by Will Thomas
We raced to the back of the stage and fumbled about in the dark until we found the outer door and pushed through it into the blinding sunshine. We skidded on cobblestones in an ancient alley and nearly hit the far wall. At the end, we saw her climbing into a cab, urging the driver to go swiftly at all costs. There were no passing vehicles at such a time. She must have had one waiting for her. She ran unencumbered, having left the air rifle on the roof in her hurry to escape.
We reached St. James’s Street and followed after her, but we couldn’t catch up. The cab she was in was gaining speed. Boys with whistles were blowing by the dozens, which made the cab horse skittish, though it continued to plunge through the crowd. Women screamed and men were knocked aside by the large wheels.
“What do we do?” I shouted to Barker. “She’s getting away!”
“There!” the Guv growled. A cab was coming down the street as if it were any other day and it wasn’t surrounded by a thousand people. Barker jumped on board and when it neared, pulled me up as well. I only hoped we could make up the distance we had lost.
The cab ahead was smart, with gleaming woodwork and a decorative lozenge-shaped window in the back. Ours was not as pretty, but our horse looked up to the task, a mottled brown gelding, probably getting old, but clean-limbed and game for a race. Its driver was taken aback by our sudden appearance, but he was not averse to our paying him.
“That horse there,” Cyrus Barker bellowed. “Follow it! I believe it is heading to Victoria Station.”
We fell back onto the seats and held the straps while the cab bit into the limestone bricks and began to roll forward.
“Hurry!” he called.
Ahead of us, Sofia’s cab was just turning into Pall Mall. People jumped out of the way as we reached the very gates of the palace. The guards in their scarlet uniforms had rifles trained on the carriage ahead, but they knew firing them could result in a panic. A hundred yards behind them, foreign dignitaries were stepping down from their landaus.
Our cab reached the same corner seconds after and I was able to show by gesture to the guards that we meant no harm, but were following only the first cab, which turned into the Haymarket heading north. The traffic was brisk. People were on their way elsewhere and didn’t want some bally wedding slowing their progress. When we turned, there were two vehicles between us. Barker thumped on the trap overhead with the ball of his stick. The driver snapped it open.
“Oy, there, you! You’ll do my cab a damage.”
“Get us to that cab we are following and I shall double your fare.”
“Done!” he agreed. “Get a move on there, Biscuit.”
The man cracked his whip in the air and we sailed into the stream of traffic. The street was wide and there were a dozen vehicles before us in a kind of panorama. It reminded me of a scene from Lew Wallace’s book Ben-Hur, with chariots racing in a circle, and charioteers trying to kill each other at breakneck speed.
Our cab was gaining ground now. We had passed the one near us and were now one away from Sofia Ilyanova’s hansom. Biscuit was a sound horse, and the cabman was expert at cracking a whip overhead without harming the animal. By then, of course, we were bowling along at a perilous speed. I’d seen racehorses run at a slower pace. I felt droplets of sweat or lather coming from the horse.
The driver was determined to squeeze between the cab beside us and Ilyanova’s own, trying to earn himself that fare. As we took the long curve from Piccadilly to Grosvenor Place, the nervous cabman beside us realized that our man meant business. Our wheel was going to collide with his, and as any student can recite, two objects could not occupy the same space. He gave way, slowed his horse, and we shot forward into the coveted position.
The gleaming cab with the tiny window was just ahead of us. For a moment I speculated that if we could get alongside the cab I might jump the distance into her vehicle. I could. I might, if we got close enough. But it was foolhardy. There was too small a chance for success.
The cab was so close, it was as if the two had become one. You’re ours, Sofia Ilyanova, I thought. We’ve got you now! I saw a flash of white in the cab, a pale face, and a single eye staring out that back window.
Then the glass shattered.
“Pistol!” Barker shouted over the roar of hooves. “Down!”
Then she fired. I flinched, even though the bullet would pass through my head before I could react. It did not pass through my head, however, nor Barker’s. It struck poor Biscuit full between the eyes. He was dead in his traces, falling to the ground like a sack of grain. We were shot upward, like an upside-down pendulum. For a second, I heard the cry of the cabman as he fell from his perch. Then I was tugged out of my seat and struck the roof. I saw the Guv’s arms go up and his hat fly off as his shoulders hit the back of the cab. We circled the fulcrum of the dead horse and when the vehicle struck the road it splintered into pieces and came to an immediate halt.
The cab beside us and the one behind it were so close that they crashed over the shattered vehicle.
“Lad! How are you?” I heard Barker call.
I screamed. Not in pain, but in anger. I love horses. I always have. Not a week goes by that I don’t ride my mare, Juno. I curry her, brush her, and feed her oats. I baby her and whisper terms of endearment in her ear. Rebecca has joked about being third in our relationship. I am a member of various organizations that protect cab horses from neglect. We have a bond, she and I, as I’m sure our cabman had with Biscuit.
The cabman pulled himself to his feet and staggered. His scalp was lacerated, but he gave it little thought. His horse was dead. His companion and sole means of making a living was gone. His hansom was shattered to bits. He, too, began to scream, there in the middle of the road, while cabs whizzed by us on both sides.
Something caught my eye then. A bit of pasteboard landed on the horse’s flank, a rectangle of white against the dappled brown. It was our business card. Barker had dropped it. I felt a hand in my collar and another at my elbow, and a voice growled in my ear.
“Thomas, we haven’t the time to grieve now!”
Barker pulled me to the side of the road, stopping once to let a vehicle fly by within inches of our faces. Once on the far side of Grosvenor Place he lifted his stick, signaling for another cab. It had been snapped in two. The Guv was hatless and his collar was open. Goodness only knows what I looked like.
A cab pulled to our side and we climbed aboard. Barker acted as if he was a mere spectator of the horrendous accident that had just occurred. We left the dead horse, the pile of wood that had been a respectable hansom two minutes before, and the heartbroken cabman.
“Victoria Station, driver!” Barker shouted. “Hurry!”
“Right, sir.”
The cab waded out into the stream of traffic leading inexorably toward the station. I only hoped it was worth the effort, that we were not too late.
“Have you got all your limbs, Thomas?” the Guv asked.
“Yes, sir. My knuckles are bleeding.”
He gave me his handkerchief and I wrapped it around my hand.
“She shot our horse,” I said. “What sort of monster shoots a horse?”
“Try not to think about it, lad. Concentrate on the matter at hand.”
I felt the cab slow and saw that we were coming toward the entrance to Victoria Station in Grosvenor Place. The wheels skidded on the cobblestones and the iron shoes of the horse clattered. We jumped from the hansom and as an afterthought, I tossed the entire contents of my pocket at the driver, enough for five journeys to Victoria Station at least. Then we ran through the crowd, dodging people and their luggage, looking for every bit of space we could squeeze through. I heard Barker’s boots just behind me. People were queuing. The gate was ahead. I could see it, but fifty bodies stood in our path.
“Make way!” the Guv thundered. “Make way!”
He took my arm and before I knew what was happening, a darby had been locked upon my wrist. “I have a dangerous prisoner here! He
must be on the train to Newhaven! Make way!”
Every eye within the line of sight was looking at the prisoner, every ear hanging on the clarion cry of Cyrus Barker.
“Make way, sir! Madam, move this bag, please! Thank you! Where is the ticket man? What is the holdup, by god? It is essential that I make that express!”
He was having a glorious time in his sudden role. I knew it was a role because he would never say “by god.” It was blasphemy, as far as he was concerned. There was a hissing from the crowd and belatedly I realized it was directed at me. I began to struggle and snarl at the passersby. I, too, could play a role. Then we were at the turnstile and Barker had no money. He never had any. I carried his wallet, but I couldn’t exactly stop and pay the fare for him. Again, so close and yet so far.
I did the first thing I thought of. I attacked Barker. In our struggle, I hoped to reach my pocket and slip a pound note or coin into his hand, but people surrounded us and everyone was focused on the government man with the dangerous prisoner.
A hand thumped me in the skull and I saw they were helping this unnamed official gain control of his prisoner. Hands grasped my coat and someone delivered a kick to my shin.
“Let this man through!” someone cried. “Let him through, I say! He must get to Newhaven!”
The hue and cry was taken up by the crowd. The next thing I knew I was being pulled through the turnstile and prodded in the direction of the stair. We clattered down and when we reached the bottom, Barker unlocked my wrist restraint.
“Go, lad!” he said. “Run like the wind!”
I was off like a shot, putting shoe leather to pavement. I ran so fast the slightest misstep could cause me major injury, but I didn’t care. I looked about, hoping to catch a glimpse of the train. I was a rail enthusiast and knew every line of the Continental Express. One could not miss the striking color of the engine, a warm caramel color, its lining picked out in red and gold. But where was it?
“To the right, Thomas!” Barker bellowed from somewhere behind me. “To the right!”
I caught a glimpse of it, then damn and blast if it weren’t starting to leave already. I ran faster and faster still, cutting across to the platform there. I reached the brake car at the end and began to gain ground, reaching for the handrail. My bowler flew from my head and I saw faces above me looking out at the madman running pell-mell down the platform.
I reached for the handrail and missed. Again I reached and again I failed. One false move and I’d fall between the cars and be run over. No, no; I couldn’t let that happen. Get it, Thomas! Get it!
My hand slipped again and I began to realize I wasn’t going to make it. Then I looked up and saw a face, a face with fierce yellow eyes and skin as pale as a Siberian winter. Sofia was still in her widow’s weeds, a small black hat of feathers and plumes pinned to her white hair. She watched me with fascination, perhaps even dread. Then she bent down and lifted something. The air rifle, I thought. She slapped something against the window just in front of me. I blinked into a pair of hazel eyes. It was a child. A small child. Three, perhaps? Four?
I’d recognize a Llewelyn face anywhere.
I tripped and fell, tumbling head over heels, skinning hands and ears, scraping elbows, ripping trousers at the knee. Pain bloomed everywhere and blood splattered on the platform. I skidded into a brick wall and upset an ash can. Meanwhile, the express picked up steam and headed out of the station, bound for the Continent with an assassin aboard. One assassin and one child. One sallow-skinned, hazel-eyed, curly-haired child.
Oh, Thomas, I thought. What have you gotten yourself into now?
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
“Lad,” the Guv said, bending over me. “Thomas.”
I was crumpled in a heap by an archway among abandoned newspapers and ticket stubs from an ash can I had not only knocked over but crushed.
“Yes, sir.”
“Are you injured?” he asked. “Can you stand?”
“I don’t know.”
Rolling over onto my back, I pulled myself up until I rested against the arch wall. Everything hurt, and not just physically.
“I saw her, sir,” I mumbled. “The child she took to Kensington Palace was hers. Hers and mine, I suspect. He looked like me.”
“Och, Thomas!”
I was overwhelmed. The pain in my body equaled the pain in my soul. This was going to hurt Rebecca deeply. I couldn’t even imagine what she was going to say.
Railway porters rushed over to help me up. I hissed in pain but nothing was broken. They put me on a bench. The Guv handed me a handkerchief. One cheek was bleeding. One of my trouser legs was ripped and I could feel blood puddling in my shoe.
Oddly, I felt as if there had been some sort of cataclysm, like a train wreck or bombing. I could not understand that a man had fallen and the rest of the world was going by heedless. An hour from now, none of the guards would remember the incident.
“Thomas,” Barker said. “This man is a doctor. He’s going to examine you.”
I lost the memory of the event entirely. At some point a plaster had been put on my cheek. Then it was just the two of us again.
“I lost her, sir.”
“What could you have done, lad? Outrun a train? You gave it all you had, anything a man could do. You did well, but it was not to be.”
“But we failed,” I said. “She escaped. Escaped to kill again.”
“I doubt she’ll come back to England,” he replied. “As for the rest of the world, we cannot save everyone. I will pass the information along to the Foreign Office and to various organizations to warn them. I don’t suspect a single assassin will become an industry.”
Everything throbbed. I felt brittle, as if every part of my body had been pulled out of socket, including my life. Rebecca was going to be inconsolable. I very nearly became emotional, but I mastered myself. I needed Cyrus Barker to take me home.
“Let us go, Thomas.”
He took me by the elbow and lifted me up. People were watching us. It occurred to me that some of them still thought me an escaped prisoner as I hobbled like an old man, leaning on my partner’s arm.
“This way,” I heard the Guv say.
It must have taken fifteen minutes to cross the platform, climb the stairs, and make my way to the entrance of Victoria Station. Barker talked as we walked.
“The important thing, Thomas, is that we saved the life of the tsarevich. It strained our resources, but we succeeded, for good or ill. Perhaps Nicholas will learn from this crisis and shall be a more sober and conscientious leader of his country. A good leader might stem the tide of revolution and heal the rift.”
I could think of no response. A horse appeared in front of me and I was helped into the cab. I recall listening to the sound of the wheels turning as we rode. We did not speak. We had said all there was to say.
“Thomas?”
It was Rebecca’s voice. We were in Lion Street. Barker and Mac helped me out of the cab. She kissed me on the uninjured cheek.
“The library,” I murmured. “Take me to the library. Rebecca, we need to talk.”
They put me in a chair and withdrew. Barker began to make telephone calls. I noted Mac did not even listen at the door.
“What is it, Thomas?” Rebecca asked. “You’re frightening me.”
I told her the entire story. It was brutal. I was honest and it hurt. Afterward, she and Mac helped me up the stair and put me to bed. Then Rebecca packed a bag and left.
No, not left. Fled. She was not angry. Like me she was overwhelmed. I’ve never blamed her for what she did. I’d have done the same under the circumstances.
Did she go home to Camomile Street to think things through? Or did she go to her parents’ house, where her mother and sister would have their hooks in her and divorce proceedings would begin immediately?
As I lay dazed, an image came to me: a pale hand on my chest. White hair against my shoulder. A feminine sigh. I don’t know if I recalled it or invented it.
I drifted off to sleep knowing everything would be worse when I woke again.
In the middle of the night, I reached out and touched Rebecca’s pillow. It was empty and cold. I thought someone had brought a water bottle, but when I reached down, Harm was lying against the small of my back.
When I awoke the next morning, as expected, everything was worse. I got up, still fully dressed except for my shoes. I went downstairs and out the back door and took a cold bath. Then I returned and shaved and dressed. The wound on my cheek was not especially bad, but one of my eyes was red and swollen. In the kitchen I drank coffee and ate a roll. It was mechanical. I was following a set routine.
“Ready, lad?” my partner asked.
“Yes, sir.”
We went to work just like every other day. I felt sorry for myself, which I have a talent for, but the Guv would not allow me to wallow in it. He was brisk and businesslike.
“We must decide how much to recompense the cabman for the loss of his horse, his cab, and his livelihood,” he said. “Then we must find the wee girl who spotted Miss Ilyanova and give her family the fifty pounds. If she has no family, we must care for her and see that she is sent to a proper school. She did us a great service.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, and promptly forgot. Luckily he did not.
“We are sending a steep bill to the Russian embassy, and as God is my witness, I will screw every ruble from Baron de Staal’s pocket. Jim Hercules shall not have to pay. I’ll excuse him for not telling us about his relationship with the Home Office, but I will have a sharp word for Hesketh Pierce. Are you getting all this down?”
I pulled my notebook from my pocket and began to write in shorthand, but when I got to it later, it was gibberish. Oddly, I was wondering what Sofia was doing at that moment. The idea of her with a child, my child, in fact, was incongruous. Was it that, like Rebecca, she needed a child in her life? Was it a physical need? I had no idea and never would.
“Mr. L., you have taken a beating,” Jeremy Jenkins said. Somehow our clerk’s words were the first that had given me comfort.
