By Gaslight

by Steven Price

  But Foole turned back to watch the orange fog seethe in the street below, saying nothing more. He would not condone murder, would sooner flee the city than take that course. He was remembering again how the circle had hushed, Pinkerton creaking in his seat to stare, his grip slackening in uncertainty in Foole’s own. She is here, Edward, the spirit had murmured. Foole had staggered to his feet in horror, speechless, uprighting all. The stupidity of it appalled him now. No, the detective would not need long to disentangle the truth.

  And then? Foole clutched the blanket tighter at his chest, glared. The fog crept past.

  And then the bastard would come for him.

  He had been fourteen years old, condemned for treason, dressed in rags and shoeless and stinking, the first time a Pinkerton had come for him. He had not known it then, of course. He stumbled out of his meeting with Major Allen of the Secret Service of the Potomac with his wrists unshackled and his legs free, thinking he had just met an old soldier, nothing more. He kept peering about as if some mistake had been made but if so the mistake was his. In a filthy cell back at Camp Barry a pallet of straw held his shape where he had lain now for weeks awaiting his death and he did not believe such a death had been averted. He was taken downstairs in that house by the burned man in his frock coat and seated in front of a fire and there he waited alone. He looked at the windows, looked at the door. He did not know if it was some trick to test him, if he was being watched. Ten minutes passed. An enormous black man with monstrous hands and a neck thick as a dray horse’s came in, went out, came back. Edward watched him fearfully. The man was coatless, a pistol holstered backward at each hip like a gunslinger. He wore a yellow vest with a gold watch chain pinned to the lapel and a heavy gold ring on his left hand and when he spoke Edward glimpsed two gold front teeth.

  Mr. Edward Shade, he said, pausing on each syllable, his voice a bass rumble. I guess you best come with me. But he stood sizing Edward up, not moving. Ain’t much to you, is there. I suppose that be you own sweet luck, boy.

  Edward did not understand his meaning. He got to his feet then followed the monster outside into darkness and they crossed the muddy street without speaking. His bare soles ached in the cold, he felt light-headed, he trembled in hunger. The man led him down a side alley and through an unlocked gate and knocked twice at the door of a lightless building and the door opened.

  Go on, in you get. Ain’t no changin you mind now.

  It was a two-roomed safe house for Secret Service operatives and almost totally empty. The scarred man Edward had seen at his meeting with Major Allen was in the first room, fixing bedding to a small folding cot in one corner, and he rose and regarded the boy with his ravaged face.

  It all right, Mr. Spaar, the black man murmured. Go on with you.

  The burned man, Spaar, opened his mouth in a stiff expression. Just you don’t better kill him tonight, Ben, he said. Not like the last one.

  Ben grinned. Oh I don’t reckon that be necessary. Ain’t that right, Mr. Shade?

  Spaar made a strange sound, low in his throat, a laugh. Don’t look so frightened, kid. The Major’s the one you should be afraid of, not Mr. Porter here.

  Ain’t that the truth.

  Edward thought of the Major, his scorched eyes, leaning back in shadow.

  You cross the Major, Spaar said, tugging at the brim of his hat and pausing at the door, then you’ll know what fear is. He wrapped a scarf over his mouth and nose until only his eyes showed, he drew on a tight pair of gloves. Then he opened the door and went out into the cold.

  The man Ben had settled himself on a ladderback chair against the wall. Go on, he said, best get youself to sleep. You life about to get complicated, boy.

  You just plan on sitting there all night?

  I do.

  Edward did not undress but crawled under the covers of the cot and felt it shudder under his weight, the sudden slouching give of it disorienting. He closed his eyes, his head swam. Does the army even know where I am? he said. With an enormous struggle, he cracked an eye. Is this even legal?

  Aw, now. Country’s at war, boy.

  The country can go to hell, he mumbled.

  Ben smiled, his gold teeth gleaming in the low light. You still ain’t gettin it. You don’t belong to the United States Army no more. You belong to Major Allen now. And the Major ain’t no part of nothin. From this night on, if you goin to die, boy, you be dyin for him.

  Edward closed his eyes, he opened his eyes, the darkness had deepened. He shifted onto his side, folded his hands between his warm knees. Ben was still awake, still watching.

  How much is he paying you? Edward asked sleepily.

  Benjamin Porter sat hulking in the corner beside the door, fists folded on his knees, face lost in shadow. Payin me? I owe the man my life, he said quietly. It ain’t a damn question of nickels.

  All week Foole did nothing. Grief was at work within him and for almost the first time in his adult life he did not know his next move. Charlotte’s death was no less fixed and yet he had no further leads on her killer. The Saracen worked to kill only himself, no other. Charlotte’s uncle withered in a barren cell at Millbank, betraying no one, dying day by day among the rats and beetles. Pinkerton, clever, brutal, would care nothing now for her murder. None of them had any hand in her destruction. Before sleep Foole would smudge the pier glass with his fingers, mar his own reflection. Each night looking a little older, more haggard, than the last. At noon on Thursday he sat alone at his lunch and took out Charlotte’s letter and ran a whorled thumb over the signature, going through all the ways he had failed her. On Friday he held that letter over a lit candle and turned it this way and that as the flame ate towards his fingers. Blaming her. All things must end, he told himself, not quite believing it. On Saturday he stalked the rooms of his house and stood in the kitchen listening to the rain on the window, alone. There was a clatter and then Mrs. Sykes materialized in the scullery door, a bucket of soapy water at her feet, her cautious grey eyes filled with pity. And he understood: Charlotte was gone. Nothing would bring her back.

  Mrs. Sykes shooed him down, set a kettle on the stove for tea. Revenge never set a scale to balance, Mr. Foole, she said. Man like you ought to know that by now.

  He thought of Allan Pinkerton, the old detective’s relentlessness. He looked away.

  I lost my mister to the loop a lifetime ago, now. Not a day goes by I don’t think of it. Mrs. Sykes pressed two scalded hands to the nape of her neck, tired. But I didn’t never stop my own livin on account of it. It weren’t for me to do. If you take my meaning.

  Foole squinted at her as if through a blurred glass.

  I had my Hettie, sir.

  Yes, he said slowly. Well.

  There’s those what need you right here, she said. An it ain’t too late to save them.

  You mean Molly.

  I mean Molly, aye. She pressed her chin down into the soft of her throat. And I mean your own self too.

  It might have been Mrs. Sykes’s words, or the passing of the days, or some third thing. But he awoke the next morning with a clear head and a coldness taking shape inside him. His grief and shame were still there but had dulled. He sat with Molly and Fludd in the Emporium, a low coal fire burning in the grate, trying to talk it through. Molly still knew nothing of his life as Edward Shade and Foole looking past her glimpsed Fludd’s murderous expression and turned away. The giant had wanted it told, he knew, from the moment they left Pinkerton in that tunnel under the Thames. Had thought it unfair for the girl not to know, to be a part of their crew, at risk, in peril, but oblivious to it. It ain’t any way to manage a crew, Mr. Adam, Fludd had said. Now Molly scratched at the scabbed back of one hand, stared at the fire. Foole started to tell what Fludd had already heard, the account of the seance, its implications. But when it came time to explain the story of Edward Shade he glanced at Fludd and paused and then he left it out, surprised at his own hesitation.

  Molly listened to the rest, disbelieving, swearing a blu
e streak under her breath. Leaning against a shelf with her arms folded. Pinkerton? Jesus.

  I could gill him, Fludd suggested quietly. He turned a knife in the firelight. Could slick his ribs, be done with it.

  Molly snorted. Right, an get every bloody beak in the city up for blood. Pinkerton’s not just any blueleg. A touch like that like to get us more trouble than ever.

  The giant shook his shaggy head. We disappear then.

  Need blunt to disappear, Jappy.

  So we pull a job. Are we bloody flash touches, us three, or not?

  An what job would that be?

  Any job.

  Just scoop up a bucket of blunt an be gone, is that it? Takes months to set up a grift. You been in the jug so long you forgotten how it goes. She paused, her cheek lined in the silver light of the window. What’s he up into, anyway? How do Pinkerton even know we’re flash?

  Balls of brass, kid. Mr. Adam? It’s your carriage, we’re just ridin it.

  Foole, brooding, said nothing.

  Mr. Adam.

  Slowly Foole lifted his eyes, he met Fludd’s gaze. The fire smouldered in the grate. After a moment he nodded imperceptibly. Tell her the rest, he said.

  Mr. Adam’s got a history with the Pinkertons, Fludd said abruptly.

  Aye, we all do. Then Molly bit at her lip, glared. What history?

  With the old man himself. Allan.

  Molly was silent.

  Allan Pinkerton were a major in the United States Army, during their war, Fludd said. Mr. Adam served under him before deserting. Just a kid. Not much older than you. The giant scooped at his beard, glanced at Foole, at Molly. What do the name Edward Shade mean to you, kid?

  She shrugged, suspicious. Why? What’s he?

  You never heard him talked about? In the flash houses like?

  Bloody hell. Just tell it already.

  Edward Shade, Fludd said, is the greatest thief in the smoke. Never been caught, never been touched. Half in the flash don’t even think he’s real, other half never even heard of him. There’s those in the Yard what think he’s a folk tale. But the Pinkertons believe. Shade’s the jake William Pinkerton come to London to find, on account of his father. Old Allan hunted Shade for twenty years. It were a kind of obsession for him, like. Made him half crazy, by some accounts. Blamed Shade for any theft he couldn’t solve, an even some he could. An now his son is at to seein it through. Fludd leaned forward, the chair creaking. Pinkerton had it that Charlotte Reckitt known Shade once. He were here to ring her, nothin else.

  Molly nodded slowly. Then this Shade’s to blame for what happened to her.

  Somethin like that, aye.

  So we knick him then. An clear ourselves with Pinkerton in the bargain. He’d give us a pass if we sewed up this Shade, I reckon. She looked up. How do we find him?

  Findin him ain’t the problem. Fludd paused, frowned. You an me is both lookin at him, kid.

  Molly blinked, glanced uncertainly across at Foole in the firelight.

  Fludd rose to his feet. Meet the mysterious Edward Shade, kid. In the mighty flesh.

  Molly stared past the giant, her face clouding, then suddenly fierce. Edward Shade? That’s your name, Adam, for real?

  Lower your voice, kid.

  You always said the past never mattered, she said, ignoring the giant. You always said it were today what makes us us. You an your bloody stories. She whirled on Fludd. Pinkerton had a blood feud with him an you never thought to tell me? Edward bloody Shade my arse.

  You can see now why we got to get out of London, Fludd said quietly.

  She rubbed at her face, set a hand shakily on a chair. Only place to hide from the Pinkertons, she said, is the grave.

  Now Foole looked up from the fire, his eyes sharpening.

  Not even there, he said.

  At the sound of his voice her expression again hardened. He could see her shock, the baffled hurt of it, but he offered no apology. His past, for god’s sake, was his own.

  You’re both right, he said softly. We need blunt to clear our debts, get out of the city. He interlaced his fingers and he looked at his companions with a black expression. And I know what we can steal to make that happen.

  Edward had awakened on that first morning as an operative of the Secret Service of the Potomac with his head aching and a smell of fresh coffee in the air. Sunlight had tangled itself in the curtains. He was alone. Someone had left a tray on the man Ben’s empty chair and when he lifted the silver lid he saw buttered toast, scrambled eggs, three thick slices of ham. He ate, he wiped his hands on his shirt, he sat on the cot thinking. At last he rose and opened the door and stepped out into the alley.

  A black woman was taking down some washing from a line and she paused over her basket and regarded him and he looked past her for any sign of Major Allen’s men. But then the woman snorted and addressed him by name and he looked at her again, astonished, and she laughed.

  Shoot, she said. You never reckoned the Major was just goin to leave you lonesome, now?

  She set two fingers to her mouth and whistled and a moment later the huge black operative, Ben, came out of a door down the alley, wiping his mouth on his sleeve, his pistols and belt slung over one shoulder. Ben looked bigger, more scarred, in the daylight, his nose flattened to a crooked angle as if it had been badly set years ago, his huge hands callused and rough.

  You eaten then? he said in his deep voice.

  But did not wait for an answer and only leaned down and kissed the black woman on her forehead, and then shoved past Edward towards the street with a grunt that he should follow.

  And so began Edward’s training. He did not see Major Allen. As the days passed he learned the slow dangerous art of being a spy. Ben instructed him first on how to conduct a rough shadow, how to follow a mark and be seen so that the mark could know he was being tailed. The trick, Ben said, was to remain aloof, not to lose the mark but not to approach so near that you could be confronted. When Edward asked what to do if he was challenged, the man shrugged. Make the bastard nervous, he growled. With the scarred man Spaar, Edward learned to eavesdrop on conversations in cafés, in restaurants, in train stations. With Ben’s wife Sally he worried away at different accents, catching a Virginia lilt almost at once. On his fifth day Spaar seated him before a mirror with two dozen electric bulbs blazing around it and pulled out a carpet bag filled with sticks of chalk and paint trays and dyes and described the art of makeup and disguise. Edward learned to rely not on the altered appearance but on the physical gesture that would distract a person’s attention. He learned to walk quickly while appearing casual, to move slowly while appearing to hurry. He learned that nothing is as it seems, and that to trust one’s senses is to trust a treacherous thing. Every night Ben sat broodingly at the door to bar his way, hinting at Major Allen’s furies, his rage, his impatience, his intolerance of failure or weakness of any kind. In the second week Ben worked on Edward in a makeshift pugilist’s ring in a depot warehouse near the rail yards. He knocked Edward down, knocked him down again. When the boy cried out Ben cracked his knuckles in disgust.

  You think the Major goin to show you mercy?

  Edward was on his knees, the breath knocked out of him.

  Get up. I seen the Major take out a man’s fingernails with a hot poker. You get on up now. You don’t want to make the wrong impression, boy, when he test you tomorrow.

  Edward raised his bruised face. Tomorrow?

  Ben grimaced. I said get youself up, boy. We losin daylight here.

  Foole’s idea was simple: steal a painting.

  But not just any painting, he said, watching his companions in the firelight. It’s called The Emma. And it’s set to command thirty thousand pounds at auction.

  Fludd gave a low whistle. Thirty thousand pounds, he muttered.

  We could work it back for a third of its value and be gone without any warrant ever being issued.

  Molly, sullen, frowned. You want us to chalk out a bloody painting? A painting, Edwa
rd?

  Foole studied her until she blushed and looked away. He held up a hand, folding down his fingers one by one. An art heist could be set up and executed quickly. And it had never before been done, to his knowledge. The reason was obvious: a work of art of any value would be impossible to fence, being too identifiable. But this would make the target an easy one in that the security would be minimal. And they could negotiate the painting back to its owner at a fraction of its value, say, ten thousand pounds, in exchange for the dropping of any charges. This particular painting, this Emma, had made the front page of the Times at least once a week for months now, and its notoriety would ensure its value. They would employ their solicitor, Gabriel Utterson, to attend the exchange in their stead and negotiate on their behalf, as legal representative.

  Utterson, Fludd scowled. You mean to trust him again? After everything?

  We’ve worked together fourteen years. Foole withdrew from inside his frock coat a folded sheet of newsprint and smoothed it out and passed it across to the giant. It was an article on the painting. I don’t muddy the waters, Japheth, when it comes to business, he said. It’s not a matter of trust. It’s a matter of profits. And Gabriel understands profit.

  Molly glared darkly at a spot in the carpet, hardly listening.

  Fludd shrugged. Right. Supposin we agree. Supposin we reckon this a live possibility, now. What do it require?

  Just us. No outsiders. But I haven’t cleared it all in my head. We’ll need to know the building. Hours, routines. We’ll need an approach and an exit. We’ll need to know the gallerist and his resources. His name is George Farquhar, he’s a wealthy man already by all accounts. Famous in all the right circles. We’ll want details, specifics. How he spends his leisure time. His wife’s relations, if he’s married. Where he lives.

  Timeline? Fludd prompted.

  Foole rubbed at his whiskers. Ten days. Maybe two weeks. Not a day longer.

  Two weeks? Can’t be done, Mr. Adam.

  Foole looked at Molly in the gloom, he shook his head.

  It has to be, he said.