Mr. Fuller frowned and folded his hands over his waistcoat. “Whatareyou doing? Can you tell me anything?”
“No,” James said. “Not yet.”
I held my breath, waiting.
At last, Mr. Fuller’s face screwed up with regret, and his eyes met mine. “I’m truly sorry about your sister. You should go to the Yard. They can help.”
“No, they can’t,” I said between gritted teeth.
“Well, I can’t print something I can’t verify. Last year, a newspaperman was thrown in jail for six months over a false story. I can’t risk my family going to the workhouse.”
My hands tightened on the arms of the chair as I felt him slipping away.
But I’d seen pain on his face when I told him about Sarah being kidnapped. This was a man who cared. I made one last desperate attempt. “Please, Mr. Fuller,” I said, my voice cracking. “She’s my only family. She nearly died of whooping cough, and I can’t lose her. She’s all the things I’m not—kind and gentle and sweet. She makes people love her. What I’m doing could get me killed, but if I don’t do it, they’ll certainly ... kill her.”
Mr. Fuller looked at me for a long minute. Then he turned to James. “Is this true?”
James nodded.
Mr. Fuller’s gaze roamed the coffeehouse while James and I waited in anxious silence.
“All right,” Mr. Fuller said to James. “I’ll do it. When will you get me this story I’m to write?”
I let go the breath I’d been holding, too relieved to speak.
“Within the next week,” James said. “To be put in as soon as you can.”
“Naturally.”
Mr. Fuller placed a small pile of coins on the table. As our business seemed concluded, I began to rise, but he put out his hand to prevent me.
“Miss, wait,” he said, and I sat down again. His voice lowered. “I believe you’ve played fair with me, so I’ll play fair with you. I know who you are.”
James stiffened with alarm.
“Who I am?” I echoed.
“I don’t know your name. But you’re one of the women thieves from the ring out of Elephant and Castle.”
I didn’t acknowledge it or deny it, and I didn’t even glance at James. But I could tell he was as shocked as I was.
“Why do you think so?” I asked.
“There’s a sketch of you at the Yard. In it you have spectacles, but otherwise, there’s a strong resemblance.”
My heart thudded sickeningly, and heat razored down the veins of my arms.
“One of the Yard men has been investigating the ring—”
“What does he look like?” I interrupted.
“About my height, with a paunch—”
“Brown wavy hair, clean-shaven, perhaps just under forty years of age? Owns a brown suit?”
He sat back, his eyes keen. “Yes. His name’s Maynard.”
It was the man at Pickford’s. My heart thudded again over my narrow escape with Mary. “Go on.”
