I thought I was. . . But no. Harriet's not his child. Her father's dead. And anyway--"

  "Anyway a woman like you would never marry a man like that," he said flatly. "Of course not. It doesn't make sense."

  "But what does?"

  "This," he said. "It's not Parrish's own idea to do this crazy thing. There's someone else behind him, someone else who wants to punish you by taking your child. Parrish is doing it for the money; he's nothing; he's a pawn. Anyone else would have done as well. Forget Parrish. The man behind this is the Tzaddik."

  She sat silently. She'd thought through possibilities like this a hundred times, without having a name to put to the shadow behind them, and it had all been fantastical and empty and speculative. Hearing it from this man made it solid; it meant that she wasn't mad. It meant that she had an ally.

  "Now, do you see why I wanted to find you?" he went on. "Because I want to find out who the Tzaddik is. I know a little. But if he's someone who hates you - then if you can think who that might be, well! We've got him. And you've got free - because with that, you could go to the law again. I should choose a better barrister next time, by the way. I saw him in court. A jackass."

  "I will. Mr Goldberg, that's the most cheering news I've had since . . . oh, for weeks. But this man, the what is he? Tzaddik? What is he? Who is he?"

  Goldberg told her what had happened in Amsterdam. She listened intently. Her eyes widened as he told her of the strange paralysed bulk of the man, the evil skipping shadow of the monkey, the girl in the carriage who'd screamed and chosen drowning rather than - than what? She felt a chill of fear. And this was the man who wanted Harriet?

  But who could he be?

  "I think he's in London now," said Goldberg. "I'm not sure. But a man I know saw that great black carriage being unloaded in the docks a day or so ago. And it would make sense for him to be here in time for the result of the court case, no? They must be angry now, with you in hiding."

  "They nearly caught me yesterday," she said. "I had to. . . Well."

  She took out the pistol. He whistled.

  "A heavy weapon," he said. "You fired this?"

  "I was ready to yesterday." She told him everything that had happened, from the moment the divorce petition arrived that morning in the garden to the moment Katz found her on the churchyard bench. He interrupted only once, when she told of the boy who'd stopped her at the entrance to Middle Temple Lane.

  "That was Bill," he said. "A protege of mine. He told me how you'd looked. He said you were fierce, you'd have killed him. You were like a tiger. I wanted to see you for myself, and now I have. Please - go on."

  They looked at each other clearly for a moment, and then she lowered her eyes and continued. When she'd finished he sat quite still for a moment, and then put both hands flat on the table and stood up.

  "Well," he said. "Well. . . You deserve some more wine."

  He took her glass and filled it again.

  "Tokay," he said. "From my country."

  "You're Hungarian?"

  "I was once. Now I'm. . . This is where I live, this is where my work is. I write in English. So perhaps I am becoming English. Downfall to the Tzaddik!"

  They drank. And Sally found herself becoming tongue-tied. It was the sudden relaxation, the relief at finding an ally; but more than that, it was the nature of this ally - the magnetic presence of the man, his troubling vitality. There was the sense that invisibly, all around him, played gales and storms of electric life and meaning. It was simply that he had work to do, and he was doing it with all his life and being, and that was something she loved in anyone; and so she felt like a girl again, and didn't know what to say.

  But you're not a girl, she told herself. You're grown up. Find something to say.

  "In Parrish's notebook," she said, indicating it on the desk, "there's the phrase white goods. What does that mean?"

  He looked at her steadily, and said, "Girls sold into prostitution. That's a pleasant little part of the Tzaddik's business. Or Parrish's. They employ a number of women - Yiddish-speakers, often - to go to the docks and look out for single girls travelling alone. They offer them somewhere to stay, and when the girl is safely out of the way of help, with no one who speaks her language within a mile, they make it clear what the price of shelter is. The girls who work in these filthy houses of Parrish's - half of those will be refugees, poor Jewish girls who arrived alone. When they become diseased or worn out, they're taken abroad and sold to brothels in seaports. South America is a favourite destination. That's the sort of people we're dealing with, Miss Lockhart: men who do that."

  She sat silent; she couldn't find her voice. He went on:

  "You see why I need your help? We must find out why the Tzaddik would be interested in hurting you. If we find that out, we find out who he is. Then maybe we can destroy him. Now then - practical things. You need first of all what? Money?"

  She gathered her wits. "Yes. And to let my child's nurse know where we are. And my partner, Miss Haddow. . . Those are the three most important things immediately. Then to find the clergyman who signed the marriage register."

  "Very well." He took a fresh sheet of paper and wrote it down; his hand reached for the pen and ink without his having to look, and he jabbed the pen at the bottle with an action as accurate as a bird's. "You must write a note - now - to your child's nurse and to your partner, and I shall take them, so they'll know me and trust me. As far as I can tell, Parrish doesn't know of me. He knows that someone's after him, but not who it is. Come - write those notes."

  He stood up and offered her his place. She did as he said, and sealed each of them in an envelope, while he leant on the windowsill watching her. She was aware of his gaze and didn't mind it; there was even a sense in which it was flattering to be looked at by such a man. But she pushed that thought to the back of her mind, intending to come back to it later.

  "Finished?" he said. "Good. Now I'm going to accompany you back to your Mission. All right, you've got a gun, I know, but I want to do it anyway. Apart from being with you, I want to see where it is, so I can come later and find out about Miss Robbins and her work. It will make an interesting article when all this is over. Some of my comrades disparage the work of middle-class reformers who go to the slums to do go
od. I don't. Of course, there should be no slums, and of course the most important work is to abolish them. But while they're still there, and your friends are doing this work, then tonight there's a dozen women who have a safe place to sleep in, or a little medicine for their coughs. Your hat. . ."

  "Thank you," she said. "Not mine, in fact. It's too big. I borrowed it. . ."

  She was well aware why she told him that: it was vanity. But it was so long since she'd enjoyed looking pretty. Not now, she told herself. Not now. Another thing to think about later.

  They didn't talk much on the omnibus, and he gave her only a swift smile as they shook hands outside the Mission in the light from the gaslamp over the door. But later, when she'd kissed Harriet and slipped down into the narrow bed beside her, she allowed herself to dwell on the cause of this strange, apprehensive exultation that she sensed flickering at the edge of her mind: it was the fact that in Daniel Goldberg she'd seen the rarest thing of all - a man whom she knew at once, and without any qualification, to be her equal.

  Only a mile away, the Tzaddik sat in his drawing-room, waiting for Mr Parrish to explain why he'd lost Sally.

  The monkey was crouched on his shoulder, turning the kernel of a Brazil nut over and over in her little black hands before nibbling at it swiftly. Mr Parrish would have been nervous but for the fact that he was applying the principles of Oriental Mind Control, as expounded by the great mystic Wu Shu-Fan in a book Mr Parrish had purchased the previous spring. Deep breathing was involved, and a spiral movement of the psychic energies around the spinal column.

  His psychic energies corkscrewing briskly upwards, his breathing profound and diaphragmal, Mr Parrish faced his patron with equanimity and told him what had happened.

  "She had a pistol, Mr Lee," he explained. "It was quite clear what was going to happen. She'd've shot me first, because I was in her sights, and then if need be, she'd've shot the other two, and in the panic she'd've escaped, like she did anyway. Now I shouldn't like the inconvenience of being wounded, but the embarrassment of being dead would be far worse, especially for the court case. No possibility of claiming the child then. What we did was to smash the tea-shop window and follow her. She caught an omnibus to the East End. It was crowded - streets full - busy time of day - but I got a cab and followed the omnibus and watched closely to see where she got off. Unfortunately, the traffic being thick, I lost sight of the vehicle. But I did notice it was a dark green one, and that line terminates in Whitechapel."