Just then a loud roar filled the air, and they both turned. Jamie watched someone hurl a tankard at another patron. Hehurried to his friends as the barman ran to intervene. Reaching Anthony, who was wrestling with someone, he dragged him free.
“Run for the door now!” Jamie said.
Toby went first, and Anthony and Jamie followed. Shutting the door behind them, they took the stairs up.
“Get them!” The door opened and soon footsteps were following.
“Up,” Anthony said. “We’ll leave the way we got in.”
They ran to the next floor and through another door to an external staircase, which was narrow and attached to the rear of the property. They made it down without falling and were soon running back to the carriage.
“I’m too old for this,” Toby wheezed as they rolled away from the Crimson Serpent.
Jamie didn’t answer. Instead, he turned up the lamps. Pulling the book from his inside jacket pocket, he studied the pages, running his eyes down the columns.
“Well?” Anthony demanded.
“Initials, money amounts, but not much else,” Jamie said as he slumped back into the seat.
“Well, now we are on board, things will improve,” Toby said, “as we are far superior at investigative work than you.”
He hoped his friends were right, because the rising tension inside Jamie told him they needed to find Jackson, and soon, before he disappeared completely.
Chapter Seventeen
Lady Alice pausedoutside the door, taking in the faint creak of boards above her head and the old musty smells that clung stubbornly to the walls. The house still bore the scars of neglect, with cracks running down the plaster, and a faint draft sneaking in through ill-fitted windows, but it was hers. Or, at least, her father’s, even if he didn’t know about it. Here the poor and forgotten of London could seek medical help.
The need was great, and Alice knew it would not be long before they were overrun. She pulled her gloves tighter, reminding herself she shouldn’t be anxious because this was the path she had chosen.
Opening the door, she stepped into the first treatment room, and the only one so far properly arranged to take patients. Whitewash had brightened the walls. Buckets and basins stood in a clean line beneath the window, and the little iron stove threw out heat. On the tray sat a neat array of instruments that she now knew the names of, as Doctor Hammond had explained them and their purposes. Alice refused to look too closely at the bone saw.
“We have had our first patients, my lady.”
“So I understand, Doctor Hammond. The waiting room is currently filling up.”
Tall and most often grave, the doctor’s dark coat was immaculate despite the dust that settled over everything in the East End, and he was busy washing his hands. His spectaclesglinted in the dim light, and his voice carried the tones of a man raised in better surroundings than these. Yet, like her, he was compelled to do better for those who had no one.
“Excellent,” Alice said, forcing her shoulders down from her ears. “If we are missing any supplies, please let me know at once. I want nothing to delay your work.”
He nodded. “I am attempting to secure the services of another physician, one I think will suit the nature of this place. I shall inform you when he has agreed.”
Alice studied him a moment. Dr. Hammond was the picture of composure. Yet his eyes betrayed something deeper, a steady determination that no polish of manners could hide. Alice knew he treated both Mayfair’s wealthy and the East End’s destitute. Most men of his profession would never dream of dirtying their hands in such a place as the one Alice had set up, but he had said it was his calling to do so.
“Excellent,” she repeated again as he dried his hands. “Send word when you know the time for a meeting, and I shall endeavor to find you more staff also.” She then excused herself, leaving the man to get on with what needed to be done.
The house had once belonged to a merchant who’d lost everything to debt. Large and old, it had been left to rot until she’d secured the lease. The first time she walked through with Ezra and Maggie, dust lay like a thick carpet on the floors, and damp darkened the walls. It was still far from finished, but the clinic was at least ready to take patients now. The second floor, scrubbed and whitewashed, held the waiting room and two treatment rooms. One day soon, the third floor would be a ward with beds for patients too ill to return to slums and alleys. But for that, she would need more staff. Always more, Alice thought. More bandages, more laudanum, more coal, more food. If she could convince others like Eloise and Thaddeus to help hercause, then perhaps this would not be the only clinic for those in need.
She descended the staircase, trailing her fingers along a once grand banister, now worn smooth with age. From below drifted coughs, the shuffle of boots, the murmur of voices, and a baby’s thin, fretful cry from the waiting room. Alice entered.
The space was already crowded. Patients seated along the far wall, each looking as though life had taken more than it returned. A woman with a hacking cough bent over a child whose flushed face spoke of fever. An old man leaned heavily on a stick, eyes glazed with pain and the kind of weariness that lived in the bones. A boy, no more than ten, cradled a swollen hand against his chest, the knuckles puffy.
Alice’s heart squeezed. So many, and this was only the first morning. “The doctor will see you soon,” she told the old man. “We’ve a chair by the stove if you’re cold,” she then told the little boy and the woman, guiding her a step closer to the heat.
She crouched before the boy with the swollen hand. “How did this happen?”
“Barrow wheel,” he muttered. “I’m fine.”
“You are very brave,” Alice said. “But I think you shall be braver still if you let Dr. Hammond bind it, and I will ensure you have a slice of bread after, as a reward.”
