by Ava Morgan
“Or he has been out of reach deliberately.”
“Catherine, please. You and I have just reconciled. Besides, Jacob’s absence could mean any number of things.”
“But he’s not here in your hour of need.” Her sister sighed and wrung her hands. “I know you are fond of this man, but what if he brought the charges of theft against you or supported the investigation?”
“That doesn’t make any sense. Jacob knows I wouldn’t steal from him. And if he even thought that I would do such a thing, he would ask me himself. He wouldn’t send COIC agents to do it.”
Catherine still appeared doubtful. A frown settled into her delicate features. “If he really cares for you, he will defend you against the charges and restore your good name.”
“He will. He’s a good man.”
“I’ll believe that about him when I see it. But right now, I see that he has left my sister to fend for herself.”
Catherine’s cold appraisal of Jacob stung. Abigail wished she could show her differently, but knew that her older sister was only going by the evidence set before her. And to Catherine, it looked as though Jacob had put the safeguarding of his work above Abigail. But something must have happened to keep Jacob away this long. If only she knew what that was.
“The carriage is stopping.” Catherine leaned forward to look out the window. “This isn’t Paddington.”
Abigail peered out. The sight of an abandoned feed storehouse came into view at a corner of a darkened alley. Above the roof loomed the smoke chimneys of factories. The smell of offal assailed her senses. “We’re near St. Giles.” Her stomach dropped as she saw a group of men in stained and tattered clothing emerge from the storehouse and begin to approach the vehicle.
“I distinctly told that driver my address. He won’t be getting that guinea now.” Catherine raised her arm to pull the string to alert the driver.
“No.” Abigail stopped her, lowering her arm. “Catherine, what did that driver look like?”
Her lips pouted in thought. “I don’t know. He wasn’t particularly clean, I’ll give you that. He had his shoulder drawn in and kept scratching at it.”
Abigail’s blood came to a sluggish halt as she heard the driver jump to the ground.
Catherine started to say something, but silenced immediately as she saw Abigail roll up the sleeve of her blouse.
The driver’s footsteps came around to the carriage’s side. Abigail pressed the button on the side of her cuff to release the pocket pistol. Its springs gave a soft click as the weapon flew forward to rest in her palm. Catherine gasped.
She whispered to her sister, “When I tell you to run, do it.”
The driver slapped his hand on the door handle. Abigail kept aim on the door and waited.
#
“Here we are.” Jacob pulled on the string to alert the driver once they arrived at Abigail’s boarding house. He didn’t wait for the Secretary as he got out and marched inside the building.
The tiny lobby was empty, including the chair behind the front desk. Jacob hit the bell on the desk.
A woman in her fifties came scurrying from the corridor. She looked worried and distraught. “May I help you?”
“Miss Benton resides at this address. I know it is late, but I wish to see her.”
The woman narrowed her eyes. “State your name and purpose, sir, or I shall alert the nearest constable at once.”
The Secretary entered. “There will be no need for that. My name is Alistair Kidman, and I am an official with the Cabinet of Intellectual Curiosities.”
The woman’s eyes grew as they fastened on him. “You people again. Why can’t you leave that poor girl alone? Hasn’t she been through enough in one day?”
Jacob glared at the Secretary before addressing the woman again. “We are not here to cause Miss Benton any distress. We merely wish to see if she is doing alright.”
“I wouldn’t know. She left this evening with her sister. She said they were going to have supper out, but they’ve yet to return.”
“Did they say where they were going?”
“No, but they were in a mad haste to catch a cab. Miss Benton neglected to lock the door to her room behind her.”
The unease that already gnawed at Jacob grew into a fierce bite. “Take us to see her room now.”
She nodded at his firm command and grabbed the oil lantern off the desk. “Follow me.”
Jacob trailed her past the identical closed wooden doors of the other tenant rooms until she stopped before the last room around the corner. She gave the lantern to Jacob before she pulled a key from one of many on the ring she wore at her waist.
“I locked the door for her.” She unlocked it and pushed it open. Jacob went inside and held the lantern to the darkness.
The room looked as though a storm blew in. Books and papers lay spilled across the narrow bed and on the table. Two of Abigail’s dresses stuck out through the half-closed closet doors, their seams torn.
Jacob turned to the Secretary. “There had better not have been a struggle in here.”
“I was in the room with Miss Benton when those agents did their search,” the landlady volunteered. “They combed through here slapdash, but they didn’t touch her.”
Jacob headed to the window.
“What are you doing?” asked the Secretary.
“Trying to find how the spy got in. I assume you generally remain at the front desk during daytime hours, don’t you, madame?”
The landlady fidgeted. “I sometimes get up, but it’s never for more than a few minutes. Certainly any of the ladies here would notice if an intruder were to come in.”
The Secretary scoffed. “But that’s just it. No one did. But I do see that you have a key to all of the rooms.”
She gasped. “I hope you’re not accusing me of going into Miss Benton’s room and snooping about?”
While the two of them went back and forth, Jacob found that the latch on the window was broken. “You can stop frightening the landlady, Mr. Secretary. I just found out how the spy got in. Look at this window. It won’t close all the way. There’s enough space at the bottom for someone to get a hook or wire through.”
The Secretary went to see for himself. “You’re right. And once he got the latch free, he could climb in. There’s a heel print on the shelf.”
“We know how he did it. And why. It was easier for him to watch Abigail’s room here in east Holborn than it was for him to attempt a theft at my residence. Not much good this information does us now. Thank you, madame.” Jacob gave the lantern back to the landlady and went out Abigail’s room, through the lobby, and outside. He took a deep breath of the cold air. It was all he could do to control his frustration as the Secretary came after him.
“Maybe she went to her sister’s residence,” he suggested.
Jacob shook his head. “If so, I don’t know the address.”
“Look. A cab approaches.”
Jacob saw the hackney driver bring the vehicle down the other side of the road and pull on the horses’ reins. A thin man of medium height burst out, paid the driver, and came rushing up to the boarding house.
Chapter 17
“Is this the ladies’ boarding house?” the thin man asked Jacob. Despite the cold, his face was sweating.
“It is,” Jacob answered. “Are you looking for someone?”
“My wife. She told me that she was going to pay a call to her sister who lives here. She’s been gone since.”
Jacob fitted it all together. “Is your wife Mrs. Catherine Evancourt?”
“That’s her name.” The man looked at him with suspicion and unease. “I’m her husband, Hammond Evancourt. Do you know where she and her sister Miss Benton are?”
“I do not. According to the landlady, they left around suppertime, but haven’t returned.”
Hammond pushed his hands through his hair. He wore no hat, possibly having forgotten it in his distress. He raised his eyes up at Jacob. “You’re Dr. Valerian,
aren’t you?”
“Have we met?”
“No, but your appearance and reputation precede you.” Abigail’s brother-in-law did not spare Jacob his direct appraisal. “What have you to do with my family’s disappearance? Speak quickly.”
Jacob had no time for this. “I’m trying to find your wife and her sister. This man beside me is the Secretary of the Cabinet of Intellectual Curiosities.” Jacob left it up to Alistair to volunteer his actual name.
Hammond looked confused. “The what Cabinet?”
The Secretary cleared his throat. “I’ll explain later. Right now, we must find those women. I fear they may be in danger.”
“Why were they in such a hurry? Where were they going?” Jacob fought against the tide of volatile emotions sweeping through him. He had come too late. He had failed to protect Abigail again. And this time, he had no idea of her whereabouts. London was a sprawling city. She and Catherine could be anywhere.
He left Hammond and the Secretary standing in the street as he went back inside the boarding house. The landlady was in the process of locking the doors for the night. “Madame, did you see anyone or anything out of place on the street when Miss Benton and her sister left?”
“There were few pedestrians out due to the cold.”
“You said the two women ran to catch a hackney. Did you see what the cab and the driver looked like?”
“I tried running out to tell Miss Benton to make sure to eat supper, but she didn’t hear me. Come to think of it, I did see that carriage they took when it was situated out front before it went up the street. Didn’t look very up and up. Almost like those jarveys down in the factory district.”
Jacob paid attention. Now they were getting somewhere. “Did you get a look at the driver?”
The landlady put a finger to her cheek. “I saw part of his face. He had a hungry look about him. And he kept leaning one way with his shoulder. Must have damaged it bad recently.”
“Tim.” Jacob remembered the gang leader.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Thank you again.” Jacob tipped his hat and hurried back outside, where the Secretary and Catherine’s husband looked at him in bewilderment.
“What did you say to her?” asked the Secretary.
“I asked her about the carriage Abigail and her sister took. She saw the driver. From her description, I know who he is. He’s a gang leader near St. Giles and likely, part of Broussard’s spy ring.”
The Secretary whistled. “Of course. He must be a cab driver by day trade in the work districts. The perfect occupation for a man who needs to see and not be seen.”
“Precisely. Now we mustn’t waste any more time. I remember the gang running down an alley off New Oxford Street towards an abandoned feed storehouse. That may be their hideout.”
The Secretary nodded. “Get in the coach. I’ll find a telegraph office and alert my agents to meet us there.” He went off down the street to the nearest office.
“I’m coming with you,” Hammond said.
Jacob turned to him. “It’ll be dangerous. And we don’t know how many men are in this spy ring.”
“Catherine needs me. I won’t abandon her.”
Jacob nodded. “And I won’t abandon Abigail.”
The Secretary came back a short time later. “The reinforcements are on their way. What are you men waiting for? Let’s go.”
The three men got into the armored carriage and set out for the factory smoke in the distance.
#
Abigail pulled the trigger as soon as Tim opened the door.
The bullet shot out of the tiny pistol with force, jolting her hand. Still, she kept her arm steady. Tim let out a cry and grabbed his right shoulder, staggering back as the carriage shook from the scared horses.
“Run,” Abigail commanded her sister.
Catherine hustled in front of her and jumped down from the cab. She stumbled as she landed near Tim’s feet. The hem of her dress caught on the cab’s foot pedal. Tim, one hand still clutching his shoulder, made a grab for her.
Abigail tried to take aim for a second shot, but Catherine’s back was in the way. Suddenly, the carriage rocked. Abigail tripped and fell on the carriage floor. She heard laughter over the horses’ neighing as she saw faces of the men through the window. They pushed the vehicle again, pitching it sharply to one side. Abigail spilled out onto the cobblestones beside her sister.
Someone seized Abigail from behind. Brass bit into her throat as a coarse hand closed about her neck. She recognized Perry’s voice and scraggly beard as he spoke against her ear, whiskers scratching her lobe. “Miss my touch, did you, love?” He pressed the corner of his brass knuckles into her windpipe.
Abigail choked and flailed her arms. She lifted her right and succeeded in bringing her steel cuff into Perry’s head, hard enough to make the springs of the pistol retract the weapon into its compartment. He growled, seized her arm, and wrenched it painfully behind her back.
Tim, blood staining his hand and the front of his shirt, grunted as he seized the back of Catherine’s coat and shoved her against the cab. “Get these two bitin’ cleavers into the storehouse.”
Abigail gasped as Perry released his hand from her throat. He still held onto her arm behind her and pushed her towards the house. She saw a rangy man in crushed tophat drive her sister along in similar fashion.
The steps of the abandoned feed storehouse creaked and protested under the combined weight of the men as they shoved her and Catherine up and into the structure. Kerosene lamps provided light to the front room. The stench of urine and unwashed bodies pounded Abigail’s nose immediately. She nearly vomited at the sight of human waste on the floor near the entranceway where the door was supposed to be.
Perry stepped around the filth and positioned her in the center of the bare space of the room, still restraining her. The man in the tophat brought Catherine beside her.
“What do we do?” Catherine, face white with fear, leaned toward Abigail. Her captor drew her back by the hair. She yelped in pain.
“Stop.” Abigail moved instinctively to protect Catherine, even though Perry made sure she stayed put.
The rest of the men entered the house. They came one by one and in pairs, until Abigail counted twelve. All of them were dressed in worn or ragged clothing, but she noticed that they weren’t all wearing the usual assortment of motley apparel thrown together in effort to keep warm. Some wore the collarless, tough canvas shirts of factory and mill workers. Others had caps and thick cable knits worn by fishermen and loaders down at the docks, and still others wore the fingerless gloves favored by newspaper and tract salesmen.
Abigail recognized multiple representations of the industrial district’s working classes as they assembled before her. Tim cut a path through the men, his hackney driver uniform a stained mess.
He came to stand inches from her face. She smelled his rank breath as he took in forceful, pained gulps of air. The look in his dark eyes spelled murder. “You whore.” A knife whipped in front of her nose.
Abigail screamed before Perry put his hand over her mouth. Tim seized her right arm and slashed through the sleeves of her coat and dress. The blade scraped against the cuff of her retractable pistol. He forced the ruined sleeves of her garments up past her elbow. She trembled as he turned her wrist over and drove the blade through the thin leather straps of the cuff. He nicked her skin as he worked. The cuff fell to the floor.
“A new toy of that mad doctor’s.” He stooped to pick it up. “Langlais will pay a pretty penny for this.”
“Broussard, you mean,” Catherine’s captor said. “He’s the one backin’ the ring an’ all.”
Broussard’s web of spies. Abigail understood now. All of these men, by virtue of his line of work, were able to ply their trades while gaining information for Broussard without anyone in London taking notice. The working classes, after all, were seen and yet often not observed.
Broussard took advantage of the men’s hard
ship and supplied a need that most of London’s officials failed to address. Now she and her sister were going to witness firsthand the consequences of such a slip.
She wiped the blood that trickled from the small cut on her wrist on her torn sleeve. Perry’s voice rumbled over her head. “Where is that Frenchie? He makes us do all his spyin’ while he gets to sit and stare at the dollymops ‘round the city.”
“He’s been watchin’ this one at her boardin’ house.” Tim gestured to Abigail. “He said, go to her address if he went missin’ for more’n twelve hours. So where’s he?”
Abigail leaned away from his knife. “I don’t know who you speak of.”
“Langlais’ been watchin’ your room for the past three months. He’s always come back here, though, to see wot news we’ve collected ‘round London proper for ‘im. No one’s seen ‘im since yesterday.”
So that was the spy’s name who had stolen her sketch. “I don’t know him or where he would be.”
“She could be speakin’ true,” said Perry. “Langlais looked like any other workin’ class gent in that bowler.”
Abigail stiffened. Tim noticed. “You know where he is?”
“I spotted him once in December, but I haven’t seen him since.”
“I think you’re fibbin’.” He drew closer. The coppery scent of blood was in the air as his gunshot wound bled. “Where’s Langlais?”
“I’m telling you the truth. I don’t know.”
Perry interrupted. “You should get that hole patched up, Tim. You’re bleedin’ like a trout.”
“I will. The cleaver just grazed me with her pea shooter.” Tim glared at Abigail. “I should shoot you wit it when Langlais gets through talkin’ to you.”
He turned to address the other men of the spy ring. “We’ll wait another hour to see if Langlais comes back. He’ll pay us for gettin’ this cuff gun an’ for nabbin’ the shrew.”
“What about this one?” Catherine’s captor pointed down at her. Catherine gave a little whimper.
“He might also see wot she knows about that doctor’s business. Put the two o’ em in the dry room upstairs.”
