The Lady and the Highwayman Read online

Morris didn’t think so either. “But if they ain’t being snatched by thief-takers, where are they all?”

  “Sleeping somewhere other than the Inn?”

  Morris shook his head as they turned onto Fleet Street, looking for an apple cart or ginger beer seller who’d pay ’em a few coins for guarding their goods. “We’d see the missing ones out making their coins if they were still around. No one’s seen hide nor hair.”

  Jimmy scratched at his head, just below his hat brim. “We could look for them, but we’d not have time to earn our rent for tonight.”

  “I don’t want to sleep on the street,” Morris said. “’Specially if someone’s snatching urchins.” He let out a tight breath. “But we gotta look or no one will.”

  “We’ve another mystery to solve then, do we?” Jimmy grinned at the promise of a puzzle.

  “Seems we do.” Morris liked a riddle as much as his friend did. “Have we enough extra for the Innkeeper tonight?”

  “We can use some of what we’ve secreted away,” Jimmy said.

  It’d be worth it. They might’ve been only twelve years old and not the oldest of the Inn’s urchins, but they looked after the others.

  Rather than stop at the costermonger cart and enquire after pay, they kept on.

  “All the missing ’ns work this area,” Jimmy said. “What­ever’s snatching ’em’s likely around here.”

  They’d solved many a mystery on the streets of London. The skeptical in Town would probably be surprised at how many of those answers were otherworldly. They’d found and defeated ghosts, encountered monsters, outsmarted villains. If history held true, they weren’t searching out anything humdrum.

  “John-John was the last to go missing,” Morris said. “He always does his diving near Covent Garden. I’d say we’d do best to sniff around there a bit.”

  The market was busy, as always. Sellers shouted flattering descriptions of their wares. Most were probably lies. Ends didn’t meet on the streets of London without a bit of stretching.

  “I see a flower seller I know,” Jimmy said. “Perhaps she’s seen somethin’.”

  Morris nodded, looking over the crowd for anyone he thought might have something to offer. A boy with a familiar, dirt-smudged face slipped around the back of a vegetable cart, nipping a carrot before scurrying off. Morris followed quick on the boy’s trail. The little one was fast, but not fast enough.

  He snatched hold of the boy’s arm. “Morris here, George. Only Morris.”

  That put an end to the fight just beginning. “Thought you was the police.”

  “Have the police been snatching up urchins, then?” Morris had been sure that wasn’t the answer to their mystery.

  George shrugged. “Someone ’as.”

  “Then you ain’t seen nothing.” A disappointment, that. “John-John works this corner of things. Jimmy and I thought maybe someone would have an idea what’s happened to him.”

  George snapped off a bite of the carrot, talking as he chewed. “John-John told me he’d come into the cream and wouldn’t need to filch here no more. I said he had the best fortune of anyone. Maybe he weren’t so fortunate.”

  Morris could see the worry growing in the boy’s eyes. “Maybe he were. Maybe ol’ John-John found himself a flush post after all.”

  George’s little brow angled sharply. “Don’t sell me a dog, Morris. This ain’t my first day on the streets.”

  He ought to’ve known better than try to tell a lifelong urchin to imagine the best when the worst made more sense. They learned young that it was better to be clever than rosy-eyed.

  “Did he tell you anything about going anywhere or with anyone?”

  George shook his head. “Only said he’d be nose-deep in the clover. He were right pleased.”

  Didn’t sound like he’d been stolen. Maybe John-John really had just gone to a better situation.

  Jimmy returned, looking as confused at Morris felt. “Becky, what sells the flowers, says John-John left to work for some swell.”

  Same as George said.

  “Odd, though,” Jimmy continued. “She said Sally, who disappeared from the Inn last week, told her the same. That she’d a chance for something better and meant to take it. Becky said neither of them seemed afraid.”

  Morris scratched at the back of his neck. “So maybe we ain’t searching out a kidnapper but a do-gooder?”

  George spoke again, still working at his carrot. “Sally wouldn’t’ve gone off without Mary. Best mates, ain’t they?”

  Morris met Jimmy’s eye. There was truth in George’s view of things. Neither Jimmy or Morris would trek off to a grand opportunity without the other. Sally and Mary were the same.

  None of this made a lick of sense.

  The three of them wandered away from the market, none speaking. Where had the missing urchins gone? Were they in danger? Had they all gone to the same place? Was none of it connected and they were just chasing steam?

  George whistled low and long. “A grand bit o’ wheel there, i’n’it?”

  There was no need to ask what he’d seen that’d so impressed him. The same gold-accented carriage Morris had seen a week earlier rolled slowly down King Street. Fitting that it’d be on a lane named for royalty. It looked the sort of thing a monarch’d ride in.

  “Could you imagine having money enough for something like that?” Morris mused aloud. “Hard to even think of when we’s spending our days nipping carrots off carts and dropping coins in the claws of the Innkeeper.”

  “Maybe John-John got ’imself a job polishing the gold on a carriage like that.” George motioned to the vehicle with his stub of a carrot. “He could eat for weeks just selling what rubbed off on the cloth.”

  “All the more reason to look for ’im,” Jimmy said. “He might have a few cloths to spare.”

  George wandered off, looking for coins or whatever work he could manage before returning to the Inn. Jimmy and Morris walked on together.

  “Do you really think John-John and Sally went to work somewhere?” Jimmy asked.

  Morris shook his head. “Sally would’ve told Mary. And John-John would’ve crowed about it to all of us before claiming his fortune.”

  Jimmy stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Maybe this time, instead of going up against a ghost or a monster, we’re facing down a rich man.”

  “Almost more scary, i’n’it?”

  “Not almost.”

  Morris glanced back as they walked, eyeing the gilt carriage once more. It had stopped, and the door was open. He tugged at the sleeve of Jimmy’s coat, motioning at the vehicle with his head.

  A pair of bare feet, small like a child’s, could be seen standing on the paving stones facing the carriage, but the open door hid the rest of the little one.

  “Who’s that?” Jimmy asked.

  “Don’t know.” Morris stepped closer, studying what little he could see. “Ain’t a gentry child, not barefoot like that.”

  Something was tossed to the ground. Green. Leafy. He recognized it in the next instant: the top of a carrot.

  Jimmy sucked in a breath. “George?”

  The little feet stepped up into the carriage. Morris’s heart dropped to his stomach. George. Disappearing into a rich man’s carriage, just like they’d worried had been happening to the urchins of the Inn.

  He ran. He ran fast and hard, Jimmy close on his heels.

  The carriage began rolling away, but was slowed by the press of vehicles on the busy street. Morris and Jimmy wove around hackneys and coaches, keeping track of the one they sought. If only it didn’t get going too quickly.

  It picked up pace. Morris made a lunge for the back, managing to snatch hold before the carriage sped out of reach. Jimmy snatched hold right beside him. Clinging for dear life, they rode the carriage further from Covent Gardens, further from the streets they knew,
and, Morris feared, closer and closer to danger.

  This one was smaller than the rest. The master wouldn’t like that, but the children were getting wise and wary. It was becoming more and more difficult to lure them away with the promise of fortunes or food or comfort. He knew better than to frighten them; they’d raise the alarm. His master needed a full supply of fresh, young victims when the time for rejuvenating arrived. He would not disappoint his master. He didn’t dare.

  The streets of London were a very different place depending on how one was dressed. When Fletcher donned the weeds he’d been born to wear and swaggered down the lanes, he found himself among friends: his fellow gutter-risers, those who’d begun as he did, many who were still there. When he wore the togs of his current state in life, he walked the streets alone. Nods were replaced with head dips. The gazes were distant. He was a stranger. A trespasser.

  Fletcher didn’t know which he preferred. Some days, like today, the decision was made for him. This was the day the abandoned girls were to arrive in London. His role in this mission required the veneer of a gentleman. The Dread Master organized most of these more complex efforts, and Fletcher had learned long ago to trust the man. Though his approach wasn’t always what Fletcher’s would’ve been, his strategies had proven brilliant over the years.

  “Black yer boots, sir?” A street urchin, likely no more than seven or eight years old, leaned against a wall, shining block under one foot, a penny spinning in one hand.

  The penny pulled Fletcher’s attention more sharply to the lad. A mere second later, he knew him. Henry, who had no surname, was one of Fletcher’s informants, his eyes and ears and loyalty secured a year earlier when Fletcher had purchased him a bootblacking license so the local constabulary would stop harassing him and let him earn his meager living. Those with many options in life certainly enjoyed taking choices away from those who had few.

  “My shoes could use a good polish.” Fletcher kept his tone and posture casual. Gentlemen regularly stopped to have their boots touched up. Doing so wouldn’t garner any attention. He set his foot on the boy’s blacking stand. “I’ve a fair bit of spotting and mud on these.”

  “Been traipsing about?” On the surface, it was an impertinent question. Fletcher knew it for the code it was.

  “A little. I mean to do a bit more this morning, weather permitting.”

  Henry nodded as he brushed dust from Fletcher’s shoes. “A fine morning for it.”

  “Is it?”

  “Fine, but it ain’t perfect.”

  Something had gone wrong, then. “Rain or wind, do you suppose?”

  “Wind.”

  So not a disaster, but a hiccup. “Should I summon a hack, then, instead of walking?”

  Henry shrugged. “Keep a weather eye out.” He shot Fletcher a grin. “‘Weather eye out.’ How you like that bit o’ wordplay?”

  “A fine bit. You could be a writer someday.”

  Henry shook his head as he returned to his work. “Everyone what knows me would laugh themselves to fits iffen they heard you say I’d amount to anything. Folks like me don’t waste time with dreams.”

  “They laughed at me too, Henry,” he said. “And while they laughed, I worked and I planned. They ain’t laughing now.”

  “All the workin’ and plannin’ in the world ain’t always enough,” Henry said.

  “I know it.”

  Fletcher set his gaze on the street around him, eyeing the comings and goings. He kept his interest vague and set his mouth in a line of judgment. He’d be more believable as a well-heeled gentleman with that expression on his face. He watched the spot up where the post coach let off its passengers, and where the poor girls they awaited would shortly be arriving.

  Doc Milligan was there already, flanked on either side by ladies of formidable size and mien. Fletcher had met them on a couple of previous occasions, when they’d volunteered to help Milligan treat some of the less fortunate in Town. They were in position, ready to intercept the unfortunate souls.

  Down Fleet Street on the opposite side of the waiting doctor, Stone stood, flipping a penny in his hand. He would keep an eye on things from that end. Irving stood near a pasty cart, slowly making his way through a bit to eat, looking for all the world like a man in his dotage, slow in more ways than one. A few other Dreadfuls would be around corners, tucked just out of sight.

  He looked back at the boy, this time catching sight of a penny dreadful tucked in his coat pocket. Fletcher recognized the telltale purple cover.

  “You reading Mr. King’s latest?” he asked.

  “Aye.” Henry kept diligently shining. “He spins a good tale, Mr. King.”

  “That he does.”

  Henry looked up at him. “I read yours too, Mr. Walker. I like Morris an’ Jimmy. They’re like me and all the other urchins.”

  “They’re meant to be,” Fletcher said. “They’s like the boy I were. It’s stories the likes of you and I can relate to. It’s stories we live every day.”

  “’Cept with monsters and ghosts and such,” Henry added.

  Fletcher grinned. “Except for that, aye.”

  An overfilled post coach rumbled down the road. People stepped out of the way, too accustomed to its arrival to be in awe of it. Henry brushed firmly at Fletcher’s boot, not appearing to notice anything but his work, though Fletcher would wager he was as aware of it all as he himself was.

  Milligan stepped up to the coach, so close that those disembarking had to slip around him. A few thuggish men attempted to shove him out of the way. The good doctor wasn’t a large man, but he wasn’t moved. The women with him made a noticeable objection to the jostling they received from the men. Fletcher was too far to hear what was said, but it wasn’t hard to guess.

  Stone inched closer from the other side. Irving watched the fracas with curiosity. He said something to the pasty seller that pulled his attention to the ruckus. One of the would-be macks shoved one of Milligan’s assistants. The pasty seller shouted. More people took note of the confrontation.

  A young girl, likely fourteen or fifteen, stepped off the carriage, wide-eyed and clearly afraid. She, he felt certain, was one of the poor girls they were waiting on. Another girl, alike enough to be a sister, looked over her shoulder.

  The doctor said something. The girls turned their gaze to him. More jostling. More angry shouts from the others who’d been awaiting this arrival. Ought he to step in? It was such a delicate undertaking.

  “Mr. Walker?”

  Ah, toss it. He knew the sound of Miss Black’s voice. Under any other circumstances, he’d have been happy to see her and chat a spell.

  “Miss Black.” He spoke as casually as he could manage. He’d not wish to encourage her to linger.

  “Are you meaning to drop in on your publisher?” she asked. “I know many of the penny dreadful publishers are found on Fleet Street.”

  “Are you dropping in on yours?” He eyed the stack of twine-bound papers in her arms.

  She smiled with amusement. “On this end of Town?”

  No, the silver-fork publishers weren’t in this area. She would just be passing through—which would take her directly through the fray churning at the post-coach stop. Toss it all.

  He turned his attention back to Henry. “Don’t miss the dust on the tip there, lad.”

  “Aye, sir.” Henry leaned lower and polished with ever more gusto.

  Fletcher turned a little more, his back almost fully to Miss Black. The rudeness was necessary; he needed her to move on. If she tried to get involved in the mission, she might ruin it all.

  “I enjoyed our conversation the other evening,” she said. “Those salons can be a touch dull. It was a nice change.”

  He nodded without looking at her. “It was a bit dull.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her brow lower in confused surprise. He h
adn’t meant to imply that her conversation had been dull, but, s’ help him Baub, he couldn’t correct the misunderstanding. The rescue was underway, and growing messier, and he’d be unable to help if he was busy keeping her from noticing too much.

  “A pleasure seeing you again, Miss Black.” He offered a quick bow without moving his foot from the block nor turning toward her at all. It was a dismissal; there was no way she could see it as anything but that.

  She paled a little. “I—” She shook her head, dismissing whatever it was she meant to say. “Forgive me for disrupting your day, Mr. Walker.”

  She pulled her pile of papers against her chest, almost like a shield. Chin tipped high, she walked away.

  Blast it all. He’d hurt her. It had been necessary, for the Dread Penny Society, for her, for the safety of the girls being shielded by Milligan and his assistants. He’d had to. He couldn’t’ve done differently. But now she thought ill of him, and it bothered him. It bothered him a great deal.

  “Henry.”

  “Aye, sir?”

  “Track Miss Black, will you? I suspect she don’t know how quick the weather can turn.”

  He had his equipment packed in a flash. Fletcher tossed him a sovereign, which he tucked safely in his interior jacket pocket. As he walked down the road, keeping just the right distance behind Miss Black, he took to spinning his penny once more. The other Dreadfuls would recognize him and his connection and know they’d need to be circumspect.

  Miss Black didn’t seem to note the fray nearby. Owing to the pressing crowd, she never came near enough to see much detail. That was a spot of luck. Henry stayed close on her heels.

  Milligan, walking behind his assistants, who each had an arm around one of the sisters, slipped away from the angry men who’d come specifically to rush the girls away to lives of misery. Stone moved closer but couldn’t interfere without drawing too much attention.

  Fletcher swaggered in that direction, calling on all the confidence he claimed. He set his feet on a path that placed him between Milligan and those in pursuit. Fletcher stopped, pulled out his watch, and, with deliberate slowness, checked the time. It was just enough of a barrier to stop the men long enough for Milligan to slip around the corner where Fletcher knew their carriage would be waiting.