Another tearing sound. This time the stones above him fell straight away from the wall. Fenn felt a sudden intense pain in his leg and tried to pull back, but he couldn’t move. His leg was caught.
He forced himself to remain calm. He closed his eyes and did his best to put the pain out of his mind.
Something furry ran up his arm and he screamed.
Fenn knew that the only person within earshot would be the tailor when Cinderhouse came back to the shop. But Fenn was a little boy and he wanted his parents. And so he screamed again.
82
Blackleg rapped on the door and waited. When there was no answer, he took a flat strip of metal from his back pocket and inserted it between the door and the frame. He pushed on it until he heard a faint click. He put the metal bar back in his pocket and turned the knob. The door swung open.
“Here now, what’re ye doin’?”
He turned and saw an old woman coming down the hall toward him. She was pointing her finger at him like a weapon.
“That’s Mr Hammersmith’s flat,” she said. “And Mr Pringle’s, too, only he ain’t here no more, God bless him.”
Her finger flitted away from him long enough to make the sign of the cross, touching her forehead, then her heart and, quickly, her left and right shoulders. Immediately she was pointing at him again. By now she was directly in front of him, her bony finger an inch from his nose.
Blackleg held his hands up, palms out. “No worries, ma’am,” he said. “We’re friends, him and me.”
“You were a friend of Mr Pringle? I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t know the bloke. But Hammersmith’s me mate.”
He heard himself and smiled when he realized that he was telling the truth. Who’d have guessed that he’d ever be friends with a bluebottle?
“Well,” the old lady said, “I don’t know about that.”
She looked him up and down, clearly taking in his grubby clothes and unkempt beard.
“I’m a police, ma’am.”
Blackleg had long practice in telling people what they wanted to hear. The lie came to him easily, and he saw in her eyes that the old lady wanted to believe him.
“You don’t look like a policeman,” she said.
“Thank you.” He leaned in closer to her, which caused her to back up a step. “What I do,” he said, “is I dress up like as if I’m a lowlife and I mix in amongst them. Amongst that sort, I mean. They take me for one of their own and they tells me things as I can take back to Mr Hammersmith and the other police.”
“Why, how clever,” the old lady said. “You certainly look convincing.”
“Thank you again, ma’am. I do try.”
“Well, I’m afraid Mr Hammersmith isn’t at home today. I would have heard him on the stairs.”
“Quite all right, ma’am. He gave me the key to the place and tole me to wait here for ’im. I’m sure he’ll be here soon enough.”
“Oh, I see.”
“Unless you has a problem with that. If it makes you uncomfortable, me hangin’ about in the flat here lookin’ like I do, lookin’, I mean to say, like as if I’m a criminal, I understand most complete. I’d be happy to go on outside and wait at the door for him.”
“Oh, no,” the old lady said. “That wouldn’t do at all. No, you stay here and make yourself at home. I’m sure if Mr Hammersmith asked you here then it isn’t my place to say otherwise.”
Of course she didn’t want him loitering outside her building. That might make a bad impression on the neighbors.
“Well, you’re uncommon gracious, ma’am. ’Most exactly like my own sainted mother.”
The old lady blushed and covered her mouth.
“My name is Mrs Flanders,” she said. “I’m down the hall here, first door on the right. If you need anything at all, don’t hesitate to ring the bell.”
“Thank you much, ma’am.”
She smiled and turned away.
“Ma’am?”
“Yes?” The old woman paused with her hand on the wall.
“There’s one more expected here today. ’Nother police like me who looks maybe a bit down at the heels as well.”
“A meeting here?”
“You might call it that.”
The old woman frowned. “I don’t care for business being conducted on my premises,” she said.
“It’ll be just the one time. We don’t like to meet at the station ’cause someone might see us there and connect the fact that we ain’t really criminals.”
“Oh, I suppose that makes sense.”
“Yes, ma’am. So when he gets here, don’t trouble yerself none. He can find his own way.”
“You’re quite the gentleman, you are, regardless of appearance.”
“Thank you.”
She waved a hand at him and tottered down the hall. When she turned back to look at him, he nodded. She went back into her own flat and closed the door. Blackleg let out a deep breath and pushed Hammersmith’s door open. He went in and closed it behind him.
Inside, the flat was even smaller than Blackleg’s own place. He chuckled to think that a bluebottle probably made less money in a year than he did. Crime wasn’t respectable, but it paid.
He checked the clock above the mantel and saw that he had nearly an hour before his guest was expected. There was a tin of tea beneath the clock and Blackleg opened it. He sniffed the contents and recoiled at the tang of copper in his nostrils. Renewed tea.
“Ah, well,” he said. “Beggars can’t be choosers, can they?”
With time to kill, he went in search of a kettle.
83
Inspector Blacker woke up as the hansom cab ground to a stop. It took him a long moment to realize where he was. His eyes felt gummy. He pulled the curtain aside and saw a low stone wall with a weeping willow drooping over it. The thin light through the window shone on Hammersmith, across from Blacker on the other bench. He was curled up with his neck bent at an awkward angle against the side of the carriage, snoring softly. Blacker grinned and rubbed the heels of his palms against his eyes, trying to massage the grit away.
He pulled the curtain shut again and opened the hansom door, leaving Hammersmith there to catch up on much-needed sleep. The coachman looked down at Blacker and tipped his hat.
“This the place, guv’nor?”
“I suppose it is.”
Blacker fished in his pocket for a coin, but the coachman held up a hand.
“No need, sir. Happy to do what I can for the police.”
“You’re a gentleman.”
“You’ll be wantin’ me to wait till you’re done here, then?”
“No need. Inspector Day, my colleague, I mean, will be along shortly with a police wagon. If you don’t mind waiting until my friend wakes up, then you can be on your way.”
The coachman squinted at him. “Sir?”
“He hasn’t slept much lately.”
“All right, sir.”
“Thank you again.”
Blacker smiled and patted the side of the cab as he stepped into the street. He hurried across to the Shaw family’s brownstone just as the first drops of rain started to fall.
84
The coachman turned up his collar against the rain and watched as the detective crossed the road and knocked on the door of a brownstone, one of several identical homes joined in a row with a decorative wrought-iron rail out front.
After a short wait the door was opened by an attractive woman. She and the detective spoke and the woman moved aside to allow him in. The door shut behind him.