In the interest of womanly dignity, she swallowed a shriek of excitement.Was it the unexpected conveyance or the encounter at the lumberyard that made her heart race so?Something to think about later.
For now, she had a villain to catch.
She sped noisily along the very edge of the canals and basins where the cargo ships brought in their loads.The stink of receding tidewater filled the air, and fingers of fog poked round the fronts of the buildings.
She had almost given up hope when she spotted her quarry, sheltering in a hotel doorway to wipe his forehead with a handkerchief.He was tinged a sickly colour by the blue-tinted lamp over the door.For a moment she was afraid he would see her, but he disappeared inside without looking her way.
Brakes,thought Penny, and depressed them just as she would on a normal bicycle.Thankfully, this worked, and it slowed to a halt, though the motor kept sputtering at her as if complaining about something.
Penny caught herself with a boot on the pavement and swung her leg over to dismount, but as she did so her umbrella got caught in a lever and the vehicle simply scooted out from under her and disappeared into the fog, taking her umbrella with it.Leaving her with one hand outstretched in a mute and ineffectual plea.
She heard a loud splash.
“Bother,” she muttered.
Well!No time to worry about that now.She crept up to the window of the hotel and peered in.
It seemed an average grimy waterfront public hotel, and not somewhere Penny would choose to visit near dusk, alone, hatless, and—worst of all—without her umbrella.But she had got this far—she wasn’t about to slink home in disgracenow.
She looked up and down the waterfront for a policeman.To her relief, one was approaching her now with a hangdog expression.
“See here, miss, this isn’t the right kind of place for your sort,” he said.“If you want to go slumming, you should book one of them there tours, Thomas Cooke, and do it safe like, not on your own, miss.This ain’t Kensington!”
“I’m not slumming, officer,” she explained, “I’m on the tail of a dangerous fugitive.I followed him here from a Chinese restaurant in Limehouse, and if you’ll just come with me, you’ll make ever such a prominent arrest.I’m sure your superiors will be terribly pleased with you.”
The man’s eyes twitched a bit atprominent arrest, as if this were the last thing in the world he wanted for his evening.That was the problem with these men, Penny thought—absolutely no ambition at all.If only there were such a thing asladypolice officers!
“Where do you come from, love,” he said.“I’ll find you a cab.”
Penny pushed a curl out of her face.“I’m not your love and I’m from Bloomsbury but I write for theDaily Mail,“ she insisted, “and I’m chasing a dangerous fugitive, I tell you!But if you won’t believe me, I’ll keep following the man myself—in there!”She pointed at the door.
The policeman gave the blue lamp a wary look.“Tell you what.I’ll have a look round inside as long as you promise to take a cab back to mum and dad after.Promise?”
“But of course,” Penny said tartly, “I’m not planning to take up permanent residence at”—she referred to the peeling sign— “the Smoking Monkey.”
She allowed the policeman to go first.It took only a quick circuit around the dim interior to see that Eames was not at the bar.
“Have you another room?”she asked the barman, who shook his head.
“Right, let’s go,” said the policeman with satisfaction, reaching for her elbow.
But just then, a man in a well-cut suit and a dishevelled tie came out of a door behind him, blinking in a foggy sort of way.He left the hotel with a nod at the bobby.
Penny lost no time.She caught the door he had come out of before it swung shut and ran up the narrow stairs behind it.
At the top of the filthy stairs, a heavy, acrid-smelling curtain screened whatever lay beyond.
“Stop, miss!You mustn’t go in there!”the policeman barked from behind her.
She had the distinct feeling that he knew quite well what lay behind that curtain.
Penny pushed through it before he could stop her.
Chapter forty-three
London
Theroomwasthickwith an odd smell that reminded Penny of burnt rubber.
