The Merchant and the Rogue Read online

  “The rogue Dreadful, more like.” Fletcher held out a hand to him. “Here’s hoping you’ll not be on your own for long.”

  Brogan shook it. “Here’s hoping a whole lot o’ things.”

  Vera Sorokina stood in a corner of her family’s print shop, out of sight of the back room. Her father was back there, and he’d be spitting mad if he caught her reading. She’d spent the morning unpacking the newest crate of penny dreadfuls—stories sold in installments, a week or more apart, for a penny a piece—and she had carefully arranged them so the customers would be all the more tempted to buy one. She’d made the mistake of opening one, the first installment in a new series by an Irish author, and had been so immediately engrossed that she was completely distracted from her work.

  That happened more often than it ought. Had the stories been less exciting, she might have been able to resist. But adventure, mystery, romance, monsters, crime—the penny dreadfuls were as varied as they were irresistible.

  She jumped at the sudden sound of the bell chiming over the shop door. She fumbled a bit but managed to quickly slip the tale out of sight.

  The newly arrived customer was George, who worked as a clerk for a bookkeeper nearby.

  “Mr. Harris is wanting his usual supplies,” the clerk said. “He’s in a rare taking today, so I’ll not have time to chat.”

  Though Vera had never met George’s employer, she was certain George’s days working for the man were an unending misery.

  “Mr. Harris would yell at a dog then kick the beast for good measure.”

  George nodded his agreement. “Trouble bein’, I’m the dog at the moment.”

  “We’d best wag a tail, then, mate,” Vera said.

  “You’ll have my unending gratitude.”

  She opened the drawer holding the lightweight parchment the bookkeeper always asked for and pulled out the amount he’d be wanting.

  George turned toward the door to the back room but didn’t walk closer to it. “Halloo, Mr. Sorokin.”

  “George,” Papa acknowledged. He preferred to stay in the back room on days when a new set of penny serials were on display, but he did talk to the customers when they gabbed at him. “Is Mr. Harris still causing you grief?”

  Papa hadn’t lived in Russia for sixteen years, but the sound of his home rested heavily in his voice. Vera, on the other hand, hadn’t retained even a hint of the land of her birth, a land she’d left when only five years old. Anyone listening would mark her as a South Londoner and never guess she’d been born in St. Petersburg. Sometimes she forgot herself.

  “He’s always kicking off over something or other,” George said. “Today it’s ink.”

  Vera pulled open the cupboard holding ink bottles. Mr. Harris demanded a very specific shade of black and would tear George to bits if the poor clerk returned with the wrong bottle. Vera checked the label four times, just to be certain.

  “I see you still have your sign out saying you’re hiring on,” George said. “Have you had any inquiries?”

  “A couple,” Vera said, “but one applied while roaring drunk, which didn’t bode well. Another said he’d be willing to stock shelves but drew the line at making deliveries, as he didn’t care to exert himself overly much. I told him we didn’t care to pay people to be lazy.”

  She set several sheets of blotting paper beside the other items. She knew this purchase well enough to fill it by memory. She quoted George a price a ha’penny below what was normal between them.

  He raised an eyebrow in hesitation.

  “I happen to know Mr. Harris fancies a bargain,” Vera said. “You saving him a bit of coin will leave him pleased as a pig in the mud.”

  He breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Miss Vera.” He turned toward the backroom door. “And my thanks to you, Mr. Sorokin.”

  “Nye za schto,” Papa returned.

  George looked to Vera with an expression of confusion and expectation.

  “Papa said, more or less, ‘you’re welcome.’”

  Their transaction was quickly completed, and George slipped out.

  Papa’s occasional lapse into Russian had bothered their customers and neighboring shop owners when they’d first opened their doors six months earlier. But most had seemed to shrug it off in the end. Soho was filled with people from all over. Papa didn’t cause anyone any grief, so the locals decided not to be bothered by him.

  With George sorted and on his way, Vera, after one quick check that she wasn’t visible to her father, took up the penny story she’d been reading. Papa objected to having the tales and stories in the shop, but Vera knew every author and which stories belonged to which, and the order of every installment. She eagerly devoured every one that arrived, waiting with empty lungs for each shipment. Papa didn’t have to know that.

  The shop would be full to bursting tonight as the working men and boys dropped in to grab copies of their favorites on their way home. It was the part of her job she liked best. Selling them had been her idea, and she was proud to say that that decision had pulled their the shop out of the suds.

  After an hour or so, the first wave of readers arrived, eager for a copy of the popular tales and the chance to lark about in made-up worlds, far from the heavy lives they lived. Men, boys, women, girls, all clamored around the penny serials. If the shop was bigger, it likely would’ve seemed less successful. As it was, looking like they had a crowd was good for business.

  “Miss Vera?” Olly called her over. He was eight years old, always a bit filthy, and as keen as mustard to be part of anything and everything. He was always knocking about the shop when new tales arrived, though he seldom had money to spend. “This one’s new, i’n’t it?” He held up a copy of Brogan Donnelly’s latest.

  “It is, yeah.” She crossed over to him. “Have you read this author before?”

  “I ain’t, no.”

  Vera had suspected as much. She addressed the gathered boys as a whole. “His stories ain’t about children like Fletcher Walker’s or Lafayette Jones’s. Might be you’ll not like ’em as well.”

  “We ain’t weak as water,” Burnt Ricky objected.

  “And we ain’t babies,” added Bob’s Your Knuckle.

  The street children often had odd names.

  “You’re a regular pride of lions, I don’t doubt,” Vera said. “And you might well like it, but it’s different from what you usually pick. I only want to make certain you know that.”

  “Is it gruesome?” Olly asked, a bit of doubt tugging at his soot-smudged brow.

  “Not yet.”

  “Have you read it?” None of the boys posed that question, but rather a man standing nearby who sounded as though he hailed from Ireland.

  She turned to look at him. He wasn’t dressed fine and fancy, but neither did he look like he was a breath away from poverty. His hair was a startling shade of red. He watched her expectantly.

  “I have. And I am eager for the next installment. Of his, and Mr. King’s, and Fletcher Walker’s, and Lafayette Jones’s.”

  “’Twould seem you’ve read a great many of the penny dreadfuls.” A grin blossomed on the man’s face, and blimey if it didn’t fully upend her. Ginger men were often dismissed as less handsome, less striking, but bless him if he didn’t prove that utterly and entirely false with a simple upward tip of his mouth.

  “I read them all if I get the chance. Pays to know the inventory, don’t it?”

  “I imagine.” He eyed Brogan Donnelly’s latest, the one they’d been talking of mere moments earlier. “Are you enjoying the tale?” He motioned to it.

  She nodded. “Donnelly’s quality at weaving a surprising story. And this one’s set in Ireland, which I’d wager will appeal to you.”

  “Sorted that about me, did you?”

  She tugged her ear. “These ain’t just for holding up spectacles.”
br />   He gave her a sweeping glance. “You don’t wear spectacles.”

  “All the more reason to put my ears to other uses.”

  “Put your ear to listening to my question, Miss Vera,” Olly said, uncharacteristically impatient.

  She motioned to Olly with her head and, to the ginger stranger, she said, “Right nutty little fella, this one.”

  “Miss Vera.” Olly whined out her name.

  She took pity on him. “What’s your burning question?”

  “Would we like ‘The Dead Zoo’?” He flicked his thumb toward himself and his urchin chums.

  She gave the boys her full attention once more. They were being patient, bless ’em. “Mr. Donnelly’s other stories usually have dying and sometimes murder.”

  “Fletcher Walker writes that too, Miss Vera,” Burnt Ricky tossed back.

  “And everyone’s dead in Lafayette Jones’s tales,” Olly said.

  Vera lowered her voice to a dramatic whisper. “Not everyone.”

  Grins appeared on all the children’s faces.

  “Gab amongst yourselves. Let me know what you decide.”

  The children put their heads together, yammering low and eager. She adored the little ones who came into her shop. Too many hadn’t families to look after them. She didn’t fancy herself a replacement for their missing mothers, but she hoped she gave them some feeling of the safety of home.

  The ginger-haired man crossed her path again as she saw to her other customers. “Are you meaning to refuse to sell Donnelly’s latest to the lads?”

  “Not if they fancy it.” She straightened a stack of Mr. King’s latest offering; the green cover was quite striking. “Once they’ve made their pick, I let ’em crack on with it.”

  “Then why go to such lengths warning them?”

  An easy enough question. “It’s tough times. Their pennies are hard-earned. If they mean to spend their coppers here, I fully mean to give them the best I can for their money.”

  She stepped behind the counter. The Irishman leaned a shoulder against the nearby wall, facing her. Studying her. She knew she was a bit tall for a woman, and that caught people’s notice. Her features were often described as looking Russian, though those who told her as much couldn’t ever say what specifically gave away her heritage. She knew so little of the country of her birth that she couldn’t answer the mystery either.

  “What brings you to the shop?” Vera asked the inquisitive new arrival.

  “You’ve a sign in the window saying you’re hiring on help.”

  Ah. She gave him a quick look over. He wasn’t teetering like he’d tossed back a few too many at the local pub. Whether or not he was a lazy bones she couldn’t yet say.

  “We’re looking to,” she said. “There’s a fair lot of hauling things about the shop and running deliveries out to customers.”

  “I was a delivery man when I lived in Dublin,” he said. “Though I can’t say as I’ve ever been hired on to haul things about a shop, I think I could manage it.”

  “Pay ain’t luxurious, but it’s fair.”

  He nodded, not seeming overly worried.

  “And it wouldn’t be all day every day,” she further warned. “Two or three days a week at most.”

  “Fair enough.” He popped his hands in his coat pocket and watched her. “Care to give me a try?”

  “Come by day after tomorrow, and we’ll see how the day goes.”

  “You have yourself a lugging-and-errand boy, Miss Sorokin.”

  “Sorokina,” she corrected. Most people in England hadn’t the first idea how Russian surnames worked.

  “Sorokina.” He dipped his head in acknowledgment.

  “And what’s your name?” she asked.

  “Ganor O’Donnell.” His lips tugged upward, sending her heart fluttering a touch.

  Peter, who had a cart in the area and who regularly dropped in to pick out a story, brought up a penny dreadful to the counter and paid her for it. He had it open even before reaching the door and was distracted enough by what he read to not manage more than a couple of steps outside.

  “He bought that same one you warned the children might be a bit too frightening,” Mr. O’Donnell said.

  “It’s a first installment in a new tale and selling well.”

  “Do you really think the wee urchins’d be upset by reading it?” he asked.

  “Likely not.” London’s street children knew far too much of the world to be upset by tales of danger and dastardliness. “I simply want to make certain they never feel they’ve wasted their pennies.”

  Olly, Bob’s Your Knuckle, and Burnt Ricky still stood at the display, apparently overwhelmed by their options.

  Mr. O’Donnell pulled a penny from his pocket. Without a word he held it out to her.

  “I don’t understand,” she said.

  “For the little ones,” he said. “They can try this new story without worrying over their precious pennies.”

  An act of kindness. That was a good sign, indeed.

  “Thank you, Mr. O’Donnell.”

  “You can call me Ganor,” he said. “I’ll be working for you, after all.” He moved to the doorway, pausing to tip his hat. “I’ll be here day after tomorrow, Miss Vera.”

  Quick as that, she potentially had the help she needed in the shop, provided Papa didn’t take a dislike to him and Ganor was willing and able to do the work. She ought to have been fully relieved. But something in it all gave her pause.

  Perhaps she’d simply read too many penny dreadfuls, and their tales of intrigue and untrustworthy characters had her mind spinning far too easily toward conspiracies. Perhaps. But she’d keep her eyes open and her ears perked just the same.

  by Brogan Donnelly

  Day One

  In the heart of Dublin City, between the River Liffey and the Grand Canal, surrounded by Merrion Square, Trinity College, and St. Stephen’s Green, sits the imposing and stately Leister House where meets the Royal Dublin Society. And housed in the newest wing of this residence-turned-Society premises is a museum of a most unusual nature. Its contents are not unknown elsewhere; its function is not strange for a museum. It is made unusual by the oddity of its name, a moniker both amusing and dark.

  This place of learning and study and preservation is a museum of natural history, filled with the remains of animals large and small, bird and insect, mammal and fish. Skeletons sit alongside wax models that occupy displays alongside taxidermy of a most realistic nature. Whales and eagles, rodents and trout, a Tasmanian tiger and a polar bear. The species are too numerous to name here, but the museum is far from empty. And its contents have earned it, amongst the locals, the name “The Dead Zoo.”

  Early on a spring morning, Amos Cavey, a man who had earned in his thirty-five years a reputation for intelligence by virtue of having mentioned it so very often, stepped inside the zoo of no-longer-living creatures, having been sent for by William Sheenan, keeper of the exhibit of mammals.

  William had asked this tower of intellect to call upon him at the zoo, not out of admiration but desperation. Amos never ceased to brag of his intellectual acumen, and William was in need of someone who could solve a very great and pressing mystery.

  Amos walked with unflagging confidence up the Plymouth stone stairs to the first floor where the mammals were housed. He was not unfamiliar with the museum and its displays. Indeed, he had once proclaimed it “quite adequate, having potential to be impressive indeed.” He had made this observation with a great deal of reluctance as it might very well be seen as a declaration of approval of the Royal Dublin Society, which he did not at all intend it to be.

  Alighting on the first floor, he stepped into the grand hall where the preserved species were displayed, some on shelves, some behind glass, some posed on pedestals. The ornate ceiling rose three stories above the stone f
loor. Two upper stories of balconies overlooked the space beneath. Tall columns supported those surrounding galleries, giving the room a classical look, one designed to complement a place of learning.

  He held back his inward expression of frustration at having to step over and around a mop employed by a janitor. The man offered no acknowledgment of their near collision, but simply continued his efforts, so intent on his work that one would assume he was expunging the worst of muck and grime rather than polishing the floor of a museum that was kept quite clean.

  “Do not mind Jonty,” William said as he approached. “He is so very dedicated to his work. We owe the beauty of this building to his unflagging efforts.”

  Jonty grunted but didn’t speak, neither did he look up from his mopping. As William had declared, he was quite good at what he did, and no oddity of character would see him dismissed from his position. Do we not endure things in people when we value something else enough?

  “Your note,” said Amos with his usual air of superior intelligence, “indicated you are faced with some puzzle you find unsolvable.” He spoke the last word with an unmistakable tone of doubt.

  “Indeed, I am.” William’s tone held far too much worry for anyone to mistake his sincerity.

  “I fancy a challenge,” Amos said. “Tell me of your mystery, and I will find your answer.”

  The reader may find this declaration a touch too arrogant, but Amos did have a most impressive intellect. He was not wrong to rate his abilities so highly, though his tendency to regularly regale people with acclamations of his intelligence made him a difficult person with whom to spend any length of time. Were William not truly in need of Amos’s particular assistance, the self-assured intellectual would not have been offered so sincere a welcome.

  “How familiar are you with our collection?” the harried keeper asked as he motioned for Amos to walk with him amongst the displays.

  “I have visited a couple of times.” Amos looked over the nearest animals with an eye to evaluating them. “I found the musk ox mother and calf intriguing. The particularly large trout, however, I take leave to declare might actually be a salmon.”