Sparrow Falling

by Gaie Sebold

EVELINE CHECKED HER equipment. Rope, picks, paper, treacle, drugged meat (Stug might have been lying about the dogs to throw her off, but there was no point taking chances).

  She was just easing open the door when she caught the smell of smoke. “Hope you remembered your picks,” Ma Pether said, from the shadows.

  “Ma...”

  “I ain’t interfering. Just you be careful. You’re out of practice.”

  “No, I’m not! I teach this every day!”

  “You teach cons, my girl. That ain’t the same as sticking a bust. Not one bit, it ain’t. And you ain’t been at any of my classes lately, I’da noticed.”

  “I haven’t forgotten, Ma.”

  “You got your...”

  “I have everything.”

  “Those fancy new picks you bought won’t be no good if you’ve forgotten how to get in and out quiet. Remember what I always sez...”

  “There’s plenty of things you always sez, Ma. Which one’d you like me to remember?”

  Ma pointed a stubby, tobacco-stained finger at her. “Don’t you cheek me, my girl, you’re not too big to be put over my knee.”

  “Oh really? You want to go back to running cons, do you?”

  “You’d throw me out, would you?”

  “I will if you try to get in my way. I’m doing this for all of us, Ma. Now will you please go... do whatever you were doing, and let me get on.”

  “Just you mind yourself, Evvie Duchen.”

  “It’s Sparrow, Ma. Sparrow. You should remember, you’re the one called me it to start with.”

  “So I did. Little Sparrow’s flown the nest, but there’s still nets out there to catch little birds.”

  “Ma...”

  “Go on then.”

  “Thank you,” Eveline said, and went off with something that looked rather like a flounce.

  Ma Pether took out her tobacco pouch and refilled her pipe, with a slight smile, as she watched Eveline go.

  Eagle Estates

  EVELINE FOUND THE office again easily enough, though the buildings in this square all looked a great deal alike. Once one knew where to look for the brass plate, it was simple.

  Getting in was less so.

  The back proved impossible. Great high walls around a small area, difficult to get in, even more difficult to get out of in a hurry. And he’d not been lying about the dogs, big ribby half-starved things. She could drug them, but she didn’t have enough meat to drug the dogs belonging to the buildings on either side as well, all of them kept hungry, all of them excitable. Seemed everyone in these offices was more afraid of a prig than they were of keeping an angry dog hungry enough to bite anyone who happened to be passing.

  Beth was working on a folding ladder which would be perfect for upper-storey work, but it wasn’t quite finished. And though Beth was a finicky creature, if she said something she’d made wasn’t safe yet, then Evvie believed her. Landing on her backside in the road with bits of ladder all around her and the Peelers coming to see what all the noise was about wasn’t how she planned to end this evening’s festivities.

  So it would have to be the front door.

  Mr Stug knew his locks, or at least could pay those who did, but so did Eveline.

  Speed, and confidence. Those were the tricks of it. And a set of nifty new picks, of course. It took a little finicking. The sound of approaching boots sent Evvie flat against the side of the porch, barely breathing, until the Peeler had passed – but pass he did, and eventually the door clicked open.

  The office was pitchy dark, smelling of ink and dust. It didn’t do anything for Eveline’s nerves – she was out of practice, whatever she’d told Ma. Practising on locks in the safety of the school was one thing, but actually sticking a bust was another. She straightened her back and headed for the stairs.

  She paused by the office. Stug was probably just the sort to have all his important papers locked away, but it never hurt to pick up a little extra information.

  No lock at all on this door. Foolish Mr Stug. If everything went as planned, she’d advise him to change that. Anything that provided a little extra trouble would deter the casual prig, as most of them were, and even a determined thief could be delayed long enough to decide the game wasn’t worth the candle.

  The room was bone-cold, with the faintest of light seeping through the shutters. But Evvie had a solution; a neat little lantern. Bless Beth Hastings and her inventive mind! The lantern lit at the turn of a small handle, silently, giving a gentle greenish glow that was almost invisible from more than a few feet away. Beth was so clever, if she ever turned that marvellous mind to making something dangerous she’d have the world asmoke.

  The lantern’s soft glow lit framed certificates on the walls and a presentation pen-set from one of the more nobby charities – the sort which gave balls, where people wore a mint of finery and where Eveline, dressed as a servant, had more than once helped herself to some charity of the rather more direct sort.

  She shook her head at herself. She hadn’t taken as much notice of these trappings as she should have – she, Evvie Duchen – (dammit, Sparrow, she reminded herself – couldn’t afford to slip that way, not even in her own head) – Evvie Sparrow, always so careful to know her mark. Here was a man who wanted to present a respectable face to the world. She could have used that. She’d been all of a fither, and trying to think lawful. It wasn’t just being handy with the picks she had to bring to this – a mark was a mark. What you wanted was for them to buy something, whether it were a pig in a poke or no, and the more you knew of them, the more you could convince them it was just what they wanted.

  There was a pile of correspondence in a wooden tray. She flicked through it. Nothing of note, invitations to this and that... but one bore what must be Stug’s home address, and a very toff ken too. She knew that street, couldn’t throw a stone without hitting some swell. She made a note of it, and nosed around the rest of the room, picking up a pen-knife here and an inkwell there, finally, reluctantly, returning to the hall.

  The stairs wound up into darkness, a thin draft tickled her neck.

  Yes, she was out of practice, and yes, Ma had properly put the wind up her, but it wasn’t like her to be so laggard. She breathed in, darkened the lantern so no stray light would sneak through the unshuttered window, and set her foot on the stair.

  But the closer she got to the room, the slower her feet went. There was something – a scent, a sound – that was riling her nerves. She stood still, listening, and sniffed the air, but whatever it was wouldn’t come forward and make itself known. There was a dog yipping a house or two away, and the rumble of wheels, raised voices – but all of it was outside, none of it had that quality that meant, get out, now.

  Eveline shrugged it off. She had to do this and do it now, or they were all in the suds. She knew which pick worked on this lock and could already find it in the dark with ease – she’d spent hours with these picks, learning the exact shape of each so no troublesome and easily spotted lantern was necessary.

  Snick. The door jumped a little on its hinges, and opened at a push. With her senses on edge, Eveline waited for a theatrically loud creak or groan, but there was none, only a faint, weary whine.

  The room was even darker now, of course, with no daylight seeping around the edges of the curtains. Evvie stood for a moment, just breathing. There was not enough light for her eyes to find however long she stood there, so finally she pulled out the lantern.

  The low, underwater light, which downstairs had been merely convenient, here seemed to elongate and twist what it fell on, so that the legs of the table took on a crouching look, the rods of the chair backs became prison bars, the curtains – both those at the window and the one over the alcove – shifted and stirred as though something waited behind them. Stop it, Eveline.

  The book on the table was far too big. What shewanted was something that would be easy to carry, but would be missed – not something shoved in a corner and forgotten. She trod careful as a cat aro
und the dim space, blessing Ma Pether for getting her into the habit of trousers when she was out on a job like this. There was a lot of dust. Whoever’s cleaning up here en’t doing much of a job, she thought. But then, the office downstairs was somewhere visitors would see. Perhaps Stug didn’t think it worth the trouble – or perhaps he didn’t trust anyone enough to let them up here. Another little flicker of unease ran up Evvie’s spine at the thought. What doesn’t he want them to see? She could see nothing of such obvious value that Stug would fear thieving by his staff; no safe, no important-looking papers. Besides that poor secretary seemed far too cowed to be on the sneak.

  She drew back the curtain over the alcove. There was a trunk there, its top covered with cushions. Out of habit she noted their position, so they could be put back in the same place – then mentally laughed at herself. She was planning, quite deliberately, to steal something that would be missed – and she worried about someone noticing disordered cushions!

  The trunk, however, proved to be both unlocked, and empty of everything but an odd, penetrating smell that she associated with hospitals.

  Yet another oddity, and she was getting twitchier by the minute. There were things here that didn’t seem to belong in an office. Bottles and jars that looked more suited to a chemist’s, bunches of herbs hanging from nails. Horseshoes, and other random things, that tugged at her with a sense of familiarity.

  She could hear Ma Pether’s voice in her head clear as day, If it stinks of a trap, look for the cheese, birdlets – it’s there as sure as eggs is eggs.

  But trap wasn’t quite right. Something was off, yes – something was odd about this room and the strange mix of stuff here there and everywhere.

  Following some not quite acknowledged instinct, Evvie ducked down, shining the light along the floor. A scatter of grains that looked like salt, tiny gleaming crystals. And poking out from under a heavy carved chest, a little girl’s shoe, battered and holed and flattened, a shoe that had had a hard life, and if she was any judge had covered more than one little foot in its bruised history, a miserable barely-worth-it hand-me-down of a shoe. A foundling’s shoe, the very sort of footwear she’d lived in for several years, when she had shoes at all.

  She thought of her sister Charlotte – who had got wet feet one dreadful cold winter’s night, from being taken out in her indoor shoes – and straightened up abruptly, almost hitting her head on the table.

  Never mind what such a thing was doing there. Suddenly she loathed this room and wanted to get out.

  And there, on the shelves behind the table, was a long slender wooden box about the length of her forearm, carved with leaves and little winged creatures that twined and danced in the green light. It seemed to leap out at her, though surely she’d passed that very shelf before. There was no dust on it, or about it. Recently used, then.

  She flipped the catch and eased the lid up carefully – it didn’t seem the right shape for a music box, but one never knew, and she didn’t want it suddenly singing her presence through the building.

  No, not a music box – the case for a wooden whistle, of some wood the colour of honey with darker streaks swirling through it. It was shiny about the mouthpiece with use, and something about it gave Eveline the sense that it was old. It didn’t seem the kind of thing that should be in an office either, but perhaps Mr Stug liked to play a jolly tune when he needed a break from bullying his secretary. The image of the bulldog-jowled Mr Stug cross-legged on his desk, piping away, lifted her mouth in a grin and eased her nerves a trifle.

  It was the work of a moment to slip the case into her bag. She paused a little longer, staring around, and then thought, All right, Ma, I can hear you, I’m going.

  She forced herself not to hurry too much on the stairs. Hopping home with a sprained ankle – or being found by Stug, at the bottom of the stairs with a broken leg – that would put a right spoke in the wheels.

  As she got out into the open air, she eased back her shoulders and breathed in the familiar smoke and sewage stench of London, with a sense of relief. Neat as ninepence, it seemed she hadn’t lost her touch after all. She strolled off down the street, her appearance now projecting respectable factory-girl on her way to work with every stride.

  All the same, she paused on the corner, feeling a little itch between her shoulder blades, the faint weight of eyes. Was that a man-shaped shadow, drawing back into the other shadows?

  But a peeler would blow his whistle and raise the alarm. Nerves, that was all.

  “WELL, WELL,” THE man in the bowler hat said, though only to himself. “Evvie Duchen, as I live and breathe. Up to your old tricks, Evvie? There’s me thinking you’d gone respectable. Now, here you are sticking a bust. And that says to me, Bartholomew, it says, maybe there’s more to this than meets the eye, and maybe where Evvie Duchen is, Ma Pether is too.” He wouldn’t mind seeing Ma Pether banged up – she’d got in his way a few times too often, being as she didn’t approve of various of his business interests. But Ma had been formidable, and maybe still was, and if there was one thing Bartholomew Simms didn’t care to risk, it was his own skin.

  But there might be other advantages to be gained. Yes, indeed there might. He tilted his bowler to a more impudent angle and walked off into the night, at home among its stinks and shadows, softly singing a music-hall song.

  She was as beautiful as a butterfly and proud as a Queen

  Was pretty little Polly Perkins of Paddington Green...

  The Sparrow School

  WHEN EVVIE ARRIVED home, Liu was waiting for her, seated on the step, his feet neatly together, his head cocked. She felt a little jump of relief and pleasure in her chest but determined not to show it. “You’re back then.”

  “Either myself or my ghost, yes.”

  “You look solid enough to me.”

  “But ghosts can be deceptive. Why, I have seen ghosts that could quite be mistaken for a living person.”

  “Hah. Well, whether or not you’re a ghost you got your business done, then.”

  “As did you. Are you going to tell me what it was, Lady Sparrow? Or is this a secret?”

  “I’ll tell you if you tell me where you’ve been, all dressed up and coming back looking like a week of wet Wednesdays.”

  Liu’s mouth, which had been drooping in a way quite unlike him, turned up. “Oh, that is a most charming expression. But then, wet weather is very good for growing rice, you know.”

  “Not much good here, then. So, what’s got you so mumped?”

  “I am not mumped. I am concerned. You have been up to no good, and without me, which is the part that concerns me.”

  “You weren’t here, were you? ’Sides, I can still do some things without your help, you know.”

  “I do, I was merely hoping for the chance to admire you at work.”

  “Well thank you, Lord Blarney.”

  “You don’t believe me?”

  “I shouldn’t.”

  “But you do. What is in that bag, do I dare to ask you?”

  “Well you already have dared, haven’t you? Budge up, and I’ll tell you.”

  Liu obligingly shuffled along the step, and Evvie sat next to him. The sun was rising through the smoke over London, and casting long tree-shadows across the lawn.

  “S’nice,” she said.

  “It is the best time of day. Apart from the dusk. And the night. Afternoons, too, have their moments. And mid-morning is the best time for tea. But then, any time is a good time for tea.”

  “Not the way you drink it.”

  “Putting milk in tea is a barbaric and disgusting habit.”

  “D’you want to see what’s in my bag or do you want to chatter about nonsense?”

  “Show me.”

  “You gotta hear the story first. You know I been looking for something, well, all right, respectable to do?”

  “This involved sneaking out in the middle of the night? It does not sound respectable.”

  “You want to hear this or not?�
�

  He grinned and waved her to go on.

  “Well, I found out this fella Stug’s been asking around about making his offices more secure, see. Seems like he’s everso worried about someone breaking in and making off with his rent. He’s a landlord, right?”

  “So far I am able to follow.”

  “So I went and told him we could do what he wanted, get the place all tightened up. Didn’t tell him how, mind. But I gotta put the girls to use, haven’t I? And this uses what they got and makes it all respectable, poachers turned gamekeepers, see? You know what a poacher is?”

  “Someone who cooks eggs?”

  “Liu...”

  “A poacher is someone who takes without permission animals that someone else believes belong to them simply because they have taken title to the land. I am a poacher, by nature. Land is not owned, and nor are the wild beasts. They are simply claimed.”

  “Right. So a gamekeeper’s the bloke what’s supposed to make sure all the animals are nice and fat and ready when his Lordship wants to go hunting, and ain’t no-one making off with a few rabbits stuck in their pocket. All right?”

  “I see.”

  “So if a poacher turns gamekeeper...”

  “I believe I follow the metaphor. You plan to be a thief turned policeman, in effect.”

  “They say it takes one to catch one. Only I don’t plan to catch none, just show folk how to keep ’em out.”

  “I see.”

  “Liu? Something up?”

  “Not at all. Please go on.”

  “Right. So I goes and tells this Stug fella, only he isn’t having any due to me being a mere female and probably no more brains than a hen. So I decide I’ll show him I know what’s what, and go back and nick something from his offices, so tomorrow – today I mean – I’ll turn up and say, ‘Guess what, look what I got, now, d’you want me to make sure it don’t happen again or what?’”

  Liu stared at her for a few moments.

  “You intend to go to this person and confess to stealing?”