2
Mercury approached the King’s Head tavern with focus and resolve.
He also approached with a shocking amount of expertise at assuming a role and persona suited to his purposes.
He wore clothing befitting a person of the merchant class with ambition but not yet the means he wished for.
He adjusted his posture to that of a man who aspired to leave that part of his work behind him.
And when the time came to speak, he would do so with less refinement than he had learned to assume when he took on the name Mercury Raine years earlier.
He would blend in and, in so doing, have a much better chance of getting the information he sought without tipping his hand.
Up ahead, Testy Tolver slipped through the door of the tavern.
Mercury followed at a slow enough clip that those inside would not assume the newly arrived ghost was attached to him.
Gary the Green planned to enter the tavern as well, but not until Mercury had been inside for a time.
His other ghosts were all within five hundred feet, of course.
Several of them would be hovering near windows or listening to conversations on the street.
One of them was bound to hear something.
Mercury stepped inside. The tavern was respectable and filled with patrons matching the role he was playing, and quite a few who had achieved what his pretended persona hoped for.
Perfect.
Two men sat at a table, silently nursing tankards, neither looking at the other. Their glances in his direction were quick, almost begrudging. They were unlikely to prove talkative.
The next table he passed wasn’t silent, but the snippets of conversation he caught were focused entirely on matters of business. Turning the conversation was unlikely to prove easy or be managed with subtlety.
“My wife has been made a member of a ladies’ charitable committee that includes Lady Selborne.” A man’s voice reached Mercury from a corner table. “That, I am hopeful, will prove a useful connection.”
A man at that same table, wearing a waistcoat of deep blue, spoke next. “James Rennel has managed to inch closer to claiming a place in Society. Being in trade, he’ll never step all the way into that world, but even a small foothold is an impressive thing.”
Quick as that, Mercury had his strategy. He took a seat at an empty table directly beside theirs. He set his hat on the table and leaned his forearms on the tabletop. Mercury assumed a serious-minded expression that, nonetheless, was not overly heavy nor unwelcoming.
“Rennel is ambitious,” the first man said to his conversational partner. “I daresay he’ll achieve more than a mere foothold in Society.”
Mercury let his eyes dart to the men with interest before tucking it away as if embarrassed. He then shifted his expression into that of a man impressed by what he’d heard.
The strategy worked.
“Join us,” the man in the blue waistcoat offered.
Mercury knew better than to immediately accept it. “I’d not want to intrude.”
“None of that.” Another man at the table, his cravat simply but carefully tied, bumped the empty chair next to him, an amusingly casual way of suggesting Mercury sit there.
The ale-drawer reached the table just as Mercury sat with the other men. “A pint for you?”
“Aye.” Mercury nodded.
He was forthwith provided with a tankard.
“Don’t think I’ve seen you in here before.” The man with the charitable wife took charge of the conversation at the table. “Are you new to London?”
“New to Islington,” Mercury said. “I’ve started having a spot of luck with my printing business, so I’m letting myself aspire a bit.”
“It’s a good place for a man of ambition.” The blue-waistcoated man nodded in approval.
“You know people who’ve found a place among the swells.” Mercury lifted his tankard but didn’t immediately drink. “Must be right deft fellows to manage that.”
While he took a sip of ale, Mercury watched the group. Mixtures of pride and excitement touched their expressions. In another moment, one or more of them would begin sharing stories of their own success or those of people they knew.
“My neighbor is a bowing acquaintance of the Duke of Claverly,” the man with the tidy cravat said. “Another neighbor has secured a box at the theater surrounded by those belonging to some very influential families.”
Mercury pulled his eyes wide. “Seems your corner of Islington is a particularly good place for people with ambition.”
Across the tavern, Gary the Green was gabbing with a ghost in the garb of a musketeer of centuries earlier. Mercury gave no indication he was paying the least attention to anything but those at his table.
“Colebrook Row ain’t quite Highbury Terrace,” the cravat man said. “But we’re an industrious group.”
Colebrook Row. Highbury Terrace. Mercury made a mental note of both.
“We on Paradise Row could contend with you for that title,” the man in the blue waistcoat said with a friendly chuckle.
Paradise Row.
Mercury looked over at a neighboring table as he took another slow swallow of ale. A ghost who looked precisely as Mercury had always imagined a druid would have looked sat among a group of men.
To his companions, Mercury said, “There are a heap lot of ghosts in here. Does a man need a ghost to make a success of himself in business?” He let himself sound concerned at the possibility.
“Ain’t a requirement,” the man with the charitable wife said. “Helps, though. A memorable ghost helps clients and customers remember a shop or a merchant or—”
“Or a printer.” Mercury offered a wry smile. “Too bad I weren’t born with an attachment.”
“Hire yourself an assistant who was,” the cravat man suggested.
Mercury nodded at the wisdom of that. “You don’t happen to know anyone with a very memorable ghost, do you?”
His tablemates chuckled. Then, for the next few minutes, they shared stories of interesting specters they’d met. No one mentioned an enormous ghost. The Violet Giant was absolutely unforgettable. If they knew the Vanns, they would almost certainly have mentioned their ghost.
Once he could do so without rudeness or awkwardness, Mercury rose from his seat. “Thank you, chaps, for the gab and the company.”
“Best of fortune to you,” the blue-waistcoated man said. “Sit and have a pint with us anytime.”
Mercury set his hat on his head, then made his way unhurriedly out of the tavern.
He stepped out onto the pavement and paused.
He tucked his hands in his coat pockets before walking slowly away.
If he made too swift a departure, Gary the Green and Testy Tolver would be snatched away from the tavern, which would increase the possibility that someone inside would make the connection.
He lowered his head enough to be anonymous without drawing notice. He put just enough sway in his step for onlookers to think he might have had one pint too many but not so much that any thieves would think him an easy mark.
Mercury turned at the corner. In the exact moment he was certain he couldn’t be seen from the tavern, Baby Blue, Zizzy, Mawky, and Captain Capitate popped out from a clump of slightly overgrown shrubbery. He would need to talk to them about the concept of subtlety.
“Did you learn anything?” the Captain asked, thankfully in a whisper.
“We ought to snoop around Highbury Terrace, but it’s unlikely the Violet Giant has ever been seen on Colebrook Row or Paradise Row.”
“No one knew the Vanns?” Mawky, as always, looked utterly wretched at the weight of . . . everything.
“I couldn’t ask directly,” Mercury reminded her. His eyes darted upward and, just as he expected, another of his ghosts, the Winged Monk, was on the roof of the nearest building.
Twenty-one ghosts were tucked in various nooks and crannies in the area. He very much feared that if he didn’t get back to his London residence, they would grow impatient and accidentally give him away.
“Make your way back to the house,” he told them. “Covertly, please. We can plan our next steps there.”
Baby Blue didn’t slip away immediately. His ghostly eyes pleaded with Mercury.
“We’ll find her,” Mercury promised for probably the hundredth time. “I swear to it.”
And they would find her without the Vanns finding them. He swore to that as well.