Free Some Danger Involved by Will Thomas Page A

and a fellow out of a Tolstoy novel sat down beside us, helping himself to the rolls and my coffee. A long beard spilled down his coat front, and his greasy hair splayed out in all directions from beneath a disreputable fur cap. He wore a long and ancient green coat with an almost military stamp to it, and his boots had seen better decades. Barker shook his hand and made the introductions.
    “Rebbe, this is Thomas Llewelyn, my assistant. Thomas, Reb Moishe Shlomo, Mr. Pokrzywa’s rabbi.”
    The rabbi held out a none-too-clean hand and pumped mine vigorously.
    “Who should want to hurt poor Louis?” he asked. “Such a waste, a waste of good life, I have never seen. A more promising Talmud scholar you couldn’t find in all of London. I held great hopes for that boy.”
    “Tell us more about him,” Barker prompted. “We need to know what he was like.”
    “He was born in Smyela, south of Kiev, and came here six years ago. His parents were killed in the pogrom there, and he fled the country with just what he could carry. He came overland on foot to Amsterdam, and then took the ferry to London because he heard a young fellow can get ahead here. He applied himself diligently. Had you met him, you would not have noticed the slightest trace of an accent. You’d have thought he’d been brought up in Whitechapel.”
    “Did he have any close friends or a sweetheart?”
    “Oh, he was well liked by everyone in the community. His special friends were the boys of his chevra and the other teachers at the Free School. As to sweethearts, he could take his pick. He was not an ugly fellow, and his earnestness was very charming. He had so many mothers throwing daughters at him, the air was thick with them. But Louis was a good Jew. He would choose no bride until he finished his studies and became a rabbi. Now some poor girl has lost herself a fine husband, and Zion a future leader.”
    “Can you think of any way in which he could have brought danger upon himself?”
    The rabbi bawled for more coffee and turned over the matter in his shaggy head.
    “He had…what do you call it? A warm heart? A soft heart! He wanted to solve everyone’s problems. He gave away too much of his meager salary to the schnorrers. He could never keep a winter coat. He worried about the Jewish women in Whitechapel, that poverty might cause them to lose their virtue. He went about doing good works and listening to everybody’s problems. He overtaxed himself, always trying to squeeze two days into one.”
    “It is a hard life as a rabbinical student, I’m sure.”
    “Oy, you have no idea! Such a life I wouldn’t wish on a dog. The Board of Deputies has scheduled the funeral for the morning. The Jews’ Free School cannot have so disreputable an old scholar as myself to perform the service, but I shall be there just the same, to see my boy is put into the ground properly. Of course, both of you shall come. I insist upon it.”
    “Had Louis seemed in any way secretive in the past few weeks?”
    “The chevra boys would know better than I, but he did cancel a lunch I was to have with him last week.”
    “What is a chevra, if I may ask?” I put in.
    “It is a burial society,” the rabbi said. “They collect money for your funeral while you are alive.”
    “But it is more than that,” Barker added. “The members of your chevra are your brothers and closest friends. It is a fraternal organization.”
    The waiter brought a new cup of coffee. It was strong and sweet in the Turkish manner. I rather liked the relaxed atmosphere of the outdoor café, as you sipped and let the world parade before you. Barker watched a drab woman in a shawl walk by.
    “I know that very few Jewesses are harlots, but how many do you suppose there are?” he said.
    The rabbi shrugged his shoulders. “Who knows? A dozen or more at least, perhaps.”
    “Could any of them have had a ponce, a man who looked after them and to whom they paid the money? Someone who might be angry