“I hope they hurry up and go to bed before a policeman comes this way on his beat.”
“Look. The light’s just gone out.”
They waited for a little while longer but it was too cold, and too risky, to put it off their entry too late. Eventually they crept to the house. Robert dashed up to the front door and quietly tried the door handle but it was locked, as they had expected. This house had no area at the front with steps to a lower level so there had to be a rear entrance. They had to go right down the street until they found an almost invisible narrow passageway which let them out into an alleyway that wasn’t even wide enough for the night-soil cart to pass along. Quite how these houses managed their hygienic arrangements was anyone’s guess and Theodore decided not to think about it. They crept along, having to extend their hands to keep their fingers on the walls to find their way. It was so dark they could see nothing but the solid blackness of the walls looming up on both sides. Robert had counted his steps and when they reached roughly the back of the house, Theodore moved the flap on the bulls’-eye lantern he was carrying to shine a faint and very focused light on the wooden door. They were numbered to correspond with the houses and they were not far from their target at all.
And luckily, though it was locked, being an outdoor garden gate, it was easy enough to remove the screws that held the bolt. Within moments, they were inside the back yard.
No lights showed at the back of the house, either. They inched their way to the back door and found it was locked and bolted from within.
But that did not matter. They turned instead to the glass in the windows. Neither of them were practised housebreakers so the procedure took them a lot longer than it should have done, but they were careful to work silently as they dug out the putty holding the single pane in place in the frame, and carefully lifted the large square of glass out of the window. It wasn’t large enough for either of them to wriggle through, but Robert could get his arm in and shove it far enough to feel for the bolts at the back door.
Theodore held his breath.
Robert managed it. The mechanism was well-oiled and mercifully silent.
Now they were in the kitchen and the search could begin in earnest. Arsenic was an unassuming white powder and had, indeed, been mistaken for flour and even sugar in many well-known and disastrous cases. Twenty-one people, mostly children, had once died in Bradford in exactly such circumstances when a confectioner had dug into a barrel of arsenic instead of the powdered gypsum with which he usually adulterated his sweets to save on the cost of sugar.
It was a neat and tidy kitchen, though small. They went carefully as it wouldn’t have been unusual for a lowly maid to be sleeping in the kitchen itself or a side room but Wiseman appeared to have few servants and it became apparent they were alone downstairs. They found nothing out of order in the kitchen and soon moved on to the storeroom and scullery area, where a large copper sat in a corner and various barrels and chests were piled up. The walls were covered in shelves but it was noticeable that it wasn’t half as well-stocked a room as a typical country home.
Theodore had been daydreaming for a moment, distracted by the thoughts of storage and preserving food. Robert was staring at him, wide-eyed, gesticulating in the darkness. He went over to be close enough to hear Robert’s urgent whisper.
“This is it, surely!” He indicated a packet of arsenic. Theodore directed the lantern’s light on it. The waxed paper packet contained a granular powder but in the gloomy light, it appeared to be pale blue. But the stamped label on the outside said, very clearly, WHITE ARSENIC. There were also various warnings on it.
“Rat poison,” said Theodore.
“Evidence!”
“Quite possibly.”
“But...?”
“Well, it’s one more strike against Wiseman, yes. Have we looked everywhere?”
“Yes.”
“And there was nothing else? Just this? It is something, but is it enough? Come on, let’s get out of here and we can discuss this outside.” Theodore’s whispers were getting louder; it was hard to stay quiet. Robert agreed, and they left as silently as they could. They left the arsenic behind, of course, and slipped out of the door. It took them even longer to replace the window and they made but a rough job of reapplying the dried and crumbly putty. One sharp knock and that window would surely fall out again, but there was nothing they could do about that.
They half-ran down the alleyway in the darkness, bumping up against the walls and tripping on rocks and stones, and skidded to a halt before they burst out onto the street. Footsteps sounded. They were slow and regular and they could see a light beginning to illuminate the open street ahead.
A policeman, plodding along on his regular beat.
Robert and Theodore flattened themselves against the wall and turned their faces away so that no light would reflect from their eyes in case the policeman shone his lantern down the alleyway. It was good that they did so, because suddenly a pale watery light glowed in front of them. Theodore held his breath.
The policeman passed on. He might have directed his lantern down the alley but he hadn’t been looking very closely.
Theodore breathed again. He wanted to laugh. Hiding in dark alleys, at his age! He had his drama at last. They waited for a few minutes until the coast was definitely clear, and then ran home through the streets like a pair of truanting schoolboys.
ADELIA AND CHARLOTTE had waited up for the return of the two adventurers. The men drank brandy and spoke over one another in a childish breathless rush,
