“I’ll send it. I’ll send it. Didn’t say I wouldn’t.” The apple seller made a grab for the coin.
The shilling stayed in hand. “Here’s my message. ‘The old man in the red castle asks a favor.’”
“‘Man in a castle arsks a favor.’”
“‘The old man in the red castle.’ Then say, ‘I need four trustworthy and discreet men for three days.’”
“Keep going on, don’cha? I ain’t the bloody post office.”
“Twenty words.” Because she was tired, her mind started turning the words into the simplest of substitution ciphers . . . URW HGCKN . . . before she stopped herself. “That’s not heavy as messages go. Say it back to me.”
“You want four men and they keep their gob shut.”
“That’s not the message.”
The apple seller fingered across the basket, apple to apple, with a surprisingly delicate touch and repeated the message, word for word, without flaw or hesitation, catching the original accent and intonation. “I don’t forgit things.” She smiled sarcastically. “And I don’t go to that part of town in the dark. After it gits light, then I’ll carry it.”
“Good enough.” She flipped the coin and watched it disappear into layers of rags. “Where can I sit for three or four hours, out of sight?”
The Coach House taught many lessons. Nobody died of being tired was one. One can sleep sitting up was another. Even three hours of sleep would improve this coming day no end.
The rags rearranged themselves. Another apple came out of the basket to be shined against the skirt. “I’m not a bloody inn. Try the man what sells beets and carrots up that way. Fowler, his name is.”
“Where should I wait for a reply? And how long?”
“Dunno. Go where you please. They’ll find you when they wants you.”
Twenty-one
Know what a man lies about and you know the man.
“So that’s the Merchant.”
“A reasonable likeness.” Pax smudged white into the black line of the underjaw, pulling three dimensions out of the shadow. Then thin charcoal to define the chin. This was the seventh copy he’d made. He was fast now, sketching.
Hawker said, “I’ve seen him.”
“You chased him from the Moravian church.”
“Not that. I know the face from somewhere.”
The finished drawings were spread out over the tables, still damp from the fixative. Hawk studied the copies, then helped himself to one of the quills and stroked it back and forth between his fingers, pacing fireplace to window and back, crossing between two of the big, shabby leather chairs. Finally he stopped at the window and looked out, keeping well back so he couldn’t be seen from the street. “It’ll come to me.”
“France, maybe.”
Hawker shook his head. “Somewhere. He doesn’t look like a Frenchman anyhow.”
White chalk brought the bridge of the nose out. “He passed for French sometimes.” Making copies of a face meant catching the little tricks of the likeness again and again. Not easy. “I don’t know where he came from. He told different stories.”
“Handsome fellow.” Hawk came to stand behind him and watch him work, not blocking his light.
“People find him charming. He uses that.” He’d fought the temptation to reveal the monster. He’d forced himself to set down only the surface of the man. The shape of the eyebrows, the width of the nostrils. The face he drew was just a face, absent arrogance and cold disdain. Absent the evil.
He sharpened his lead and etched thin pencil lines at eye and mouth. Added a touch of white to the eyelids to show the first puffiness. He hadn’t seen these details in that glimpse in the Moravian church. This was his guess of how age had changed a monster.
Done. Anything else was just playing with it. With chalks, you had to know when to stop.
Hawk was right. This was a pleasant face. The Merchant smiled and smiled and was a villain. My mother wasn’t the only woman he destroyed.
Hawk leaned next to him, across the back of the chair. “You’re damn good. He almost breathes.” With one finger, not touching the surface of the paper, he circled the calm eyes, the mouth with the almost smile on it. “You think this Caché woman of yours finds him charming?”
“Not in the least.”
“She’s working for him,” Hawk said.
“If I thought that, I wouldn’t have let her get away.”
“Or else you would have.” Hawker shrugged. “We make mistakes about women.”
“I don’t.”
“You haven’t before. Doesn’t mean you won’t now.” Hawk shifted to view the sketch from a different angle. “The whole of the city of London’s full of women harmless and beautiful as kittens and you consort with Death’s Handmaiden.”
Laughter welled up out of his chest, surprising him. “Cami’s not a kitten, thank God.”
“More like . . .” Hawker frowned. “What was the name of that Greek chit who chased men down and drank their blood? Head of a woman, body of a snake. If Doyle weren’t downstairs organizing a search of Soho he’d provide the Classical allusion.”
“I cut that knife wound on myself. That’s not her work.”
“You are a man of deep mendacity and I already figured it out about the knife cut.”
Of course Hawk had known. Doyle probably did, too. “That’s only one of the lies I’m telling. Hawk, I’m going to . . .” He couldn’t finish that. “I’m in trouble with the Service already and it’s going to get worse. You will keep out of it.”
“I doubt that, somehow. It’s a novel experience, trying to keep you out of trouble instead of the other way around. You’ve annoyed Galba in ways even I don’t attempt. Hard to believe you’re being stupid over a woman. I thought you were an island of sanity in a sea of rutting dogs. You aren’t going to let go of her, are you?”
Nobody like Hawker for the delicate approach. “I’m using her to—”
“She’s using you. And you’re not going to see that till it’s too late.”
“We’re using each other.” But it didn’t feel like that. Nothing calculated had happened between them. Nothing wise and thin and careful. He’d swear she was no more able to stop what flared between them than he was.
He dropped the last chalks into the box and closed the lid.
Hawker went back to the window and pushed the curtain aside half an inch. “I was barely out of bed this morning when I got my orders. I’m supposed to see you don’t kill the Merchant when we get close to him. That and some other minor injunctions.” Hawk’s attention remained fixed on Meeks Street. “I am to be the voice of reason. I told Doyle that was not my forte.”
“That must have amazed him.”
“I’m supposed to follow you today when you leave, sticking to your trail through the byways and alleys of London. The theory is, you won’t do anything suicidally stupid if I’m there to be a good influence. Yes, I thought you’d find a chuckle in that.”
That was the deft hand of Doyle, ordering Hawker to do what he’d do anyway. Doyle sent a flanking column of artillery and the light infantry, when he sent Hawker after him.
He wiped his hands on the damp cloth, getting the last of the charcoal off, rolled his cuffs down, and buttoned them. He was stiff from sitting so long. He stood and linked his fingers and stretched.
A horse stopped outside the house. There was a low murmur of voices on the steps. Visitors.
“He’s back.” Hawker’s voice held relief and amusement in the two words. “Grey. And he’s brought his French spy with him, tra la. Just what we need, more French spies about the place.”
Grey, Hawker, and Doyle. All the men from that last mission were home now. “They were worried about you three, in Paris. When I left, they weren’t sure whether any of you were going to make it to England.” That was one last man to face and admit treason to. Grey, Head of Section for Britain. The man he’d worked for these last six years.
“Grey’s dallied and been lackadaisical in returning from France, for which no one shall blame him, considering the company he keeps.” Even before knocking sounded below, Hawk was away from the window and out the door of the study. At the top of the stairs he stopped short and held his arm out to block the path. “Wait.”