"Narrator Antony Ferguson thoroughly inhabits Scotsman Cyrus Barker and Welshman Thomas Llewelyn...Ferguson captures Russians, Americans, and a multitude of British characters ranging from crisply enunciated aristocrats to Cockney-voiced street urchins and cabbies in this latest installment in the Barker & Llewelyn series." -- AudioFile Magazine London, 1893: Private enquiry agents Cyrus Barker and Thomas Llewelyn are called in to protect Tsesarevich Nicholas from nefarious forces as he travels to England for a royal wedding—in Dance with Death, the next mystery in Will Thomas’s beloved series.
In June of 1893, the future Nicholas II travels to London for a royal wedding, bringing with him his private security force and his ballerina mistress, Mathilde Kchessinska. Rumored to be the target of a professional assassin known only as La Sylphide, and the subject of conspiracies against his life by his own family who covet his future throne, Nicholas is protected by not only private security, but the professional forces of both England and Russia.
All of these measures prove inadequate when Prince George of England is attacked by an armed anarchist who mistakes him for Nicholas. As a result, Barker and Llewelyn are brought in to help track down the assassin and others who might conspire against the life of the tsesarevich . The investigations lead them down several paths, including Llewelyn's old nemesis, the assassin Sofia Ilyanova. With Barker and Llewelyn both surviving separate attempts on their lives, the race is on to find both the culprit and the assassin they hired. Taking them through high society (including a masked ball at Kensington Palace) and low, chasing down motives both personal and political, Barker and Llewelyn must solve the case of their life before the crime of the century is committed.
A Macmillan Audio production from Minotaur Books
Release date:
April 13, 2021
Publisher:
St. Martin's Publishing Group
Print pages:
320
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I heard him before I saw him: a thick, rich, two-toned baritone voice. Just the two notes, sliding up and down like a trombone: up, down, down, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, down, down, down.
“’Scuse me, sir, I’d like to speak to Mr. Barker, please.”
He was American, our visitor; no one irons a sentence like an American. Yet there was something musical about the cadence that I didn’t quite recognize.
“Or Mr. Llewelyn, if he is available,” he added.
My desk is to the right as one enters our chamber from the waiting room. Our clerk, Jenkins, has his to the left just before one enters. One must get past or through both of us to get to Cyrus Barker. Being an enquiry agent is dangerous work. There was a pistol in each of our desks, an old Adams revolver in Jenkins’s right drawer, and a Webley No. 2 in the cubby of my roll top. There’s also a British-made Colt suspended on a hook under Barker’s desk, within his immediate reach.
“Have you got a card, sir?” Jenkins asked the man. From where I sat, our clerk looked dubious.
“’Fraid not, but I can wait if it’s not too long.”
“Show him in, Jeremy,” Barker called in that basso rumble of his.
Our visitor entered, removing his top hat and running a hand over his short hair. He nodded his head and did not offer to shake in greeting. He wore a tight suit coat and even tighter trousers. Gas pipes, they are called. He was well groomed, fashionably dressed, and polite. He was an American Negro. The only time I had ever laid eyes upon one was at an outdoor concert in Hyde Park. The band had come from a town named Dixie, if I recall correctly, and were anxious to return.
“Are you Cyrus Barker?” he asked.
The Guv stood, bowed his head, and then waved him to one of the visitor’s chairs. “I am, sir. And you are?”
“Jim Hercules,” he said.
“That is an interesting name, Mr. Hercules,” my employer replied. “This is my partner, Mr. Llewelyn.”
Hercules nodded as I quietly observed him. The first thing I noticed was that when he sat, his feet spread apart until his heels hooked around the edges of his chair in a defensive position. He could spring to his feet immediately, if necessary. That led me to look at his hands, clutching the brim of his hat. The knuckles were marble-sized, and the skin well battered. I hazarded a guess that his ears were also a little thicker than average. He was a boxer.
Looking up, I saw that Barker was making observations, as well. I couldn’t help but wonder if we were getting the same impressions of the man. The Guv sat back in his oversize chair and tented his fingers.
“How may I help you?”
“My boss is in trouble,” our visitor said. “All sorts of trouble, I suspect.”
“You require a bodyguard?”
For the most part, the Guv is stone-faced behind his thick mustache and black-lensed spectacles, but I could read his face easily enough. He hates bodyguard work. He refers such work to the hungrier agencies in our court whenever it arises.
“Oh, no, sir. I am his bodyguard—of a sort, anyway—but when a man is putting out one fire, he cannot put out all the other fires around him.”
“What duty would you like us to perform, specifically?” the Guv asked. I could see the interest behind his stony expression. He was as curious about the true nature of this visit as I was.
The man shrugged his shoulders. I was still taking impressions. He was approaching forty. There were two or three gray curls among the black.
“I don’t know, exactly,” he replied. “I suppose I would like my boss to not be murdered, for a start.”
“That is an admirable sentiment,” my employer continued. “Has he been threatened?”
“He has, and there was an attempt on his life a year or so ago, a very close call,” Mr. Hercules said. “My employer still has a scar on his forehead from the incident. I was across the room when it happened. I’m afraid I cannot protect him every moment. For one thing, it isn’t my job.”
“What is your job?” Barker asked.
“I am a guard,” he replied, “but it is only a ceremonial position.”
“There are professional bodyguards watching him, then, I assume?”
“There are, but I find it difficult to trust them. There are some within his own family that covet his position. They already have money and power, yet they always need more. They are ruthless. My boss is just learning the family business, and he is young and callow.”
“If you are a mere ceremonial guard,” the Guv asked, “why do you care so much what happens to him?”
Hercules resettled his top hat in his lap nervously. “I consider him a friend. He certainly needs one. He’s out of his depth and the vultures are circling. I wish he hadn’t come to London at all.”
Barker nodded as if he understood. “What other problems is he facing?”
“His father’s been sick and my boss might become head of the family before he is properly trained. If I were one of his uncles, I believe I’d feel justified in thinking him a poor choice, but his father insists, and the old man generally gets his way, things being as they are.”
“Is that all?” the Guv asked.
“What? Ain’t that enough?” the man replied, smiling. “All right, then. He tends to go on benders from time to time, and risks his own life.”
Barker and I looked at each other. We didn’t understand the word, so Hercules mimed lifting a bottle to his lips.
“The boy’s not happy,” he continued. “He’s under a good deal of pressure and he’s young. I’m worried about his nerves. He’s high-strung. Could snap at any minute.”
“Who is this man, and where does he work?” I finally asked. I couldn’t stand it anymore. Barker and Hercules glanced at each other.
“We are expected to deduce that, Mr. Llewelyn,” Barker said. “That is how Mr. Hercules will know that we are worthy to take the case.”
Hercules smiled. He had good teeth for a boxer.
“Obviously he is an American,” I said. “A young heir to a large business, perhaps, a name even I would recognize.”
“Nope,” our guest said, shaking his head.
“The son of a senator, then?” I persisted. “The president’s son? No, then he could not be an heir.”
“Strike two,” Jim Hercules said, enjoying the upper hand. “Mr. Barker, would you care to try your luck?”
Barker looked down at his blotter, as if it would tell him the answer. I watched him closely. It must have happened, for when he looked up again, there was a smile playing at the corners of his mustache.
“I believe your employer is the tsarevich of Russia.”
Hercules slapped his knee and laughed. “I knew I came to the right fella!”
“What?” I exclaimed. “How does an American boxer find himself guarding the son of the tsar of Russia?”
“Here now. I never said I was a boxer,” Hercules replied, shaking his head at me. “Good for you, Mr. Llewelyn.”
I was slightly mollified, having given two wrong answers already. Curbing my tongue has always been difficult for me. The flippant remark comes easily to my lips. Not so to my senior partner’s. Some days he does not speak above a hundred words.
Barker couldn’t think without a pipe in his mouth. He crossed to his smoking cabinet, a rather nice one, with stylized carvings that always remind me of owls. He opened one of the doors and took down a pipe from an inset atop it, since most of his meerschaums are outsize. His smoking had mellowed the white pipe to a deep honey color. It was dimpled like a golf ball in a swirling, teardrop pattern, like paisley. He stuffed it with his personal blend, lit it, and returned to his chair.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Hercules, but under such conditions we cannot take your case. You have presented no actual proof that the tsarevich’s life is in danger, merely an assumption that it is. If I may borrow your analogy, we would be expending our energy running about with buckets of water waiting for a fire that might never come. Unless you have more information forthcoming, we must decline.”
Our guest nodded. “I know he’s in danger, but I can’t prove it.”
“How came you to choose our chambers over others’?” Barker asked. “This court is lined with detective agencies.”
“I heard you own a boxing school and that you were the sparring partner of the late Handy Andy McClain, heavyweight bare-knuckle champion of Britain,” Hercules said. “I always admired him.”
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