I had only one comfort. I did not need to catch Kensington to find Louisa.
I dug in my pocket for a penny and thrust it at one of the street boys. "Get me a hackney."
The boy caught the coin and bounced away. I spent the intervening time crawling to my feet and leaning against the wall, waiting for the arrival of the hackney.
I knew where Kensington had put Louisa-the only place he could have. The Glass House might effectively be closed, but Kensington would still have a key.
When the hackney arrived, the boy helped me climb into it. I directed the driver to St. Charles Row, near Whitechapel, and before the door closed, I gave the lad another coin and bade him run to Bow Street and tell Pomeroy where I'd gone.
When I reached St. Charles Row, all was quiet. The moon had moved behind a bank of rising clouds, rendering the street nearly black. A candle or two shone in windows, but the citizens of this neighborhood would not have the money to waste on too many lights. Many of the hard-working ones had gone to bed long ago.
The Glass House was silent, the scarred door locked, possibly bolted. The windows too were barred, and high from the street.
I recalled how the girl, Jean, had described Peaches leaving the house through the kitchen. No scullery steps descended from the street to a door below, so the kitchen must lead out to the spaces behind the houses.
In Mayfair, back gardens led to mews, where horses and carriages were kept for the masters of the grand townhouses. In this area, where the inhabitants likely could not afford their own horses, the passages would be only wide enough for the nightsoil removers who crept in and out in their noisome task.
I left St. Charles Row for Aldgate, searching for the narrow passage that backed onto The Glass House and its neighbors. I stumbled upon it almost by accident; a darker space between dark walls.
The passage when I entered it was so black that I could find my way only by running my hand along the wall and counting the gates. My boots sloshed through refuse the likes of which I did not want to contemplate.
The gate of number 12 opened easily. In the dark, I nearly fell down the short flight of stairs that led to the kitchen door, catching myself with Grenville's walking stick at the last moment.
The door was locked, but the lock proved to be flimsy. I was angry enough that bringing the walking stick down on the latch several times made it give way. If the neighbors heard me and called the watch, so much the better.
The kitchen was cold and black. I tapped my way across it like a blind man. My leg still hurt like fire, but I was beyond caring. As soon as I got Louisa safe, I would let it hurt, but not until then.
After a long time, too long for my patience, I reached the far wall of the kitchen and groped along it until I found a door. Hoping it led into the house and not a cupboard or scullery, I pushed through.
My stick struck a stair. I climbed. My leg hurt, and I had to pull myself up, holding onto the wall.
I emerged at last into the entrance hall. Faint light shone through the fanlight above the door, glistening on candlesticks on a half-moon table, candlesticks useless to me because I had no way to light the candles.
I found the main stairs and groped my way to the first floor above the ground floor. The house was silent, and it had the feel and smell of desertion.
I wondered where Kensington had put her. Would he have found it amusing to lock her into one of the windowed rooms? In that case, I'd only have to break the window to get her out.
Or was she lying unconscious behind the glass, where the shards could cut her? I did not like that thought, but my greatest worry was simply getting her out.
I went into the main room, where highborn gentlemen had played cards and dice and sipped expensive port. I could just make out the outlines of the tables and chairs in the darkness. The gleam of glass led me to a window, but I could see nothing inside.
I cupped my hands and shouted. "Louisa!"
The sound reverberated from the glass window, the dark room, the empty tables and chairs.
I left the main room and made my way, slowly in the near pitch black, to the stairs that led to the attics. I climbed these painfully and emerged once more in the tiny hall where I'd found the room in which Peaches had kept her most precious things.
"Louisa!" I called.
I heard a faint cry, not from Peaches' room, but from the one opposite, the attic room I'd not seen. I groped for the door.
I heard footsteps on the stairs, a heavy tread that shook the stairwell. I wanted to shout out, Pomeroy, she's here, but I knew the next instant that it was not Pomeroy.
I tried to turn and ducked when I felt the whistle of the cudgel. It struck my knee, and I started to go down. Then pain exploded in my head. I fell, sick and dizzy. I heard the faint cry again, the voice behind the door asking what was wrong. I tried to climb to my feet.
I was struck again. I fell back to the floor, pain washing me.
Someone grabbed me beneath the arms. I tried to twist away, but I could not get my weak leg under me to rise, to fight. A sack was thrust over my head, cutting off my words and my air, and I was plunged into darkness.
A long time later, I heard a voice-low, sweet, and urgent.
"Lacey. Wake up, for God's sake."
I opened my eyes. All was black and close, and I could not breathe. I struggled.
After a time I realized that I lay face down on a hard floor, a canvas bag firmly in place over my head. My hands were bound behind me. I tried to draw a breath and coughed.
The bag reeked of human sweat and other odors that did not bear close examination. Its drawstring encircled my throat, not tight enough to choke me entirely, but enough so that I could not dislodge it. My hands were bound firmly behind my back with chafing twine. They had not needed to bind my legs. Any attempt to rise brought excruciating pain.
"Lacey?"
The voice was not Louisa's. The lady sounded far from me, and I wondered why she did not hurry to my side and help me.
I answered, but my words were muffled through the bag.
"Thank God," she said. "Are you all right?"
"Not really," I mumbled.
"I do not understand what happened," Her voice was thick. "I was leaving the theatre in Drury Lane. On a sudden, a large man was beside me, and he had hold of my arm. My servants were nowhere in sight. I believe I fainted, which is odd, because I never faint. Then I woke up here, bound hand and foot. I do not even know why."
I could not tell her, muffled as I was.
I found that if I used my chest and shoulders, aided by my right leg, I could move across the board floor about an inch at a time. The exercise was tiring and the bag stifled me, so I only progressed about half a foot at a time before having to rest.
She ceased talking, but I heard her hoarse breathing. Sick and dizzy from the beating, I could only make for her at a snail's crawl.
A few feet along, I came, surprisingly, to the edge of a carpet. I smelled dust and wool through the cloying bag. The raised lip of the carpet was about an inch high.
I began my arduous climb to the rug, then stopped, frustrated, when the carpet caught on the bag and pulled it tight against my head. I fumed for a few moments, until my buzzing brain made me realize that if the carpet could pull the bag one way, it could pull it another.
I leaned my cheek on the carpet and inched backward. The carpet held the bag in place, and my chin came hard against the cord. I continued to wriggle and work at the edge of the bag with my jaw, until all at once, the cord came loose and the bag rose halfway up my face.
Luckily, my assailant had not tied the cord, only pulled the drawstring tight. I wriggled some more. The bag caught on the corner of the carpet, and at last I was able to withdraw my head.