A rope rail separated the flagstone walk from the cobblestone street, forming a fine path for their decent, if burly, procession south on Charles Street. A watchman, dressed in red suit and white cap, with a white cape against the early autumn chill, who held only a large watch, nearly a clock in his hand, saluted Richard. He returned the salute with his, right—and only hand.
The rhythmic clack of printing presses sounded ahead and to the left as they neared Fort Avenue. A doorman, dressed in black suit and cap, wearing a red sash, loomed tall and broad—a right Irish thug dressed in unconvincing gentility, stepped from the doorway of the Raven Pub at Fort and Charles, barring their way. There they stood under the eves of the Baltimore Daily Raven.
“Your business, Sir?” rumbled the monstrosity, like a white gorilla affecting human dress.
Richard stepped up to the man, looked up a full foot into that broad Gaelic face, and said, “Captain Richard Barrett, on The Queen’s business, seeking audience with Theographer and Newsman, Chester B. Pullman.”
The man whispered, “A lower tone is favored at the Theographic table, Sir. Enemies of the Crown with listening gadgets and skulking word burglars.” [1]
“Understood,” hissed Richard, for he could not, as much as he tried, whisper.
The doorman then doffed his cap with the left, shook Richard’s right hand and hissed down the line like a bellows expelling steam, “Ye footmen, bear yer kit down this breezeway and into the courtyard behind the pub. Ye will be served there whilst the Gentleman and Sergeant take to the Inner Table. Welcome to The Raven Inn. I am Brant Collins, head doorman. Easter McFadden is the back doorman, who ‘ill see to yer stowage.”
He then whispered to Richard as he opened the door, pulling on the heavy oaken portal plank, “You are expected.”
Knowing full well the Color Sergeant Major was at his back, those boot heels clicking to a cadence that had long given him comfort in times of peril, Richard could not suppress the grin on his face, though he did try and reform it into a smile of honor as the interior of this storied house, where his father and uncle had been entertained, open to his senses:
The black oak beams and rafters were low, at 7 feet. The portrait of Edgar Allen Poe rested upon the fireplace mantel, its upper frame touching the ceiling of stained cedar panels. The bar itself, of Jobolo wood, a gift from a King of the Congo, whose witch doctors, once convened here in 1930, joining with the Theographical Society, was a storied wonder. Seven bar stools were partially occupied by various locals, a printer, a reporter, a stevedore, a sailor whose kind were always welcome by the men at the table.
The table itself was of black oak with an ash wood raven perched on a trapeze-like roost above it, hung from an oaken beam. Three men where there seated at a five-faceted table, a busier type at the head, facing the door. The man had a round, almost flat face, a combed over rake of black hair, wore spectacles, a white button shirt and black bow tie, over black slacks and belt, rose excited and smiled, and said in a low soft tone, “Captain Barrett! Welcome.”
Richard was happy he was not the shorter, but the same height. Richard and The Sergeant entered as the door was closed behind them, guarded without by that menacing man. A low fire crackled slightly, poked by a little black boy of about 9 years, who was attired like his master, who rose, walked around the table with extended hand and then announced as they shook hands, “Chester B. Pullman, Royal Theographic Society—call me Chess, please, as my friends do.”
Then, as the man drew Richard into an awkward hug, he whispered, “Enemies among us, in this very house and above.”
Richard was aghast, frozen for a second as an enemy charge had ever been unable to effect.
“Let us repair, in full knowledge that our public house of Theography is host to honored visitors, servants of the Czar,” to which the sailor and the Stevedore raised their glasses of port and smiled, serious men by their make.
Richard saluted to the two men turned on their stools while they drained their glasses and set them back to be refilled by the barkeep, a mսlatto in tuxedo.
The printer and the reporter, much smaller men, were set here as a kind of guard, he supposed, as he motioned for the Sergeant to reinforce the right flank, which he did, standing tall, taking down his pith helmet for use as a shield against a wine glass and greeted the men, “Ivan, a bit keen of eye for a stevedore. I expect gunnery is your game. Alex, a captain by your set, a frigate I bet.”
The two men, small heavyweights, joked to each other in Russian, and then the one his sergeant had Christened ‘Alex’ extended his hand to shake, “Michael Levsky, Commander, Imperial Navy.” As they shook he introduced the man by his side, “Gunnery Sergeant Suvarov.”
All three men laughed. Then the Color Sergeant demanded, “Not being a dissembling theosophist, I would know your business?”
Nodding in recognition of the wine glass refiled behind him, the commander shrugged his shoulders, “Killed too many fellow officers in duels, so have been assigned to eves drop upon your big thinkers here. The brute at the door has confiscated my pistol.”
“A spy, then, Commander?”
“Intelligence collection, my Hero of Mogadishu. I would buy you a drink, Color Sergeant Major, Luxenberg”
‘Why, I still do not know his first name, and this prying Czarist knows his last!’ mucked Richard within.
Richard was being seated by Chess, who insisted, “The Russians are our covert allies in this, and have provided our expedition with a vessel capable of the mission the London Pub has put before us. The enemy among us is what I believe to be a mechanical listening device similar to a telephone, but wireless, eves dropping across the very ether, such thoughts as we seek to plumb leaving what might be called an ether trail. Those listening know what we know, what we wish, and, more importantly what we do not know, which they keep from us in a tight fist of predictive wits.”
Richard stood with his back to the door, between the two seats nearest the door, at the base of the five-faceted table. The seats were mahogany chairs worked in a five pointed star. Noting this, Chess motioned to a thick set, Mestizo, a fellow in his early forties in white shirt and tie, doffing his spectacles, and saying in a voice that was not of this region, but westward, perhaps Texas way, “Sir Richard, I am Doctor Breck Bing-Ham, at your service.”
Shaking hands, “Bingham?”
“Bing-Ham,” grinned the man, showing a pearly set of teeth, “Nebraska Crown University, Crypto Anthropology.”
To his left rose a tall, older, rail-thin support structure for a towering long-nosed intellect, who required no introduction, “Professor Robert Zephyr! I am honored to share a learned table with you,” blurted Richard in a tone much too high and strident for Theographic discourse, to which they all winced in varied ways according to type.
Richard took neither the left or right seat as the other men sat. When a Barrett drank, he did so on his feet, not seated. Four glasses of port wine were brought to the table by the barkeep, who informed Chess, in low but audible tone, “Our skypes whisper of a muster of banker thugs on Hanover Street, coming to shut down the press and burn this nest on account of your being said to harbor Russian spies, as well as the Baltimore Raven’s Great Game editorial.”
The Russian Commander spoke up, “Such an accurate opinion by a newsman in Russia would have been no less lethal to the author. But a mob of merchants and money hunters? Obscene! Long live your dainty Queen!”
Chess stood, “A toast to our Maiden Anglo-Russian expedition, against The Common Enemy of All Mankind!”
With a hearty cheer they drained their glasses as the doorman, entered, barred the door behind him, and handed a Kalashnikov Telescopic Dueling Pistol to the Russian Commander. Chess turned to the small negro child and nodded, to which the fellow fairly shot past them to the back wall, which was lined with three heavy book shelves. Grabbing the center one he smiled, clicked something in his little hand, and walked a section of shelving loaded with a half ton of books to the side, revealing an upward set of stairs.
Every one in the room then turned to look at Richard, who had a question in his eyes, answered by Chess, “Captain, your men are already in position.”
Richard pulled his service cap a little tighter and marched for the stairs, hearing his heels hit the hard wood floor with eager purpose, his steps echoed by the tread of the others.
A chill played in his heart, “Once again leading men I but barely know, if at all.”
Chess was behind him, “The briefing must now be in route, Captain. Time has not been our friend.”
…
Notes
-1. “Word burglary” is a great concern to the Royal Theographic Society, which moved them to semi public venues, such as The Raven Inn, named after the Poet Edgar Allen Poe, who had been hung by revolutionary patriots for dedicating his writing to the Crown as opposed to the “Cause” of Americanism. The death of Poe at the hands of the “Patriots” prior to the failed Succession of 1851 was the mythic foundation of Theography, or the study of esoteric conspiracy. The formation of the Royal Theographical Society in 1913, led by Bram Stoker, with Misters Bierce, London, Boroughs, thence descended down through Lovecraft, Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, Lewis and Tolkien. The guiding spirit of Theography in Loyalty to the Crown could be none other than Poe, whose photo portrait shown in lurid shadow above the fireplace at each and every Public House of Theography.
-2. Skypes are local spies, guides, warders and informers cultivated by Theographers for defensive information collection while the Theographers themselves seek in a penetrative fashion after the secrets that have eluded science so reluctantly, like a rare and unclassified bird yet to give song in earshot or flight in view of the bird watcher.
