“You’ve got an ugly face, too,” the dwarf said. “You can use them both for bum paper for all of me, and tell the bleeding Doctor I said so.”
“You’re to give me a ride down to Egypt Bay.”
“Except I’m not a-going down to Egypt Bay, you little shit. Not till we’re done with this here caper.”
“Tomorrow,” Finn said. “I don’t mean tonight.”
“Then tomorrow you wait here, sitting in plain sight. If the Crumpet says we’re taking you to Egypt Bay, then that’s just what we’ll do.”
Finn was suddenly at a loss for words, the name “Crumpet” catching in his throat along with his breath. A door began to open behind the barrow, and Finn turned away, trying to affect the air of someone naturally taking his leave. He heard the Crumpet’s simpering, high-pitched voice say, “Do you want your bed sent out, dwarfy-dear? A nice nap, perhaps?”
“Shut your gob,” said the dwarf, “where have you been this past two hours while I’ve been brewing up this stinking pitch?”
“Shepherding the night along,” the Crumpet said. “Himself is in a pretty mood. Assassins everywhere, apparently.”
“Now you’re here, Crumpet, lend a hand. Clap on to that there tin and sort it out.”
Finn angled toward the roast pig, being butchered now on a board set up on two sawhorses, steaming chunks being handed out on sheets of newsprint. “I’ll buy a portion, sir,” Finn said, his voice husky, his heart beating hard.
“Take yourself off,” a man said to him. “This ain’t no public mess.”
“Stow it, Tom,” the man butchering the pig said. “It’s my bleeding pig. The boy needs a bite of supper.” He handed Finn a paper with a half-pound of dripping pork shank on it. “Keep your pennies,” he said. “Duke Humphrey’s treat.”
Finn thanked him and stepped away into the shadows, making himself inconspicuous, wondering at the odd business of himself giving Newman the crackers for no reason other than it came into his head to do it. And now here he was eating first-rate pork that a man had given him that same way, one thing leading to another, or so he hoped. He liked the idea that a person might be served out for good deeds as well as bad. From the safety of his hiding place he held the newspaper in front of his face and blew on the hot meat while he watched the Crumpet struggle with a heap of folded tin, unhinging it into a four-sided box with no top or bottom. The dwarf used a pair of iron tongs to set the smoking pot of syllabub carefully onto the metal bed of the barrow, securing it with twisted wire, and then the two of them climbed onto upturned crates and slipped the tin sides down over the kegs, hiding them. Painted on the tin was the word “Pine-apples” with an ill-painted depiction of the fruit alongside.
The Crumpet took a step back, looked the cart over, took the lamp from its peg and hung it on a hook protruding from the barrow, and then cupped his hand over the chimney and blew out the flame. He closed the still-open door of the building behind him, and the two of them trudged away across the courtyard and up the alley toward Wentworth Street, the dwarf pushing the barrow and the Crumpet walking on ahead.
Finn gave them forty feet and then followed, soon stepping out onto Wentworth Street, past a sign on the wall: “George Yard,” it read. Across Wentworth Street lay another narrow bystreet, toward which the two were evidently bound. There was a moderate crowd of people afoot, and the dwarf shouted, “Make a lane, there!” trying to push the barrow through the unheeding pedestrians.
Finn stood for a moment thinking, suddenly unsure whether to follow or to return to Angel Alley. The Crumpet was evidently going about Narbondo’s dirty business, and it would be interesting to know what business that was. But Finn had no desire to put himself in the way of the Crumpet, or to leave Eddie behind if he could help it. The hot syllabub and siphon apparatus hidden in the barrow had an ominous air to it, although what it portended he couldn’t begin to say – nothing so innocent as burning the Witch of Winter. There was little he could do about it anyway, he decided, and might likely get burnt to a cinder for trying.
Finn turned back toward Angel Alley, hurrying past the dog kennels now. His mention of Egypt Bay hadn’t confounded the dwarf as he feared it might; it had gone straight home. He entered the yard with the pump where the ghost had appeared. The old woman and Lazarus were nowhere to be seen, but he spotted Newman standing in a ray of moonlight along a dangerously leaning wall of shacks built of ancient boards. The boy stood rigid, staring upward, as if at the moon itself, and Finn realized with a start that his eyes were rolled back into his head. He seemed to have petrified. His mouth was open. Perhaps he was asleep, standing up.
“Ahoy, Newman,” Finn said, and then again louder when he got no response.
Newman’s face changed, its slackness tightening, his mouth slowly drawing shut, his eyes reappearing. He swallowed heavily, his enormous Adam’s apple bobbing. He stared at Finn for a moment before apparently recognizing him. “’Lo, Crackers,” he said, blinking.
“Hello yourself,” Finn said. “Do you know Jermyn Street?”
“Jermyn Street? Oh, aye. The length of it. There’s Dunhill, where they sell the pipe tobacco, and Tarkenton’s along past it, and…”
“I’m thinking about the far end. Near Green Park. Queen’s Walk side.”
“Oh, aye. There’s…”
“A toymaker named Keeble has a shop there. I’ll lay odds that you’ve looked into the window more than once.”
A lamp switched on behind Newman’s eyes. He nodded happily.
“There’s a door just beyond that shop, at the far corner, the little cut-off piece of Jermyn, with a sign that says ‘Scout’s Rest.’ Can you read?”
“Oh, aye. Somewhat, leastways.”
“Look for the sign, then, right there on the corner, set into the bricks. Bang the knocker next to the sign. Hard, mind you. Wake the house. There’s a speaking tube alongside. When they answer, tell them that you’ve a message for Jack Owlesby, or Mrs. Owlesby, if she’s in and he ain’t.”
“A message is it?” Newman asked, looking at him shrewdly now.
“You’ll hear them through the speaking tube, just as clear as if they stood before you. Tell them, ‘Finn Conrad says it’s Egypt Bay, in the marsh.’ Can you do that, say into the tube? Tell them that’s where the Doctor’s bound if he’s bolted.”
“Egypt Bay if the Doctor’s bolted. In the marsh. Jack or the missus. Message from Finn Conrad to be shouted into the tube.”
“That’s it in a nut. Tell them Finn’s gone on ahead as best he can. Can you go there now, to Jermyn Street? It’s late, but… Here.” Finn looked around hastily and, seeing no one evidently watching, he removed his toeless right shoe and took half a crown out of it before slipping the shoe back on. He pressed the coin into Newman’s palm and closed his fingers around it. “Will you help me?” he asked.
Newman opened his hand and stared at the coin, then pocketed it. He nodded briskly.
“Don’t tell anyone, not even old Lazarus,” Finn started to say, but he said it to Newman’s back, for the boy was already running, away up Angel Alley where he shortly disappeared from view. Finn followed him at a brisk pace, but by the time he got to Wentworth Street Newman had quite disappeared. To Finn’s surprise, however, the Crumpet and the dwarf were still there, across the street now, communicating with someone inside a carriage – a five-glass landau, black and gold paint, very swank, luggage strapped onto the back atop a capacious rack, headlights shining into the night. The two horses stamped impatiently while the driver, an ugly, wrinkled gnome-like man in an ancient, enormously tall beaver top hat, waited on his seat beneath a gas lamp on a post. His boots, Finn saw, had two-inch-thick soles. He tapped his fingers against his knees as if keeping time to music that only he could hear.
Finn walked forward, as if to pass in front of the carriage, trying to get a look at the passenger. It was dim within the interior, but the silhouette of the hunchbacked man was clearly visible – Narbondo himself. The top of Eddie’s head was just visible on the seat opposite. Finn studied the luggage rack, which was placed low to the ground on a sort of flying bridge at the level of the axels. There was ten inches or so between the narrow, strapped-down trunk and the back wall of the carriage.
The driver whipped up the horses now, and the coach moved away, the Crumpet and the dwarf setting out again. Finn took a running start, following the carriage as it gained speed, rocking on the rough pavement. As long as he kept tight to the rear corner, he would be out of sight of the driver. He ran faster, a measured distance from the moving vehicle. The two in the coach looked ahead. Abruptly he threw himself sideways and forward, pulling
