A Wicked Gentleman (34 page)

 

Harry rode past the Greyhound Tavern as if it was of no significance to him, but his swift appraisal had taken in the narrow alleyway to the left of the building, barely separating it from the decrepit hovel next door. He could see no sign of unusual activity, no indication of anyone on the watch from the tavern. But that didn't mean that there weren't eyes watching the street for unexpected visitors.

Lester's support would be reassuring, but Harry decided he couldn't wait for him. He rode about a hundred yards farther down the street and saw an urchin kicking a stone in desultory fashion through the muck in the kennel, splashing the cobbles with dirty water and unnamable refuse.

“Hey, you!” Harry called to him in peremptory tones, and the lad paused and looked up at the tall figure riding towards him.

“You wan' me, guv?” He looked alarmed, glancing around him, clearly ready to flee.

“Yes, I do, if you want to earn yourself a sixpence,” Harry said, drawing rein beside him. “Take my horse and hold him here.” He dismounted and examined the boy closely. “Do you hear me? Don't leave this spot. Just hold him and wait for me to get back. Is that clear?”

The boy looked up and down the street again, licking his lips nervously. Then he nodded and reached up for the reins. “Awright, guv.”

Harry looped the reins around the filthy, clawlike hand, and closed the scrawny fingers tightly over the leather. “Sixpence,” he said. “And you're to be right here in exactly this spot when I come back.”

The boy nodded, but he looked scared rather than delighted at the prospect of the coming largesse. There was nothing remotely benign about the gentleman, and the threat, while unspoken, was clear enough to the boy. Failure to perform this task was not an option.

Harry fixed him with a hard stare for another second or two, then nodded, and strode away, back towards the tavern.

There was still no sign of Lester. Harry ducked into the alley beside the tavern. It was dark and barely the width of his shoulders. He sidled rather than risk brushing against the slimy walls, trying not to breathe too deeply of the fetid air.

The passage opened into a tiny, high-walled courtyard with a well in the center, a noisome privy in the far corner, and empty ale barrels rolled haphazardly across the unpaved ground. Harry stepped into the yard and examined the back of the building. There were only two windows, one above the other, and a narrow door.

He approached the door and listened. Raised voices, the clatter of pots and pans, the squawk of a chicken in distress. Nothing untoward, he decided, reaching down into his riding boot for the knife he always kept tucked out of sight. The knife and his riding whip were his only weapons, but he was adept with both.

He raised the latch on the door, then kicked it open so that it banged against the inside wall. He entered the small, smoke-filled kitchen, knife in one hand, whip hand raised in menace. The room's inhabitants, a slatternly woman flourishing a ladle, an ancient man hunched on a stool by the open range, and a man holding a flapping chicken by the neck stared openmouthed at the intruder.

“Good morning,” Harry said pleasantly. “Would you all be so good as to stand over there in that corner.” He gestured with his whip to the far corner of the kitchen beside a Welsh dresser and well away from a door that he guessed gave access to the taproom.

Still staring at him they shuffled into the corner, the man still holding the flapping chicken.

“Thank you.” Harry turned and swiftly dropped the heavy bar across the door he'd just come in by, then crossed the kitchen in two strides and closed the other door, standing with his back against it. He wanted no surprise visitors in the next few minutes.

“Now, ma'am, perhaps you would tell me who else is in the tavern.” His voice was quiet, even, and deceptively amiable. His mouth smiled, but his eyes were as frigid as an arctic blizzard.

For a moment no one answered him. The chicken let out another despairing squawk, and, with a reflex movement, the man holding it wrung its neck with a swift and efficient twist of his hands. The bird dangled inert.

“Who else is in this building?” Harry asked again, a slight edge now to his voice.

It was the woman who answered him. “There's two in the taproom, an' them upstairs.”

Harry's gaze sharpened. “Them? How many?”

The woman, who seemed to have recovered from her surprise, demanded, “What's it to you?”

“Rather a lot as it happens,” Harry said, tapping his whip against his boots. “Oblige me, if you please.” The edge was sharper.

The woman shrugged, and her tone was sullen. “Don't rightly know. Sometimes there's one of 'em, sometimes more. I don't keep watch on the street door.” She shrugged again. “Better things t'do with me time.”

Harry frowned, and the man with the chicken volunteered hastily, “They pays regular, sir, fer the use o' the chamber, and they comes and goes as they pleases. We don't ask no questions if'n they pays regular.”

Harry accepted that he'd received all the information he was going to get. He raised the latch on the door leading to the taproom. “Where will I find this chamber?”

“Top o' the stairs, on the left,” the woman told him, still sullenly.

Harry gave her a brief nod, and left the kitchen, closing the door softly behind him. The two men in the taproom, raised their eyes incuriously from their ale pots as he crossed the floor, the soles of his boots sticking to the clotted sawdust. He ignored the drinkers and softly climbed the narrow staircase at the far end by the street door.

At the head of the stairs he paused outside the door the woman had indicated. It would be locked, of course. How many of them were in there, waiting for Cornelia to bring the thimble? He glanced back down the stairs, wondering whether to wait for Lester. But then he saw again Cornelia's anguished eyes, and he knew he couldn't wait. He needed to get to her child.

He heard footsteps on the stairs and spun around, the knife poised in his hand. A girl, no more than twelve, stopped on the stairs and stared openmouthed. The slop jar in her hand shook, threatening to deposit its malodorous contents on the floor. Harry put a finger to his lips, then came lightly to the stairs. He pointed downwards and made a shooing gesture with his hands. She hurried down again, and he followed her.

He took a gold sovereign from his pocket. It glimmered in the dim light of the narrow hallway at the foot of the stairs, and the girl gazed at it as if mesmerized. “Listen carefully,” he said in a bare whisper. “This is yours if you do exactly as I say.” He explained what he wanted of her, and she nodded, her eyes never leaving the glittering gold. “Can you do that?”

She found her voice. “Aye, sir.” She held out a grimy hand.

“I'm going to put it here,” Harry said, balancing the coin on the newel post at the bottom of the stairs. “You may pick it up when you come down, when you've given the message.”

She nodded eagerly, setting down her slop jar before running up the stairs again. Harry followed her, knife in hand, and pressed himself against the wall beside the door.

The girl knocked timidly and when there was no immediate response knocked harder. “Who is it?” a strongly accented voice demanded from within the chamber.

“Beggin' yer pardon, sir, but there's a lady what wants to talk wi' you,” the child said, sticking to her script. “She's belowstairs, sir. Says she's got summat fer you.”

They heard the sound of the heavy bar being raised and the door opened a crack. “Send her up,” the same accented voice growled.

The girl shook her head vigorously. “She don't want to come up, sir. Said fer you to come down. Said she's got summat fer you.” She turned tail and ran down the stairs, scooping up the gold coin as she passed, heading for the street door as Harry had instructed.

There was a murmured exchange in the chamber, then the door was pushed wide and a lean, dark-visaged man stepped onto the landing followed by a much burlier companion who commanded brusquely,
“Allons-y.”
They hastened down the stairs.

Harry reckoned he had maybe three or four minutes at the most before they realized there was no one waiting for them. He stepped swiftly into the chamber, his gaze sweeping the room.

Nigel Dagenham was tied to a rickety chair, gagged with a scarf, an ugly cut bleeding above his eyes. Eyes that regarded Harry with anguished terror. His face was bruised and swollen, his clothes torn.

Harry took a step towards him, then he saw the small shape on the sagging cot in the corner of the chamber. He took two strides to the cot.

He bent over the blanket-wrapped bundle. The child was unconscious, his breathing stertorous, complexion pasty, the lips a little blue. Harry put a finger against the pulse beneath the boy's ear and exhaled slowly. The pulse was strong and steady, but he could smell the telltale sweetness on the child's breath.

Laudanum.
How much? But there was no time to speculate. He straightened and moved to cross the room to release the bound and gagged Nigel. Then he heard footsteps on the stairs. No time for Nigel now. He crossed to the still open chamber door. He slid behind it, flattening himself against the wall as he nudged the door half-closed with his foot.

The door was pushed wide open concealing the man behind.
“Merde,”
one of the men cursed as he stepped into the chamber, his shadow falling long across the floorboards from the flickering candle in a sconce by the door.

He stepped quickly across to Nigel who tried to shrink back against the chair, his eyes wide with silent terror. “You think to make a fool of us,
mon ami
.” He raised a hand and struck Nigel across the mouth.

Harry remained behind the door, barely breathing.

“
Laissez-lui,
Michel,” the second man said, coming into the room.
“Il n'est pas vaux l'effort.”
He spun quickly towards the door again, just as Harry pushed it closed again with his foot.

Harry smiled.
“Bonjour, messieurs.”
He stepped away from the wall, his knife in one hand, the lash of his whip curled against the palm of his other.

For a moment, nothing was said. The three men assessed the situation, each swiftly calculating possible moves in the confined space. The two Frenchmen appeared unarmed, but Harry was not prepared to rely on appearances. He reckoned he could handle both of them in a knife fight, but if one of them produced a pistol, then he'd be in trouble.

Where the hell was Lester?

Silver glinted as knives appeared in the Frenchmen's hands. The wicked shining blades of stilettos. They stood shoulder to shoulder facing Harry. He could only pray that they didn't think about using the child. A knife at Stevie's throat, and Harry would be rendered helpless.

His hand moved swift as lightning and the lash of his whip snapped, catching the knife hand of the man closest to him. The lash curled around his wrist, and he gave a cry of surprise and pain. Caught off guard he stumbled, and Harry sent the whip curling again, snapping against the man's cheek.

The other Frenchman took a jumping step towards Harry, his knife raised. Harry feinted, then came in low, driving upwards with the knife. It caught the man's thigh but without sufficient force to penetrate deeply through the cloth of his britches, leaving little more than a scratch on the flesh. But it was first blood, and they both jumped back, taking stock.

The sound of feet racing up the stairs broke the taut concentration. Harry's gut sank. It was a woman's feet.
Cornelia.
He stepped backwards in front of the door. He couldn't bolt it or stop her from opening it without taking his eyes off his opponents, and they were both lined up again, shoulder to shoulder, and the one he'd caught with his whip had a most unpleasant gleam in his eye.

“Cornelia, stay where you are,” he yelled, but with only the faintest hope that she would obey him. He felt the door shiver as she seemed to hurl her entire weight against it and his two opponents pounced on him at the same time. He ducked sideways, dancing towards the far wall, and the door crashed open.

Cornelia stood on the threshold, looking wildly at the scene. Two men with drawn knives. Harry by himself against the wall, a smeared knife in his hand. Some huddled body on a chair. Nothing seemed to make any sense at first, then it did. She made a move to back out of the room but an instant too late, as one of Harry's opponents, realizing his advantage, leaped at her.

Cornelia didn't think. She drove her knee upwards into his groin as he grabbed her arms, and twisted to drive her elbow into his belly. He let her go with a grunt and Harry jumped on him, his knife slicing deeply into the shoulder of the man's knife hand. The knife clattered to the floorboards, and Harry bent and swept it up, discarding the whip as he did so.

Nigel groaned. Momentarily distracted, Cornelia looked towards him, and the second man grabbed her from behind, spinning her back against him. He held her with one arm a tight band across her breast, his knife pressed against the side of her neck. She felt a prick and a sticky wetness on her skin.