by Ginn Hale
Nimble slept and his fever receded. Twice he woke, drank his medicine, and chatted whimsically with Archie about the ventures they would undertake after they’d bought their ship and sailed to foreign lands. But within minutes of each conversation, he drifted back to sleep again. Archie stretched out in a chair at the bedside and practiced drawing and dealing cards.
In the early afternoon, just after Archie had sent for a change of clothes, Nimble bolted upright in the bed. His yellow eyes were wide, and his curly hair stood up around his face as if startled.
“A boat, of course!” Nimble cried out. “Satan’s fat ass, why didn’t I think of it sooner!”
Archie fully expected another flight of fancy wherein he played handsome card sharp to Nimble’s riverboat captain, but this time Nimble’s expression was intent and focused. Excitement showed in his face, not languid fever.
“Nine months, I’ve been looking at this from the wrong angle. Trying to work out who wants them gone. Who benefits from their deaths? I should have realized that they wanted themselves gone. That’s the heart of it.” Nimble met Archie’s curious gaze and went on. “Why would the missing Prodigals pack up everything they owned if they didn’t believe they were going somewhere? Escaping their lives, yeah? And what would appeal more than being smuggled out of the city—maybe out of the country altogether?”
Archie absorbed the idea, matching it to the history of the building that housed the Dee Club. Direct access to the river and all those ships moored nearby. It wasn’t hard to picture a little rowboat quietly making the journey between the dock beneath the club out to some ship under the cover of night. It did make sense.
“But are they actually being transported to other lands or….” Archie didn’t have to go on. Nimble’s expression assured him that he understood. It would be much easier to accept payments from desperate Prodigals and then disappear them into the river’s depths than it would be to actually organize and secure their passages to new homes.
“The whole venture is set up around the fights, I reckon.” Nimble sounded like he was thinking aloud now. “That’s the one activity that doesn’t fit in at all with the rest of the club. And scheduling them for Sunday nights would be smart.”
“Because very few souls work the docks or in the warehouses on Sundays. Particularly not in the evening,” Archie reasoned, and Nimble offered him an approving nod.
“The fights are also the only time when no one at the club would want to know why a Prodigal hasn’t come around again. They’d think they knew. They aren’t going to question one other, and if an Inquisitor shows up, he’s up against a wall of gentlemen who are all invested in protecting their reputations and standings. Not a damned one of them will admit to ever having seen the missing Prodigal. Certainly not a one of them will turn to the Inquisition.”
“They’d have to confess to their own involvement to do so.” Archie remembered his own feeling of guilt for simply having witnessed the fights. “There are parts of those fights that aren’t just sickening, they’re definitely illegal.”
“Exactly. You want to ensure someone’s silence? Make them think they’re implicated in something illegal, shameful, and gruesome,” Nimble said.
“Like setting rabid dogs on hapless, half-dressed women?” Then Archie realized the full extent of the deception. “Only they’re not rabid dogs…. They’re Mr. Pugg’s trained hounds, I’d guess.”
“Righto, my bantling! Stage blood, screams.”
“And an audience that’s roaring drunk. Maybe drugged as well.” Archie recalled that strange drink he’d been presented, compliments of the club. He wondered suddenly how much of the violence and horror of what he’d witnessed had been genuine and how much had been conjured from his own nightmares. “They start with genuine prizefighters and then slip in a piece of theater….”
“Exactly. Just like a magic trick. You fire the real gun to demonstrate the danger and then switch it out for the fake. It’s illusion. And our lad Pugg isn’t just an animal trainer,” Nimble went on, looking like he was sighting an enemy down the barrel of his rifle. “He’s apprenticed to the finest stage magician in this damn country. He’s definitely in on it.”
“Nurse Fuggas must be as well, since she has to pretend to treat the injuries,” Archie commented, and again Nimble gave him that look of pleased approval. “Charles doesn’t stay on Sundays, but Agatha does….”
“At least one of them is overseeing the entire show,” Nimble agreed.
“And then there’s my uncle.” Archie scowled just thinking of Silas. It wasn’t as if his uncle would be above such an enterprise. Although it seemed like a more complex endeavor than he would normally bother to undertake. Archie supposed he couldn’t know the actual extent of his uncle’s various criminal inclinations. Perhaps exploiting the most desperate of Prodigals served as a kind of amusement for him.
“Silas is a tough one to pin down in all of this.” Nimble stretched and winced as he lifted his left arm. He glanced at the stitches sewn across his shoulder and down his chest as if he’d somehow forgotten that he’d been shot. Mottled bruises discolored Nimble’s skin. More would show as the days passed. Anxiety fluttered through Archie; this matter needed to end before any further harm befell Nimble.
“I’ll go to the Inquisition and report the whole thing,” Archie offered.
“And get your girl, Agatha, locked up?” Nimble’s tone was teasing, but then his expression turned serious. He shook his head, and a single pink cherry blossom petal drifted from his black hair. “First we have to know who’s truly running the enterprise and whether they’re actually ferrying Proddies to better lives.”
“Chances aren’t good,” Archie reminded him.
“No,” Nimble admitted. “But I have to be certain. I won’t shut down something that could be the only means of escape for someone like Nancy Beelze. I’ve got to be sure.”
Archie knew where that line of reasoning led, and he scowled. The only way to know was to become more involved.
“You were shot the first time you went to the club. You can’t mean to return—”
“Technically I was shot leaving the club.” Nimble smiled, but his gaze remained hard. “And for all we know, that was a stray shot intended for you, not me. I recall that was your thinking last night.”
“And I recall that you presented a rather compelling refutation of my assumption.”
“Well, I am a persuasive cove, if I do say so myself.” Nimble grinned as he tossed back his blankets. He made it look very natural while still favoring his injured left side. “Just now I’m convinced that I need to go back to that club and get a closer look at the Sunday fights. It’s too soon for anyone to chance having another shot, so I can probably risk—”
“No! Absolutely not.” Archie jumped to his feet. His heart hammered in his chest, but his blood seemed to run cold. Alarm infused his words with a strident, commanding tone. “You can’t—”
“I’m not yours to order around, Archie!” Nimble snapped, and all pretense of amusement drained from his expression.
“This isn’t about orders. It’s common sense and you….” He took in Nimble’s hard, angry countenance. Nimble already resented their unequal social standing; issuing decrees would only put his back up and send him charging off on his own. Archie forced himself to step back and sit again. “Please. Don’t do this alone.”
For a moment Nimble said nothing. He simply stared back at Archie. Then his expression softened, and he pulled one of his sly smiles. “You fret too much, my bantling.” Nimble stood and went to the dresser. He opened it with his right hand while placing his left on his hip, imitating a casual pose almost believably as he studied the shirts hanging before him. “I’ve got friends and minions in more corners of this city than you would ever guess,” Nimble said. “It’s not me who’s most in danger in that club.”
“I can handle myself,” Archie assured him.
Nimble looked like he might argue, but then said, “It’
s the Prodigal who’s been selected for the next secret boat ride who I’m most worried about. Sunday’s only three days away, and we have no way of knowing if it will be some desperate soul’s last day on this earth, do we?”
“No, we don’t,” Archie admitted. Some anonymous person couldn’t matter to Archie more than Nimble did, but as much as he wanted to keep Nimble out of the Dee Club, he recognized that it wasn’t his choice. This was literally Nimble’s business. The only option left to Archie was whether to join him or not. “So, what is it you’re planning, and what will you need from me?”
Chapter Seven: Deep Water
Archie spent the next three days at the Dee Club, attempting to appear invested in poetry recitals and the most recent collection of lunar observations penned by Prodigal astronomers. He sauntered from room to room, exchanging pleasantries and measuring out the hidden doors and corridors that riddled the building. Now and then he played a few hands of cards. During the long hours between those activities, he searched the library and found a number of volumes on the subjects of Prodigal sorcery and conjuring. He took notes and later dispatched a footman from his townhouse to purchase the required supplies.
“Studying up on love potions,” he informed Neet when the young man came looking for him for advice on matching a rather bold waistcoat to a pair of loud gold trousers.
“It’s not so desperate as all that, is it?” Neet asked. He appeared genuinely distressed for Archie.
“I’m afraid that it might be hopeless,” Archie replied, and he offered the youth a rueful smile. “Particularly where these dodgy spells are concerned. I mean, if I was already in so intimate a position as to readily collect a cup of the lady’s sweat, I dare say I wouldn’t require the love spell that calls for it.”
Neet laughed and cheered up, which did Archie some good. Brooding over Nimble’s safety made for rather dour days, and separating from him each evening made for lonely, frustrated nights.
Later Lupton visited him and went out of his way to point out all the girls in the city who were far more pretty and friendly than Agatha Wedmoor. Archie didn’t laugh, but he had to hang his head to hide his brief smile.
Charles avoided him and the club in general, which Archie didn’t mind one bit.
He saw almost nothing of Nimble outside the short periods when they entered the club together and again when they decamped well after midnight. He knew Nimble spent his time with the members of the Prodigal theater troupe and had won Burns’s interest and some degree of the older man’s trust. Pugg was another matter.
“He’s suspicious of everyone,” Nimble had confided one late night as they bumped along in Archie’s carriage. “Don’t think he even trusts his own dogs.”
By Sunday Nimble won himself a position watching over the props that enlivened several of the Sunday night fights. While he observed the goings on backstage, Archie moved through the rowdy crowd of onlookers to slip out the back and watch boats come and go across the dark waters. None moored beneath the Dee Club that week.
Or the following Sunday.
Then Archie noticed Phebe’s absence from the club. Someone mentioned that the girl had fallen ill with a fever.
That Saturday Agatha Wedmoor accepted Silas’s marriage proposal in the club library, while her hollow-eyed brother looked on like he might vomit at any moment. Archie didn’t suppose he appeared any happier than Charles.
Neet and Lupton both offered to take Archie out for a few drinks afterward, and Archie thanked them but insisted that his pride demanded he put on a brave face and wish Agatha the very best, instead of slinking away with his tail between his legs. In truth, the agitation that they likely read in his expression and demeanor stemmed from both Phebe’s prolonged absence and Nimble’s announcement that he’d at last been invited to act as a fighter this Sunday.
“They could mean to do you real harm, old boot.” Archie hoped the tremor of emotion in his voice sounded like a result of the carriage bouncing over rough cobbles.
“And waste all the time we’ve put into choreographing the spectacle? Nah. I’ve seen enough of Pugg and Nurse Fuggas now to take the measure of them. They aren’t the sorts to resort to murder if they can help it.”
“Two weeks ago you speculated that it was Nurse Fuggas who shot you in the back,” Archie replied.
“I’m certain of it now.” Nimble sounded frustratingly amused. “She and her brother are both very good with those stage guns. I’m also convinced that if she’d wanted to, Nurse Fuggas could’ve taken the top of my head clean off.”
“And yet you’re going to take part in the fights?”
“Not a lot of other options left, frankly. I need to know exactly what’s happening. And I’m sure that they’re going to make their move this Sunday. It’ll be the girl—”
“Phebe?” Archie had been worrying over the same thing. Her supposed illness would be a clever way to threaten Agatha with the prospect of the child’s death and force Agatha into marriage. It also ensured that no one would wonder when—after the nuptials—Phebe never returned. Silas wasn’t the sort to feed and house anyone after they’d served his purpose.
“Exactly the one I meant,” Nimble replied. “But now ask yourself, is her absence an indication that Silas is threatening to drown her in the river tonight to force Agatha Wedmoor’s hand? Or has your girl Agatha agreed to the engagement to keep him from realizing that she’s about to have the child ferried out of his reach?”
“Is that possible?” Archie asked in return. Could Agatha and Nurse Fuggas have outmaneuvered Silas? If so, Agatha would have to get Phebe away before Silas realized he’d been duped. “It would all depend upon how much my uncle knows about the other missing Prodigals. Does he have a hand in their disappearances, or does he think that the only secret in the Dee Club is an illegitimate child?”
“Yeah, that does seem to be what it all comes down to,” Nimble said quietly. “Now you see why I’ve got to be there tomorrow?”
Archie did, but he didn’t like it. He considered saying as much, but he already knew none of his objections would change Nimble’s mind.
“You’re a bloody hard man to care about, Nimble.” He didn’t mean to say it aloud. The silence that followed made him feel all the worse for his confession. As much of a declaration as it was.
One of the great tower clocks rang out the hour in low, long notes.
“It’ll all be done and over after tomorrow.” Nimble’s voice sounded so quiet that Archie wasn’t sure those words were even meant for him. “Just a precious little time left to us.”
The gaslight glow of a streetlamp briefly cast golden tones across the interior of the carriage. Archie realized Nimble leaned in closer to him than he’d expected. He gazed at Archie with that look of longing that sent a rush through Archie’s body. Neither of them were drunk nor had three months passed, and yet Nimble stretched so his leg brushed against Archie’s thigh. He reached out with his right hand, and Archie clasped his fingers against his own.
“With the road this rutted, I don’t suppose too many will notice if the carriage rocks a bit, do you?” Nimble’s smile looked a little wicked. Then darkness closed in around the carriage again.
“I don’t think so, no.” Archie managed to get the words out. A moment later his breath caught in his throat as Nimble opened the front of his silk trousers and gave Archie’s jutting prick a hungry kiss.
***
Not since the war had Archie felt such turmoil churning through him. A good portion of his agitation stemmed from that jostling, joyous, but all-too-brief carriage ride. Nimble’s attention had filled him with such hope but also left him feeling undone and far too alone. His disquiet only mounted the next morning when he discovered Nimble had already left for the Dee Club, hours before him.
All afternoon he ranged through the club, drinking tea as if he enjoyed the stuff and taking pains not to finger any of the odd objects hidden away in the cheat’s pockets sewn into his tasteful steel gray coat.
He attempted to look in on Nimble in the theater, he didn’t manage more than a quick nod before Burns spirited Nimble away behind some infernal black curtain. On Archie’s second try a half hour later Lilly and Gina seemed to materialize from a display of giant peacock fans to swath Archie in cheery, playful flirtation, all the while escorting him out of the theater.
“It’s not that we wouldn’t love to see more of you, Lord Fallmont.” Lilly brushed her gloved hand over his forearm. “But it will ruin the fun if you see how all our tricks are turned backstage.”
“I was only hoping to have a few words in the wings with Mr. Hobbs.” Archie cast her an entreating look, and Lilly seemed to consider.
“Oh, but you’re far too distracting, Lord Fallmont.” Gina offered the absurd flattery with a knowing wink. “If a swell as fine as you stands in the wings during rehearsal, we’ll all miss our cues and trip over one another. We have to send you away if only to save ourselves from shame and broken ankles.”
Archie laughed and didn’t bother to argue further. If Nimble wanted to talk to him, then he could come and find him. If Nimble wanted to avoid him after last night’s carriage ride, well, then that too was his right.
Archie withdrew to the library out of habit more than any purpose. Sunlight and shadows played through the skylight overhead as he paced the upper floor. One beam briefly lit the framed etchings hanging in a reading alcove. Not etchings, Archie realized, but building plans. Two for ships and the other four depicting floors of a building. Having recently sketched the Dee Club, Archie recognized the plans right away. He took the empty seat and began studying the layouts very closely. On the floor below, several scholarly-looking types came and went, natural and Prodigal both, discussing subjects from the laws of gravity to biblical prophecy.
Sunlight dimmed and the skylight overhead took on a pale twilight blue. Archie absently noted the regular denizens of the library fleeing the club as the noise of rowdy voices drifted from other rooms. The Sunday night regulars were arriving and with them their fighters.