Anatomy of Evil Read Online Free Page A

the perch of a hansom.
    The Barbados had been around for two hundred years, tucked among the warehouses where coffee is unloaded from ships in the Caribbean. It was a way, as I recall, for the West India Company to take money away from their rival, the East India Company, who was making a fortune importing tea from China and exporting opium. Coffee has never found a toehold here the way tea has, but it developed a following that has never gone away among the law clerks, civil servants, and intellectuals. Many government decisions have been made in coffeehouses, and inquests and other minor bits of business are still performed there. I have been in many of them, but none are a patch on the old Barbados, in my humble opinion.
    It’s not much to look at from the outside, its windows dark, its walls a faded terra-cotta. Once inside, however, you immediately step back two centuries. The floors, ceilings, and tall booths are carved out of black maple. The ceiling is low, and it bristles with mismatched tankards hanging down like fringe. Each table has a hollow in the center where pure Virginia Cavendish is kept for the visitor’s pleasure. When we were seated, Barker naturally reached for the traveling pipe he kept in his pocket. We both stopped him.
    “How is this?” he asked. “Tobacco, but no smoking?”
    Just in time, the proprietor arrived. His name was Frobisher, and his family had run the place for nine generations. Frobisher was entirely bald, not so much as an eyelash, and he and I had had our skirmishes at one time or another.
    “We would like to recommend this gentleman for membership,” I said.
    “On what grounds?” Frobisher asked, eyeing Barker with something approaching concern. There is a Magwitch-like element to his appearance that I suppose I’ve grown accustomed to over the years.
    “On the grounds that if you do not consider his membership, he might reduce this building to rubble within the hour,” Zangwill said.
    “He’s joking,” I assured Frobisher. “Mr. Barker is well known among the law courts and is well spoken of in government circles. I can offer references. In fact, I have one here.”
    So saying, I pulled out my watch, which was actually given to Barker by the Prince of Wales, after we stopped an assault on his life by the Irish Republican Brotherhood. There aren’t many references better than the Prince of Wales in London. Offhand, I could only think of one.
    A form was brought forward, Barker dipped a quill in the inkwell, and he gave his signature which never varied: a capital C followed by a squiggle, like a man’s scrawl left when dying, followed by a capital B without flourish, and a similar scrawl. In his defense, I have heard that his Chinese is practically legible, but only to the Chinese.
    “What’s going on?” Barker asked.
    I handed a pound note to Frobisher and I explained to my employer that he had just joined the club, where for one pound a year they kept a churchwarden on the premises for his exclusive use. He would get a plum pudding at Christmastime, and should he ever pass away, his pipe would be ceremonially broken and hung overhead in his memory. There was something Pickwickian about it; it simply could not be passed over.
    Soon his pipe was brought out and Barker charged and lit it. Then a cup followed and he dutifully took the first sip. Zangwill leaned forward. It was true; there was no better coffee in all the British Isles than in this place. However, if he was awaiting a reaction from Barker, he would be disappointed. My employer has no taste buds to speak of. One could put a hornet in his mouth and he would not give the satisfaction of a reaction. He’ll eat anything placed in front of him and never knew the good from the bad. In restaurants I’ve known him to order the oddest things, like a stranger who doesn’t speak English. I suspect the stronger something tastes, the better he likes it.
    “Mmmph,” he said, which was the closest Zangwill would