Skeeter spotted only a few gates along the access roads, used by draymen and their wagon teams. It occurred to Skeeter that Surrey Docks could become a trap to anyone caught inside, if a security force could be thrown across those few gates. The four of them, however, did not comprise such a force, and they clearly couldn’t involve the river police. How would they ever find one man, in all that immense sprawl? Surrey was bigger, even, than London Docks.
Entering the Surrey complex was like walking straight into a foreign land. Spoken English was in the minority, with half-a-dozen Scandinavian languages battling for dominance over harsh Russian and garrulous French as fur traders and timber importers argued tariffs with stolid dock foremen. And permeating it all came the scents of raw lumber and cured animal skins and dark, dirty water lapping and slapping against the sides of iron hulks tied up at the quays.
They entered through Gate Three, out of Rotherhithe, and found the Superintendent’s office. “Berth 90, Quebec Dock,” the clerk read from the ledger. “The clipper ship Cutty Sark. Yes, they’ve registered a new hand, galley cook from America, name of Josephus Anderson. He signed on as crew this morning after the regular cook took suddenly ill. Says he can’t read, but he signed his name on the books.” The clerk showed the signature, a laborious scrawl that was nearly illegible.
“Could be trying to disguise his handwriting,” Skeeter said thoughtfully as he and Tanglewood rejoined the others. “Make himself look less educated than he is, so he won’t attract as much attention. He wouldn’t need to know a thing about sailing to work as a galley cook. And it would be just like him to drug or even poison the real cook, so they’d have to hire a new one in a hurry. Josephus Anderson sounds like Kaederman, all right.”