“I hope he shook all of this morning’s salt out of his tail,” she said. “With any luck, he
The old woman I killed, Crawford thought; and he threw his coat onto a chair and crossed to the mantel. The fire had gone out, and the room was chilly.
“Will it — save her from Hell?” he asked as he poured himself a glass of whisky. He looked from his glass to McKee. “Would you like … some tea?”
“No. And no, thank you. We have to be going. No, the bird might have caught her ghost, but her ghost isn’t
“Going? No, Miss McKee, I’ve—”
“You and I need to see a man.” She was pacing the carpet by the table.
Crawford shook his head in bewilderment. “Who, that Vindaloo fellow that Trelawny mentioned? Fricassee? Look what time it is — he’ll be asleep.”
McKee frowned and halted. “Trelawny? That old bearded man was Edward John Trelawny?”
“Apparently.”
“I think you saw the — the
Crawford cleared his throat and nodded, and he took a gulp of the whisky before he dared to speak. “Good thing you were quick with your garlic,” he said finally, trying to put a light tone in his voice. “I”—he forced an awkward laugh—“almost tipped over and fell into her eyes.”
“It would have been a long fall. And it’s a good thing you were quick at switching glasses — I owe you my life, I believe.” She blinked at him, then looked away and went on, “But Trelawny didn’t … oppose us.”
“No,” said Crawford. He rubbed his free hand over his face. “In fact, before I left, he showed me the empty palms of his hands and made me show him mine. A … truce gesture?”
McKee shook her head. “He was establishing that neither of you is a member of the Carbonari. They all have a black brand on one palm. And it’s Chichuwee, not Vindaloo.” She canted her head and looked at him through narrowed eyes. “We need to go see him now, to save our daughter.”
For several seconds neither of them spoke; the only sound was throaty mumbling from the bird. Finally, “We’ll go in the morning,” Crawford said. “You and I can’t travel under a — a naked sky at night, correct?”
“It will be mainly … indoors. And she’s
Crawford tried to yell very quietly as he looked around the room and thought of his bed and the oblivion of sleep waiting for him upstairs.
His wife and younger son were dead, and Girard was … something like and unlike dead.
But this Johanna was, apparently, still alive.
He drained the whisky and, with huge reluctance, picked up his coat.
MCKEE WHISPERED, “YOU KNOW the Spotted Dog, on the next street?”
She and Crawford were standing in the recessed doorway of his house with the closed door at their backs. The night air was colder than ever, and her little birdcage was wrapped in a cloth in her handbag.
Crawford was hugging his coat around himself and shivering. “Of course.”
“Meet me there. I’ll walk west, around the old Inn of Chancery, and you go east, as we did this morning.” He saw a quick smile on her face in the shadows, and she softly sang a couple of lines from a popular song: “‘Meet me by moonlight alone, / And then I will tell you a tale.’”
And something-something at the end of the vale, thought Crawford, remembering the vapid lyrics. And was it, he thought forlornly, only this morning that this woman and I walked down to the Strand and got in an old hackney cab with that clerk? And the day’s not done yet.
She had tapped down the steps and was hurrying away to his right, quickly disappearing in the shadows of the old overhanging houses that were now mostly used-clothing shops.
Crawford touched the lump under his coat that was the little bottle of crushed garlic, then sighed and descended the steps and set off to the east.
This end of the street was brighter, for the windows of the Angel public house glowed amber in the fog ahead of him, and, when he had rounded both corners of the place, he could see the blurry lights of the bookshops that had driven the old-clothes business into the next street — though the gigantic masks over the vacated costume warehouse still grimaced down from the murky shadows overhead as he passed by.
The Spotted Dog was at the far end of Holywell Street, almost to Newcastle Street, and Crawford, his gloved hands deep in his overcoat pockets, peered in at the shop windows he passed. Three-volume novels, newspapers, pamphlets denouncing Darwin … he wondered if the young authoress of the
CHAPTER SIX
“Nay now, of the dead what can you say,
Little brother?”
(
MCKEE HAD ARRIVED at their rendezvous before he did and pulled the door open for him.
“We’ll have to buy two tickets,” she said, “even though we’re only going downstairs.” She had four pennies in her hand, and she pushed the big brown coins across the counter of a little window set into the wooden wall of the entry hall; and a moment later she turned and handed Crawford a dented tin card, keeping another in her gloved hand.
She gestured toward the open doorway beyond the counter, and Crawford shrugged and stepped through into what proved to be a vast kitchen lit by gas jets between the beams of the ceiling, with at least twenty people standing around on the flagstone floor or sitting on a bench that ran like a continuous shelf around the whole room. A big black iron stove stood in a far corner, and something was cooking that involved bacon and onions. Some people were lining up with plates.
Crawford looked hopefully at McKee, but she shook her head. “Downstairs,” she said, nodding toward a doorway in the back wall, which was papered with posters announcing various music-hall performers.
Crawford followed her across the room, promising himself a good supper when he got back home.
A couple of the men on the bench called, “Addie!” and another said, “Back in trade, girl?”
“Don’t you just wish, Joey,” she said to him, not pausing.
Beyond the doorway was a dark hall and a flight of wooden stairs leading down. A cold draft welled up from below, smelling of wet clay and wood smoke.
McKee paused at the top of the stairs to shed her coat and bonnet and hang them on a couple of hooks in the wall. “Leave your hat and coat here,” she said. “And take off your gloves. You’ll want to be able to feel the walls.”
Crawford sighed and carefully hung his coat and hat on another hook and stuffed the gloves in his trousers pocket.
The stairs were unlit, and as McKee and Crawford descended below the level of the floor, he held the banister rail and felt for each step with his boot.
He was holding the little tin card in his left hand. “Will we need to show these to anybody?” he whispered. “The tickets.”
“Those are for bed check,” came her voice from the darkness below him. “We’re not going to be sleeping here.”
“No,” he agreed, tucking the thing in his pocket on top of his gloves. He peered uselessly upward, wondering
