by Joan Smith
“Yes, what of it?” Coffen said eagerly. “You know the place?”
“I know every street and alley for miles around. This neighbourhood is where I do most of my hacking. Not many of the folks hereabouts have their own rig. I keep my hack at a little stable back of the Olde Toy Shoppe. You get at it from a lane off Chenies Street. There’s three of us use it. Me, and my old pal Henry Gibbons—he’s another hacker, and Mr. Greene, the swell that runs the toy shop.”
“Greene, that’s who the clerk at the toy shop said owned it. Another name he uses when he ain’t wearing a beard,” Coffen said. He felt as if the heavens had opened up and shone a golden beam down on him in the unlikely form of Tipper Wedge. He breathed a deep sigh of satisfaction, then said, “Was Greene’s carriage there when you left this morning?”
“Aye. I’m up with the fowl meself, hitch up my rig at seven on the dot. It was there then. It’s always there at that hour. Mind you, that’s not to say it’ll be there now.”
“Will there be somebody there?”
“That’d likely be Timmy, if at all. Timmy Whelan. His Da owns the stable. Timmy lives in a room above and runs the place. He could be there but like as not he’s either gone back to bed or nipped down to the local for a wet. Seeing as me and Henry are out, there’s no point him sitting, waiting for Joe Mullins to show up. That’s Greene’s coachman. Anything that needs doing to the rig, Joe sees to it hisself. In fact Joe don’t like Timmy interfering with the carriage. You’d think it was the king’s own gold coach, the way he treats it. He boxed Timmy’s ears the one time he tried to wash it down to get on the good side of him.”
Seeing his listeners were hanging on his every syllable, Tipper continued, “A word to the wise, my friends, yez don’t want to go tangling with Joe Mullins. A man of science is Joe. He’s broke more than one bone hereabouts. He was in the ring before he took over coaching. Mullins the Mauler, he called hisself in them days. He has a broadsheet hung up in the stable with his name and picture on it. Mind you he don’t look much like the fellow in the drawing, with the mouth open and the fangs bared. It’s enough to scare the Grenadiers.”
Coffen listened with interest, then said, “There’s a golden boy in it for you to drive to the stable and let us know if Greene’s rig is there, and if Mullins is there with it.”
“If Joe’s there, he’ll want to know what for I’m there in the middle of the morning.”
“Your wheel’s loose,” Black said.
Tipper lowered a questioning eye to his wheels, looked at Black and said, “Are you sure, sir? I didn’t feel nothing.”
“It’s loose. Jiggles and rattles something awful. It wants tightening.”
Tipper gave a broad wink and tapped the side of his nose to show he understood. “Ah. About the golden boy, it’s mine whether Greene’s rig is there or no?”
“Either way,” Coffen replied. “Just drive in, see if Joe’s there. If he is, pretend you’re tightening your wheel and get out. Come back here and tell us, whether anyone’s there or no.” He held the golden boy out to tempt him. Tipper’s nimble fingers snatched it up, he leapt on to the driver’s seat jiggled the reins and was off.
Black shook his head. Mr. Pattle was as hard to teach economy as Fitz to teach directions. “You shouldn’t ought to have given him the whole price now, Mr. Pattle. Who’s to say he’ll come back?”
“He’ll be back,” Coffen said. “I haven’t paid him his fare yet.”
“Our fare was nowhere near a golden boy.”
“He had an honest face as well.”
Black stared to hear that shifty-eyed fellow’s face called honest. But within ten minutes Tipper’s hackney came rattling back down the street. “The coast is clear, sirs,” he called from his perch. “Do yez want to go there?”
“Is Greene’s rig there?” Coffen asked.
“It is and Mullins ain’t. So are we going?”
For answer Coffen opened the door, he and Black got in and were soon driven to the little stable. Tipper didn’t drive the hackney inside. Coffen was out almost before the rig stopped.
“Yez won’t be long?” Tipper said in a worried voice, peering about for a sign of the fearful Joe Mullins.
“Wait for us where you picked us up a minute ago,” Coffen said. Tipper was not tardy to leave. The light from the open stable door shone on a battered broad sheet displaying a mountain of a man who looked more like an ogre in the menacing pose used for the sketch. “I wouldn’t care to meet that in a dark alley,” Coffen said.
“A bogey man to scare kiddies,” Black said dismissingly, and strode in. Coffen didn’t hesitate to follow him.
Coffen inhaled the pungent stable fumes, that were as familiar and as welcome to him as the aroma of gammon frying of a morning. There was only one carriage in the stable, a plain black one, and one pair of nags. He went forward and patted the velvet noses of the matched bays—not what he’d call prime tits, but not jades either. He looked around at the familiar setting—the harness hanging on a hook, the pails of water, the feed buckets, the grooming brushes for the horses, the shovels and brooms for mucking out, and on a shelf a pile of rough blankets to prevent chill when the horses had been out. Within thirty seconds he was darting to Leclerc’s coach. He was stymied to find the doors on both sides were locked.
“There’s something in there,” Black said, peering through the window. “He didn’t lock them doors to keep the seats safe.” As he spoke he drew out the set of tools he had used in his previous life for breaking into locked houses and still used when necessary. Within a minute he had the door open and they were inside. A copy of the latest issue of the Satirist sat on one seat.
The other was empty, but from beneath it a corner of rough bleached cotton protruded. Coffen was on it like a starving Robin on a worm. It was heavy. He had to use both hands and tug a few times before a carefully bundled parcel came out.
He fumbled with the wrapping and was soon looking at a pile of tiles. He hadn’t time to assemble them into a picture, but he recognized the eye outlined in black on one tile, and the tip of a bird’s wing on another.
“Is there anything else?” Black asked. Coffen got down on his hands and knees and peered beneath both seats. He drew out a bag, opened it and held up what looked like a small dead animal, stuck to his fingers by glue. He shook it out to reveal a black beard. The men exchanged a very satisfied grin.
Coffen took another look under the seat and said, “That’s all the tiles. Seems Phipps was just buying the head and the bird.”
“That’s the important part,” Black said. “Do we take them with us or leave them here?”
Before Coffen could answer, a deep, menacing voice from the doorway spoke. “You leave them right where they are, Mister.”
They glanced out the door at a red-headed monster with shoulders like a barn door and hands the size of shovels, clenched and ready to strike. He looked amazingly like the image on the broad sheet. “Ah,” Coffen said. “You’d be Joe Mullins, then.”
Joe didn’t reply, but just revealed a gap-toothed and extremely vicious grin. He reached into his waist band and drew out a pistol. The other giant hand reached into the carriage and yanked Coffen out by the collar of his jacket. He fell in a heap at Joe’s feet. Joe planted a large, booted foot firmly on his right hand and turned to Black. “Now you, mister. You don’t want to make me come in there after you.”
Mr. Pattle cast a beseeching eye up at Black from the dirt floor of the stable. Black, for once in his life, could think of no way to help Mr. Pattle – or himself. He didn’t even have a pistol. He had left it in the pocket of Mr. Pattle’s carriage. That was a bad mistake. It looked like it might be the death of them.
Joe Mullins was strong as an ox, and no more intelligent, but it did occur to him that he had two men to handle, and only one pair of hands. Besner would know what to do, only Besner wasn’t here. If he tried to march the two of them to Besner’s house, one of them might get away. Besner wouldn’t like him
taking them there either. The thing to do was to get Besner here.
“You,” he jerked the pistol at Black, down on the ground face first with your friend. You, face down as well, mister,” he said to Coffen. Then he let out a bellow like a wounded elephant. “Whelan! Whelan! Get down here.”
A pale-faced young man with lank brown hair and a thin body appeared on a staircase leading up from the rear of the stable. “Go and fetch Besner. You know where he lives. Tell him it’s a ‘mergency.”
Whelan stared in dismay at the sight before him. “Right, Joe. I’ll go. I’m going right now,” he said at once, and scooted out the door in his bare feet.
Joe glanced down at his prey. “You, stop wiggling,” he said to Black.
Black stopped wiggling, closed his eyes and did something he hadn’t done in years. He prayed the only prayer he knew. “Now I lay me down to sleep ...”
Chapter Thirty
The next fifteen minutes were terror-filled, yet strangely boring. Neither Coffen nor Black was accustomed to doing nothing in the face of such danger. Yet what could they do? Any efforts to converse with Mullins were stopped by a loud, curt, “Shut up. And don’t wiggle,” and an increased pressure from his booted foot.
Within a quarter of an hour Besner came pouncing into the stable. He hadn’t even taken time to put on his hat. The wind had had its way with his hair, lifting it in wings as he tore along. Tim Whelan, having escaped Mullins, had the good sense to stay away. Besner stared open-mouthed at the scene before him, then turned in wrath to Mullins.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he howled. “Let these gentlemen up at once. They’re friends of Sir Reginald Prance.”
“They found the tiles and your wig, Besner,” Mullins said.
Coffen, risking a glance up at Besner, saw his mouth fall open in dismay, then his lips clamp together and his flushed cheeks fade to white. For a good sixty seconds that seemed much longer to the prisoners, he said nothing, but just stood, gasping. Black, well able to read the criminal mind, had a good idea what Besner was thinking. Does anyone know they’re here? That’s what he was thinking, and if he knew no one knew, he’d kill them sure as cats kill mice.
Black wisely chose the most influential name he knew, twisted his head up at an uncomfortable angle and said, “Lord Luten sent us. Townsend knows we’re here.”
“Townsend!” Mullins cried in alarm.
“Why did Luten send you here?” Besner barked.
“To find the mosaics,” Black said. “The jig’s up, Besner. He knows everything. The black beard, the toy shop, Monsieur Leclerc, Mam’selle Marie—the works.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Besner huffed, then undercut his own lie by adding, “He can’t prove a thing.”
“Said if we weren’t back within the hour, Townsend would come looking for us,” Black said. “That hour’s nearly up.”
Mulllins gave a convulsive leap and said to Besner, “Gorblimey, do something.”
Coffen listened, breath held, marveling at Black’s ingenuity, and waiting to hear Besner’s reaction. Wanting to help, he added, “He knows about Burnes as well.”
Black mentally winced. Mr. Pattle had just signed their death warrant. A man can only hang once. What was to stop Besner from killing them now? Hide their bodies before help arrived and swear up and down they hadn’t been here. Trying to dilute Mr. Pattle’s error, he said, “I reckon it was your man Mullins here that took care of Burnes.”
“It weren’t neither!” Mullins said at once. Then he turned a belligerent eye on Besner. “Don’t you go blaming it on me! I told you, I draw the line at murder. If you want these two kilt, do it yourself, like you done Burnes.”
“Shut up you fool!” Besner growled. “And give me that pistol.” He reached for the pistol in Mullins’s hand.
Mullins pulled back and glared. “So that’s your plan, eh? Shoot me, then this pair, and let on I done it and you had to shoot me to stop me. Well it ain’t going to work, Besner. I’ve paid my debt to you over and over. Tell the police what I done if you want to. It was only ten bleeding pounds. That’s all I took off you.”
Recognizing an ally, Black craned his neck around to Mullins and said, “Luten will see you never darken the door of gaol if you help us, Mullins. Cohersion. Ain’t that what they call it, Mr. Pattle, forcing people to do what they don’t want?”
“That and d’ress. D’ress vile,” Coffen added. It didn’t sound quite right but Prance had once said something of the sort.
“Shut up! Shut the hell up!” Besner said, his voice rising in panic. Then he turned to Mullins and continued in a milder, coaxing voice, “Just tie them up, Joe, and I’ll take care of them. You’re free then. You can go home. You can go anywhere you want. I won’t bother you any more.”
Mullins frowned, looked from Besner to Black and finally spoke. “You really think Luten can get me off scot free?”
“Guaranteed,” Black said firmly.
Coffen had always found money the best lever. “Plus there’ll be a reward,” he added. “A hundred pounds.”
Besner ran his hands through his hair. “This is ridiculous! I don’t want to kill you. I didn’t want to kill anyone. Burnes was an accident. He wouldn’t listen to reason.”
“Get hold of him, Mullins, and take us to Lord Luten,” Black said. “In half an hour you’ll be a free man, with a hundred pounds in your pocket.”
Besner saw the glint of joyful revenge in Mullins’s eye and didn’t wait to hear any more. He turned tail and ran out the door. When Black and Coffen began to get up, Mullins turned the pistol on them and said, “Not so fast, lads.”
They stopped and craned their necks to look out the door and watch as Besner fled. “He’s getting away, Mullins,” Black said.
“A hundred pounds and a pardon, Mullins,” Coffen added.
“I gotta think a minute.” By the time he had thought, there wasn’t a sign of Besner. “All right. You can get up, but don’t try nothing.” They scrambled up, watching Mullins lest he change his mind. He continued speaking in a firmer way. “Thing to do, I’ll harness up the rig and take you to catch him. I have a fair notion where he’ll be at. You’ll never know how glad I am to get out from under that devil’s heel.”
They dusted themselves off. Black said, “He’s gone home, you mean?”
“Nay, gone to his bit o’muslin, Mam’selle. She keeps hold of the money and all. He won’t get far without it.”
“If we’re going there, we ought to let Luten know,” Black said to Coffen. “We’ll have to send Mullins, and you and me go to Mam’selle’s house.”
“She’ll be at the shop,” Mulllins said. “He just sent me here to get the rig and take him there. If he’s going to make a run for it, he’ll need the blunt.”
With a wary glance at Mullins, Coffen said to Black, “Do you think Luten will believe him? No offence, Mullins, but you being Besner’s man, he’s bound to suspect a trick. One of us will have to go with you. We’ll flip a coin, Black. Heads goes to Mam’selle’s, loser takes the rig to Luten’s. You’ll have to lend us your pistol, Mullins.”
“I got another,” Mullins said, and retrieved one from under the horse blankets.
Black won the honour of going to Mam’selle’s shop. He grabbed the spare pistol Mullins held out to him and ran out to hire a hack. Tipper, curious to learn what they were up to and hoping to make more money, was lurking not far away.
“What did Besner have on you, Mullins?” Coffen asked, when they were alone.
While Joe harnessed up the rig, he told his sad tale. “I thought no one was home and smashed his ken one night a year ago. He caught me, gave me a choice of laying a charge against me or helping him with a little job. It sounded too good to say no. Free rack and manger, a quid a week just for driving him about.”
“To Ironmonger Lane?”
“Often to there, and to a tavern on Gresham Street, and to Mam’selle’s house and shop. I had to drive her
about some as well. Nasty piece of work, that Mam’selle. Thought she was the Queen of Shebar. I drove Besner to Ironmonger Lane, mostly after dark, picking up some old statues and things, and taking them to the back of the Olde Toy Shoppe. Different fellows came and picked them up. You wouldn’t believe what they paid for that old rubbish.
“Then one night he comes to me all in a pelter and says that Mr. Burnes was to come to the shop. He called on Burnes once so I knew him to see him. Besner told me to take the rig to the back door then come and wait in the back room, in case of trouble. Burnes didn’t look like trouble to me, so being curious like, I opened the door a crack and put an ear to it while they were talking. Who wouldn’t, eh? They got to arguing pretty hard, then when I heard Besner coming I closed the door.”
“What were they arguing about?” Coffen asked.
“Blest if I could make sense of it. Money and digging and old Romans and who had the rights to them.” When Coffen nodded, Joe continued. “So Besner came out, handed me a pistol and says, ‘You’ll have to kill him, Joe.’ “
He offered me ten pounds to do it. I says, ‘No way.’ Then he tells me I can go, but to leave the rig where it was at. He came out to make sure I left. ‘Course I didn’t go far, for I knew he had some rig running. I hid behind the bushes and watched. He went back into the shop and was back in a minute or two. I didn’t hear no shot, so I didn’t know what happened. I waited a bit, then I figured Burnes must have gone out the front door and I went out to have a few wets.
“The carriage was gone when I got back. He’d took it to the stable hisself. Next day I drove him to Burnes’s place to take away some old clothes and rubbish out of Burnes’s flat. He said Burnes was leaving town and I could help myself to his leavings. I sold the lot to a rag and a bone man. I didn’t hear nothing about Burnes being killed for days. When I did hear of it, Besner swore up and down he didn’t do it. I believed him. Truth to tell, I didn’t think he had it in him.” He gave the reins a yank and said, “We can go now. You’re sure I’ll go free?”