“I thought I might give the other boys at the Yard a show.”
“Let’s save that for another day.”
“Oh, very well.”
Day rushed to put on his trousers, and Claire fetched braces for him. He gave her a quick kiss and dashed out of the bedroom to the stairs. He was reasonably certain he would have remembered his trousers on his own, but his thoughts were completely muddled. He only hoped that Claire hadn’t seen the fear he was hiding from her.
4
Griffin caught up to Napper a quarter of a mile from Bridewell’s walls. The convict was circling a terrace house at the end of a quiet street, its windows dark, its occupants slumbering.
Griffin stopped and drew a big chalk arrow on the stones at the mouth of the lane, then he melted into the shadows under the trees and crept forward. Napper didn’t see him coming. Griffin was able to reach out and grab the other man’s ear between his thumb and the knuckle of his index finger. He twisted hard and Napper yelped.
Napper tried to pull away, but Griffin kicked him hard in the back of his left knee. Napper pitched forward, and Griffin struggled to hold on to his ear. He heard a faint ripping sound and felt blood on his fingers. Napper screamed. Griffin clapped a hand over Napper’s mouth and pulled him backward, Napper scrambling crablike to keep up, into the trees. A light went on above them, and Griffin heard a window scrape in its frame.
He let go of Napper’s ear and got his elbow around his throat, applied slight pressure until the convict began to go limp.
He whispered in Napper’s good ear. “Quiet now or I’ll do you right here.”
Griffin looked up and down the street and smiled. There, at the other end of the row of houses, was a small shack, painted green, with a prominent window in the front. It was a stand for cab drivers, a place for them to enjoy a quick spot of tea during the day when they were not allowed to leave their cabs unattended. Now it was dark and silent, shuttered for the night.
He put his mouth on Napper’s ear again. “Shh. Very good. You’re being very cooperative. Just a few minutes more, you useless perverted git.”
Napper squirmed, testing Griffin’s hold on him, but didn’t try to answer or make any sound. Griffin tightened his arm around Napper’s throat anyway, just a bit, to make the point clear.
Griffin waited until the light went out above them. He didn’t hear the window close again and supposed the householder had decided to let in some air. Or was watching the street from the dark room. Griffin would have to be as quiet as possible so as not to rouse any more curiosity.
He jammed his arm under Napper’s and brought it up so that his hand was against the back of Napper’s neck. He pushed and Napper bent forward. With his other hand he caught Napper’s good ear and pulled. Napper grunted and Griffin shushed him again.
He push-pulled Napper down the street, keeping to the shadows. Griffin paused outside the green shack, stared at it for a long moment, trying to figure out how to keep Napper quiescent while opening the shack. Napper stood patiently, agreeable as long as there was the threat of pain. Finally Griffin surrendered to the inevitable. In one swift move, he removed his hand from Napper’s ear and pushed him forward as hard as he could into the corner of the shack’s wall. There was a terrific thump and Napper went limp. Griffin looked around to see if any more lights would go on in the houses around them, then knelt and examined Napper. The convict was bleeding heavily from a scalp wound, but he was breathing.
Griffin stood back up and rubbed each of his shoulders in turn, easing out the kinks. It was no easy thing to move another person against his will, like a puppet. He took a deep breath and reached for the keys at the end of the chain around his neck. He chose one of the three keys and walked around the side of the shack to its back door. The key fit smoothly in the lock, as it did with most of the locks in London. He turned it and let himself in. The tiny space was empty, the supplies of tea and the little gas hot plate stowed away and covered with heavy canvas.
He went back and hoisted Napper’s body under the armpits, dragged him around the shack and inside. He checked again to be sure Napper was breathing, then used the canvas to tie him at the wrists and ankles. The cloth was thick and difficult to work with, and Griffin was sure he had them too tight around Napper’s extremities. Napper would permanently lose the use of his hands and feet if the canvas wasn’t loosened soon.
Napper began to stir, and Griffin bent over him and whispered close to his ear. “I’ve got a nice cell waiting for you down below, my friend. Just wait a wee bit in here and somebody’ll be right along for you.”
There was no response. Griffin didn’t know if the prisoner had heard him. He smiled and shrugged and left the convict there on the floor of the little green shack. It really didn’t matter whether Napper had heard him. Either way, the next hour in the darkness of the tea shop would leave him frightened and pliable. Griffin stepped back outside into the relative brightness of the night, the moon and stars shining down on him, the clean cool air that he appreciated so much more since he had been in Bridewell.
He locked the door behind him and went out into the street. He bent over the curb and fished his piece of blue chalk from the pocket sewn into his trousers. He drew the number one on the cobblestones and an arrow above that, pointing toward the cab drivers’ tea shack. The chalk lines would be ignored by most passersby, but there were people who would be looking for that symbol, and they would remove Napper’s body before the shack’s proprietor arrived later on. With a little luck, that innocent man would never know how his odd little tea shop had been used in the night.
Griffin put the chalk back in his pocket, made sure his keys were out of sight beneath his shirt, and walked casually down the street and around the corner.
One down. Three to go.
5
Twenty-one of the best policemen in London stood at attention outside the office of the commissioner of police at 4 Whitehall Place. Ten of them were the elite inspectors of Scotland Yard’s Murder Squad. Sir Edward Bradford looked at his notes and then up at his men. He set his notes down on the desk in front of him and ran his hand over his disheveled white beard. In his hurry to leave the house, he hadn’t brushed it properly, but his wife had got up with him and brewed a quick pot of tea while he dressed. As she always did, she had pinned the empty left sleeve of his jacket up to the shoulder. Thanks to her, he felt a bit more awake and put together than he otherwise would have.
He cleared his throat and noted the time on the big clock at the back of the room. It was a quarter of four. He had acted quickly and was pleased that the entire Murder Squad, along with the best and brightest of his sergeants and constables, had already assembled, crowding the small area inside the railing that separated the murder room from the rest of the building. A few men jostled one another for space outside the railing, still within earshot of Sir Edward, and more police joined the swelling ranks every moment. There was much to be done, and Sir Edward was glad to have everybody and anybody he could muster.
“I apologize for calling you out at this hour,” he said, “but most of you know the situation and understand why we’re here. For those of you as yet unaware, several prisoners escaped this morning, barely two hours ago, from HM Prison Bridewell. We have limited information about those prisoners right now, and we’ll find out more as the warden and his men sort out the mess there, but we must not waste time. Every one of the confirmed escapees is a murderer, and all of them were awaiting execution. They have little to lose at this point, and it is my great fear that they will take up their murderous ways again even before the sun comes up. We must make haste and catch them.”