Mr. Ardle came over and dropped a few more stones onto the black velvet, separate from the two piles I’d made. “Here are four more, if you need them.”
I looked up to find his gaze on the stones, avoiding mine.
“Do you know what she’s done? And what she intends?” I asked. “Why are you helping her?”
He raised his pale blue eyes to mine. “She did what she had to,” he said simply. “And there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for her, if she asked.”
Even involve himself in a dodge that might require murder?
I felt a wave of scorn until I thought of what I was willing to do for Sarah.
Who was I to cast stones at Mr. Ardle, paste or real?
By three o’clock, my neck ached from bending over the bench and my eyes felt grainy. I showed Mr. Ardle which paste sparklers to set aside for use, then left the shop, returning briefly to my room to pick up my satchel. I walked to the railway station, losing myself in the crowd to evade a tail, donned my wealthy watch-buyer disguise in the ladies’ washroom, and hired a hansom cab to Hatton Garden. At Simonson’s, I adopted my limp and put the gold bracelet—with a newly broken clasp—into the hands of a clerk I didn’t recognize. I requested that it be mended within two days, to which he nodded agreeably. Then I departed, limping on, with a few quick checks for a tail, until I found a quiet alley where I could remove the pieces of my disguise before I continued on to Fleet Street.
To do the most unlikely thing I could imagine.
I’d once have believed it would be a cold day in hell before I offered to tell a newspaperman anything—much less a newspaperman with ties to the Yard.
But here I was, walking of my own volition to a coffeehouse where Mr. Fuller should be waiting for James and me.
James met me two streets away with his hand out for mine, an old signal of ours that meant he saw no one following me. While we walked the remainder of the way, James told me that he’d go into the tunnels just before midnight. “Amelia has spoken with her friend—his name is Art—who can manage the locks and the safe.”
“Will we meet him beforehand?” I asked.
James nodded. “Tomorrow night. Amelia will bring him to my rooms.”
“She doesn’t want him knowing where she lives?” I asked.
“I think it’s more that she doesn’t wantmeknowing where she lives,” he replied. “I don’t mind—and I don’t blame her. Besides, I have the feeling she won’t be there long.”
“Why?”
“Just a feeling.” He squeezed my hand. “There’s Croom’s, up ahead.”
My stomach tightened, for this was the part of the plan I felt least sure of. I’d never met this man Fuller; we’d be giving him very little and asking for a promise in return.
I drew James to a halt. “How much did you have to tell him?”
“Nothing, as we planned,” James said. “In my message, I only said I wanted to speak to him about the Fairleigh murders and to meet me here. Given what he did for the information about the boathouse murders, I’m guessing he’ll do just about anything for this, short of giving up his children.”
“He has children?”
“Two, I believe. And a wife.”
Illogically, the thought of Mr. Fuller having a family made me feel better. “All right.”
“Stay out here. Let me be sure he’s inside.” He pulled open the door and vanished, while I dawdled before the shop window next door, surveying the writing papers, pens, and French postcards of scantily clad women in wholly improbable poses—the Society for the Suppression of Vice would be outraged—all the while keeping my eye on the door. When it opened and James nodded, I approached. He looked troubled.
My every nerve tightened. “What’s the matter?”
“He looks like he’s been ill,” he said.
“Oh.” I stepped inside and the smell of coffee and chocolate, bitter and smoky, filled my nose.
“Corner table, left,” James murmured. “He hasn’t seen me yet.”
He led me toward Fuller, weaving between the well-worn rectangular wood tables, where men—and a few women of a sturdy sort—sat, engrossed in newspapers, conversations, or their cigars.
