CHAPTER 1
“Did you see it?” I asked my partner as we entered our offices in Craig’s Court, Whitehall, that morning.
“Aye,” my partner, Cyrus Barker, rumbled.
“A closed brougham at the curb in front of the Silver Cross at eight o’clock in the morning,” I said. “The Cross won’t open for hours. It must be someone here to see us.”
It was the second day of April 1894. Barker had removed his bowler hat and hung it on a hook. He put his stick in the stand, then continued into our chambers. There he went ’round his desk and settled into his green leather chair, the center of his universe.
“They have a right to do as they wish, do they not?” he asked. “This is a place of business. Are we to chase off everyone who stops near our door?”
“No,” I argued. “Only the ones who arrive in broughams. What have they got in there? A Gatling gun? Rifles or pistols, at the very least.”
The Guv stood, moved to his smoking cabinet, and selected a white meerschaum pipe with a yellow stem from among its brethren. He stuffed it with his custom tobacco while speaking over his shoulder.
“You’re in a mischievous mood this morning,” he remarked. “If they brought guns, they would have been wiser to have shot us on our doorstep. We have all manner of weapons here ourselves.”
“Still,” I cautioned.
“Why should you be concerned about a closed brougham?” he asked. “People ride in closed broughams every day. We’ll see if they come to our offices before we make a judgment.”
“I’ll have my hand on the pistol in my drawer all the same,” I warned him.
“If it makes you feel better, Thomas.”
The door to our waiting room opened just then and I heard more than one person enter. I clutched my pistol, but no one shot our clerk, not yet anyway.
“May I be of service to you, gentlemen?” our clerk, Jeremy Jenkins, asked in his East End accent.
“We’d like to see Mr. Cyrus Barker, please,” one of the visitors said. “Here is my card.”
From my desk I cannot see much of the waiting room. I saw a sleeve put something in front of Jenkins and he looked pleased. I glanced at Barker. He showed more interest in his pipe than in our guests. Our clerk entered with the silver salver he uses to bring calling cards to the Guv. There were no fewer than four in it now. He prized the delivery of such a treasure, four cards at once.
“Jeremy, would you bring two chairs from the outer office?” my partner asked.
Four men entered the room, as I helped Jenkins bring in two chairs in addition to the pair of yellow visitor’s chairs in our chambers. One of the visitors reached over the desk to shake Barker’s hand. I recognized a secret Masonic handshake. I took out my notebook and began to write.
“Mr. Barker, I presume?” the man said.
He was an impressive fellow in his late forties, well-built, with dark hair and a short beard. His eyes were a piercing blue. Something about him, his deportment and assurance, made me think he was a military man.
“You are General Woodson, I presume?” Barker asked, studying the man’s card.
“I am, sir.”
“Your card gives an address in Havana. Are you a member of the Cuban army?”
“No, sir,” Woodson replied. “I was a proud member of the Confederate States of America. I am now living in Havana as a tobacco planter and cigar maker.”
“You are a Mason?” the Guv asked.
“We are members of the Knights of the Golden Circle.”
“I thought your organization had dissolved,” my partner remarked.
“Far from it, sir,” the man replied. “We have never been more active.”
“Sit, gentlemen,” Barker said. “I can offer cigars, but I cannot promise they will be as fresh as the general’s.”
“Allow me to introduce my colleagues,” Woodson said. “This is Brigadier David St. Ives of Rio de Janeiro, Colonel Zebedee Beaufort of Juarez, Mexico, and Captain Manuel Cortes of Bogota, Colombia.”
“Are you all expatriates?” I asked.
“Forgive me, gentlemen,” Barker said. “This is my partner, Thomas Llewelyn.”
“Not expatriates,” Woodson replied. “Merely patriots. We could not abide the Union crowing over the graves of our beloved comrades, so we moved further south for a time. We Confederates have colonies across Central and South America. Some of us have married into the native populations. There are many thousands of us who are exiled.”
“I see,” Barker rumbled. “How can a pair of London enquiry agents be of service to you?”
“You likely can’t, but the head of the Knights Templar can.”
My partner was the current leader of a secret society with hundreds of members, many of whom were wealthy and powerful. This was known to practically no one. That someone who had recently come from the Americas knew this fact was astounding.
The general reached into his pocket and retrieved an unsealed envelope, sliding it across the desk toward my partner. The Guv took it and removed a letter, which he opened and read. I watched as Barker’s brows rose above the black-lensed spectacles he wore, and his dark mustache bowed into a smile.
“Albert Pike?” he asked. “I never expected to hold a letter of his in my hand.”
“He was the leader of our order and a fine general of the Southern cause,” Woodson explained. “He passed away not long after writing this.”
Barker put the letter back into the envelope and moved it to the edge of the desk where I could reach it. I opened it and read:
To Whom It May Concern,
It is my wish that you will treat General Woodson with respect and favor as the new leader of the Knights of the Golden Circle and will aid him and his followers in their endeavors.
Yr. obdn’t servant,
General Albert Pike
March 20, 1891
Carefully, I put the letter back into the envelope and laid it on the desk. I had no idea who Albert Pike was, or how Barker had been aware of his name.
“Very well, gentlemen,” my partner said. “I am inclined to help you with your mission, whatever it is. How may we be of service?”
Woodson cleared his throat. “We wish to speak to the prime minister.”
“You do not need my help to do so,” Barker said.
“Ah, but we do,” Woodson answered. “We have already been denied entry to Downing Street.”
“For what reason?”
“The prime minister does not believe the Confederacy exists any longer as an entity, and if it does, he does not believe we represent it.”
“Those are valid points, both of them,” the Guv said. “What was your response?”
Woodson gave an assured smile and pulled a second envelope from his pocket, placing it again in front of Barker. My partner opened it and read.
Copyright © 2024 by Will Thomas
