My Lord and Spymaster

Twenty-one

THERE ARE MANY WAYS TO GET TO LAZARUS. IF he hasn’t sent for you and you intended to reach him alive, you come alone and on foot. Jess knew as much as you could know about approaching Lazarus. This was the first time she’d come uninvited.

She’d nipped out of the warehouse, quiet like, in an empty furniture crate, which saved a lot of discussion all round, and caught a hackney as far as Quaker Street. Then she got out and walked.

Lazarus was in Spitalfields these days. Exactly where, she didn’t know. An apple seller and the first crossing sweeper she came to ignored the sign. When she stood in front of the blind beggar and told him, “I’m looking for the Dead Man,” and held her thumb and index finger in the shape of an L, he looked her over and said, “Bell Lane.”

So Lazarus had set himself up near Artillery Passage. Not a long hike. She didn’t have anything more important to do this afternoon, did she?

Spitalfields was full of pushcarts and pie sellers and shabby men lounging about the streets—Jews and Irish, a sprinkling of Germans and Italians, Lascar sailors and blacks. She blended into the polyglot crowd well enough. Her dress was dark cloth that could pass for ordinary. She wore no jewelry but her mother’s locket on a ribbon, and that looked like trumpery till you got close. Nobody’d guess she had a fortune in rubies in her pocket.

Scared the spit right out of her mouth, it did, going back to Lazarus. She might be doing something fairly unwise. But he was holding the last piece of the puzzle. No other way to get it but to go to him and ask.

She strolled past a church and up the next street. There were trees in the churchyard. Maples or oaks or something like that. The leaves weren’t just one green. They were lots of different greens, like different dye lots of silk. The birds on the iron railings were sparrows, with little brown bibs on them.

She kept walking, not thinking about where she was going. She’d just fool herself along, bit by bit.

For years, Papa kept her out of England so Lazarus wouldn’t take her back. Even now, Papa paid blood money to Lazarus—she didn’t even know how much—to leave her be. Today, she was walking right back into Lazarus’s hands.

She heard footsteps behind her. She was committed now. No turning back.

“Whotcher want with the Dead Man?”

Lazarus’s Runner was twelve or so, dressed in a miscellany of oversized clothing. He had the face of a choirboy and eyes devoid of humanity. She gave the sign again.

“The Dead Man don’t see every trull what ask ’im,” the boy said with heavy sarcasm.

She gave the second sign, the secret one, drawing her right finger on her left palm, crossing the lifeline. Then she showed him the cut on her thumb, the one shaped like an L.

The old eyes in the unlined face weren’t impressed. “I don’t know you.”

“Tell him Jess Whitby asks to see him.”

“Cooey . . . Jess the Hand. A flash mort.” There was ancient evil in that grin. This one would enjoy tearing her to pieces if Lazarus pointed his finger in her direction.

He left, running. She stopped worrying about the bauble. From here on, she was either under Lazarus’s protection, or she was his meat. Either way, it made her untouchable. Somebody would come soon to show her the padding ken. Lazarus wasn’t far now.

She slowed to watch boys knocking a stone back and forth with sticks. She was almost sure Lazarus wouldn’t kill her. Almost.

“This way.” It was the evil-eyed boy. She followed him down one street and up another. These big old houses had been rich once. They were cut into mean apartments now, with shabby folks sharing rooms. Everything here was makeshift and meager, a life of skimped meals, and patched clothes, and hanging on to respectability by a fingernail. Before she’d sold herself to Lazarus, she and Mama had lived like this.

The padding crib was in a sizable brick house, the biggest house on this part of the street. A pair of bullyboys sat on the front steps, enjoying the sunshine, throwing dice against the wall. She recognized them from the old days. They were brutal animals, just intelligent enough to be surprised and speculative as she went by.

Nothing had changed from when she’d lived in places like this. In the big front parlor Turkey carpets crisscrossed up and down the length of the floor. Lamps glowed through a haze of tobacco smoke. In untidy heaps of bedding in the corners, men, boys, and a few women slept in a litter of bottles and old cookshop meals.

This was where Lazarus held court. On a long table, silver platters and candlesticks, watches, chains, furs, purses, and even jewels were piled up, awaiting division. This was spoil. This was a demonstration of his power, if anyone who reached this point needed one. The best plunder of London passed through the lair of Lazarus.

There had been a Lazarus in London for three hundred years. When the old one died, a new one took his place. Lazarus was the Dead Man Risen, the Cunning Man, the King of Thieves. He was the master of the London underworld. When she was eight, he’d bought her soul.

Lazarus knew the moment she came in, even if he was pretending he didn’t. He sat in his big chair, talking to a couple of men. He’d be over fifty now, but he didn’t look it. He dressed simple—a belcher neckcloth and leather vest. Workingman’s clothing. He had a broad, brown, steady, reliable face. He was the kind of man you’d hire as coachman, till he looked straight at you, and you saw his eyes.

The Hand, nowadays, was a boy about ten, ragged, wiry, and keen. He sat, tailor-fashion, on the floor next to Lazarus, smoking a pipe. Back by the wall, a pregnant woman hunched on a sofa. Hair the color of cream fell down over her shoulders. Her arms hugged her swollen belly. Black John stood to one side, looking somber and scarred and intimidating as ever. His eyes were remote. At one time, she’d have counted him as a friend. No way to tell now.

Her horrid young guide evaporated. She walked into the room alone. Lazarus didn’t look up.

Well. What had she expected? She sighed and walked all the long way down the room to a spot a few feet from where Lazarus sat. Then, very simply, she knelt.

SEBASTIAN sat on the arm of the red velvet sofa and wound his watch. It kept his hands busy so they didn’t slam into Mr. Horace Buchanan, clerk at Whitby’s, snitch for the British Service.

“. . . that smelly animal rubbing itself all over the desk. I brought her the Morpeth papers to sign and she snapped at me. Told me to get out.” Buchanan lounged in his chair, expansive and at ease. “Well, I did, of course. But not before I saw she’d just finished writing a letter. And . . .” he paused significantly, “it was something she didn’t want me to see.”

“Did you manage to read any of it?” Adrian was politely attentive.

“I didn’t then, since she practically pushed me out of there. And naturally, I had to chase over half the warehouse to find MacLeish, since he’s never in his office when you want him, so I . . .”

Buchanan was a slender man in his thirties, with a well-starched cravat and gentlemanly hands. He’d paid for the expensive coat he wore by selling Whitby’s secrets.

Sebastian didn’t trust clerks who dressed better than he did.

“. . . supposed to do with the Morpeth contract since our esteemed proprietress was too busy playing with her pet to give me approval on the final terms. It isn’t as if I have nothing better to do.”

Adrian’s sober nod implied this was a world-shaking disclosure. Doyle, looking bovine and harmless, stood at the front window of the parlor, watching Meeks Street.

“When I got back from that, Pitney was in her office, helping himself to a cup of tea. He’s one of the favored few who stroll into her office anytime they want. They were talking cozy as turtledoves, the two of them. Then all hell broke loose. Old Pitney’s pounding the table, snarling like a dog, and little Miss Jessamyn’s laying down the law like a fishwife.” Buchanan pursed his lips. “Fine doings in a business office. Pitney kept telling her Josiah would forbid it. That’s all I could hear. He said Josiah would absolutely forbid it.”

“What was that, I wonder,” Adrian said.

“I don’t know. MacLeish came over and sent me back to my desk.” Buchanan brushed the sleeve of his coat. “But I do know Pitney got overruled. After a while he toddled off to open the safe, looking unhappy. It’s no work for a man, taking orders from a woman. I don’t know how Pitney and MacLeish stomach it.”

Sebastian put his watch away. Someday soon he’d find an hour to beat Buchanan to a pulp.

The clerk gave a wide-lipped smile. “Pitney came creeping back like a whipped dog. He brought her something—a little wrapped-up packet. Something from the safe.”

“What do you think Pitney brought her?” Adrian said amiably. “That little package. Did you see what it was?”

Doyle extracted an ivory toothpick from his pocket and began to pick his teeth.

“Something valuable.” Buchanan pinched the knit fabric of his pantaloons between thumb and forefinger and adjusted the fit over his knee. “That is, I didn’t actually see what he brought, but I watched Pitney come creeping by with it, clutching it to his bosom. He might as well have been wearing a sign, ‘I am carrying something immensely important.’ ”

“And then?” Adrian prompted.

“Well, she left, don’t you know? Just took her hat off the peg and left, right in the middle of the day, without a word to anyone. I . . . ah . . . took the opportunity to drop a few small matters on her desk. Receipts and so on. There was nothing on her blotter except for . . .” He swished the tail of his coat aside and drew a small letter from his pocket. “. . . this.”

Adrian held out his hand.

“It was what she was writing earlier, obviously. The letter she didn’t want me to see. You can see it’s addressed to her father. Normally, she’d hand letters over to the messenger boy.” Buchanan’s pale blue eyes slid from one man to another. “But she left it there on her desk. I thought that had to be suspicious. Since I was coming here anyway to drop off a few papers for Mr. Whitby, it was quite natural to pick this up and bring it along.”

Adrian kept his hand out. Buchanan held the letter tight, plucking at the corners.

“She meant for it to be delivered, and it had Whitby’s name on it. It could have been that she just forgot to give it to the messenger. She left in a hurry.” Jerkily, he laid it in Adrian’s hand and stood up. “I’ll just go ask Mr. Whitby if he has commissions for me. I’m not . . . Mr. MacLeish may ask me why I was out of the office.”

Adrian inspected the seal of the letter. “You opened it. That was not strictly necessary, Mr. Buchanan.”

“I thought it best. If it had been quite innocent, I wouldn’t have bothered you with it.” Buchanan wiped his fingertips against the cloth of his jacket. “It pretends to be a polite note saying she’ll be late, but the name she mentions is not one of our customers. I’ve never heard of him.”

“Thank you,” Adrian said. “We’ll study it carefully.”

Doyle laid a huge, friendly hand on Buchanan and pushed him toward the door. “We’ll take care of it.”

“If I could talk to Mr. Whitby—”

“Not now. They’ll be wanting you back at work, I expect.”

“I knew you’d want to see this at once. If there’s anything else you need from the files, I can—”

“We’ll let you know. You just keep an eye open.”

The door opened. Buchanan found himself speaking from the front porch. “It’s a French name. I find that significant. She receives letters from France. I’m sure of it.”

Doyle said, “I wouldn’t be surprised if you weren’t right about that, Mr. Buchanan. Here now, watch yerself on the steps. They just been washed.” He closed the door.

Sebastian waited till Buchanan was down the steps and walking toward Booth Square. “Do you have to use that pig?”

“Men of sterling worth do not spy on their employers for pay. He sells Whitby commercial information to several interested parties.” Adrian frowned and turned the letter over. “I wish he’d stop opening mail.”

“I don’t like the idea of him close to Jess.”

“I doubt she notices his existence. If he ever annoys her, she’ll crush him like a bug. I wonder what devilment she’s up to now?”

“Something mad. She’s out there alone.” Doyle came back to sit heavily on the sofa, his big, solid frame taking up most of it. He looked worried. “I thought I had all the exits watched. I don’t like this.”

Sebastian didn’t like it himself. “She cleans her desk and leaves one letter behind, addressed to her father. She dodges your men and mine and disappears. Do you think she’s leaving England?”

“Wouldn’t that be nice? But I doubt it.” Adrian held the letter up to the sunlight and squinted at it, then unfolded the sheet across his lap. “Let us see what she has to say. ‘Cher Papa.’ That’s Jess being suspiciously French for my benefit. You do like to get in a sly dig every once in a while, don’t you, my girl?”

Probably the letter didn’t mean anything, but right now it was the only clue they had to where she’d gone. “Just read.”

“Her writing’s improved. One of the governesses must have finally accomplished that. When I was being their butler in Russia, she wrote chicken scratches in four languages. ‘Cher Papa. Just a note to let you know I may not be free to see you this afternoon. I go to visit our old friend to seek his advice and aid. He may urge me to stay, and you know how persuasive Monsieur L’Hommemort can be—’ ”

Adrian’s voice cut off, like a knife had slashed through the word.

“Monsieur L’Hommemort?” Sebastian took the letter. “Nobody’s named that. Let me see.”

Adrian whispered, “Oh, damn you, Jess. Why?”

“L’homme mort. The Dead Man.” Sebastian stood up to read the rest. “ ’I will see you soon, one way or the other. Jess. P.S. Please do not be angry with Pitney.’ L’Homme mort. It can’t mean what I think it does.”

“It means exactly and precisely what you think it means. She’s already on her way. Damn the girl.”

“She’s going to Lazarus for help? She’s going to wind up held for ransom.” Jess might come from Whitechapel, but that didn’t mean she knew how to deal with a man like Lazarus.

“It’s worse than that. Sebastian, wait. She was Hand.”

“What?”

“She was Jess the Hand, with all that means.”

Pretty, elegant Jess working for Lazarus? The Hand was one of the inner circle of Lazarus’s gang. “It doesn’t make any sense. She would have been a child when she left London.”

“They are kids, generally. Lazarus picks the young ones. They can be trusted. She went to work for him when Josiah disappeared from England. Then Josiah showed up again, years after everybody thought he was dead. He took Jess back, away from Lazarus and out of the country.” Adrian stood up and pulled his coat off the back of the chair. “Lazarus takes money to leave her alone. But he never gave her up and never forgot. In his eyes, she’s a deserter.”

“And she’s walking right to him.”

“Right down his gullet.”

Doyle took his pistol out of his pocket to give it a check. Adrian was half into his coat.

“Not you,” Sebastian told them. “Just me.”

Doyle understood first. “Because you can get in alone.”

“We can’t fight Lazarus on his own ground. I have to talk her out of there.”

“He’s not going to just let her go.” Adrian picked up the note and began folding it and unfolding it, running his fingernails down the crease again and again. “You have to understand. You and the other captains pay the pence and Lazarus leaves your ships and men alone. It’s different with Jess. She took the shilling from him before she was nine.”

He felt his stomach harden to heavy, cold rock.

“He owns her, Sebastian, body and soul. Remember that when you go charging in there. He owns her.”