By Gaslight

by Steven Price

  You said yes, Fludd interrupted. It was not a question.

  Foole nodded.

  It’s like to be dangerous.

  Yes.

  You mean to do it alone? To break that old bastard out?

  Not alone, Foole said. Charlotte and I’ll do it together.

  Bugger that, Adam, Molly muttered. Don’t do it.

  Fludd enfolded a hand over the girl’s shoulder.

  Foole fixed his bright eyes on her. I won’t be gone more than a night, Molly. You and Japheth will continue with our work in the meantime. I’ll be back to see it through.

  Molly scowled. An if you’re not?

  Fludd rose up wrathful and elemental and smelling of the city’s alleys and he glared down at Foole in silence and then he pressed past towards the door. Molly, he called over one shoulder. Come on, kid. We’ve heard enough.

  Molly gave Foole a sullen glower. You got to ask yourself what’s important, she said.

  And then she too swept past and was gone.

  The room was quiet. Foole grimaced and stared down at the opened crate, the mess of batting strewn from its opening like a spill of innards, the mask grinning face up from the floor. He could hear Molly’s angry footsteps overhead, then the low shuddering tread of Fludd behind her. A door banged somewhere in the house.

  Will you do it then? Charlotte said from behind him. Have you decided?

  Foole turned, studied her.

  The child doesn’t approve.

  Molly’s like a daughter to me. I don’t require her approval.

  Mm.

  What.

  Maybe she’s not mistaken, Adam. No good can come of this.

  Of what?

  Charlotte glided forward. Us.

  Foole stiffened but did not move away. I need to ask you something. When you wrote me the letter—

  Yes?

  He forced himself to meet her eye. Did you already think I was Shade? Did you think I was the man Pinkerton wanted when you brought me into this?

  Charlotte paused. You are asking if I lured you here, to Pinkerton?

  I am.

  She said nothing and all at once Foole felt strangely, obscurely, ashamed. Then she turned without speaking and went to the door. When she looked back her eyes were slitted and hurt. If you think me capable of that, she began. But she did not finish.

  It was, he would reflect later, a most impressive performance.

  On Tuesday Fludd rented the farrier’s battered old growler and piled it with their trunks and travelling cases and he and Molly rode south in their heavy coats towards Newington. Foole stood with Mrs. Sykes at the parlour window and watched them go. In the mid-morning he took Charlotte by hansom to collect a list of items needed for their pursuit of her uncle. They bought tickets for the Portsmouth stage due to depart at four o’clock the following morning, Mr. and Mrs. Balderdash, yes, B-A-L-D-E, ah, I see, sir, thank you. They drifted through the shops, her hand resting lightly on his wrist, his cane clicking as they went. Parcels were wrapped, sent on ahead to Half Moon Street. They strolled among the crowds on the Strand their breath visible in the chill and they ridiculed the theatre posters in St. Martin’s Lane and all the while Foole kept his eyes low but he saw neither police nor Pinkerton. In the early afternoon they went down to the Thames and walked the Embankment under the leafless trees and Foole had the eerie sensation that he was living a borrowed life. He thought of how he might have lived, had things been otherwise, had the ordinary creep of time not stretched on.

  At Blackfriars Bridge they paused in the span and Charlotte stared down at the Thames swirling thickly below and at the barges passing under them and Foole felt a shiver go through him. The day was dark, the afternoon was dark.

  Is this the place? he asked. Is this where you jumped?

  She was quiet.

  You’re all secrets, he said.

  She looked reprovingly at him. The traffic crossing the bridge was loud, the shouts of men in heavy scarves over the backs of horses, a drove of pigs rattling angrily on to the slaughteryards. The stone railing under his glove gave off a low thrum.

  You have no faith in people, she said.

  I’d have had faith in our son. He had not meant to say it and he looked up at her in surprise. Forgive me.

  Her thin eyebrows sharpened. My son, she said, is dead.

  Yes.

  He died in Kent.

  They were quiet then. Some figure bundled in rags had run to the railing farther down the bridge, was hurling a packet of papers into the river. Foole watched the scatter of pages, the slow spread of sheets in the water as they sank from view. A man in a blue frock coat was hollering.

  Charlotte shook her head. She said, I came from over there. It was night. William Pinkerton was behind me and not stopping. It was like being charged by a bull. I knew as soon as I’d turned into the traffic here that I’d made a mistake. I climbed over the rail, there, I stood on the parapet. And then I just let go. Her face was far away, her eyes staring down at the freezing river below. I thought I’d die, she said. I couldn’t feel anything. And I just kept thinking of my baby. She had lowered her voice so that Foole had to strain to hear her. There was a river near where our carriage overturned, she said. I remember we walked down to it and I bundled him up and set him in a little basket. The river was high. I lost sight of him at once. I kept thinking about that.

  Foole shifted his feet. The papers long since lost to the waters, the fuliginous river muscling brutally past.

  We were trapped on that road for three nights, she whispered. It was a terrible place. The river high and in flood and me with nothing in my arms.

  Foole was shaking his head and he stared a hard stare at the murky Thames and he gripped the stone railing and he thought of the Confederate carriage he had nearly drowned in twenty years before, the black water in his lungs, the desperate soldier kicking at him for purchase. He thought of Allan Pinkerton, in silhouette, watching him ride southward to his death.

  Charlotte put a small gloved hand on his sleeve. Something went through him, a shiver. What is done out of love, must be judged through love, she said. You said that to me once.

  His eyes drifted down to her gloved wrist, the crescent of skin visible between the kidskin and her cuff.

  You don’t remember?

  I’d sooner remove a man’s hands than let him cut me twice, he said, his eyes clear. I don’t care the reason. He ran the tip of his tongue along his eye teeth. A knot of birds lifted from the far embankment like a shudder in the air. The sky darkened, the river deepened, bruising. Steamer ferries with small fires burning on their decks were paddling the waters downriver.

  We should go, he said. Tomorrow will come early. There’s much still to do.

  But he was watching her as he spoke and she looked up at him and there was in her face a sadness he had not seen there before.

  You have changed, she said.

  FORTY

  In the morning the city loomed, soot-stained, teeming. William left his hotel and wended his way through narrow cobbled lanes wreathed in fog and came out into the roar of men and horses and carriages sliding on the icy setts under railway arches and through all this he walked with his hat low and his gloved fists at his sides. He was thinking all the while on Ellen Shorter’s husband. That man’s love had first destroyed itself and then destroyed her leaving nothingness and loss in its place. William had lived his life among such men and still he did not know what it was in a person that led to such brutality. He did not believe men were made for violence and yet somehow savagery was ever near at hand. In you as in any, he thought. As he waited for a break in the traffic he glimpsed, distorted, in a glass shop display, his own reflection dark and faceless and rippling among the clerks surrounding like a creature out of nightmare. He looked away.

  It was Wednesday. He walked as far as Half Moon Street and there he paused and stared up at the Emporium. He could see at once that Foole, Shade, was gone. The curtains drawn, the chimneys cold and
dead. He had not noticed before the ragged brickwork, its cinder bricks standing out from the facade, like footholds for climbing.

  He set a gloved hand on the iron gate, glanced back along the street. Margaret would have told him there is no living in regret. You make the choices in the moment and then you live with them. When the front door opened William turned, surprised.

  It was Foole’s housekeeper. A stout powerful woman with a shawl wrapped tight at her shoulders and a bonnet askew. Hard, intelligent eyes.

  The master’s not at home, she called. Whatever it is you’re wantin.

  William stepped forward. Do you expect him back soon?

  A pause, her face squashing in concentration. You. You was by the house two weeks back.

  William paused. Yes.

  You was mighty rough with the wee one.

  He opened the gate and came through and approached. That was a misunderstanding, he said, and I do regret it. I’m an acquaintance of Mr. Foole’s. Is the child here? Could I tell her so myself?

  She’s gone out of the country too. We’re just to shuttering the house now, we are.

  He climbed the steps and stood towering over her and he could see her knuckles white in the cold where she gripped her shawl. Behind her through the open door he glimpsed the elegant interior, a dust sheet already drawn up over a pier table in the foyer. A ghost of a girl with a cleaning brush in one hand peered at him from the parlour doorway and when he met her eye she startled and vanished.

  When do you expect Mr. Foole to return?

  I wouldn’t know that, now. Commerce bein commerce, an all.

  More than a week though. If you’re closing up the house.

  Aye.

  More than a month?

  She screwed up one eye, glared. It’s the modern world. Keeps a poor man from sittin by his own fire.

  There must be some forwarding address. If I left a message—

  Wouldn’t reach him. Not for lord knows how long.

  He gave her a look. What about Mr. Fludd? Is he here?

  Now look, she said sharply. My girl and me we got a week’s worth of work to get through in a day. You be off now, Mr. Pinkerton.

  He looked up in surprise and met her gaze and then he stepped closer.

  Aye, I know you, she scowled, sidling back. And I know your kind too.

  And what kind is that? he said softly.

  Her lips tightened. You disappointed the master something awful. Ought to be ashamed, way you carry on. Persecuting a good man like that.

  And she turned and shut the door firmly and after a moment William heard the bolts rasp into place and though he had not moved he had the eerie feeling he had passed a threshold there was no returning from. He looked at his shoes, uneasy, he stared out at the street.

  In the sky a great brown drift of fog thickened and slid past.

  But Foole was not gone yet. Whatever that housekeeper claimed. This he knew with the same cold certainty that told him the elegant thief had been the architect behind the Emma heist. At a restaurant in a deserted square he sat at a window and while he ate he withdrew from his coat the old photograph of his father’s operatives in Cumberland. The blurred boyish figure of Shade visible there. He stared at the boy. Then he stared at his father, bearded, savage, fierce, one hand creeping into his frock coat as if towards a weapon. How unlikely, he thought, that the boy he’d trained and the son he’d raised would someday stalk each other in a foreign city, haunted by separate griefs. He set the photograph aside and looked out at the February cold.

  In the afternoon he made his way to Scotland Yard and found Shore in his shirt sleeves, hat off, head cradled on his desk, snoring. William had come noisily in and he stared at the man in surprise, spotted red skin visible through his hair.

  William, Shore muttered. Lifting his face and rubbing at his whiskered cheeks with open palms, grimacing sleepily.

  I didn’t mean to wake you.

  Come in. Shut the door, for god’s sake.

  William shut the door and stood turning his hat in his fingers. Rough morning?

  Rough night. Some lunatic’s been hammering away at the whores south of Ludgate. Starting to upset the honest folk. He scraped at a nostril with a thumbnail, snorted. Never mind it. You’ve seen the papers? George Farquhar calls in here near every day. Just can’t sit still.

  Well. It must be trying for him.

  Trying for him? Shore grunted. You have no notion the pressure I’m under. George Farquhar dines regularly with Lord Hattersby. He keeps the counsel of half Parliament. This is not a man I’d like to see ruined, not on my watch.

  William frowned in sympathy.

  No word yet from the thief, Shore added. I expect that should come through in the next day or two. We’re to meet at Mr. Farquhar’s residence when that happens. Shore raised his eyes, paused. Your presence has been requested.

  Mine.

  Aye. Seems Farquhar wants to hire you. To ensure his safety or some such.

  He’s decided to go along with the exchange then.

  Never doubted he would, man like that. Shore wrestled into his frock coat, set his hat on his head. I’m sorry about it, William.

  So there’ll be no charges laid.

  Aye. And no legal grounds to collar the bastards that did this. Seems your rogue’s file on Mr. Shade will have to wait awhile yet. But Shore’s face as he said this was drawn and gentle and disappointed on William’s behalf and there was no trace of mockery in it. Mr. Blackwell informs me you had some success in closing that Charlotte Reckitt case, he said.

  Well. It wasn’t her.

  No.

  William rubbed at his old knee injury, starting to ache. It’s strange, he said, and smiled a faint smile. There’s no evidence she’s even dead. Maybe she’ll resurface, maybe she’ll prove my lead back to Shade after all. Imagine that. He looked up. Unless Farquhar were to change his mind.

  I’d think not. He means to negotiate.

  On whose advice?

  He wants his property returned, William. I can understand it.

  Edward Shade did this, John. I’m sure of it.

  Doesn’t matter. You can’t move on a man without cause.

  I’ll find cause.

  Not in London you won’t. Must I say it again? Last thing I need is some notorious American detective turned vigilante.

  William paused. He looked at Shore, at the man’s long calculating glower, and all at once something clicked into place. What is it? he said. Did Breck finish dusting the letter?

  Shore’s eyes shrank to small points of light. All this time, he said, I thought you were chasing a ghost. You and your father. He took out his pipe and lit it. He nudged the box of tobacco towards William and the two men sat in a slow white wreath of smoke. Aye, they’re a match, Shore said at last. The fingerprints belong to your Edward Shade.

  Son of a bitch, William muttered. I knew it.

  But you can’t do a thing with it, William.

  He looked up and met the other’s eye.

  Not legally I can’t, he said.

  FORTY-ONE

  The Portsmouth stage rattled south into the red of the rising sun and Foole and Charlotte sat stained by its glow, the red light slatted over their faces, their huddled shoulders, their gloves shuddering on the blankets in their laps. A freezing wind whistled through the cracked and broken panes and carried on the wind were the voices of the driver and the young passenger riding crow’s seat. The driver was an older man with thick brown mutton chops and a green scarf double-wrapped at his throat and his gloves had been sliced at the fingers. In the half dark of the inn yard where the stage began the driver had stood blowing into his fingers and studying his customers coolly and he had not helped load the trunks to the roof but had climbed up after and lashed them fast.

  Charlotte seemed disconsolate. She stared out at the passing fields, saying little, her small mouth downturned, while the farmhouses with white smoke rising from their chimneys slid past, the long sinuous hedgerows mar
king the grazing land. Foole watched her from the corner of his eye but did not disturb her. He felt a slow bloom of sadness coming up in him but could not account for it.

  The only other passenger was an elderly man with wire-rimmed spectacles and an unfashionable silk hat and he smiled and nodded when he caught Foole’s eye.

  A fine thing, getting up out of the smoke, he said. To Portsmouth, is it?

  Foole shook his head. Chichester. My wife’s sister. She’s ailing, I fear.

  Ah, the man said, withdrawing slightly, glancing at Charlotte, glancing back. A shame, that. You wouldn’t be from thereabouts yourself, though.

  No.

  I allowed maybe you weren’t. On account of your— And the man waved a hand back and forth in front of his face.

  My what.

  The man blinked behind his spectacles, uncertain. Why, your complexion, he said.

  They rattled along in silence then for a time and then the man said, Had a sister myself once. Funny little teeth. We used to call her Peggers, on account of them. Well. All in the past, now. The elderly man leaned forward over his leather satchel. She had three little ones, all dead inside of a year. Fourth one took her with it. He clicked his tongue, remembering. A poor affair, that was.

  Foole glanced out the window.

  What ails your sister-in-law?

  Disease, he said blackly.

  A shame, the man said again. And so young too, I wager.

  The stage rattled and banged and clattered on. Foole tried to fix his gaze on the passing scenery and thereby discourage the man from further conversation. By noon the stage had arrived in Guildford and Foole and Charlotte got down at the local inn and stood in the yard with their two modest trunks standing under the cover of the front entrance and Charlotte went inside for a bite to eat and Foole followed. The only course on offer was a bowl of beef stew thick with onions and carrots and Foole ate heartily but Charlotte set her spoon aside, her face pale, and did not eat. After lunch they walked out past the chicken yard until they reached a small stable at the end of the lane and Charlotte went inside and asked for Hadfield Crooke.