by E. G. Foley
“Huh?” Jake pretended not to hear her over Teddy’s happy barking.
“Don’t complain to me when you get the headache.”
“It’s not as bad as before.” He squeezed his temples with one hand. “I think I’m getting stronger at it.”
She was not sure if that was such a good thing. The headache at least kept him from using his powers too much.
She produced the potpie from under her cloak and his blue eyes lit up. “Ah, Dani O’Dell, you’re a right plum lass, you are.”
“I know,” she replied.
He took it from her and went to sit on his favorite boulder. The next thing she knew, he was shoving huge bites of mincemeat pie into his mouth in a most unmannerly fashion.
“Give Teddy some. He’s starving.”
“Dance,” Jake ordered through his mouthful of food. The terrier danced, and Jake tossed him a good-sized crumb.
Reluctantly, Dani went over and broke a piece of the potpie off for herself. So much for her good intentions, she thought with a shrug. Then she sat down with a flounce of her dreary drab skirts on the top step of the gazebo that Jake had made his temporary home. His few belongings were strewn about inside it.
“So what happened after you ran off?” she asked. “I saw those men chase you. I guess you got away.”
He paused in his chewing and gave her a guarded look.
“What?” she asked, nibbling on the famous pie-crust.
Jake snorted like a half-wild colt and tossed his dirty blond forelock out of his eyes.
“What did they want?” she demanded.
“To kill me,” he said matter-of-factly.
“What?”
Perhaps he shouldn’t have told her, Jake thought.
Dani’s green eyes grew as round as the algae-covered pond surrounding his little island. She stared at him in dread. Once he had said that much, however, it was too late to back out from telling her the rest.
The truth was, he was glad to share it, because secretly, this was one of those rare occasions where he could admit he might be in just a wee bit over his head.
He told her all about it, though he skipped over the magic bits. He knew that topic gave her the willies. Instead, he simply told her about his so-called uncle, the Earl of Griffon, and Derek Stone and his unjust arrest.
Jake was all too familiar with the process that Derek would undergo after the police wagon took him away.
The bobbies would haul him into the nearest police station, where he’d be thrown in a holding cell for a few hours until it was his turn to stand before the magistrate. Known in street language as a “beak,” the magistrate served as a sort of first-round judge, who would determine if there was indeed a case to be made against the person arrested.
When it was Derek’s turn to be brought into the courtroom, probably this evening, the beak would ask questions of everyone involved. Their answers would help the court decide if there was enough evidence to formally charge Derek with the crime. If not, the case would be dismissed and he’d be free to go.
But if the beak determined there was enough evidence to take the case to the next step, then formal charges would be filed, and Derek would be sent to London’s dreadful Newgate Prison to await trial.
Those accused of murder were rarely allowed out on bail. In the meantime, the detectives would carry out their investigation. Finally, at the trial, if Derek Stone were found guilty, he would be sent immediately to the gallows.
“And I can’t let that happen,” Jake told Dani. “This man saved my life. He didn’t kill anyone! It wasn’t even him who threw the knife, the bald man did it! He hit his fellow henchman by accident. Derek was only trying to save me. I’m not even sure how he knew I was in that alley, but you should’ve seen him, he was brilliant. And now he’s doomed. They’ve got it all wrong! Constable Flanagan’s already made up his mind that Derek is guilty. You know the bobby’s the only one the beak is going to listen to.” Jake shook his head, dismayed. “This is all my fault.”
Dani searched his face in worry. “So, what are you going to do?”
“Only one thing I can do,” Jake said grimly. “I have to go in there and speak up for him, tell the magistrate what really happened.”
“What, like a witness?”
“Aye. They’ll hang him if I don’t. Believe me, I don’t want to, but the beak needs to hear the truth of how it all played out. Then maybe they’ll see they have no case against him. They’ll have to throw out the charges and let him go free. And then I can make him tell me what he knows about my father,” he added in a darker tone.
“Jake, they’re not going to listen to you,” Dani exclaimed. “You’re just a kid—with a criminal record! What if they don’t believe you?”
“I have to try. He stood up for me; now it’s my turn to stand up for ‘im,” he said with a scowl.
“But you could go to jail! You realize what could happen if they remember you nicked this potpie today? They could toss you into Newgate right along with him!”
“What choice do I have?” he argued. “I’m not a coward! Anyway, it’s the honorable thing to do!”
She raised her eyebrows, for few people from the rookery ever mentioned honor.
He charged on. “This fellow stuck his neck out for me. Whoever he is, I can’t stand by and see him hanged for my sake.”
Dani heaved a sigh. “Very well, then. Come on, Teddy. We’d better hurry.” She scooped up her dog in one arm and grabbed her satchel in the other. “We’re comin’ with you.”
For once, Jake didn’t argue.
CHAPTER FIVE
Witness for the Defense
Jake never thought he’d see the day that he would willingly walk into a police station. But standing outside the famous crime-fighting offices at Bow Street, he felt Dani nudge him with her elbow.
She nodded in encouragement, Teddy’s fuzzy head poking curiously out of the sack on her shoulder once again. Jake braced himself and walked in.
They passed all the bobbies on duty and made their way into the magistrate’s court. The gallery overlooking the long, narrow courtroom was already crowded with spectators who came to hear about the day’s arrests and scuffles as if this was a form of entertainment, taking amusement from other people’s miseries.
Against the back wall of the high-ceilinged room was a raised platform, where the magistrate sat on the middle chair. On both sides of him were clerks scribbling down their notes on the proceedings.
The courtroom was a busy place. People came and went among the rows of benches. A few bobbies were always on hand, standing here and there with arms folded, waiting for anyone to misbehave.
Some folk in the courtroom were crying, family members of victims or accused criminals who’d been caught. Lawyers trawled for clients. Disheveled people still bloodied from their recent troublemaking waited for their turn to step forward and make their excuses. Jake did his best not to look suspicious as he and Dani went and took a seat.
One after another, the losers of the day shuffled in, one man accused of making counterfeit coins in his basement. Next came two mean-eyed fishwives arrested for brawling over a particular cast-iron skillet. After them came a jolly fellow accused of stealing a horse, but he insisted he had only stolen the bridle: The horse had simply followed him home, being attached to it. “So, you see, it weren’t my fault, Yer Worship!”
The audience in the gallery laughed, but the beak rolled his eyes as if he’d heard this one many times before. He sent the jester on to Newgate Prison with a stroke of his quill pen.
Finally, the clerk advised the judge that the next case on the docket involved a most serious question of murder.
Hearing this, a hush fell over the courtroom.
A clank of chains announced the prisoner’s arrival, and everyone turned to look.
Jake winced. If any man had ever walked into a courtroom looking capable of murder, it was Derek Stone.
It was not just the messy, menacing size of h
im in that long black coat, nor the wild tangle of dark hair that hung to his cliff-like shoulders. It was the way he held his chin high and stared straight at the judge, completely unrepentant. The bobbies escorted the manacled prisoner toward the podium for the accused.
Dani hugged her dog protectively. “That’s the man that saved you?”
Jake nodded, watching. My turn to save him now.
“He’s terrifying! He looks like he could even squash my brothers!” she whispered.
“He could, believe me,” Jake assured her.
Then Constable Flanagan stepped up to the opposite podium for the prosecution. Compared to Derek Stone’s wild, scruffy, dangerous appearance, the arresting officer looked smart and polished in his tidy blue uniform, the brass buttons down his coat a-gleam.
“Please state your name for the court, sir,” the head clerk ordered, getting the proceedings underway.
“Constable Arthur Flanagan!” he said proudly.
After a few more exchanges of official information, the magistrate looked up wearily from his papers. “Mr. Flanagan, describe the circumstances surrounding your arrest of this individual.”
“Yes, sir.” Flanagan nodded. “I was on duty at Covent Garden Market, my usual post. It started out a quiet morning. Then we were summoned by the pieman, Mr. Harris—”
The audience murmured in approval at the mention of those famous pies.
“—who claimed a child thief had just robbed him.”
Dani pushed a pointy elbow into Jake’s ribs.
“Myself and fellow officers went in pursuit of the lad, but then, about three blocks northeast of the market, we heard the sounds of a serious altercation in progress.”
“A what?” Jake whispered.
“A fight,” Dani translated.
“Fletcher and Jenkins and I ran toward the sound.”
“And what did you find?” the magistrate asked.
“This man, Your Worship.” Flanagan slanted Derek Stone a disapproving stare. “He had just emerged from a dead-end alley where we found: a corpse.”
The audience gasped at this macabre twist in the tale.
“The dead man had a knife in his back, and this one—” he eyed Derek fiercely, “had blood splashed on his clothes.”
“Hmm, and who is the dead man in question?”
“We don’t yet know his identity, Your Worship. But this fellow here was less than twenty feet away when we apprehended him. He was tryin’ to escape,” he added in reproach.
The beak frowned and fixed a piercing gaze on the warrior. “Who was this poor dead fellow, and what did you have against him that you’d resort to murder?” he baited Derek. “Did you kill him in a sudden fit of anger or was it coldly done—premeditated, hmm?”
“Didn’t kill him,” Derek Stone growled.
“Speak up!” the recording clerk insisted.
Derek glared. “I. Did. Not. Stab. Anyone.”
The magistrate’s frown deepened. “State your full name for the court, please.”
“Derek Stone.”
“Your age?”
“Thirty-three.”
“Place of residence?”
He sighed. “I have no permanent address, sir.” The admission seemed to pain him slightly.
Jake was intrigued. No home? Maybe he had something in common with this fearsome fellow, after all.
“Let the record show that the accused is a wandering vagrant,” the beak said to the clerk with distaste. “No home, indeed. How very uncivilized. Well, Mr. Stone, do please tell us your side of the story. Why were you in that alley, if not to do foul murder, eh?”
Derek Stone took a long, scanning look at the gallery, as though perhaps he feared enemies might be here even now, lurking in the audience. “I heard some men harassing a child. I heard his calls for help. So I went to assist.”
“I did not call for help,” Jake muttered indignantly.
“When I went to see what was the matter, I found three men armed with knives, closing in on the boy, with clear intent to do him serious harm. So I jumped into the fray to even the odds.”
“Well, well, rescuing a youngster under attack? You would have us believe you are very gallant, Mr. Stone,” the beak taunted. “So how did our corpse end up with a knife in his back?”
“When I saw their leader throw his knife at the boy, I shoved that, er, unfortunate fellow into the way to block it.”
The magistrate narrowed his eyes, considering Derek’s account. “Well, that is a very colorful tale. But I’m afraid even if it is true, you are still looking at charges of manslaughter, rather than premeditated murder. Are you sure you want to stick with this story?”
Derek stared at him, looking utterly insulted that anyone would dare to doubt his word.
But the beak was a cynic who had seen it all and spent every day listening to people lie.
“Sir, it is the truth,” he ground out. “The reason the constable and his men found only me and the dead man in the alley was because the attackers fled the moment they heard the stupid police whistles.” He glanced at the policeman in contempt. “If Flanagan and his men hadn’t made such a clatter, alerting the villains that they were on their way, then perhaps they would’ve had a chance to catch the real perpetrators.”
“I say!” Constable Flanagan uttered.
“Instead, he gave them plenty of time to run.”
“But you remained?” The beak scrutinized him. “That wasn’t very intelligent of you.”
“I had to make sure the boy was all right.”
“And was he? Whatever happened to this alleged boy, anyway? Did he escape, Mr. Stone, thanks to your protection?”
A grim smile curved the warrior’s lips. “He did, sir.”
“Well, it’s a fine tale, but I’m afraid I don’t believe you. Unless—well, I don’t suppose you can produce this alleged boy as a witness to back up your story?”
“No, Your Worship—” he started to say.
But that was the moment Jake stood up and stepped forward, his heart pounding. “It was me, sir!”
The whole courtroom turned and looked at him in surprise.
“Hat!” Dani whispered, nervously hugging her dog.
Jake whipped off his drab cloth cap, twisting it in both hands. He took another step forward. “I am that boy, Your Worship, and everything this man just said is true! That’s exactly ’ow it ’appened.”
The magistrate leaned forward over his high desk. “Jake…Reed?”
“Aye, Your Worship.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Jake noticed Derek Stone’s look of horror at his arrival.
No, he had not gone to Beacon House, as ordered.
The beak let out a droll sigh. “Well, I can certainly imagine any number of people wanting to kill you, Mr. Reed. Come forward, you young rapscallion. Constable Flanagan, you may step down. Let us hear from Mr. Reed. This is sure to be amusing.”
Derek glared at Jake in disbelief as he stepped up to the podium Flanagan had left, as instructed. Jake shrugged at him, then glanced around at all the people watching and began feeling slightly cold and clammy.
The judge leaned back in his chair and tapped his pen on his desk. “Well, Mr. Reed, it’s been at least a month since you paid us a visit. I trust you have been on your best behavior since our last little chat?”
“Uh, yes, sir,” he lied.
“No more thieving?”
“Oh, no, sir! I’m a street-sweep now. Occasional mudlarking.”
“Right. Let the record note that Mr. Reed has discovered a new calling in life. You’d have been better off as an apprentice, ungrateful cub, but I suppose it is a start.”
“Thank you, sir,” Jake replied, ignoring the sarcasm.
“Well, Jakey, old boy, you know the drill. Name.”
“Jacob Reed, sir. Age, er, twelve or so, to the best of my knowledge,” he added sheepishly.
The clerk stopped scribbling and looked in befuddlement at the magistrate.
“Ahhh,” the audience said with great sympathy.
“Home address?” the clerk inquired.
“Nowhere in particular,” Jake admitted, even more embarrassed in front of the world. He glanced at Derek, but the warrior just stared straight ahead with a seething scowl.
“Very well, then. You wish to confirm that Mr. Stone’s account of the morning’s events is correct?”
“Yes, sir!” Jake declared in a strong voice. “I was attacked today by three men in the rookery, and their leader threw a knife at me. It all happened just like he said. I don’t think you should charge him with murder or manslaughter, Your Worship, or with anything, because he only done it to save me. That’s why I’m ‘ere.”
“Hmm. Are you really telling the truth, Jake?” He leaned forward slightly, lacing his fingers as he studied him intently. “Or did somebody offer to pay you if you would come forward to try to clear this fellow’s name?”
Jake’s eyes widened. “No, sir!”
“No? A chance to make a little pocket money? I’m sure you could use it. Who put you up to this? Stone himself?”
“No, Your Worship!” Jake cried, appalled. “I didn’t want to come, but I ’ad to!”
“Why is that?”
“’Cause it’s the right thing to do!”
“Ah, I see. And our young delinquent friend here would be the world’s foremost expert on right and wrong?”
Jake scowled. “I’m tellin’ the truth, on my honor!”
“Oh, on your honor, indeed?” The beak chuckled.
The whole courtroom was laughing at him now.
Jake was red-faced and growing furious.
“The honor of a pickpocket!” one of the smug lawyers said. Even the stern Constable Flanagan snickered at his expense. Jake wanted the earth to swallow him. He had come to tell the truth and do the right thing for once in his life, but he had not anticipated public humiliation.
Dani sent him an encouraging nod to hold his ground, but he had half a mind to go storming out right now.
“I’m tellin’ the truth! Stone heard them bothering me and came to help,” he insisted.