* * *
Charlotte darted a glance up and down the crooked lane before stepping out from the slivered alleyway. Not that she needed to check for trouble—she was sure that Raven and Hawk were lurking somewhere in the shifting shadows, keeping watch over her.
But this was a particularly rough part of St. Giles, and even though she had taken the precaution of disguising herself as a tattered street urchin, the threat of danger was not something to be taken lightly.
Quickening her steps, Charlotte darted through a narrow opening between the sagging buildings on her right and made her way to the back of the gin house. Set deep within a recessed nook was an iron-banded oak door, black with age. She rapped out a private signal—three sharp taps, three fisted thumps—and waited.
The shadows shuddered as the fitful breeze blew through the cracks in the rotting fence, stirring the fetid smells of decay.
Charlotte felt a shiver slide down her spine. A scent ofhopelessness pervaded the area, thick and viscous as the foul mud beneath her boots, and she offered up a prayer of thanks that Fate had offered her a way of escape.
But Fate, as she knew, was fickle. And cruel.
She drew in a steadying breath. Wrexford’s description of the murdered inventor must be unsettling her thoughts. That brilliance could be snuffed out in an instant—
The door opened a crack, cutting off such musing.
Charlotte hurriedly slipped inside. A man—short, fat and dressed in a greasy coat that was threatening to split at the seams—relocked it and turned to face her. The spattering of weak light flitted over his bulbous nose and unshaven cheeks, catching for just an instant the alertness of his beady black eyes.
“Wotcha need, Magpie?”
It was Charlotte’s street name. A bird had seemed apt, given the boys, and what better species than a sly one who darted to and fro, stealing shiny bits and baubles to take back to its nest.
“Information on the footpads near Red Lion Square, Sam,” she uttered in a raspy growl that hid her true voice. “A toff was brutally murdered. Any word on who might have turned violent?”
Sam scratched at his bristled jaw. “Naw, nuffink like that. Bad fer business te poke a stick up Bow Street’s arse.”
She held up a purse. “You’re sure?” He knew that payment would dry up if his information wasn’t accurate.
“Aye, Roger the Razor was in here earlier, nabbering about how they’s all madder ’n hornets that sumbody fouled their nest.”
“They have any idea who? A rival gang from one of the other rookeries, perhaps?”
“Naw,” he said again. “They has their way ’o hearing iffen that were true. Ain’t no cutpurse what did the dirty deed.” A nasty smile spread over Sam’s face. “Must be anudder toff what got blood on his lily-white ’ands.”
Charlotte was satisfied that her informant was telling her thetruth—and indeed, given her knowledge of the mutilation done to the murdered man, she had expected no less. She would confirm it with several other people, but her gut instinct was that Sam was right.
The footpads and cutpurses of London weren’t the villains in this particular crime.
“Thank you.” She handed over the purse.
With a few quick flicks of his fingers, Sam undid the lock. “Any time, Magpie.”
Charlotte slipped back out into the night, the damp air feeling even chillier after the stuffy warmth of her informant’s lair. She turned to make her way to the next stop on her list.
But her mind was already at work on how to learn more about the symbol that had been carved into Elihu Ashton’s flesh.
CHAPTER 5
“Damnation,” muttered Wrexford as he booted shut the door to his workroom. Ignoring the crucible and neatly aligned bottles of chemicals on the center table, he took a seat at his desk and set down his cup of coffee, trying to tamp down his rising frustration. It was nearly noon and still no package had arrived from Isobel, leaving him naught to do but stew in impatience.
Priestley’s scientific magnum opus lay open to the section on “dephlogisticated air,” and yet much as the earl was interested in reading the early experiments on oxygen, he couldn’t bring himself to concentrate.
Damnation.Something was bothering him about the whole affair, but he couldn’t quite put a finger on what it was.
“Milord.” His valet’s entrance kept his brooding from turning any darker. He brought over a thin parcel. “The information from Mrs. Ashton was just delivered.”
“About bloody time,” muttered the earl as he ripped off the paper wrapping.
