Chapter 4
A spitting rain had begun to fall. Heads hunched low, the Weasels threaded their way in subdued silence through the alleys and byways leading east from Mayfair’s sleeping splendor to the less salubrious neighborhoods of the city.
The dark-on-dark silhouettes of the London Institution’s garden plantings and the surrounding wrought-iron fence rose out of the night mist, and as they reached the main gate, Hawk indicated that they should head off to the right where a spiderweb of crooked lanes spread out from the far corner of the cobbled street.
“Carrot-Top and his gang have a hidey-hole in here,” he explained. “One of them is usually keeping an eye on what’s going on—”
“Oiy!” A low bark cut through the patter of dripping water, followed by an obscenity. “Dis patch is tak’n—find somewhere else te flop or y’ll find yer sorry arses kicked from here to the devil.”
Raven lifted the floppy brim of his hat. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that, Spots.”
The ragged urchin slipped out from behind a broken crate. “Sorry.” A gap-toothed grin. “Didn’t recognize ye in yer fancy togs, Raven.”
The Weasels were wearing their most foul-smelling ragged clothing for the foray into the stews. But to the other boy, whose feet were bound in filthy rags, they probably looked like princes.
“Ye still working fer Magpie?”
“Oiy—and he sent us here with some questions about the recent murder that took place on Threadneedle Street.”
Magpie was the street persona that Charlotte had created for herself before she met Wrexford in order to gather secrets and scandals for her satirical drawings.
Disguised as a man, she had cultivated rumors that she represented a powerful person in High Society who was willing to pay very handsomely for information.
The ruse had worked extremely well, and Magpie was now something of a legend in the stews.
“As always, he’s willing to pay for the answers.”
“Come wiv me.” Spots gestured to a slivered space between two derelict warehouses “Carrot-Top is jes through der.”
“Wait here,” murmured Raven, slipping his knife out of his boot, just in case—though few people dared to diddle with Magpie or his representatives. The purse gave another sonorous jingle. “This shouldn’t take long.”
Sure enough, he was back in several minutes, a glimmer of grim satisfaction in his eyes. “Squeaky says he saw a gentleman shadowing Campbell down to Threadneedle Street last week.”
“Havey-cavey,” observed Peregrine. “But it’s not much to go on.”
“Oiy.” A smile. “But apparently an urchin named Toad sleeps under the stovepipes coming up from the basement of the bakery on Angel Court, which lies just off Throgmorton Street.”
Hawk’s expression brightened. “Which is within spitting distance of Threadneedle Street.”
It took no more than a quarter hour for the Weasels to make their way past Draper’s Gardens and down to a narrow side street where the aroma of baking bread sweetened the usual stink of the stews.
Wisps of vapor curled around the large metal stovepipe that rose up from a stone well built into the bakery building’s foundation. Leaning over the edge, Raven gave a tentative hail, his voice sounding strangely muffled by the moist heat.
A twitch of movement stirred within the darkness below, and a moment later, a soot-streaked face materialized from the gloom.
“Carrot-Top sent us to find Toad,” said Raven, punctuating the announcement with the clicking of coins. “We work fer Magpie.”
Quick as a flash, a shape slithered up the mortised stone and dropped down to the pavement. “Oiy be Toad.”
“We’ve some questions about the murder that took place last night on Threadneedle Street …”
Toad listened intently, looking more cheerful by the moment. “Oiy—I saw it—and ’orrible it was!” A ghoulish grimace. “The two of ’em were jawing, and then whoosh!” He pantomimed a blade slashing through the air. “The knife nearly severed the poor cully’s head from his neck.”
He made a gagging sound. “Ain’t never seen such a spurt o’ blood!”
“You saw the murder?” pressed Raven.
“Oiy, the whole thing!” assured Toad. “I wuz on my hands and knees on a narrow footpath between two buildings leading te Threadneedle Street, looking fer any bits and bobs that might’uv been dropped by all the fancy coves what use it as a shortcut to the Royal Exchange.”
“Describe what happened.”
“The two o’ dem wuz arguing—in the moonlight I saw a knife pressed te the murdered man’s throat.
And then the quarrel seemed te end as the cully stepped back and waved the well-dressed toff te be on his way.
” Toad lifted his bony shoulders. “But all of a sudden, the cully’s head was flopping around like a ball on a string. ”
Raven jingled the purse in his pocket. “Describe the murderer. Tall? Short? An’ wot did he look like, wot was he wearing?”
Toad made a face. “Not tall, not short.” But he quickly added, “He wuz wearing a dark hat that had one o’ dem fancy curved brims. His overcoat was black wid capes on da shoulders. Black gloves, too, and butter-soft by the look o’ dem.”
“Side-whiskers? Mustache? Beard?” pressed Raven.
“Naw. Clean-shaven.” Toad crinkled his nose. “Nasty laugh—like metal scrapin’ against metal.”
Raven handed over the entire purse, earning a squeal of disbelief.
Seemingly emboldened by his luck, Toad shimmied a little closer. “What wud ye be willing te pay if I could give ye something I snitched from the toff’s coat pocket while he was scrabbling wid tryin’ te pull a ring off the dead cully’s finger?”
In answer, Raven flashed a gold guinea. “That’s assuming it’s worth more than the spittle on your tongue.”
Looking giddy with joy, Toad pulled a tiny object from his pocket and held it up.
The rain showers had blown off, allowing the glow of lunar light to spark a flash of gold from Toad’s treasure as he passed it to Raven—
It was Hawk who heard the approaching danger.
“Run!” he cried, quickly grabbing Raven’s arm and shoving him toward a twisting lane leading south as Toad shot off in the opposite direction.
In the next instant, two men—not the usual neighborhood watchmen but military officers of the elite Royal Horse Guards regiment, known as the “Blues”—came charging out of the shadows, pistols in hand.
“Halt!”
Racing to catch up with Raven and Hawk, Peregrine slipped as he skidded through the turn into the escape route but managed to right himself just as a bullet smashed into the brick corner of the building, mere inches from his head.
“This way!” shouted Raven, getting his bearings and sprinting for an alleyway that snaked off to the left. Their thudding steps reverberated off the grimy buildings sagging around them, urging them to quicken their pace. After a few more twists and turns, Raven dared to slow to a halt.
As his breathing steadied, he cocked an ear. “We should be safe now,” he announced after hearing no signs of pursuit. “They likely thought they had stumbled upon a thieving band of alley rats and sought to gain a commendation from their commander for eliminating a pack of vermin from the streets.”
Hawk nodded, but Peregrine’s expression remained troubled. “It strikes me as odd—”
A sudden hail, sounding uncomfortably close, rose above the night sounds of the stews. Several quick orders followed.
“Hell, there must be three of them,” whispered Hawk as he peered back into the gloom.
“The Blues are trained to hunt down and kill the enemy,” said Peregrine. “I met a number of them at the Royal Arsenal when my uncle was working there, and they are frighteningly good at what they do.”
“Merde,” muttered Raven. He sucked in a deep breath.
“Then we better not let them catch us.” He closed his eyes for an instant, trying to picture the surrounding neighborhood.
“They’ve spread out, and I reckon they are trying to herd us to St. Anselm’s Yard, where the walls of the cemetery will have us trapped. ” He started moving again. “Follow me.”
Once Raven had made his way through a pile of rotting garbage and shimmied through a small gap in an iron fence, he picked up his pace. “We need to fly and cross Cannon Street before they do, so we can lose ourselves in the warren of footpaths branching out from Ursus Square.”
They abandoned any thought of stealth. Speed was their hope of salvation. A pistol shot exploded behind them, but with all the higgledy-piggledy jogs of the alleys and the mists blowing in from the river, there was little danger from a bullet.
Until their pursuers got closer.
Faster, faster. All three of them seemed to grasp that reality, and it spurred them on.
“Oiy!” wheezed Hawk as they scrabbled up and over a stone wall instead of following the sharp turn of the footpath. “The construction at Fenchurch Market!”
Raven immediately grasped what he meant.
An addition to one of the outdoor pavilions for the vendors was in the works, and as he and Hawk had passed it last week, they had noted the spiderweb of wooden struts and scaffolding stretching over to the adjoining street.
Parts of it were mere skeleton shells—they would support the weight of a whip-thin urchin, but a heavyset soldier would bring it crashing down.
“The quickest way is through Sherborne Passage,” called Raven, veering off to his right.
With Hawk and Peregrine right on his heels, he darted into a half-hidden tunnel created by the collapse of a stone storage tower from the previous century, raced through the flitting shadows of the shortcut, and emerged in the cobbled courtyard of the walled market.
Skidding to a halt, he surveyed the jumble of construction supports and heaved a grunt of relief.
“The unfinished section of the wood scaffolding leads to the far wall, and from there we can jump to the lower roofs of the Clayton warehouses, then cross to where we can climb down and lose ourselves in the maze of alleyways.”
He gestured for Hawk to start climbing. “We need to go one by one—as I thought, it’s just a preliminary skeleton and will barely hold our weight. Falcon, you go next.”