To his own surprise, Ashbless realized that his breathless feeling was as much elation as it was fear. By God, he thought, you never know when you’ll come across a chapter Bailey missed. “I’m pretty sure it’s me you want,” he said carefully, blinking against the muzzle. “Let these two go and I’ll promise to go quiet.”
“Yer fair makin’ me weep with yer heroicals, sport.” The man poked lightly with the gun, rocking Ashbless’ head back. “Now shut the hole, eh?”
The cab made a right turn onto Drury Lane, and though the new driver almost had the starboard wheel spinning in midair as he wrenched the vehicle around the corner, the two men crouching outside on the step bars never flinched or lowered their guns.
“I’m not sure I follow this,” said Coleridge, who had shut his eyes and was rubbing his temples. “Are we to be robbed, or killed? Or both?”
“Probably both,” said Jacky evenly, “though I think their boss would be more interested in stealing your soul than your purse.”
“They can’t steal that unless you’ve lost it already,” said Coleridge calmly. “Perhaps the time would be best spent if each of us… shored up his claim to possession of one.” He composed his pudgy features into a placid blankness and let his hands fall into his lap.
The cab paused at Broad Street, then moved rapidly across. The clatter and jingle of the cab sounded louder now, for the lane was much narrower north of Broad Street.
After a few moments Jacky sniffed. “We’re in the St. Giles rookery, sure enough,” she muttered jerkily, as though she couldn’t get enough air into her lungs. “I can smell the trash fires.”
“The man said shut up,” her guard reminded her, giving her a poke in the moustache. She obediently remained silent, afraid that another such would knock the thing off.
At last the cab halted and the two armed hijackers hopped down and opened the doors. “Out,” said one of them.
The three passengers unbent themselves from the cramped interior and climbed out. Coleridge promptly sat down on the step bar, held his head and moaned; evidently the headache was getting worse. Ashbless glanced bleakly up at the huge, ragged building they’d arrived at.
Partially brick—brick in every degree of size, shade and age—and half-timbered, the structure was linked to the dark bulks of other buildings at every level by flimsy bridges and ratlines, and was pierced by windows in such an uneven pattern that they couldn’t, it seemed to him, reflect the arrangement of floors inside. Jacky just stared down at the wet mud between her boots, and breathed deeply.
Len Carrington hurried out of the well-lighted open doorway and surveyed the scene. “All go smoothly?” he asked the driver, who was still perched up on the bench.
“Aye. By yer leave I’ll take this back to Fleet Street before the real cabbie can report it missing.” “Right. Go.”
The whip snapped and the cab rolled forward, for there was no room to turn it around. Carrington stared at the captives. “That’s our man,” he said, pointing at Ashbless, “and that’s… what was the name, haven’t seen him in a while… Jacky Snapp!—whose involvement in this I’ll want explained… but who’s the sick old bastard?”
The hijackers shrugged, so Ashbless said quietly, “He’s Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a very famous writer, and you’ll be buying more trouble than you can afford if you kill him.”
“Don’t tell us what we—” began one of the hijackers, but Carrington shut him up with a wave.
“Get ‘em all inside,” he said. “And quickly—the police have been known to come this deep into the rookery.”
The captives were marched at gunpoint into the large front room, and for the first time that night Ashbless felt the icy emptiness and despairing inner wail of real fear, for Doctor Romanelli was there, reclining in some sort of wheeled crib and staring at him with wrathful recognition.
“Bind him,” the sorcerer croaked, “and take him downstairs to the hospital. Hurry.” The St. Elmo’s fire was flickering wildly now, and popped every time he pronounced a hard consonant.
Ashbless leaped at the man to his right and with the whole weight and strength of his body punched him in the throat; the man went straight over backward and his reflexive shot exploded the face of the clock on the wall. Ashbless had just gotten his balance back and was about to whirl and grab Jacky and Coleridge when his left leg was abruptly slammed out from under him and he landed awkwardly on the floor.
The scene stopped being a moving mix of impressions for him, and he could only perceive things one at a time: his new trousers had a gaping, blood-wet hole blown out in the left knee; his ears were ringing from the bang of a second gunshot; blood, and bits of bloody cloth and bone, were spattered on the wall and floor in front of him; his left leg, which was extended straight out in front of him, was bent sideways at the knee.
“I still want you to bind him,” rasped Romanelli. “And put a tourniquet on his thigh—I want him to last a while.”
Ashbless lost consciousness when Carrington and the gunman grabbed him under the arms and yanked him upright.
Three minutes later the room was empty except for Coleridge, who was sitting pale-faced in Horrabin’s swing with his eyes closed, and one of Carrington’s men, a rat-faced young man named Jenkin who was embarrassed at having been posted as guard over such a harmless old fellow. Jenkin looked around the room curiously, noting the fresh blood puddle and the shattered clock, and wondered exactly what had happened here before Carrington had called him in. He’d seen three people being taken out of the room as he hurried in, and only one of them was walking, but everything had seemed to be under control; Jenkin had thought when he heard the two shots that it was the start of the mutiny, but evidently that would have to wait for a bit.
He started violently when he heard a step in the hall, and then sighed with relief to see Carrington enter the room.
“They got tea hot in the kitchen?” Carrington growled.
“Aye, chief,” replied the mystified Jenkin.
“Fetch a pot and a cup—and sugar.”
Jenkin rolled his eyes but obeyed. When he got back with it Carrington had him set it on a table, then went to one of the higher shelves and took down a brown glass bottle. He uncorked it and shook several splashes of a sharp-smelling liquid into the tea. “Throw a lot of the sugar in, too,” he whispered to Jenkin.
Jenkin did, and jerked a thumb inquiringly toward Coleridge.
Carrington nodded.
Jenkin drew the thumb across his neck and raised his eyebrows.
Carrington shook his head and whispered, “No, it’s laudanum. Opium, you know? It’ll just put him to sleep, and then you’ll stash him in Dungy’s old room. And when we’ve got rid of the clown and the wizard we’ll take him down the underground river and dump him by the Adelphi somewhere. He won’t remember where this is. Extra trouble, but after the publicity the papers stirred up over the murder of that Dundee fellow Saturday, we don’t dare kill a well-known goddamn writer.”
He poured a cup of the tea and carried it across to Coleridge. “Here you go, sir,” he said gently. “A bit of hot tea will help.”
“Medicine,” Coleridge wheezed. “I need my… “
“The medicine’s in the tea,” said Carrington reassuringly. “Drink up.”
Coleridge drank the cup empty in four swallows. “More… please… “