Of Dubious Intent

by J. A. Sutherland

  The knot on her loop of cloth had been pulled so tight that she had no hope of undoing it, so she ripped yet another strip from her bedclothes tried again.

  More struggling with the poker, more barked knuckles, more screaming muscles, and she’d forced the other center bar to bow as much as she thought possible. She was shivering with the chill when she was done, clothes and hair wet from her exertions and the falling rain, but she had a space that was enough.

  She managed to get her head through, by turning it and not being too particular about the state her ears were in when she was done, and was able to examine the outside wall. There was a ledge and stonework near the window that led right to a drainpipe where this house met the next. She’d not even need to sacrifice more bedding to make a rope.

  I do love a convenient drainpipe. Good as a road laid out before me.

  The courtyard and side of the building were dark, as well, lit only by a pair of gas lamps on the carriage house next door. The lamps in Roffe’s courtyard were unlit, leaving deep shadows, so she’d have no worries about being seen either.

  She looked down at herself and eyed the gap between the bars.

  No, clambering down the side of the building in a dress was right out. Nor would her stays provide any benefit in this exercise.

  Cat stripped to only her chemise and drawers, both already damp, but quickly wet through from the increasingly heavy rains blowing through the window. Her slippers would offer no help either, so off they went. She knew there was nothing more suitable in her valise, only a few other dresses and underthings.

  I’ll have to speak to Clanton about a proper thieving wardrobe if there’ll be more tests like this.

  She forced her head through the bars again, ignoring the complaints from her ears. Then her shoulders — the cloth of her chemise caught and tore, but she slipped farther out. Another moment of discomfort.

  Those’ll be a worse burden soon, she thought wryly as she forced her way on.

  She twisted so as to be able to grasp the bars and pulled her hips and legs through the gap, finally hanging from the bars for a moment before her feet found purchase on the wall’s stones. That and her hands’ grip on the window ledge that ran to the corner allowed her to make it to the drainpipe.

  The journey to the ground was one of hands and feet slipping on the rain-slick metal of the pipe from one bracket to the next, but she was finally able to set her feet on the cobbles of the courtyard.

  With a grin, she hurried over to the house’s courtyard door, grasped the handle, and found it locked.

  Chapter 11

  Cat’s grin fell as she continued to stare at the locked door.

  “I’m a bloody fool,” she whispered.

  She’d grown so used to the way things were at Roffe’s country home that she’d not considered they’d be different here.

  Soft. Not thinking.

  The outer doors at the country house were never locked, so far as she’d ever found. On clear nights when she couldn’t sleep she’d gone out to walk in the garden or look at the stars, a novelty after growing up under the city’s frequent pall of fog and coal smoke. Of course, though, a city house would be locked up at night — in the day even.

  As if to further mock her, the rain intensified.

  Cat raised her hand to pound on the door and summon Clanton to let her in, but hesitated. Come to the kitchen, he’d said and damned if she’d let him see her do less.

  She backed away from the house, scanning it for any way in. Five stories, all with their windows barred. She might be able to bend those as she had her bedroom’s, but the thought of trying to do so while keeping a hold on the outside wall in this rain made her dismiss that idea. The windows on the front of the house were likely barred as well, and no doubt the front door was locked. She could try it, and the kitchen door at the front, as well, but the house was midway down a block of others, all similar and all touching side-by-side. She’d have to get through the carriage house to the alleyway and then around the block to the front.

  All barefoot in a soaking wet chemise and drawers — no, there’ll be no attention drawn by that at all, will there?

  She wrapped her arms around herself, rubbing her shoulders as she shivered in the cold rain. Possibly try the front later in the night, when it was less likely she’d be seen. For now, though, a bit of shelter wouldn’t go amiss.

  She turned to the carriage house at the other end of the courtyard and went to check its door. Just to the right of it, were the steps leading down to the house’s basement. That was locked as well, though, and she had a moment’s thought that she should have brought her lock picks with her. Perhaps Roffe had put a particularly difficult lock on her bedroom door in preparation for this test, but others might be easier?

  Regardless, it was a moot point now. Not unless she fancied climbing up that rain slick drainpipe and forcing herself back through the window bars.

  I may have to resort to summoning Clanton to the door. At least I’ll have made it part way to the kitchen.

  The carriage house door, she found, had no lock. It was latched from the inside, but there was a pull-string hanging just above the door, and that unlatched it. Cat pulled the door open and slid inside, grateful for the shelter and the warmth generated by the coach’s four horses housed there.

  It was dark inside, with only very narrow windows high up on the walls. She could make out the vague shapes of the horses, shuffling as their sleep was disturbed by her entrance. Clanton had told her the coachman was hired on when necessary and did not sleep at the townhouse, so she knew the structure was empty of people, at least.

  The carriage house had two bays for carriages at the alley side with a walkway for the horses between them and stalls for the horses at the courtyard side where she’d entered. The smell of horse and fresh dung came to her. She shuffled forward, hands outstretched. The cobbles were cold on her feet, but still a relief from the colder, wetter stone of the courtyard, even with the occasional prick of straw.

  Feet are getting soft — need to remember to toughen them, not go about in slippers all my days.

  If she remembered right, there were stairs just between the carriage bays and the stalls which would lead up to the rooms above where the grooms and coachman would stay if Roffe kept those on.

  Odd, that. I do wonder why he has servants to care for his country home when it’s never used, yet only Clanton here in the city. Does he entertain no one?

  There were so many things that were odd about her benefactor that these were just more to add to the pile. Even knowing he was a thief didn’t explain all the oddities.

  Past the horses she turned and stumbled into the stairs, then made her way up. There were more windows on the upper floor to light the servants’ rooms and she found a candle and flint in one of them. More importantly, once she had the candle lit, she found blankets and a thick coachman’s cloak.

  Cat stripped her wet things off in the candlelight and rubbed herself vigorously with one of the blankets, then wrapped herself in the heavy wool cloak. It dragged the ground and smelled of horse, as the blanket did, but it was admirably warm.

  She went back down the stairs for a moment to look about. The big doors to the alleyway were chained and locked from the inside. Not surprisingly, really. That was where thieves would come from and they’d have to get over the carriage house, a two-story climb, to reach the courtyard and the unlocked inner door. Not many would be able to accomplish that, and if they did, there’d still be the matter of not having a key to the heavy padlock on the outer door before they could think of stealing a horse.

  Back upstairs, she settled onto a cot in one of the groom’s rooms and watched the main house through the window. She blew out the candle so its light wouldn’t be seen by Clanton if he happened to look outside. There was little risk of that, she thought, but best to be careful — the main house was well-lit. Not just her upstairs window, but most of the ground floor windows shone with the steady glow of ga
s lamps.

  Somewhere church bells sounded. Cat didn’t know what church — she still had little idea what part of the city they were in — but they sounded nine o’clock. Still early and far too soon to attempt checking the front of the house for a way in.

  Cat let herself drowse, still watching the main house from time to time, but not closely, until the bells sounded three o’clock, then she stirred.

  She’d spent her time pondering how to get into the house. First, really, now to get to the front of the house, as the carriage house access to the alleyway was locked. She didn’t relish the thought of trying to climb over it in the rain.

  The key to the lock, though, should be nearby. The coachman, had there been one, would have had it, and she didn’t think Clanton would carry a carriage house key with him, nor keep it in the house. He’d want it nearby and likely on the ground floor of the carriage house, not upstairs. A brief search once her candle was relit turned it up, tucked into a hollow in one of the stalls.

  Cloak wrapped about her and some tools and bits from the horse’s tack rolled up in her chemise and drawers to keep them from clinking, she slid the carriage house door open and made her way down the alleyway, over to the main street, and back to the house’s front.

  The front door was tried first, but locked as she suspected. As was the kitchen door down the steps from the street. She grimaced as she saw all the windows on this side were barred as well. No more than she’d suspected, but it left only one possibility for getting into the house, and not one she relished the thought of. Had hoped to avoid so much, in fact, that she’d made the useless trek around the block to the house’s front on the chance it could be avoided.

  She paused and glanced at the door. A bit of pounding, perhaps a shout or two, and Clanton would swing it open for her. Or not. He might find it amusing to leave her standing about on the street in a freezing rain with nothing but a cloak and her underthings.

  And it would be a failure of sorts.

  Cat pulled the cloak tighter about her and made the walk back up the street and around to the alley and the carriage house. She bent over the round metal cover of the coal hole — the metal disk that covered access to the basement room each house’s coal was stored in. The coal man would pry that up and dump his bags of coal down it for delivery, rather than carting them in through the kitchen doors.

  It had been nearly a year since Cat had been sent down one by the gang to pilfer a bit of coal to heat their squat, but she remembered the experience all too well. Lowered head first into the dark with a rope tied to her ankles and held by Brandt and Osraed, she’d barely fit then. Now she wondered if she still could or if this would be her worst decision of the night.

  She shook her head and fished through a hole in the cover with a length of leather and a bit of metal tied to the end for the cover’s internal latch. There’d be a cord strung down the basement where a servant could unlatch the cover for a delivery.

  After a moment, she’d caught it and freed the cover so that she could lift it a bit and slide it aside.

  Staring into the dark maw of the hole led her to second thoughts again, but she determined to move forward.

  She bundled up her things and dropped them down the hole, careful to be sure her flint would strike no sparks, then slid feet first into the hole and pulled the metal cover shut atop her.

  The coal hole was drier than the street, with only a few trickles of water seeping around the edges of the cover, but no warmer. It was pitch dark — only a tiny dot or two of light from the streetlamps shone through the small holes in the cover. The rough brick of the interior scraped at her everywhere she touched, which was most of her in the tight space, and every movement dislodged more and more coal dust, that seemed to fill her nose and irritate her eyes.

  Arms outstretched above her, she inched her way down. Grasping the seam between bricks, then letting her feet lower to find some purchase farther down, and repeating the process. Inch by inch, brick by brick, not able to bend her arms enough to lower herself more than a brick or two at a time in the tight space.

  Eventually, her foot scrabbled against empty air to find purchase and she knew she’d found the bottom of the hole where it emptied into the coal room. That was a relief. There’d been the possibility that the bags of coal would have been left blocking the hole, blocking her way and forcing her to climb back to top and try to push the cover aside from within.

  It also meant she’d reached the most difficult portion of the climb, though, as she’d have to keep herself in place with only her finger tips and as much of herself as she could leverage against the rough walls. The bricks scraped more until there wasn’t enough of her left inside the coal hole to hold her up and she had to let herself fall the rest of the way. It was only a short distance, but came with more and worse scrapes from the bricks and a jarring impact as she struck her cloak and the cobbles of the coal room’s floor.

  Cat eased herself to a sitting position and rested for a moment. She ran her hands over herself, assessing the damage. A few spots were scraped raw and more than one had a trickle of blood running from it. She’d have to wash thoroughly if she wanted to keep coal dust from healing up inside her, marking her for weeks or months — even permanently if it were embedded deep enough. She’d seen more than one boy who’d gone to work for a chimney sweep man and wound up with markings like a sailor’s tattoos.

  Finally, Cat eased her way to her feet and began feeling about the coal room. The sides and back were stacked waist high with rough bags of coal, which made finding the door easy, and her shoulders slumped with relief as the door eased open at her touch. In a proper household, with many servants, the coal room would have been locked to keep the lesser servants from pilfering a bit more for their rooms or for sale. She’d counted on Clanton not bothering, as there were no other servants in the house.

  Once the coal room was shut behind her, she groped along the wall until she found the first gas lamp and sparked it to life. She had to grin at that, as it marked her success. More lamps lit her way to the kitchen and scullery where she did her best to wash, though the water was cold — as were the ovens, which would explain the lack of hot water if this house was set up as Roffe’s country home was.

  She’d remedy that quickly enough after she’d eaten, though she didn’t know how long it would take the ovens to heat water for a proper bath.

  That thought led her to the pantry, where she discovered that Roffe’s town home lacked not only servants, but any real provisions. It was empty, save for a bag and a pair of half-wrapped parcels next to a barrel on the shelves.

  Cat pondered that for a moment as she assembled a meal from what was available. Half a loaf of bread, not stale, yet neither was it entirely fresh, an indifferent cheese, and a sausage whose origins Cat preferred not to speculate on. The barrel was half full of small beer.

  She settled in at the kitchen table and began to eat. She’d eaten poorer for longer in her life, but this was nothing like what she’d grown used to at the country house and certainly not like what was served when Roffe was there. It was more like what she’d expect a man like Clanton to have when left to his own devices. So that meant that not only servants were absent from this house, but Roffe himself. What did that mean?

  Footsteps in the hallway outside the kitchen interrupted her thoughts.

  In a moment, Clanton appeared in the doorway, stared at her for a time, then left.

  Cat continued to eat until Clanton returned.

  He went to the pantry and gathered up food and a mug of beer for himself, then sat across from her. After a long drink of beer, he slid the leather roll of lock picks across to her.

  “Left these behind. Take better care of your tools,” he said. “Goin’ out a window — best to wipe up any rain spill and pull the curtains and window shut behind you. Bars y’can’t do nothing about, but leave ‘em hid and there might be no notice took for a time.”

  Cat nodded.

  They ate in sil
ence, then Clanton drained his mug and stretched. He eyed the cloak she had wrapped around her, then the bundle of her underthings on the table.

  “I’ll stoke the ovens,” he said. “Best wash in the scullery … Roffe’s particular about his carpets.”

  Chapter 12

  The next day dawned with Cat aching in muscles she’d never heard from before and with the sting of scrapes in places she’d prefer not to think about.

  She jerked awake as Clanton flung the door to her rooms open with a loud, “Up, girl, and be about it!”

  He tossed a bundle of cloth onto the bed at her feet.

  “Dress and meet me in the courtyard. Bring yer picks.”

  Cat rose, wincing with every move. She supposed he meant to dress in what he’d brought her, for she could see that the dark bundle was clothing of a sort. They were close, in pattern and style, to what a common woman in the city would wear — utilitarian stays, a loose blouse, a similarly loose skirt — but with significant differences. Firstly, each item was dark in color — not black, but still dark. There were a sort of trousers for under the skirt, and the skirt itself was sewn oddly, with a loose seam up the front and back. It was not at all what she’d grown used to wearing — and it surprised her somewhat that she could grow so used to so very different dress in such a short time — in Mister Roffe’s household. Her naked journey through the coal hole the night before notwithstanding.

  Once dressed, she splashed a bit of water on her face, and took up her leather roll of lock picks to make her way downstairs.

  The sky was grey with overcast and somewhat cool as she stepped into the courtyard — still a bit damp with morning dew. Clanton stood in the courtyard’s center, waiting for her.

  He looked her over and nodded with some satisfaction.