Brandon eased away from the wall. His job was done now. “I’ll leave you to it.” Keeping his head down, he started to head for the door at the back of the crowded room.
“One moment.” Phipps pressed a folded paper into his hand. “Condolences,” he muttered.
Brandon automatically closed his fist around the paper and shoved it into his pocket. “Why?” He looked back at Phipps, but the shorter man had already disappeared into the crowd surging toward the ring. A scuffle on the far side had broken out and was growing larger as more men turned from the staged—and probably fixed—match between the African and the flagging Irishman, and enthusiastically joined in the fight going on among the spectators.
He had no interest in joining that fight; his responsibility had only been to keep an eye on the Blackwoods and Pearce until Phipps could arrive to arrest them. That was Brandon’s specialty as a spy: watching. Now Phipps and his men would spirit the thieving clerks and banker away, to face who knew what, and no one in the disorderly crowd would notice or care.
Around him the roar grew louder, punctuated by cracks of a whip as the fight organizers tried to keep order. Brandon pushed through to the rickety stairs, taking them two at a time. When he came out into the back of the dingy pot-house, the owner gave him a sharp glance. The bare-knuckle fight going on in his cellar was hardly secret, but it was illegal all the same. Brandon’s lip curled at what the man would think if he knew several fellows from Bow Street were down there right now. Instead of leaving and fixing suspicion on himself, he leaned against the counter and motioned the publican over.
“When does the African fight again? He’s lost me some blunt tonight.”
The other man’s expression eased. “Thursday next.”
Brandon grunted and dropped a few coins on the counter. “A pot of heavy wet.”
He took the mug of ale and carried it to a small table. The room was busy, with men coming in for a drink before disappearing into the back, going down to see this fight or the next one. No one noticed him here, just another unlucky drayman washing down the loss of his weekly pay before staggering home. He pulled his woolen cap lower on his forehead and drew the guttering candle close before unfolding the note Phipps had passed him. Stafford didn’t waste a moment, sending him to spy on someone else before this job was even concluded.
But that wasn’t all the note said.
The bench scraped along the floor as he jumped to his feet, holding the note close to his face to reread it. He glanced toward the stairs to the cellar, then jammed the note into his pocket, leaving behind his barely touched ale and heading to the door. He strode through the narrow, twisting streets of St. Giles, jumping over the sewers running in the gutters and ignoring the catcalls of the whores. As he went north the buildings seemed to expand and brighten, the cramped poverty of the rookery giving way to more spacious gentility. The houses here were clean brick edifices, tightly fitted together with neatly swept steps and painted railings, their windows dark mirrors for the gas streetlamps. There were still thieves here, but they kept to the shadows.
After a few streets Brandon turned into an alley and went to the back stoop of a house near the end of a long terrace. The door was surely locked tight for the night, but he didn’t bother to try it. Instead he braced one hand on the door, stepped up onto the short railing beside the steps, and reached upward to grab the ledge of the window. He pulled a knife from the sheath strapped under his upraised arm and wriggled the flat of the blade beneath the sash of the window, twisting the knife until he could fit his fingers into the opening. With one hard shove the window slid up; holding the sill with both hands, he walked up the wall until he could pull himself through the open window and into the house. Brandon glanced around as his feet hit the floor, but he’d learned to do that trick almost silently. No sound of footsteps betrayed alarm in the house—not that it would have really mattered, except to his pride. The owner of the house left that window unlocked for just this reason, so Brandon could let himself in without any servant seeing him. He closed the window and went in search of the man.
Light seeped from beneath the door of the master’s study; Sir James Peterbury was still awake. Pausing only a moment to listen for voices, he turned the knob and slipped into the room.
“What the—? Bloody hell,” exclaimed the man who sprang to his feet, first in alarm, then in recognition. “You nearly scared me witless, man!”
“Sorry for that,” said Alec Brandon. He pulled Phipps’s note from his pocket and held it up. “Did you know?”
James looked at the note, then back at Alec’s face. “I presume you mean your brother’s death,” he said quietly. James always had been a quick one, Alec had to give him that. “Yes, I knew. I wanted them to tell you some time ago, but they insisted you were vitally occupied.”
Alec’s tense anger drained away. He dropped into a chair and
