“Might it have nits?”
“Nits? Nits?Nits?” asked Haley, his volume, and presumably his outrage, increasing with each repetition of the word. “I’ll have you know every article of clothing and bed linens have been boiled in lye for three full minutes before you see them in my shop. I’m known for it, ain’t I, Maggie?”
A smile twitched about her mouth. “He is.”
“Right.” Jamie couldn’t help sounding doubtful. Even so, he stuck the cap on his head and got on with it. In for a penny and all that.
“I believe our business here is concluded.” Hortense was already moving toward the door. “Your assistance was much appreciated tonight, Haley.”
“Any time, Maggie,” Haley said to their backs as they exited the shop.
The walls growing ever closer, the dank and damp seeped into one’s bones as they slipped through the darkest recesses of Whitechapel. He kept half his attention on their surroundings, the other half on the woman at his side. Her mind was imprinted with a map of every twist and turn, he would wager.
She cleared her throat. “You aren’t going to like what I have to say.”
Jamie stepped around an unconcerned mongrel dog that wasn’t about to move for him. “Say it.” She didn’t need to play nice with him. It ranked at the top of what he liked best about her.
“We’ll be dealing with a man who goes by the name of Flick Doyle. When we arrive, you keep your mouth shut.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“There,” she said, as if she’d caught him out. “Don’t you hear it?”
“Hear what?”
“You can’t help sounding like a lord. The instant you open your mouth, the negotiations will become, um,difficult.”
“Difficult how?”
“One never knows with Doyle. That’s my point.”
The cryptic aura surrounding this Doyle chap was beginning to grate on Jamie’s nerves. “Who is this Doyle, anyway?”
“You’ll know soon enough.”
“A criminal?”
“Aye.”
“A criminal has my son?”
“Likely.”
“How do you know this?” He’d been wondering.
“Doyle likes to pull his eels—”
“Eels?”
“Lucky eels. It’s what he calls his pickpocket gang.”
“My son is a lucky eel, a…thief,” Jamie said slowly, his brain trying to absorb these baffling, yet likely, facts.
Hortense nodded, understanding in her eyes. “Doyle likes to pull them from St. Mary Magdalen, because it’s the other side of the river and harder to trace back to him.”
Ah.“Like you.”
She gave him no confirmation. Not a nod. Not a grunt. Not a corroborating flash of the eye. Nothing.
