Chapter 7
The taproom was busier than usual for a Tuesday afternoon, and I sat at one of the triangular corner tables with a sloppy stack of newspapers, a serving of piping hot shepherd’s pie, and a pot of ale for my tea.
Both the Times and the Kent Advertiser carried reports of the Fairleigh investigation, railing against the Yard for making no progress at all.
Not for the first time, it occurred to me that an anonymous tip-off to the Yard could put Billy and Tommy away—but Sarah would have to testify for a charge to stick, and even if the Yard tried to keep it anonymous, word might leak out.
The Castle men might scrap among themselves, but they closed ranks when needs must and took their revenge.
My one shred of hope was that I hadn’t heard from James. I took it to mean Sarah hadn’t been mentioned, although it could simply mean Billy and Tommy were keeping silent for now.
As I scavenged the pile for another paper, a dark-haired woman rose from one of the tables on the other side of the room.
Her back was to me, but I noticed her fashionable woolen paletot with a neat turned down collar and lapels, the sort of coat not often seen here.
She approached Pat, put her empty glass on the wooden bar, and laid down a coin.
Pat didn’t give his usual amiable smile—didn’t even nod—merely continued scrubbing at a brown whiskey bottle like he’d caught it stealing from the till.
That sent my curiosity high as the rafters.
Then, to my amazement, she stepped around the end of the bar and started up the steps to the private rooms above, and Pat didn’t say a word to stop her.
Now that I saw her profile, I realized it was the handsome woman I’d seen here a few nights ago, who had given me that peculiar, sharp look.
She must know Amelia, and if I had to guess, she’d climbed these stairs before, more than once.
The staircase was steep, and from the first step she plucked her skirts high the way we thieves did.
My eyes went to her fingers, pale against her dark skirts.
The skin on her near hand was shiny, as if it had been badly burnt, and two of her fingers—the index and the second finger—were twisted from being broken and not reset properly.
Pat’s usually cheerful face was sober and slack, as if a heavy weight pulled upon it.
My nerves tightening, I watched the woman’s short-trained dress vanish up the stairs and heard the goods room door squeak open and closed.
The newspapers forgotten, I sopped the last of the gravy with my bread and brought the bowl to the bar.
“Who was that?” I asked Pat.
He looked up from wiping the bottle. Before he could say he didn’t know or joke my question away, I added, “I saw how you looked at her. And you let her go upstairs.”
“She’s an old ’quaintance of Amelia’s.”
“You don’t like her,” I said.
He frowned and kept his eyes on the bottle, which was already plenty clean.
I set my palms on the bar.
“Don’t bother me about it,” he snapped. “I expect you’ll find out soon enough.”
I drew back in surprise and returned to my corner table to wait until I could see Amelia myself, for Pat’s manner made me want to know sooner than soon enough.
Well over an hour later, the woman descended the stairs, her face placid. She left quietly out the door, using her good left hand to turn the knob. Amelia did not appear.
The room was busier now, the bar two men deep, the tables filling.
Avoiding Pat’s eye, I went upstairs to find the door to the goods room ajar, the way it never was.
I entered and closed it behind me. Amelia stood at the window, her back to me, her tall figure straight and still as an iron lamppost, her dark hair tidy in its usual net.
“Amelia?” I crossed the room.
Her gaze remained on the street outside. “Hullo, Kit.”
“What’s happened with Josie?”
The skin around her eyes tightened. “Half a year, down from four.”
I studied her profile. “How?”
Amelia continued to study the street below. “The judge has a mistress, a French actress.” She drew a long breath and huffed it out. “Josie’ll be all right.”
I nodded. Six months would be awful but survivable, and Amelia could make sure Josie got decent food and a cell in one of the better blocks. “Who was that woman?”
Amelia gave a sidelong glance and a snort. “Might’ve known you’d be the one to come asking, faster than a railway minute.” Her mouth pressed into a wry line. “Well, you’ve a right to know, more than most.”
Opening the secret panel, she removed the whiskey rather than wine and poured herself an inch of the amber liquid without offering me any.
I pulled out a chair from the desk and sat, though she returned to the window, her left hand holding the glass.
Her gaze tracked something down on the street, perhaps the woman who had just left.
“Her name is Maggie Wirth O’Connell,” she answered. When I didn’t reply, she added, “Her mother was Patty Wirth.”
Astonished, I asked, “Where’s she been all this time?”
“A penal colony in Australia,” she replied.
“Twenty years ago, there were ten men for every woman. The coppers were snatching up and transporting any woman they could, no matter how small the crime, so men would have something to do in the evenings other than trouble the bloody sheep.” Whatever she was watching had vanished, for she turned toward me.
“She wrote letters the first year, but then there were two bouts of cholera in Swan River. We all assumed she died in one of them.”
“And you’re certain it’s her?” I asked.
One dark eyebrow rose. “You’ve seen her face. How likely is it I’d mistake her for somebody else?”
“True,” I admitted. Her beauty was memorable. “What does she want?”
“The ring, o’ course.” Her forefinger came away from the whiskey glass, as if to halt my protests. “Her ma gave it to me on her deathbed, but only because she thought Maggie was never coming back.”
Her tone of practical acceptance made me stare. “My God, Amelia. You’d turn it over to her? Without a fight?” I hated the idea of the ring changing. And instinctively I didn’t trust this woman.
“It’s hers, by birthright, Kit. There’s no question of that. And o’ course I’d quit someday.” She raised her glass toward me. “Only I thought I’d be leaving it to you, in a year or two.”
I blinked in surprise. I’d suspected, but this was the first time she’d said it straight-out. “Not Nell?” She was the only other one of Patty’s thieves still in the ring.
“She doesn’t want it.”
“Oh.”
My thoughts must have shown on my face, for her expression softened and she drew out the chair behind the desk and sat across from me. “I’ll miss all of you, but I won’t be far. I’ve family in Whitechapel. Like as not, I’ll go there.”
But once people left, they built lives elsewhere, found new friends, different pastimes.
“We don’t even know her,” I protested. “Can we trust her? What if she starts changing things?”
“Why would she?” Amelia tilted the whiskey to her mouth.
The amber liquid caught the pale sunlight.
“I’ll stay on for a bit to show her the ropes, though she knows a good deal about the ring already.
” She replaced the glass on the table. “She’s experienced and practical .
. . and very clever, Kit. Bear that in mind. ”
“She was caught twenty years ago,” I said pointedly. “Is she any good?”
Amelia looked at me from under her brows. “Maggie’s one of the best there ever was—and she didn’t even begin as a thief.”
I settled back in my chair, the turned wooden rail rigid against my spine. “What was she?”
“A magician’s assistant, in one of the music halls, at first,” she replied.
“A good chance to learn sleight of hand.”
From outside the window came the clatter of wheels.
“Carrots and turnips! ’Tatoes and peas! Fresh and full weight!
No false bott’ms in these!” The costermonger’s bellowing song had been scraped down to a rough shout, for he was nearing the end of his day.
Amelia waited for him to pass before she replied.
“Maggie was sixteen and very beautiful. She was always a favorite.”
“I can imagine,” I said. “I noticed her the other night, sitting at one of the tables. She acted like she belonged.”
Amelia heard the edge in my voice and shrugged. “Likely she feels she does belong. She spent her first twenty years in Southwark and still has friends here. ’Tisn’t surprising she made her way back.”
“So . . . she went from magician’s assistant to thief.”
“Well, between those, she was an actress and a chanteuse.”
“A what?”
“A singer,” she said patiently. “The papers called her ‘the peerless contralto.’” Her eyes took on a musing look.
“She was a sensation, yeah? Men were bloody mad for her—everyone from MPs to gang leaders. The morning papers would report who she threw her kisses to the night before. She had a second dressing room just for flowers and presents they brought. She was a legend.”
I felt a jolt of surprise mixed with awe. “What ended it?”
“The manager threw her out for running doves in his theater.”
“Was she?” I asked. “Would she risk all she had to do that?”
“I doubt Maggie would’ve risked it. But her mother might’ve.”
Patty Wirth would compromise her daughter, for the sake of profits? I shivered, feeling grateful that Amelia never would.
Amelia turned her glass on the desk with nearly invisible movements of her fingers. “Naturally, Maggie was blacklisted across every theater. It was hard on her, but she joined the ring after that.”
I could well imagine Maggie’s resentment, if her mother had caused such a thing. “Famous as she was, didn’t she have trouble thieving?”