Chapter 17
I didn’t know where James lived, but if a woman wants to find a man, there are ways.
I started for the Silver Plover, where James had taken me.
When I entered, it was the same warm, cheerful room crowded with men and women and children.
I scanned every table, to no avail. Bad luck, but by no means insurmountable.
I made my way to the barkeep. “I’m looking for James Kinnon. Has he been in tonight?”
“Aye, come and gone, not ten minutes ago.”
“I know he’s in a lodging house nearby. Do you know which?”
His head cocked, and a knowing grin curved his mouth. “Aye.” He drew out the syllable teasingly, but I refused to flush. He pointed with his thumb. “Out the door, take a left and then the second right. Look fer two side-by-side front doors, painted dark red.”
I found it easily enough and entered the foyer, glad for the lighted lamp hanging on the wall. I climbed the wooden steps and knocked on the first door. There was no answer. At the second door, a young woman answered, and I asked if James Kinnon lived here.
“Never heard of him.” She scowled suspiciously and turned her head. “Is this another of your sluts?”
My eyebrows flew up, but before I could retort, a masculine voice growled from the room beyond: “Don’t be stupid.” It rose in pitch to add, “He’s next floor up. Room over this one.”
I called a thank-you to the faceless voice and started up the next flight of stairs.
There was no carpeting on the stairs, but the steps were swept clean, the walls decently painted, and the banister polished and in good repair.
James was doing well working at the Custom House, I thought, feeling pleased for him.
I reached his door and was relieved to see a light emanating underneath.
I removed one glove and knocked, and after a second, bootsteps approached and the door was pulled open.
James stood in his trousers and a loose white shirt, open at the throat and rolled back from his wrists. A slow smile lit his face. “This is a good surprise for the end of a day.”
“I hope you’re not hiding from anyone,” I said. “Because that barkeep at the Silver Plover will tell anyone where you live.” He laughed. “Can I come in?”
He stepped back to allow it. The room was warm with the heat from the black stove in the corner, and I removed the other glove, holding them both in one hand and lifting them toward him.
“Thank you for these. They’re lovely.”
“You’re welcome.” He looked somewhat perplexed, as if he wasn’t sure what to make of my visit.
Indeed, now that I was here, I wasn’t sure what to make of it myself.
I stuffed the gloves in the pocket and undid my cloak. He hung it on a wooden rack by the door. I stood with my hands on the top rail of a wooden chair, my thumb tapping lightly, uncertain where to begin.
His hands were quiet at his sides. “Is something the matter?”
I thought of everything Sarah and Emma had told me about James, not least about how he’d had my name stitched on his heart for years. Now, studying his expression, I could see it: kindness, to be sure, even curiosity. And a faint smile, almost rueful.
“You’re looking at me like that again,” he said. “Like I’m running a con.”
I allowed a laugh, feeling the heat rise to my cheeks, and drew a breath.
He’d asked me if I trusted him for the important things. Well, I would try, and I’d see where it took us.
“Do you remember the night you warned me to be careful about Maggie?” I asked.
“O’ course.”
“Well, she wants something from me.”
He drew two chairs toward the stove, but I stood, my fingers pleating the gathers in my skirt, and so he remained standing as well, his fingertips on the top rail of the wooden chair.
“She has a dodge in mind,” I said. “It’s difficult, near impossible even, and likely dangerous, although my cut could make it worth doing. But I want to know what you think.”
His brow furrowed. “Well, I’ll help you if I can, but I can’t do much without you giving me some particulars.”
“I can tell you what I know,” I said. “But you can’t tell anyone. Not even Emma.”
“I won’t.”
I remained silent a moment, considering where to begin.
“Not everything is a game with me, you know.” His tone was subdued, tentative.
His words startled me out of my thoughts. “What?”
“You said that,” he reminded me, “the night at the inn.”
I winced, ashamed of myself. “I shouldn’t have. It’s not true. I know that.”
There was a long silence.
He pointed to the chair he’d drawn for me. “Sit down, Kit. I need to tell you something.”
As I came around to the front of the chair, he pulled the other chair to face me straight on and sat, his elbows on the chair arms, one hand on his thigh, one rubbing his chin. “What do you know about my time in prison?”
That wasn’t what I expected.
“Well,” I began slowly. “I heard you were caught by a Yard man and sentenced to a year for smuggling.” I hesitated, but the glint in his eyes told me to go on. “You were let out early, and there was a rumor that you ratted on someone—not that I believed it.”
The skin around his eyes tightened briefly, in a way that drew an old memory from whatever murky ditch it occupied in my brain. It was how he’d looked when he told me he couldn’t run our badger scheme one night because his mother was sick.
It was a tell of the more unusual kind. One that pointed toward truth instead of a lie.
Still, I wasn’t sure what his time in prison had to do with Maggie’s dodge. But it seemed he wanted to tell me about it, so I asked, “How were you caught?”
James settled his left palm on the carved end of the chair arm.
“I was on the river, moving whiskey and wine for a French merchant. It was pitch-dark, and they had dozens of us lightermen working by lamps hanging from the side of the ship. They’d anchor at night about a mile downstream”—he flicked his forefinger to the east—“completely overloaded with barrels. They had small ones for us, easier to handle. They offloaded the larger ones at the Custom House.”
“Because otherwise, if the ship was spotted, Customs would wonder why it wasn’t unloading anything,” I guessed. “But wouldn’t they notice the hold wasn’t full?”
He gave a half laugh. “Of course you’d think of that. There are false walls running the length of the ship for the small barrels. Officers are too busy to be checking if the innards of a ship and the outer hull match.”
“Ah.” Like the short pockets that concealed our thieving ones—and possibly the walls between Simonson’s and Willingham’s.
“To avoid the river patrols, we had to row upriver to a hidden dock.” His finger beat a quick tattoo.
“But one night, as I pulled in, three bull’s-eye lanterns all switched on for me and two other blokes about twenty yards behind.
They both jumped and swam off, but two Yard men got hold of me, and another had a pistol pointed at my face. ”
My breath caught. “What did you do?”
“Do?” James gave a short chuckle. “What do you think? It was me against three of them and a pistol, so I went. Next afternoon, I was tried and thrown in gaol, and a few days later, this Yard man named Pickford paid me a visit. He pulled me into a private cell, wanting to know who the others were.”
“You didn’t tell him.”
He gave me a look. “Course not. But he had to try.”
I nodded.
“Next, he asked about the merchant. They had the barrels of wine, so there was no denying they were French, but the merchants don’t put names on the barrels until they reach the warehouses. Pickford beat on me, but I wouldn’t tell him anything about the merchant, either.”
“Because they’d catch other lightermen by keeping watch for those ships.”
He briefly turned over a palm. “Pickford said I’d get one year for certain and threatened to make it three or five by pinning more charges on me.
When I still didn’t talk, he changed his tune, said he could spring me, perhaps even find me work with a decent wage in exchange for information.
” A bitter smile pulled one corner of his mouth.
“I told him for the last time, I wasn’t a rat, and that’s when he said, ‘No, but if I find those other two men in the next few days and bring them in here, everyone will think you are. And I won’t correct them. ’”
“Oh.” The word escaped with a gasp. James would be a dead man.
James raised an eyebrow. “Aye, he was a bugger. And that week, I stayed up every night, hoping to hell he wouldn’t find my friends, not just for their sakes.”
“Emma must have been terrified,” I said.
“Oh, she was.” His voice was emphatic.
“You saw her, then?”
“They let her visit the once.”
I felt a prick of shame. “Sorry I didn’t.”
“I knew Sarah was sick, same as plenty of others. Emma told me.” He was being kind.
“I could’ve come when she was well.”
“They only allowed family.”
“Stop,” I said sharply. “They’ll let anyone in for a coin, and I could have said I was your sister. We were friends. I should have come. Let me say I’m sorry.”
“You’ve said it, then,” he replied mildly. “But don’t fret about it any longer. I got out.”
“How?” I asked. “Pickford?”
“No, he never came back. My next visitor was named Fuller. I was dragged back into that foul room, and he walked in, and I thought, hell, must we do this yet again? Only he was different. Decent.” He saw my doubtful look and his mouth twitched.
“He wasn’t a Yard man. He worked for a newspaper, and he wasn’t interested in me ending up dead, it served no purpose.
He’d help me if he could, but I had to give him something.
” He sniffed. “I started to say I wouldn’t, and he interrupted, saying there were dozens of cases of smuggling going unsolved, and he was writing articles about them.
People talked in prison, and if I learned something that might help him, he might help me find an honest day’s work, especially seeing as I spoke French. ”
“How did he know that?”
James snorted. “When he came into the room, I said merde. Means ‘shit.’ I said it more than once.”