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  If Skarbunket noticed the narrowing of eyes and the clenching of fists, he gave no sign.

  The three men, moving against the flow of traffic, turned away from the river and up one of the close, winding alleys.

  “Can’t say I’m too crazy about venturing into a place called ‘Ambush Alley,’” Bristol observed.

  “What’s the worst thing that could happen?” Mayferry said. “Other than the obvious, I mean.”

  “It’s the obvious I’m worried about,” Bristol said dryly.

  Skarbunket turned the hat around and around in his large hands. “Does anything about this—not meaning to interrupt you gentlemen—but does anything about this strike you as odd?”

  “About the hat?” Bristol said. “No, sir. Seems an ordinary enough hat to me.”

  “Yes, I suppose it is. It’s the people concerned with the hat I am thinking of.”

  “Well, sir, if I may be so bold—”

  “Please be bold, Mister Bristol.”

  “If yonder Thaddeus Mudstone Ahmed Alexander Pinkerton belongs in that outfit he was wearing, I’ll eat that hat.”

  “Indeed, Mister Bristol, indeed.”

  “On the other hand,” Mayferry said, “if it belonged to young Miss Ellington’s pa, I’ll join Bristol here in his repast.”

  “A most apt perception, Mister Mayferry. Which brings me to the next question, to wit: what did you make of our friend Thaddeus Mudstone Ahmed Alexander Pinkerton’s tale?”

  “He is a quick dissembler, sir, no doubt. I find it not at all likely that the likes of him would be invited to a dinner party of the Royal Horticultural Society.”

  “Mm,” Skarbunket said. “Don’t think so small, Mister Mayferry. I find it highly unlikely that the Royal Horticultural Society exists. Or that, if it did, its idea of a formal dinner party would involve a trained monkey.”

  “Not for nothing, sir, but this whole situation is peculiar, trained monkeys notwithstanding,” Bristol said. “Since when do street urchins come to us about anything?”

  “Never in my memory, Mister Bristol, never in my memory. Ah, here we are.”

  They made their way into the space where the alleys opened up. A light mist drifted down onto them from the ashen sky above.

  “My qab!” Missy said. A grin of delight split her grubby face. She leapt to her feet, hands out imploringly.

  “I beg your pardon?” Skarbunket said.

  “She means her hat, sir,” Mayferry said.

  Missy made an exasperated noise. “It’s what I said! My qab! Give it t’me!”

  Mayferry took the hat from Skarbunket and peered into it. “Aye, it’s a rum qab for a brim couch as yourself.” He set the hat on Missy’s head. It fell until it nearly covered her eyes. “Where do you get it?”

  “I tole you!” Missy said. “It was my pa’s.”

  “That’s a rumple kaddie, lass,” Mayferry said. “Don’t snap me for a bemmer. Where did you really get it?”

  Skarbunket and Bristol looked sideways at each other. “Well, well, Mister Mayferry, you never cease to amaze,” Skarbunket said. “What the blazes are you two talking about?”

  “Thank you, sir. I told her it’s a very fine hat for a young child, but I know she’s lying about where she got it, sir,” Mayferry said.

  “Obviously she’s lying,” Bristol said. “We’re wasting our time.”

  Skarbunket held out his hand. “No day in which we learn something is a wasted day. Today we have learned something interesting about Officer Mayferry, I think. Pray continue, Mister Mayferry.”

  Missy squinched up her face. “‘Pray continue, Mister Mayferry.’ ’E talks like a jeeve.”

  “That’s not a very nice thing to say,” Mayferry said. “He got you back your hat.”

  Missy looked from Mayferry to Skarbunket and back again. “Aight, I s’pose ’e’s jayed ’nuff.”

  “It’s not nice to rim your friends,” Mayferry said.

  “Posies ain’t my friends,” Missy shot back.

  “These posies got you your hat back.”

  Missy looked doubtful. “Well…”

  “That’s what the posies are for, isn’t it? That’s why you came to us. To help you get what was rightfully yours. And you have it back!”

  Her grin returned. “My qab!”

  “We’re not going to take it away,” Mayferry said. “We just want to know where you got it for real.”

  “It’s mine! I tole you already!” She folded her arms defiantly in front of her. “My pa gave it t’me! Now you go away!”

  Mayferry spread his hands. “Okay. Tell us about the hackie cove who cleved your qab.”

  Missy’s face darkened. “’E didn’t give me a shilling.”

  “How did you know where he was when you came to us?”

  “I followed him, I did! ’E’s a fox an’ duckie for sure. Went all over like ’e had a shortie waking ’im. I was too duckie for ’im. I waked ’im all the way.” Her small face beamed with pride.

  “Translation, if you please, Mister Mayferry?” Skarbunket said.

  “She’s saying she followed him. Apparently he went to some trouble not to be followed.”

  “Did he go from here to Bodger & Bodger?”

  Missy shook her head. “No! ’E went home first. There was bullybeaters lay about an’ jig. Three of ’em! ’E went right out through the window. Tore it right off! And then ’e kilt ’em.”

  Skarbunket and Bristol exchanged looks. “Take us there,” Skarbunket said.

  “D’you have a shilling?”

  “A shilling? For you to take us to the scene of a crime?”

  Missy shook her head. “A shilling t’tell you where it’s at. Three shillings t’take you there.”

  Bristol sputtered. Skarbunket folded his arms. “Three shillings, is it? That seems a lot.”

  “Three shillings,” Missy repeated. “An’ three more if I has t’save you from bullybeaters.”

  “Two shillings,” Mayferry said.

  “Three!”

  “Two,” he repeated. “And if we encounter any ruffians, we’ll fend for ourselves.”

  Missy looked at him through appraising eyes that seemed too old for her face. “Done,” she said. She held out her hand.

  “Mister Bristol, pay the woman, if you please,” Skarbunket said.

  “Aye, sir, but I will be filing for reimbursement,” Bristol grumbled.

  Missy led them along a winding path, changing direction and doubling back frequently. Presently, their noses announced they had reached the tannery district.

  “Phew!” Bristol said, covering his nose with his arm. “Our man Thaddeus Mudstone Ahmed Alexander Pinkerton lives here, does he? Why would anyone live here?”

  “People don’t live here because they want to,” Mayferry said. “They live here because they have no choice.”

  “Phew!” Bristol said again through the sleeve of his shirt. “Smells like a fire in a refuse-dump behind an animate shop.”

  “It was there!” Missy pointed to the narrow building wedged so precariously between the tannery and the textile mill. Both enterprises were in full swing. Thick smoke belched from the tall brick chimney behind the mill, clear evidence that the machinery of commerce was running at capacity.

  “What happened?” Skarbunket said.

  “I tole you! Three bullybeaters lay about an’ jig. Right there.” She pointed to the tannery. “They waited fer ’im t’go inside. They all looked t’fig him to a nap.”

  “What’s that?” Bristol demanded.

  “She says they planned to beat him to death,” Mayferry said.

  “Tha’s what I said! They all had clubs an’ efferything.”

  “What happened next?”

  “’E came right out the window! Right through there.” Mis
sy pointed. “Lef’ one of the bullybeaters with ’is nob all split open on the stove. ’E ran up the stairs an’ one of th’ others fell through the step.” She pointed again. “An’ then ’e ran on the roof. Came down on th’ other side.”

  “What happened to the third man?”

  “Fell off th’ roof!”

  “And you saw all this?”

  “I tole you! Posies don’ listen too good.”

  “Hm,” Skarbunket said. “We have a report that a crime has been committed here, which, if I’m not much mistaken, gives us leave to enter the premises.” He pushed on the door. It opened easily.

  Skarbunket stepped gingerly into the tiny space, hand on his truncheon. Bristol followed a step behind, largely owing to the fact that the space was far too small for him to be two steps behind. He looked around, then turned toward Missy. “Young lady, you have been wasting our time. Lying to the police is a crime. I could arrest you right now.”

  “I ain’t lyin’! I tole it all true!”

  “I don’t see any bodies,” Bristol said, indicating the room with a sweep of his arm that threatened to knock over everything on the narrow shelf. “And the window looks just fine to me.” He gestured to the undamaged sheet of oilcloth nailed across what served as a window, or at least a crude approximation of one.

  “I tole it true!” Missy said. She crossed her arms, frowning.

  “Now look here—”

  “Hold on a moment, Mister Bristol,” Skarbunket said, laying his hand on the man’s arm. He knelt, running his fingers over the cold stove. “Looking around, what conclusions would you draw, Mister Bristol, about Thaddeus Mudstone Ahmed Alexander Pinkerton’s approach to cleanliness?”

  “If he ever owned a broom, he’d use it to hit people with, I’ll warrant,” Bristol said. “I’ve seen outhouses in war zones that are tidier.”

  “My thought precisely. Yet in the midst of all this mess, would you not say, Mister Bristol, that this is the cleanest coal stove you have ever seen?” He swung the door to the firebox open with a squeak. “Inside and out. I would venture, and I say this despite not knowing Mister Pinkerton’s religious habits, I would venture that if cleanliness is next to godliness, this stove is in a state of grace.” He rose.

  “What about the window, sir? Nobody went through that window.”

  Skarbunket squeezed past Bristol and back outside. He knelt on the ground, examining the edge of the window closely. “No, Mister Bristol, nobody went through that window.” He picked something up from the ground, then stood. “But someone may well have gone through the window that was here yesterday.”

  “You found something, sir?” Mayferry said.

  “What does this look like to you?” he said, holding up a small, ragged sliver of brown.

  “A scrap of oilcloth, sir,” Mayferry said.

  “That’s what it looks like to me as well, Mister Mayferry.” He looked up toward the ashen sky. “There’s a missing stair up there.” He walked a few steps until he stood directly beneath it and knelt again. His fingers traced through the coarse, gravelly dirt. He rubbed his fingertips together and brought them to his nose.

  “This is most perplexing,” he said.

  “What’s that, sir?”

  “I do not find it at all surprising, assuming my read of the man’s character is correct, his fine taste in clothing notwithstanding, I do not find it at all surprising that someone might want to do violence to Mister Thaddeus Mudstone Ahmed Alexander Pinkerton. I do not even find it surprising that someone might want to do violence to his personage badly enough to send three people after him, which might seem to some to be overkill, if you will pardon the expression, but which evidence suggests might in fact be underkill. What I do find surprising is that someone might, upon attempting this violence and failing, be compelled to go to such extraordinary lengths to conceal all evidence of the crime.” He dusted his hands and looked around. “This is neither the sort of crime nor the sort of place that might ordinarily attract an excess of attention. So why bother?”

  “I’m not sure I follow, sir,” Bristol said.

  “When one sends ruffians to do the work of ruffians, one generally tends not to care if other people know. In particular, one does not, I think, send a person out after the ruffians to fix any damaged windows, much less generally tidy the place up. For one thing, that speaks to a level of attention to detail I have rarely found in the head-breaking and—” he shot a glance at Missy, who was watching him with open curiosity—“laying-about-and-jigging trade. Most curious indeed, wouldn’t you say, Mister Bristol?” He squinted up at the broken step. “Thank you, young lady, you have been most helpful.”

  “You see!” Missy said. “I tole you!” She made a rude gesture to Bristol and scampered off without a backward glance.

  8

  “How’s she doing?” Alÿs asked. She gathered her skirt and sat on the chair beside the hearth.

  “Furious,” Eleanor said. She smiled wanly, sitting in the chair next to Alÿs. They were in Eleanor’s quarters, just down the hall from the royal chambers on the second floor of the Palace. The room was decorated in red and green, with ornate fixtures edged in gold. “They won’t let her leave her quarters. There are three guards at the door. One of Max’s men, one of Julianus’s men, and some strange man the Cardinal sent. I’ve never seen him before. Big fellow, long pike, and I mean the kind with the metal point at the end. I wouldn’t know about the other sort. Not very friendly-looking, if you take my drift. They aren’t letting most of us talk to her. I’m the only lady they’ll allow in and out. You can imagine how she feels about that. Start with livid and go up from there.”

  “Did she ask about me?” Alÿs asked.

  “No. She’s too upset. She wants Julianus’s head on a pike, and I don’t mean the sort that they sing those songs about down in the guardroom. You look terrible! How are you feeling?”

  “Like I look,” Alÿs confessed. “It’s been a long day.”

  “Oh? Do tell!” Eleanor wrapped her arms around her knees and leaned forward with the hungry look of a shark angling toward a wounded fish. She had caught the scent of gossip, and now the feeding frenzy was nearly upon her.

  “I spent all morning answering questions,” Alÿs said. “They—”

  “Who’s they? You’re skipping bits. Don’t skip bits!”

  “The Cardinal, for one. He was there with two people from the Church I’ve never seen before. You know the sorts. Red robes, funny little hats. Two of Max’s guards, one of Julianus’s…I think Max sent two because he knew Julianus would have someone there. I’m surprised those two haven’t killed each other yet. They had me in one of the sitting rooms and poor Roderick in another room, and they kept going back and forth between us…”

  “Roderick? Why? He’s just a guard!” Eleanor wrinkled her nose at the word.

  “He was the only one who saw Shoe Man jump out the door. The only one besides me, anyway. I think they wanted to see if we were telling it the same way.”

  “Shoe Man. Is that what you’re calling him?”

  “Yes. They’re really keen on finding him. ‘If he exists,’ they say. I got the feeling that the Cardinal thinks we were making it up.”

  “I think Her Grace might be of the same opinion,” Eleanor said. “If it had been anyone but you, there’s no way she would have believed it.”

  “She doesn’t think I was conspiring with Shoe Man, does she?”

  Eleanor shook her head. “I don’t think she knows what to think. I don’t know what to think.”

  “But I don’t—why would I do such a thing? Conspiring against Queen Margaret? I’m engaged to her brother, for heaven’s sake!”

  Eleanor’s eyes twinkled. At sixteen, she was two years Alÿs’s senior, and she always took a special delight in demonstrating her worldliness to the comparatively naive little princess. “
Half brother. Yes, you’re to marry her half brother. Who is heir to the Throne, should anything happen to Margaret.” She paused dramatically.

  Alÿs’s reaction perfectly satisfied Eleanor’s expectations. Her eyes widened. Her jaw dropped. She stammered for a moment, then finally said, “You can’t seriously…that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard!”

  Eleanor nodded. “Honestly, dear, I agree.”

  “I’m glad someone believes me,” Alÿs said.

  “If you have a plot, you’re smart enough to wait until after you’re married to carry it out. Besides, this whole thing is kind of…extravagant, don’t you think?” Eleanor leaned in conspiratorially. “You’re usually a bit more subtle, aren’t you?”

  “This isn’t a game, Eleanor.”

  “Of course not.” Eleanor nodded sagely and patted Alÿs’s hand, slipping with practiced ease from world-wise mentor to innocent friend. “I’m sure it’s all going to come right. It’s in good hands. But I interrupted your story. Tell me more!”

  Alÿs sighed. “The Cardinal said he looked at all the invitations, and everyone was accounted for. No mysterious second cousins once removed of the Earl of Gloucester. But the guards would not have let him on without a proper invitation, which means he must have had one. I think that’s why he doesn’t really believe Shoe Man was there. I told him the whole story, the dance, the kite, everything. Julianus’s guy wanted to know everything about the kite. What it looked like, what color it was. I told him I didn’t get a very good look at it.” She smoothed down her dress. “Everyone is in a tizzy about the ring.”

  “I don’t blame them,” Eleanor said. “A spy from the Roman Church! Here, in London! Right on the Queen’s airship, even! I bet he was trying to assassinate the Queen. Or steal from her. I bet he dropped the ring by accident. I hope they find who it is and run him through with hot pokers!”