“Murderer! Killer! There! There!” Graves screamed after him and threw himself forward in pursuit.
The street came alive as if, as the man dashed past, he transmitted an energy that awoke the people. More cries in the street, the houses themselves seemed to bend forward. More men in pursuit, a woman shrank to the wall with a scream as the yellow man tore past her and spun into Little Angel; he stumbled in the muck, but was up and running again before Graves could do more than brush the edge of his dirty coat. He had been wrong to turn this way. Now Londoners looking cautiously about them for the scenes of last night’s riots could see the approach of the chase, and hear the shouts of “Murder!” as the desperate men charged toward them. The yellow man grabbed a basket from a narrow-waisted street-hawker and threw it back at his pursuers. Her burden of burned pies rolled on the ground, and though it was enough to trip one man, the rest kept coming with Graves at their head, his lungs bursting. The hawker screamed and spat at the yellow man, but was shoved aside in the instant and he ran on. Not far though, not far. He turned sharply into Chapel Street, scattering people and their goods, but a fat coachman, hearing the cry following him, launched himself against him from his right flank, and the yellow man fell into the dirt and refuse of the street with all the coachman’s bulk pressing him to the ground. The crowd descended, held his arms away from him, and someone pulled his knife from his pocket. He struggled, and no one man could have held him, but with twenty grasping him and pressing forward, he was lost. Graves came to a stop before him, and without pausing to fill his lungs, threw a punch that landed under the yellow man’s chin and let the crowd take his weight as he slumped insensible among them.
“Smartly done,” Graves heard from the crowd. A broad-shouldered man stepped forward and put a hand on his shoulder as Graves raised his fist again. “But don’t kill him, or we’ll have to take you in too. Who is he?”
“He killed Alexander Adams,” Graves panted.
The crowd murmured and exclaimed. The broad man nodded soberly. “What magistrate is closest?”
“Addington! Addington!” the crowd shouted.
A barrow was produced with a young man to push it, and the yellow man was rolled onto it with a bit of rope around his wrist and another around his ankles. His head lolled like a guy’s ready for the fire, and the crowd began to process to the magistrate’s house to demand satisfaction of the law.
Graves’s brain was clogged and weary as he made his way back to the street door of the Chases’ home. He had sent messages back to Susan and Miss Chase through the evening, telling them first that the man had been taken, then later that with little ceremony, on his evidence, and to the delight of the crowd that accompanied him, the yellow man had been sent to Newgate to await trial at the Old Bailey sometime in the next week.
Once he had come around and realized his position was hopeless, the yellow man had become surly. He refused to speak other than to curse and call down every revenge imaginable on Graves and the children, but would give neither his name, nor any reason for his attack on Alexander. The crowd had jeered him, and the magistrate, looking exhausted and fretful, merely nodded at Graves’s evidence and sent the yellow man away under guard within half an hour of reaching his house in Covent Garden.
The crowd that had traveled with Graves were disposed to make a hero of him, and it was with difficulty he had managed to free himself from them and their congratulations. He could have drunk himself to death on their credit, but was haunted by his thoughts of Susan and Miss Chase waiting for him with the black box between them. Still, as he walked past Seven Dials he was aware that his fame had spread. His neighbors approached to pat him on his back, or nod, or smile at him significantly. His legs ached after running down the yellow man, and his knuckles were bruised. He did not think to pause at his lodgings again, merely passing them by on his way to Sutton Street to rejoin the Chase family. As a shadow stirred next to him, he was ready to smile and wave off congratulations again.
“A conquering hero, Mr. Graves, you are!”
Graves felt his heart sink. He knew the voice; this was not going to be a pleasant meeting. The shadow unfurled itself from the wall. A tall wizened-looking man with green teeth smiled at him like the crocodile Graves had seen exhibited at Vauxhall the previous year.
“Mr. Molloy. Good evening.”
“Isn’t it though? Only one thing could make it more pleasant …” He paused and pulled Graves back into the shadows for a moment as a group of men wearing blue cockades in their hats, their faces dirty with soot, barreled past them. He released Graves’s arm and continued as if nothing had occurred “… and that is my money.”
“I have none.”
“Then you shouldn’t have bought yourself that pretty coat, or new shoes. The tailor has sold me your bill, and I’ll be paid, or you’ll be in the Marshal-sea by Monday night.”
The smile never shifted from his face as he spoke. Graves lifted his arms.
“For God’s sake, have pity! My friend has been murdered, his children put into my care! I cannot get the money for some days.”
“Yes, I’ve been hearing all about your adventures, son. Talk of the parish-most commendable. I esteem you for it, and am sorry for your loss, but pity does not make a man wealthy, you know. And I have a fancy to be a wealthy man. Now Adams had a nice little concern in that shop, didn’t he?”
Graves pulled himself very straight. “You think I should steal from his children? What sort of creature are you?”
Molloy laughed till he had to pause for breath and spit on the ground.
“Creature am I, indeed? Well, at least the coat I walk about in I have paid for.” Graves blushed. “Twenty shillings is how the debt stands. I would not wish to embarrass you by asking for it from Mr. Chase while you are under his roof, keeping an eye on your little charges.”
Graves felt himself go pale. “How twenty shillings? I could not have owed more than half that.”
“You writerly types will never understand the function of interest, will you now?” Molloy shook his head sadly at what passed for an educated man these days. “Now, perhaps you might get a little reward, or ask for one if you are too busy running about the streets to practice your trade, but that is your concern. Just make sure I have the money in my fist by Monday dinnertime, and I shall tip my hat to you all friendly-like. Any later than that and you’ll be locked up in the prison before you can spit.”
Graves felt his shoulders sag.
“I shall make it easy for you, Graves. I shan’t stir far from Sutton Street over the next day or two. That way you’ll know how to find me.”
Molloy put a hand to his hat brim and seemed to disappear into the shadows again without a sound. Graves sagged for a moment then, straightening his back, he walked on toward the home of Mr. Chase.
18 APRIL 1775, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS BAY, AMERICA
It was unfortunate, and of course, Captain Devaille was known to be a fool, and no one in the regiment could understand why he had not transferred out when they had been sent to America, but he would not have spoken as he did if he had known Hugh was within earshot. Thornleigh had paused in the doorway to the officers’ mess to knock some of the dirt of Boston off his boots, so Hawkshaw was a few moments ahead of him, greeting his fellow officers and calling for news and claret in the same breath.