“Precisely! And that he died in a courtyard here in London and not in America.”
“But how could such a mistake be made?” asked Tom.
“Oh, I don’t think it was a mistake, Tom. Leech wanted to appear dead, I’m sure of that. But why? We need to have a word with the other person who identified Leech.”
“The sergeant,” remembered Tom.
“The very same,” said Dr. Harker. “The sergeant is a link between whatever happened in America and what is happening in our city.”
“Do you think the sergeant might be one of the murderers, Dr. Harker?”
“It’s possible, Tom. If he is not, then he will probably be in fear of his life. And something tells me he will not want to be found. I think we are going to need some help. . . .”
“You certainly are, friend,” said a voice behind them.
Tom and the doctor turned to see a thickset man tapping a cudgel against the flat of his palm.
“I have a sword!” said Dr. Harker.
“D’you hear that, trooper? The gentleman has a sword!”
They turned again to find the way ahead blocked by another man, this one gaunt with wild eyes. His head moved slowly from side to side as he spoke, like a snake about to strike. “Well, ain’t you terrified, trooper?” he called to his cohort.
“To me bones,” said the other. “What about you?”
“Well, now, I ain’t never been feared while I got these here angels to guard me.”
And with that he produced two pistols from his coat pockets and pointed them at Tom and Dr. Harker.
OCEAN CARTER
"Say your prayers, if you’re the praying kind, ’cos you are looking at your last minute on this dung heap,” said their attacker. But he had scarcely finished these words when another man came out from the shadows to stand beside him. The man was holding a white pigeon in his hands, stroking it gently under its beak. It was Ocean Carter.
“Well, well,” he said. “What have we here?”
“Hold it right there,” said the man, turning one of his pistols on Ocean but keeping his eyes on the doctor and Tom. “This is no business of yours.”
“True, true,” said Ocean. “But if it was, I find myself wondering how you would stop us all, with only two pistols.”
The man turned to face Ocean for the first time. “Well, since you ask, brother, I would shoot you and the gentleman here, and leave the boy to my colleague.”
“Ah, but what about the pigeon?”
“The pigeon?” he snarled, but just as he did so, Ocean let the bird loose and it flapped in front of the man’s face. In this split second of distraction, Ocean lunged forward, grabbed his arm, and pushed it up. The pistol fired harmlessly up into the sky. In the same instant, he kicked the second pistol from the man’s other hand and sent it clattering across the cobbles. The doctor turned and drew his sword, and the man with the cudgel ran off down the alley. Meanwhile, the other attacker pushed Ocean back and pulled a knife.
“The pistol, Tom,” shouted Ocean. “To me!” Tom darted over, picked up the pistol, and tossed it to Ocean, who caught it, cocked it, and aimed it in one swift movement.
The attacker dropped his knife, opened up his coat, and stuck out his chest, inviting the shot. “Come on, then, bonny lad. Fire away!”
Ocean took aim.
“No!” shouted Dr. Harker.
Their attacker laughed. He bowed to the doctor and walked calmly away. When he was some way off, he turned. “If we meet again, gentlemen, I’ll make you wish you’d pulled that trigger.”
“I already do!” shouted Ocean. A huge bang ripped through the alley and the attacker’s hat flew off. Without stopping to retrieve it, he ran off as fast as his legs would carry him.
“What a shot!” gasped Tom.
“I’m getting old,” said Ocean, putting the smoking pistol inside his coat. “I was aiming for his ear. Come on, gents,” he said, “all this racket will have roused the constables. Time we wasn’t here.”
He led Tom and Dr. Harker briskly down several alleyways, up a curving flight of steps, and through the back of an inn; to their surprise, they emerged into the busy throng of Smithfield, coming to a halt next to a wagon full of fleeces.
“You have our undying gratitude, sir,” said Dr. Harker, shaking Ocean’s hand.
“It was great luck that you happened by,” said Tom.
“Well, not luck exactly, Master Tom,” said Ocean. “The truth is, I’ve been following you gents. I thought I might come in handy and, well, I was right.” He grinned. “No offense intended, of course, but even with that sword, these are dangerous waters you’re paddling in.”
Tom thought he saw the doctor blush slightly at the mention of his sword.
“Ocean is a very unusual name, if you don’t mind me saying,” Dr. Harker said.
“They call me Ocean on account of how I was born at sea; on the Atlantic’s briny deep. I come into this world on a Bristol-bound brig out of the Americas, flapping on the deck like a new-caught codfish. My dear old mother, bless her bones, was returning from those parts, where she’d lately resided, transported there for thievery and the like. Transported there for being poor, if you asks me. Transported there for being born in Shoreditch and not in Mayfair.” Ocean looked away for a moment and then continued. “She died in the having of me, bless her, so I never knew her. I was adopted by another of her kind, who brought me to this city and taught me the craft of thievery. That’s the truth, sir. I am a thief, but I’m an honest thief.” He smiled. “There, now you have my life.”
“And I owe you mine,” said Dr. Harker, shaking his hand. “Ocean, I’m very pleased to renew our acquaintance. And I think we ought to tell you all that we know so far, shouldn’t we, Tom?”
“Yes, sir,” said Tom. “I think we should.”
So Ocean learned of their search for Will’s murderer and what they had discovered so far. He was quick to offer any assistance he could, but he also had a few words of caution. “As you found out,” he told them, “these parts can be a deadly place for them that don’t know their way about. You see the shape of the thieves here? Those villains would have shot you dead and thought no more about it.”
“I don’t think they were thieves, Ocean. Or at least they were not about to steal from us.”
“How so?” asked Ocean. “What fight could those men have had with you?”
“I don’t know, Ocean,” said Dr. Harker. “But I’m sure those two men are involved in the Death and the Arrow mystery and in the murder of young Will.”
“God help them if that’s true,” said Ocean. “But there were three men in that alleyway, Dr. Harker.” Tom and the doctor looked at each other in surprise. “Four, if you count the man on the roof.”
“What do you mean?” said Dr. Harker.
“Well, there was a man who didn’t want to be seen, skulking in a doorway some ways off.”
“What did he look like?” said Tom, reminded of the man he saw at Will’s funeral. “Was he a big man, dressed in black?”
“Not so big, no,” said Ocean. “Wiry, I’d call him. Now, the man on the roof—he was big.”
“On the roof, you say?” said Dr. Harker.
“That’s right. Up on the roof, behind the chimney stack. I just caught a fleeting glimpse, mind you, but he was there.”
“But I’ve seen him too,” said Tom, suddenly remembering.
“Really, Tom?” said Dr. Harker excitedly. “Can you remember when?”
“Just after Will told me about his job, I saw someone high up on the roof ridge when there was a break in the fog. Do you think he was following Will? Is he the killer?”
“I don’t know, Tom,” said Dr. Harker, deep in thought. “I don’t know.” He turned to Ocean. “Do you think you can find the men who attacked us?” he asked.
“If they can be found, I’ll find them, rest assured,” said Ocean. “But about this here army sergeant you mentioned—the one that identified the body...�
�
“Yes?” said Dr. Harker.
“Well, the fact is, I’ve been doing some nosing around myself. A friend told me something of that soldier only this morning.”
“Well, that’s marvelous, Ocean. When can we talk to this friend of yours?”
“Would now be a suitable time?” said Ocean.
“It certainly would,” the doctor replied.
“Then follow me,” said Ocean, and they were off.
Tom and Dr. Harker followed on Ocean’s heels, struggling at times to keep up with him. Both Tom and the doctor prided themselves on knowing London like they knew their own bedchambers, but they soon found they had not the slightest idea where they were. Ocean took them on a trail through backyards and alleyways, never once pausing to check his way. A long flight of green and well-worn steps brought them to a blackened brick archway, and then, all of a sudden, they were in Covent Garden market, the air thick with the smell of lavender and poverty.
Outside the Green Man alehouse was a blind fiddler. Under his tattered hat was a face that had once been handsome; on his back, a moth-eaten coat that had once been the height of fashion. A red-haired boy was bending down to steal the few coins from the pewter dish at his feet when, quick as a whip, the fiddler kicked him soundly on the backside, sending him sprawling across the pavement. Ocean picked the boy up by the scruff of his neck.
“Ocean . . . ,” said the boy, shuffling away, “I didn’t mean no harm.”
“Be off with you, you little tick, before I kick you myself!” With that, the boy scuttled off down the street.
“Ocean!” called the fiddler. “Is that you, my friend?”
“It is, Jacob,” said Ocean. “And I have two friends with me. They seek that soldier-boy you spoke of. They think it might help them find whoever it was that did for Will. Can you tell them what you know?”
“Well,” began the fiddler, “I was south of the river, Southwark ways. I’d had a good day and I dropped into a tavern—The Ten-Killed Cat, they call it—for a drink or two before coming back. That’s when I heard the sergeant. He was as drunk as a watchman, and he was blathering about how he was ready for them when they came, and that no Indian was going to get the better of him.”
“No Indian?” Dr. Harker repeated.
The blind fiddler nodded. “Those were his very words. No Indian.”
“Thank you,” said Dr. Harker. “That is very interesting. Thank you for your help.” He put some money in the blind man’s hand.
“With all respect, your honor, you can keep your money,” said the fiddler solemnly. “Will was a good lad. You catch the louse that did for him, and that’ll be payment enough.”
“Then will you accept our thanks?” said Dr. Harker, shaking his hand.
“That I will, sir. And here’s hoping you keep safe in your searching.”
As they walked away, Dr. Harker said, “I’m beginning to wonder if old Purney wasn’t right about the Mohocks after all.”
THE TEN-KILLED CAT
The next day, Tom and Dr. Harker were crossing over London Bridge on their way to Southwark. When they reached the middle, they paused to take in the view: the city was bristling with church spires and wearing St. Paul’s like a crown. To the west, the river bustled with little boats, barges, and ferries. Watermen shouted, sang, and cursed below them, and two young rakes cheered as they shot the rapids that formed as the mighty Thames was squeezed through London Bridge’s many arches. Tom crossed to the other side to see if they had fallen in, but the skill of their boat-man had seen them safely through. A group of builders on the south bank gave them a ripple of applause. One of the rakes stood up, bowed ostentatiously—and fell in, to hoots of derision. Tom laughed for the first time since Will’s death.
Dr. Harker put a hand on his shoulder. “That’s a view that always sets my heart to racing, Tom,” he said. He was looking past the commotion below at the mass of ships at anchor, their masts like a forest. “The sights those ships have seen, lad: islands of ice in the cold northern seas, the pyramids of old Egypt, the temples of India—a world of wonders. Oh, Tom, would that I were a young man again, I’d sail on the next tide.”
“You’re not so old, Dr. Harker,” said Tom, smiling.
“Thank you for that, young Marlowe, but I fear my traveling days are behind me. When my wife was alive, I could not wait to return. Now that she is dead, I have lost the urge to go. Strange, isn’t it? But wherever I went, I brought something back for her, something I thought would amuse her. Without her, traveling seems somehow less important. She was a marvelous woman, Tom. She would have been very fond of you, I’m sure.”
“And I of her, I hope,” said Tom.
“You must remember what your father lost when your mother passed away, Tom,” Dr. Harker went on. “I know that loss and the pain of it.”
“Yes,” said Tom. “I know it. I just wish he could... I don’t know...”
“Be more like your mother?” suggested Dr. Harker.
Tom smiled. “Did you know my mother, Dr. Harker?” he asked.
“I did not have that pleasure, Tom, sadly.”
Tom looked off into the distance. “Sometimes . . . ,” he said with a slight choke in his voice. “Sometimes I can hardly remember what she looked like.”
Dr. Harker put an arm round Tom’s shoulder. He looked back toward the ships and sighed. “It doesn’t matter if you forget her face, Tom. She’s in your heart, lad. Even when I sailed away for months at a time, my Mary was always here,” he said, patting his chest. “And she still is.”
“I wish I could sail away sometimes,” said Tom. “You’ve done so much, Doctor, and I’ve done nothing. I’ve been nowhere. And I’ll never do anything or go anywhere.”
“Come now, Tom. You’re young yet, surely.”
“But that’s just it,” said Tom. “I’m young. Too young. My father would never let me go. And he needs me. He relies on me.”
Dr. Harker sighed again. “Here’s my wings clipped by age and yours by youth. But still, if our wings have been clipped, there are worse perches than this, eh, Tom?” The two of them looked out, a breeze at their backs, out past the merchant fleet and the Tower of London to the river snaking its way out to sea.
Tom agreed, and they continued on their way.
They stepped off the bridge and walked along by the river, both a little nervous to be such a long way from their usual haunts. They had not gone very far before they both became aware that they were being followed.
Dr. Harker turned to face their stalker. “I have a sword!” he said grandly.
It was Ocean. “I see you’re still keeping that sword warm, Dr. Harker,” he said with a grin. “But I was thinking as how you might be needing a little company on this here jaunt.”
“We would appreciate that,” said Dr. Harker, smiling.
Ocean led them along the waterfront to a building that leaned at such a precarious angle, it looked likely to fall into the Thames at any moment. Plaster had fallen from the brickwork here and there, and a hole as big as a handcart gaped in the roof.
“Here we are, gents,” said Ocean, pointing to the grimy sign above their heads. “The Ten-Killed Cat.”
An open doorway revealed a steep flight of stairs tumbling down into a basement. Tobacco smoke and the sound of a woman’s tuneless singing rose from below and the three of them gingerly walked down to meet it.
It took a little while for Tom’s eyes to adjust to the gloom. The gin cellar was filled with the smell of sweat and perfume and smoke and the sound of whispering and drunken laughter. The singing they had heard came from a hollow-eyed woman near the bar, sitting with a baby at her breast.
“There’s our boy,” said Ocean, pointing to the corner of the room.
Sitting at a table opposite the door was the man they had come to find. He was no longer dressed as a soldier of His Majesty’s army, but wore a shabby black coat, threadbare at the cuffs, bald at the elbows. His head was bare and covered in a fine stubb
le; his forehead sparkled with beads of sweat. On the table in front of him, his hand rested on a loaded pistol. He never took his eyes off the door as they walked over.
“Are you Sergeant Quinn?” asked Dr. Harker.
“If you didn’t know, you wouldn’t be asking. What do you want?”
“May we sit down?”
“You may dance like the Queen of the May so long as you do not block my view.” The three men sat down. Tom could not help following the sergeant’s gaze toward the open door and the light that leaked in from it.
“We are seeking information,” said Dr. Harker. “We believe you may be of some assistance.”
“I find that very hard to believe,” said the sergeant. “But ask away. It passes the time, and I’ve wanted for company these last days.”
“A friend of ours was killed. We seek his killer.”
“Do I look like a wise woman? How would I know who killed your friend? I never saw one of you before this day and I have only recently returned to these shores.”
“It was a recent murder,” said Ocean.
“Even so...,” said the sergeant. “What business is it of mine? I know nothing about it.”
“This friend of ours, he had a Death and the Arrow card on him when they found him.” For the first time, the sergeant looked at Dr. Harker—but only for a second before returning to his vigil.
“You know something of the Death and the Arrow murders, do you not?” said Dr. Harker.
“Some,” said the sergeant, pulling a Death and the Arrow card from his pocket.
“If you know the killer,” said Tom, “please tell us where we can find him.”
“If I knew where to find him,” said the sergeant, “do you think I’d be sitting here waiting for him?” With that he ripped the card into pieces and tossed them onto the table next to the gun. “And here I wait. Man or Devil or the Reaper himself, I’m ready.”
“But you think you know what he is, don’t you, Sergeant Quinn?” said Dr. Harker.
“And why would you say that?”
“Because you identified the body. You saw the arrow and you had seen many like it before, had you not, when you served in the Americas?”
Death and the Arrow Page 5
