by Karen Odden
“No!” I said honestly. “And I wouldn’t have encouraged her—certainly not until she was healed. I thought she was safer here than anywhere else.”
He sighed as we left the room and headed for the stairs. “Well, there’s nothing more to be done, I suppose. I do hope she had somewhere safe to go, poor girl.”
I WENT STRAIGHT TO THE FALCON OFFICES and found Jeremy in the main room at one of the long canted tables with a dozen other men. He was intent on his task of selecting type out of the partitioned wooden boxes and didn’t see me as I approached. Ignoring the curious looks of the other men, I leaned in close to his ear. “Jeremy.”
He jumped and turned. “Cor! Way to scare a fellow.” His dark eyes shifted back and forth uneasily, but he hopped up from his stool, muttered a few words to the young man next to him, and followed me out of the room to a quiet place near the stairwell.
“Marceline is gone,” I said without preamble. “Did Sebastian come for her?”
He hesitated.
“For God’s sake, Jeremy, just tell me,” I snapped. “I certainly hope it was him, climbing through a fourth-story window with a rope!”
“Yah. I’d say it was ’im.”
“How did he even know which hospital?”
He shrugged. “’E followed you the day you come ’ere. You should’a guessed ’e would.”
I glowered at him.
His eyes narrowed, and he leaned close and hissed, “Why are you upset? I’d think you’d be glad she got away!”
“Of course I am, so long as she got away safely!” I whispered back sharply. “But she was nowhere near healed. Her ribs were cracked, her hands were torn to shreds, and her head still had a dozen stitches, for goodness’ sake! Do you really think she should have been climbing down a drainpipe in the middle of the night?”
He chewed on his bottom lip for a moment. “S’pose not.”
I sighed. “Never mind. Did they get away safely?”
He looked troubled. “I dunno.”
“What? They didn’t come here?”
“Not yet,” he admitted. “But I ’spect they will, soon as they can.”
“Jeremy!”
“Wot?” His chin came up and his eyes flashed.
I groaned. “Why did he take her last night? Why couldn’t he wait until she was better?”
“I’d say he was spooked by you tellin’ ’im about that man who come lookin’ for ’er.”
My regret bit deep all over again. “Who was he, anyway? That man?”
“Dunno.” He shook his head so hard that his hair flopped over his eyes. “But nobody you’d want to know. Nor me, either.”
“Do you know why the men were looking for Sebastian?”
His eyes dropped to the ground in front of his boots.
“I know about the thieving ring,” I said softly. “Was he a part of it?”
Still without looking at me, he nodded.
My heart sank. “Did it start when he was at the Octavian?”
“Nah. ’Afore that.”
“Marceline said they told her he owed them something. Do you know what it was?”
He sighed and met my gaze. “’E didn’t tell me wot, but it was sumpin’ that ’e was goin’ to trade for gettin’ out. ’E didn’t want to do it no more.” He gave one of his deep sniffs and glanced toward the workroom. “Miss, I got to get back.”
“Wait.” I found a scrap of paper and a pencil stub in my pocket. “Get word to me if you hear from them, would you?”
“A’ right,” he said, stuffing the paper in his pocket.
My worry and hopelessness felt like a physical weight as I descended to the street and headed home.
Chapter 23
That night my thoughts kept me pacing. Wrapped in a woolen blanket, I went from study to parlor to spare room to kitchen and back.
Matthew was still out, and while I had become used to his irregular hours, tonight felt different. With each passing quarter hour, the knot in my stomach tightened. Eventually, I rebuilt the fire in the parlor and sat on the couch with the blanket, rising only to add coal, a few pieces at a time. The fire’s warmth was no match for the coldness that came of feeling profoundly unhappy and worried and heartsick.
I shouldn’t have told Sebastian about the man who’d come to the hospital, that much was clear. But I felt a wave of frustration that took shape as a set of questions for Marceline. Why couldn’t you have waited until you were healed before you left? Why couldn’t you have asked me for help? Matthew would have kept you safe, helped both you and Sebastian get away; he explicitly said so. And where are you now? I could imagine the expression in her brown eyes and on her delicate face, but of course I couldn’t concoct the words that would come out of her mouth, and the idea of her and Sebastian on the streets, perhaps hunted by the men who’d hurt her before, gave rise to a fear in me that was almost intolerable.
As for Jack—at the thought of him, tears came to my eyes. I didn’t know what it meant, that he’d left me there in the yard. But his explanation of his steadfast loyalty to his father was a note that rang true for me. If someone asked me to betray Matthew, I wouldn’t, no matter what he’d done. Yet what pained me most was Jack’s story about his father’s love for his dying wife. He had told it so openly that it had slipped me inside their tragedy and shown me what it was to love someone so fiercely and deeply that the person’s death would all but destroy me. It kept me weeping until I had no tears left.
Finally, I fell asleep on the couch, and the fire went out.
I OPENED MY EYES to see the room bathed in the gray light of an overcast day.
Audition day, I thought drearily.
Then I heard the door close quietly, and I sat up and peered over the top of the couch. When I spoke, my voice was hoarse from crying: “Matthew?”
He appeared in the doorway of the parlor, and I knew at a glance that something terrible had happened. The shoulders of his coat were drenched and dark, his face was ashen with fatigue, and the beginnings of whiskers shadowed the area around his mouth. Wearily, he entered the room and sank into a chair. With his elbows on his knees, his hands gripping the hair at the sides of his head, he looked as despondent and grief-stricken as he had the afternoon our father died.
“What’s the matter?” I asked softly.
He didn’t even look up. A shudder ran through him, though it seemed his large body was clenched with the effort to still it.
And then I realized his shoulders were shaking with silent sobs. The sight brought me to my knees beside him. I put my arms as far as I could reach around his broad back. I could feel the cold coming off him, and the wool of his coat smelled damp and oily, like the river.
At last his head came up, and he pulled away from me, rubbing at his eyes with the heels of his hands. “I’m sorry,” he muttered, his voice rough.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said, but gently. “Tell me what happened.”
“William’s dead.”
All the breath went out of me.
His expression was bleak, his eyes red-rimmed. “We went to meet Avery yesterday. He told us everything—where the ships were, transportation routes, the names of other fences, boats—things I didn’t even know to ask about.” A pause, and then, tonelessly, “When it came time for him to leave, William and he changed clothes.”
A shiver ran over me, for now I understood.
“I gave Avery money and a character and followed at a safe distance. He made it onto the train. No one trailed him; I’m sure of it. But William . . .”
His eyes filled with tears again, and they ran unchecked down his cheeks. “I would’ve done it, but I’m too big. Avery’s small and fair-haired.”
“Oh, Matthew.” My heart ached for him.
“William and I were supposed to meet back at the Yard. When he didn’t come, I knew something must’ve happened. I went back out to look.”
“Where did you find him?”
“About a quarter mile downriver from t
he warehouse where we’d met Avery. Between Blackfriars Bridge and Queenhithe Dock.” His fingers rubbed the tears off his cheeks. “It was made to look as if he fell through the window of a storehouse. He was half buried in the muck. Another few hours and I wouldn’t have found him.”
“You don’t believe he fell.”
“Of course not,” Matthew answered. “He was raised on the docks. Besides, he had burn marks up and down his arms and bruises on his neck.” He stared into midair, as if he were seeing William’s body only a few feet away. “Someone tortured him before he died—and then killed him to keep his mouth shut.”
My stomach tightened. “What did they want from him?”
His eyes flicked to me. “To know what we know about the Fleet, I’d say, including whether we knew about Barrow.”
“Barrow?” I echoed in surprise.
“Barrow has reddish hair and a scar. And a stick this big that’s round at the end.” His fingers reproduced the circle Marceline had made, and his voice hardened. “That’s a truncheon, Nell. You’ve seen mine.”
I stared. “But . . . but he’s a hero—”
“He has a mistress,” he said brusquely. “Apparently, she’s expensive. And he’s paying blackmail to keep it from his wife and her family. Her father’s a judge who could destroy him.”
With a sigh, he stood and went to stand at the cold hearth. Silently, I rose from the floor and fumbled for the chair behind me.
“Thank God for your friend Marceline, or I’d never have looked at him twice,” he added.
Suddenly I realized he didn’t know. “Matthew,” I said, hating to tell him, “Marceline is gone.”
He turned to face me. “What do you mean, she’s gone?”
“She fled last night, out of a window. Dr. Everett sent a message to the Yard.”
At first, he looked dismayed, but after a moment he shrugged pragmatically. “I can’t say I blame her. They know she could identify him.”
“And if they know you know about Barrow?” Fear laid a cold finger on my heart. “What’s to keep them from coming after you?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Unless I go after them first.”
I swallowed hard. “Who was the other man? Was it Tierney?”
“No.” His expression hardened. “And Tierney’s the one I really want. The important one—the root of it all.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and leaned back against the mantel.
“Is there any way to prove that someone in the Fleet killed William?”
“When I catch Tierney, I’ll make him tell me.” His voice was casual, almost offhand. But I’d known my brother all my life; I’d never seen that look upon his face.
“What are you going to do?” It came out in a whisper.
Perhaps he saw how much he’d frightened me, for after a moment, he rallied his composure. He pushed himself away from the mantel, and his voice was dry, practical. “First, I’m going to have a wash and get a few hours of sleep. I’ve left a message for Mr. Winthrop—Barrow’s superior—at his home, providing the bare facts and asking him to authorize a raid on the ships.”
“What if he’s in it with Barrow?”
His jaw tightened. “Then he’ll say no, or postpone it long enough for Tierney to go underground. But I’ve met him a few times, and I can’t see it. Besides, Tierney can’t have all of London in his bloody pocket.”
“I hope not,” I said fervently.
“At any rate, I can’t do anything until I hear back from him. He’s taking the train in from Manchester and won’t be home until half past two. I’m hoping he understands the urgency. We need to do this tonight.”
“Tonight?”
He nodded. “Tierney may already have a head start on us.”
“How?” The question slipped out of my mouth before I thought.
Matthew’s eyes were somber. “William.”
Of course, I thought, my stomach tightening. Stupid of me.
“I know he would hold out as long as he could, but . . .” He shook his head grimly. “And if Tierney’s the sort of person I think he is, he has a plan for moving his ships and closing down all his routes to protect them. If we wait, he’ll have changed it all, and we’ll be back at the beginning.” He shook his head, as if to say he wouldn’t let it happen. “There are at least forty ships here in London. Can you believe that? I wish we knew the locations of them all, but at least we have thirteen.”
My mouth went dry. Thirteen ships out of forty-some. Only a third. But still: was the Octavian one he knew of, or not?
In that moment, the words nearly slipped out of my mouth. But of course it would only steer Matthew’s attention there, and make him wonder why I’d asked. Feeling guilty, and with some idea of atoning for all I wasn’t telling him, I asked if there was anything at all I could do.
“You’ve been an absolute brick, Nell,” he said, with a grateful look that only deepened my remorse. “Wake me at half past two, would you? And have some coffee ready. And something to eat, I suppose.” He started toward the stairs, pausing with his hand on the newel. “But wake me before then, if a message comes.”
“Of course.”
The steps creaked under his heavy feet, and I went to the kitchen and mechanically made some tea, as if that mundane ritual could reassure me of my own abilities to cope. But as I lifted the teacup, it slid from between my fingers and cracked against the saucer, and I realized I couldn’t manage even this. My feet took me to the piano, and I sat on the bench for what must have been an hour. My thoughts went around and around in an intolerable circle, and I could find no way out of it. I couldn’t let Jack go to prison, or hang. But I couldn’t tell him about the raid, either, for it not only might send Tierney into hiding, it could ruin an investigation that had cost Matthew’s friend’s life and could very well endanger his own.
I STOOD IN FRONT OF THE GRANDFATHER CLOCK IN THE HALL, watching with a growing sense of resolve as the delicate hands closed upon the half hour.
I was due at the Royal Academy in Tenterden Street at four o’clock to register and then play before a panel of judges that would include the famous pianist, composer, and principal of the Academy, Sir William Sterndale Bennett. But I should be finished by six at the latest. Then I would go straight to Mr. Bertault’s shop. Jack was likely to still be there, as he didn’t have to be at the Octavian until half past seven. And if he had already left, I could go to the Octavian and at least get him a message that I needed to talk to him urgently. I simply needed to find some way to warn Jack without allowing him to warn anyone else. I had a vague notion of getting Jack away from the music hall after the show, perhaps to the Bear and Bull, and keeping him there under some pretext.
The clock gave a small chime, and I started upstairs to Matthew’s door and knocked. There was no answer, so I knocked again. “Matthew? It’s half past two.”
“Thanks, Nell.” His voice was gravelly with sleep. “I’ll be down in a bit.”
I went to the kitchen, made the coffee, cut a slice of bread, slathered on butter, and cut some squares of cheese and ham. He came down about a half an hour later, his face washed and shaved, though his collar was still undone.
“Do you feel better?” I asked.
“Some. I needed the sleep. It’s going to be a long day.” He was just finishing his meal when there was a knock on the door. I heard his sharp intake of breath, and he leaped up to answer it. I hurried after him and watched as he thanked the messenger, opened the letter, and began to read, a look of relief spreading over his countenance after the first few lines.
“What does he say?”
“Winthrop wants to see me at his home.”
“You don’t think it’s a trap, do you?”
“No.” He scanned the remainder of the note. “He agrees something must be done. He’s already sent orders out to gather a force of uniformed police to put under my direction.”
This is all happening too fast, I thought.
He turned away and entered the
study. The squeak of a drawer brought me to the threshold, where I watched as he took out Father’s revolving pistol and checked that the bullets were in the chambers.
“You have to take that?” I asked.
“Today I do.” He closed the gun and tucked it into a leather harness under his coat.
“For goodness’ sake, Matthew, be careful,” I said, not bothering to hide my fear. “Will you be home tonight?”
He stood in front of the mirror to arrange his collar, and reached for his coat. “I don’t know. Winthrop wants to take all thirteen tonight. If we can surprise the first few, we may find some people willing to give us the others, if they think that doing so will help them stay out of prison.”
I felt the blood fall from my face. So even if the Octavian wasn’t one of the original thirteen . . .
My eyes sought the clock on the mantel. It was twenty past three, and Tenterden Square was a twenty-minute walk.
Something inside me twisted. It was impossible that I could find Jack and still get to the Academy by four. And by the time I finished at six, it might already be too late. What if the police were already at the Octavian by then? I had no idea how quickly Matthew might move.
I forced myself to imagine what would happen if I missed the audition: a dry letter regretting to inform me that the Academy had filled all their spots.
But if the Octavian was one of the thirteen ships that Matthew knew about, I had to tell Jack. Jack needed to gather up any proof of his involvement and destroy it, and then he needed to stay far away from the place.
I heard Jack’s bleak words in my head. My father’ll hang, and if I’m caught, I’ll be right there along with him. And the world might say he deserved it. But I knew, in my bones, that Jack was a good man, as decent and loyal as my brother.
Matthew opened the door and looked back at me, his expression troubled. “I’m sorry about all this. You look terribly worried. I promise I’ll be careful.”
I put my arms around him and then drew back, my eyes meeting his. “Keep your wits about you, all right?”