“It’s very busy here this morning,” a fellow by the name of Conway Duke stated, blotting at a cut on his temple with his handkerchief. “Is something afoot?”
Horace Tipple bobbed his head noncommittally. “What can I do for you, Mr. Duke? If you would like to make a statement regarding an assault, Constable Frost here—”
“—I need to speak with you, Detective Inspector Tipple,” the other returned quickly, his voice at once nervous and earnest. “It’s about Nicholas Harker.”
“Oh?”
“Is there somewhere we can speak more privately?”
Horace pursed his lips. He’d left Bartholomew and Bradtree in his office explaining to H Division’s superintendent their plans to search a few premises owned by the Harkers, and the first floor was packed with bobbies preparing for the raids. He’d only been summoned to the main floor a few minutes before by Constable Frost (who’d remained behind to scribe as needed) to speak with the newcomer. As it was, the corner they stood in in the mostly empty receiving area was probably as secluded as anywhere else in the station.
“What is it you’d like to tell me?” the inspector asked, not budging.
“He told me to find you and give you a message.”
“You’ve been in contact with Nicholas Harker?” Horace said sharply.
“Yes, but not willingly!” Duke replied quickly, gesturing to the bruised cut on his brow. “I never expected to see him again, but he knocked me a good one and threatened me!”
“Do you require a surgeon?” The inspector hoped his tone was solicitous, but the fellow’s demeanor grated, threatening his mask of politeness. It wasn’t the man’s fault: being tired always made geniality difficult.
“It—it isn’t necessary.”
“Please: if you would start from the beginning then.”
Horace gestured for Constable Frost to ready his notepad while Duke collected his thoughts. After a few moments, the message bearer drew a deep breath and started his tale.
“I began working with the Harkers after I returned to London a few months back – right around the New Year. I clerk at one of their factories near Bethnal Green: Harker Fine Goods. They hired me because I’m family.”
“But not a blood relative,” Horace guessed. The fellow, who was average enough in height and build and oddly reminded the inspector of a schoolmaster, hadn’t the look of one of the clan. Not that they were all identical, but Harker males tended to have distinctly dimpled chins. The characteristic was absent on Mr. Duke’s face, and the fellow’s next words confirmed the conjecture.
“My late sister, God rest her, married Rafe Harker. The pair of them perished in the same boating accident in ‘80.” Duke hesitated, the hand dabbing his brow stilling for a moment. “Her son – my nephew – is Nicholas.”
When the inspector made no comment to this, the other man continued.
“In any case, I didn’t see much of the boy when I first returned, or even much of him when he was a lad. I didn’t approve of my sister becoming involved with that family at all, but she is…was…my senior by nearly a decade.
“Most everyone is fond of the boy: they think him slow and his incomprehensible stutter beguiling. But I saw a different side of him once or twice in his childhood: a frightful, diabolic turn of character with which I’m sure you and the police are familiar. A psychiatrist quack might call those turns deranged, manic fugues.”
Conway Duke had begun his speech with considerable nervousness; as he progressed, however, his nerves appeared to steady, and to Horace the man seemed almost eager to finally share his long-held secret.
“In any case,” Duke went on, “I had hoped adulthood would change the boy, and the little I saw of him since my return – preceding his arrest – seemed a good indicator that he indeed had. I was mistaken. While the rest of the family seem keen to support him and deny his culpability, I will not share their good opinion of the boy.”
“And how did you come across him today?” Horace tacitly nudged the conversation back on track.
Duke blinked at him as if surprised the inspector refused to commiserate.
Constable Frost’s pencil stub scratched furiously across the pages of his little notepad.
“I stopped in at the factory where I clerk to pick up some papers. Mr. Harker…Archibald, that is, requested that I bring them round to his house at tea today, and I thought I’d collect them on my way back from services this morning. Mr. Harker’s request isn’t unusual, and I found myself at the factory at about half-past ten.
“I let myself in the back way as I always do after hours. As I was making my way to the offices, I saw someone moving about near the area where equipment and raw materials are stored. I’d thought myself alone until then. I called out to him, and then someone struck me from behind.”
Duke rubbed the back of his head in pained memory.
“When I came to my senses, I wasn’t in the factory anymore, but in some sort of long, bricked corridor with what seemed to be many hallways or rooms branching off from it. And there was my nephew with a few thug-like men. He gave me a brief message – very concise and well-planned as though he’d memorized it…which he must have done for me to understand him at all – then he clocked me on the head.”
Gingerly, he touched the cut at the fringe of his gray-sprinkled hairline.
“I was in the alley behind the factory when I awoke, and came straight here as soon as my wits returned fully.”
“What was the message?”
“To find you and to tell you that he’s ready whenever you are to settle the feud, that you’ll have figured the location, and…” Duke’s voice trailed away, and his dark eyes became nervous once more.
“—And?” Horace prompted.
The message bearer swallowed audibly.
“…and he said he’ll trade the two in his pocket for you.”