Chapter 37
Kendra prepared for the miserable. A light rain pinged against the windowpanes as she dressed in her warmest gown and wool coat, her thickest tights, and her sturdiest leather half-boots.
Not fashionable, which Molly lamented, but functional.
Or as functional as it could be for the era.
Neither the gown nor the coat had pockets, so Kendra still had to keep her pistol in the dainty reticule dangling from her wrist.
Alec was waiting for her by the door. Like her, he’d dressed for the cold.
She was sure he also had a gun on him, but he had plenty of pockets to keep it in.
While Kendra didn’t anticipate any problems with the mudlarks, the docks were a high-crime area.
One of the reasons, she remembered, why Goldsten had set up his practice nearby.
Briefly, she wondered what would happen to the clinic now.
When they climbed down from their carriage, Sam was waiting for them on the embankment with six other Bow Street Runners. Kendra recognized a tall, lanky figure staring out the receding waters of the Thames as Muldoon.
“I spoke ter Mr. Goldsten’s ma and sister an hour ago,” Sam told Kendra. His golden eyes were shadowed and a muscle twitched in his stubbled jaw.
“I’m sorry.” She understood what it meant to be the messenger that brought grief to a family.
The Bow Street Runner moved his shoulders as if he was trying to dislodge a weight. “Aye, well. They were shocked. Refused ter believe he killed himself. I reckon that’s natural. No one wants ter believe something like that.”
Kendra acknowledged that with a nod. “When was the last time they saw him?”
“A week ago. Last Friday, for something called Shabbat.”
Kendra hunched her shoulders against a gust of wind and rain. “They didn’t think it was strange that they hadn’t seen him for over a week?”
“Wasn’t peculiar for him. Mrs. Goldsten said he spent most of his time at his clinic and St. George’s.”
“Did he seem troubled or worried about anything the last time they saw him?”
“According ter Miss Goldsten, her brother was always serious-minded. Fretting that he’d lose status or have his clinic shutdown if he stepped out of line.”
Muldoon joined them. “I quizzed the sisters at St. George’s and learned that Sir Preston and Dr. Carter have treated the most syphilis patients over the years, but that could be because they’re the oldest physicians in residence. Everyone has treated the pox at one time or another.”
“Anyone with a personal connection to the disease?” Kendra asked.
“There are some whispers that Mr. Beane’s brother died of the disease, but I haven’t been able to confirm that. I thought that if I don’t drown tonight, I’ll ask him directly tomorrow morning.” Muldoon grinned at her.
“They’re coming now,” Alec said.
Kendra’s gaze traveled to the shoreline below.
Black patches of mud, rocks, and rubble were slowly exposed as the tide receded, and dozens of shadowy figures crept out onto the sludge.
The old and disabled used long sticks to poke through the mud and navigate the shifting sands.
The children used their hands to dig through the debris.
They all wore long coats, bulky, with multiple pockets that they stuffed with the objects they found. A few carried burlap sacks as well.
Kendra turned her attention back to Sam, Muldoon, and the other Runners. “We want Edwina, but if she’s not down there, maybe someone knows where she is. If you don’t see her, interview as many mudlarks as possible.”
She saw Muldoon’s quick grin, and half-expected him to give her his mocking salute like he had before.
“Do I sound imperious?” she asked Alec as they made their way down the embankment.
“Darling, you sound like a leader. Mind your step.”
Her boots skidded across the slick, seaweed-covered rocks, and Alec’s hand shot out to steady her. She gave a relieved sigh when she finally landed on the shore, even if her half-boots sank into the mud.
Kendra surveyed the newly exposed beach, with its long patches of mud, clumps of seaweed, rocks, and swirling tidepools.
The world was different down here, almost apocalyptic.
A one-armed man struggled to yank a tin box out of a tangled pile of kelp and muck.
Nearby, an old woman, spine curved into a large dowager’s hump, combed the sand with her fingers.
Children as young as four were rooting around for any meager scraps.
Society’s abandoned, she reflected sadly.
“We’re being watched,” Alec murmured beside her.
“I know.” Kendra nodded, her gaze drifting over several young mudlarks.
“Not by them. Him.” Alec inclined his head in the direction of the embankment.
Kendra turned slowly, careful not to draw attention, and glanced up the rocky incline.
The man had chosen his position well, standing between two warehouses, leaving him in shadow.
That, along with the gray drizzle, made it impossible to discern anything about him, except that he was wearing tricorn hat and a caped greatcoat.
“He could be a dockworker—”
“They don’t wear greatcoats. I noticed him when we were on the embankment. He pretended that he was part of the group of men working near one of the warehouses, but he was watching us. He wasn’t subtle, but I put it down to curiosity.”
Kendra studied Alec. He’d been a spy on the continent during the Napoleonic Wars. If anyone would recognize surveillance, he would.
Now he said, “Why don’t I go and have a word with him, shall I?”
A frisson darted down her spine, and she grabbed his arm before he could turn away. “Be careful, Alec.”
His teeth flashed in a crooked smile. “Don’t worry about me, sweet. You’d better worry about catching your quarry. It looks like they don’t want to be interviewed.”
“Damn!” she cursed, when she saw that the younger mudlarks had begun running, scattering in all directions.
Hiking up her skirts, Kendra chased after a handful of the children running north.
Sam, Muldoon, and the other Bow Street Runners were yelling and racing after the other kids.
The mud sucked at her boots, hampering her progress.
In contrast, the kids seemed to fly across the beach, as fleet of foot as a herd of gazelles.
To think she’d once prided herself on her speed at Langley’s racetrack and the laps she’d made around the FBI Hoover Building in DC. But a year of not running had taken its toll. The muscles in her legs burned as she sprinted after the mudlarks. Wind and rain slapped at her.
“Stop!” she shouted.
Several in the pack glanced over their shoulders, squealing. Smaller children peeled off from the older kids. Kendra made a split-second decision to go after the older children. She didn’t know how it was possible, but they seemed to increase their speed, lengthening the distance between them.
Gritting her teeth, she bore down and found a spurt of energy as the children ran toward a rocky formation that jutted like a finger from the embankment.
She gained a few feet, but had no breath left in her lungs to order them to stop again.
They were twenty yards ahead. Her heart felt like it was going to explode.
Her calves screamed. Still, she gulped air and barreled forward, shrinking the distance to fifteen yards.
Then the kids disappeared around the jagged outcrop.
Kendra was running so fast that she nearly collided with a large boulder. Skidding, she corrected course around the stones. On the other side, she saw the mudlarks vanish into a yawning black hole cut into the embankment.
Ignoring the painful stitch burning in her side, she jogged the last few feet to the opening. It was a stone tunnel, at least seven feet high, five feet across. Large enough to accommodate her without forcing her to bend over.
She paused to catch her breath. Her ears were still roaring with her blood, but her heart was beginning to settle. Cautiously, she moved forward. The gray light outside rapidly diminished, and she stepped into the pitch-black. Did she hear the scurrying of running feet?
She stopped. Listened. Heard nothing except for the drip-drip-drip of rain outside the tunnel entrance. Either the children had stopped running or there was an escape hatch somewhere.
Lichen and seaweed crawled up the stone walls around her, hung from cracks on the arched ceiling.
This had to be one of the abandoned aqueducts built by the industrious Romans when they ruled England.
She walked another foot, glass, seashells, and gravel crunching under the soles of her half-boots.
The strong smell of sea, sewage, rotting vegetation, and decaying flesh—animal, she hoped—felt like a punch to the throat.
She stopped again. “Hey!” she yelled. Her voice echoed back to her. “I’m not going to hurt you! I just want to talk!”
Nothing.
“I’m looking for Edwina!” she shouted into the abyss. “I need her help! I’m offering a reward!”
Straining her ears, she thought maybe, just maybe, she heard movement somewhere in the endless darkness. “I’ll protect her!” she tried again. “I promised Old Beatrice that I’d protect her!”
She took another step.
“My name is Kendra—Lady Sutcliffe. Twenty-five Bedford Square. Tell Edwina! Tell her that I will protect her!”
She held her breath. Silence.
Damn. She couldn’t advance farther without a lantern. She already felt like she’d been swallowed by the darkness.
She wheeled around and began walking back to the tunnel’s exit. It was darker now; she could barely see. Her boots splashed through a puddle. She froze. The tunnel had been dry when she’d come in—there should be no splashing.
She picked up her pace. As she hurried forward, the light from outside pierced the gloom and she could see the rivulets surging between the rubbish and seashells that littered the tunnel’s floor. The rising water lapped at her half-boots.
Heart pumping wildly, she sloshed her way to the tunnel’s opening.
Holy shit. She stopped abruptly, her stomach dropping in dismay as she stared.
The tide had come in.