India Black and the Shadows of Anarchy (A Madam of Espionage Mystery) (19 page)

He drew himself up. It was dark in the street, with only the faintest of light drizzling from the windows of the buildings on either side, but in the pale gleam I saw the anguish on his face.

“I hardly know what to say, India. You must know my regard for you. Surely you know that I would never let any harm come to you.”

“You might say the same thing of your aged spaniel,” I replied. No one meddles with my feelings.

“I do not have a spaniel,” he said in a brittle voice. “Why the devil are you maundering on about dogs at a moment like this?”

“I never maunder,” I snapped. “Is this an appropriate moment to discuss a blond wench in Mayfair?”

It was as if I’d slapped him. His head snapped back, and he took a step to steady himself. I had rocked him, but as I was to learn, not in the way I’d planned.

“Good God, India! Have you been following me?” The anguish had melted into a scowl.

“How else would I know about your little woman?”

“You’ve no right—”

“Don’t take that tone with me. I’ve as much right to traipse around after you as you have to put Vincent on my trail.”

“I was worried about you. That Edding woman—”

“Hang Mother Edding,” I said. “I can look after myself.”

We stared defiantly at one another for a long moment. Then he sighed deeply and removed his hat, turning the brim in his hand and looking up at the sky.

“I haven’t the faintest idea how I got myself into this predicament,” he said.

“I expect it’s because Dizzy—”

“Not the blasted anarchists and their blasted bombs,” he said, nearly shouting. My hand shot out and covered his mouth. He reached up and cupped my hand with his, inclining his head. I felt his lips purse beneath my palm, and he planted a gentle kiss there. “You,” he said. “India Black.”

It was working up to a romantic moment when a rat squealed and shot out of the nearest alley. I heard a muffled oath, and French wheeled like a racing hound and sprinted toward the alley, drawing his Webley revolver as he ran. I ran too, my hand tangled in my skirt, searching for the Bulldog. I confess to feeling rather woozy, and it took me several seconds before I succeeded in pulling my weapon from the voluminous material. One of these days I’m adopting trousers, and to hell with gentle society. French had disappeared into the alley, and I skidded to a halt at the entrance. It was as dark as pitch down there, and I didn’t want to risk shooting French. On the other hand, after the evening’s events I didn’t want anyone else to shoot French. I compromised by whispering his name, softly at first and then louder, until I heard him approaching, swearing savagely.

“He’s gone,” he announced, emerging from the alley.

“You’re certain that someone was there?”

“I heard his footsteps. I chased him for a bit, but I lost him in that godforsaken maze back there.” He waved a hand dispiritedly toward the environs beyond the alley. “I wonder if he heard our conversation.”

“Would it matter if he did? We wouldn’t be the first co-conspirators to . . .” My voice trailed off.

“Not that,” said French. “The part about Dizzy.”

“Oh, Lord,” I said, crestfallen. “I can’t believe I put us at risk by saying that.”

“We’ll find out at the next meeting. Be sure your Bulldog is loaded. We may have to fight our way out of the room.”

“Perhaps it was just a footpad or fingersmith. This
is
Seven Dials, after all, and they’re a penny a dozen around here.”

“I hope you’re right,” he said, but he looked grim and he hustled me along.

We walked several blocks without speaking, with French stopping now and then to verify that no one shadowed us. When we reached the brighter lights of Piccadilly, he relaxed his vigilance long enough to hail a cab.

“Where are we going?” I asked, as the hansom pulled to the curb.

“You’re going to Lotus House.”

“But we—”

He shoved me into the cab and closed the door. “Have much to discuss. I know. And we will. When all this is over.” He reached through the window and seized my hand. “Until Saturday,” he said, and then he was gone.

FIFTEEN

I
reckon most women would have been swept off their feet if a chap like French had declared his interest, but I have never swooned and I wasn’t about to start now. For one thing, for a fellow who’d seemed positively love-struck a few moments ago, he’d handed me into the hansom with alacrity and dashed off with scarcely a word. His silence concerning the flaxen-haired maiden in Mayfair had been deafening, and he’d made it clear that I wouldn’t be seeing him until Saturday. None of this seemed like the behavior of the smitten, but then French
was
a gentleman, a species mostly foreign to me, and perhaps that’s how these coves behaved. I felt a moment of compassion for the bloke (at least I believe that’s what it was—I’m so thrifty with that emotion that I may not have accurately identified it), for if he truly had a regard for me, he was no doubt torturing himself about the proper etiquette for dealing with a whore as a lover. I could have assured him on that count, as I had no intention of parading about on his arm and advertising my status as a kept woman, nor did I entertain ridiculous notions of being carted off home to meet Mama. I liked my independence, and I didn’t plan to give it up for any man, even a handsome chap with wild black hair and a steely gaze. I was sure French would come around to my way of thinking, after some proper training, of course. In the meantime, he was probably right to shoot off like a startled hare, removing himself from temptation. I can’t blame him, really, for I doubt he could resist my charms if he were anywhere in the vicinity. We had a job before us, and it was a damned dicey one at that. We’d need our wits about us if we were to locate Grigori and destroy the anarchist cell. This was no time for dalliances.

* * *

The whores at Lotus House had just turned in for the evening when I slipped out to meet French and Thick Ed at Trafalgar Square. It was three thirty on Saturday morning and deuced chilly, with a thick fog hovering over the city and a damp wind blowing off the river. The evening had been hectic. Major Rawlins and his men had descended again on the brothel, this time bringing a group of newly commissioned lieutenants who were ready to quaff champagne and prove their manhood to their brother officers. It made for a raucous night, and I spent a good deal of time pairing the lads and the girls and jollying along those who had to wait their turn. I’m damned good at that sort of thing, but it is exhausting work, especially as I haven’t the slightest interest in how Stinky Simons managed to capture the enemy’s colours after his braces had been slashed with a
tulwar
. But I soldiered on and did my duty and collected a fair bit of coin for it. By the time I’d counted the takings and seen the last of the chaps out the door, it was time to leave. I gulped a glass of whisky and wolfed down some bread and cheese, then flung a coat about my shoulders and stashed the Bulldog in the pocket. I must speak to French about a holster for the damned thing, as it’s awkward carrying it around this way.

Vincent was waiting for me on the pavement. “’Ow’s hit, India?”

“A successful evening. The whores are asleep in their beds, and the gold is locked in the safe.”

“’Ow much gold?” Vincent yawned.

“Don’t get any ideas.”

“I wouldn’t thieve from
you
, India. ’Twouldn’t be right. But I might ’ave a crack at some other ’ouse.”

“Splendid idea. I’d suggest Aunt Maria Taylor. She has a good clientele and charges a handsome fee for her girls.” And she was a vicious competitor of mine. I brightened at the prospect of Vincent burgling her establishment.

Even at this hour the streets of the city hummed with a subdued energy. Carts and drays passed by us on their way to the local markets, loaded with fresh flowers, barrels of oysters and crates of vegetables and fruits. The dense fog muffled the sound of creaking wheels and horses’ hooves. I heard the measured tread of a bobby on patrol, and we quietly crossed the street to avoid him. You can tell a bobby’s footsteps at a hundred steps. Regulations require a standard pace of two and a half miles per hour, and their cadence is as regular as the ticking of a clock.

Vincent peeled off before we reached the square, and I walked the last few blocks on my own. French and Thick Ed were waiting for me in the doorway of a marine insurance company.

“There are a lot of people about,” I whispered.

“Step lightly,” said Thick Ed. “We don’t want to draw attention to ourselves.”

Have I mentioned that men are great ones for stating the obvious, especially to the fair sex?

I peered behind Thick Ed’s squat frame. “Where are the boxes?”

“I loaded ’em in a wheelbarrow and took ’em to the square this afternoon after the workmen left. They’re under the grandstand.”

“This afternoon! Wasn’t that risky?” I asked. “What if someone had seen you?”

Thick Ed shrugged. “Someone did. There’s a guard on the site, but I just told him I was makin’ a delivery of nails and such, for some last-minute work we had to do the day of the memorial. Sometimes the best place to hide somethin’ is in plain sight.”

“We should go,” said French. “It’ll be dawn soon.”

Thick Ed whispered our assignments. I took up a position at the southeast corner of the square, ducking into a nearby doorway that afforded a view of the area where the public would gather that afternoon. French vanished into the misty dark to station himself at the northwest corner of the square, hard by the National Gallery and staring directly at the rear of the grandstand. Should the local plod, or anyone else for that matter, take an interest in Thick Ed’s activities, we were to create a distraction and draw off the concerned party. French had decided on the role of an inebriated nob who couldn’t find his club despite numerous trips along Pall Mall, and I would be, well, what I was actually, a woman of dubious virtue. I’d rely on charm and if that failed, on a bit of violence. The Bulldog made a highly effective cosh, if handled correctly.

I believe I’ve mentioned that patience is not a virtue that I value nor, for that matter, possess. I’m much happier running round after spies or traitors, waving my Bulldog or brandishing a rapier, than I am waiting for something to happen. Five minutes after assuming my position I was bored, and after half an hour, I was nodding off. There wasn’t much action to speak of in the square, save for a couple of drunks who staggered past Nelson’s Column, giggling like schoolgirls, and a steady stream of deliverymen intent on getting their wares to market. It was impossible to see Thick Ed through the gloom, but I trusted that Vincent was as close to the bomb maker as his own shadow.

I yelped when a hand touched my arm.

“Quiet,” Thick Ed hissed.

French materialized at his elbow.

“Any difficulties?” I asked.

“No. No one turned up. All the devices are armed and hidden. Unless someone stumbles across them, they’ll explode as planned.”

On that happy note we separated. Thick Ed walked along the Strand, and French and I waited until he was out of sight before we crossed the square and angled to the northwest, toward Lotus House. Dawn was breaking, though it was a poor sort of dawn, with dirty white clouds scudding across a pearl grey sky and a fine mist slowly soaking through my woolen coat.

I shivered. “Damn this weather.”

“Are you cold?” French reached for me instinctively, but I skipped out of his reach.

“Vincent,” I murmured.

French put his hands in his pockets and contrived to look innocent. For the prime minister’s agent, he can be damned unconvincing sometimes.

He cleared his throat and said, “The weather may work in our favor. If it’s raining, the crowd will be smaller.”

I needed only to mention Vincent and the filthy scamp appeared, inserting himself between us and grinning cheerfully. I wondered what he had seen.

“This ’ere job is beneath me,” he announced. “Hit’s no challenge.”

“There are several pounds of dynamite in those bombs,” I said warningly. “Don’t get cocky.”

“Pish,” scoffed Vincent.

“Is everything arranged?” asked French.

“Count on it, guv.”

“Cheeky sod,” I said. “You’d better be right or there won’t be enough left of any of us to make a good meal for the pigeons.”

“Stop bickering,” said French. “We still have much to do today.”

We hurried back to Lotus House to do it.

* * *

There’s nothing like a bit of bunting to bring out the patriot in an Englishman. Despite the clinging mist, thousands of loyal men, women and children had thronged Trafalgar Square to pay homage to the poor souls who had died in the Indian Mutiny of 1857. The occasion might be melancholy, but the crowd was festive, with vendors hawking chestnuts, pies and muffins. Some enterprising folk had erected stalls around the edge of the park and were ladling up tea and mulled cider for customers. Newsboys darted through the horde hawking the latest broadsheets. Nobs in top hats and working men in flat caps jostled for space while children scampered underfoot and women chattered gaily.

I had no idea where my fellow conspirators were, except for Harkov, who was no doubt just now having a natter with a group of foreigners in Lyon about conditions in English factories. At a previous meeting we’d agreed to observe the impending carnage separately. Flerko had expressed a fear of our intrepid band being discovered and easily captured if we attended as a group, and no amount of discussion would convince him that the odds of being identified as the perpetrators of the chaos were virtually nonexistent. I’d have liked French at my side, but we’d agreed that we should abide by the group’s decision and not risk being seen together. That is how I came to be standing alone on the steps surrounding Nelson’s Column, with a fine view of the grandstand. Of course, I wasn’t alone, for the steps were thronged with people, and I had to employ a sharp elbow and the occasional shove to maintain my view. I wouldn’t have waded into the middle of this seething mass except that I knew where the infernal machines were located, and I planned to be as far away as possible if our plans went awry and the bombs exploded. Not that I expected them to, you understand, but a good agent always has a contingency plan. In this instance, mine included attaching myself like a limpet to the admiral’s column in the event there actually were any explosions today and the crowd turned into a surging, panicked mob.

A file of elderly blokes dressed in uniform and sporting a variety of medals and ribbons began to totter onto the grandstand. I presumed these were the military wallahs who’d been responsible for the mutiny in the first place, turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to the grumblings and discontents of the Indian troops. Dealing with the issues would have required foregoing port at lunch and an afternoon nap. Ironic, isn’t it, that the blokes who sat behind desks issuing orders get the medals and the invitations to the celebrations, while the poor devils who risked their lives on the field of battle have to make do with half pay and a hand-whittled crutch? But I digress.

The generals and colonels and what have you were followed onto the grandstand by a line of dignitaries, who’d clearly dined well at lunch and now looked plump, pink and slightly boozy, sporting ceremonial robes representing the Society of Squint-Eyed Jewelers, the Worshipful Company of Drunken Brewers and other notable London guilds. It was quite a sight, those rows of fellows looking stiff and very stately in their glittering uniforms and scarlet robes. A few of the chaps were kitted out in dark suits and respectable headgear, and among them I spotted Stoke, looking as though he’d swallowed a cup of hemlock before ascending the grandstand. A thin, stooped figure in a top hat and pince-nez stepped forward and lifted his hands. The crowd strained forward as one, ears cocked. It takes a prodigious voice to address a crowd in Trafalgar Square, and this chap wasn’t up to the task. He gave it all he had, but no one past the first few rows could hear a word. This being a London crowd, the fragile old coot soon learned of their displeasure. From the back of the crowd, where the tough boys and louts had gathered looking for a chance to pick a pocket or steal a purse, came a rising chorus of catcalls and hooting. The old fellow’s face grew red, and he appeared fussed as he struggled to project over the shouts of “Speak up, there,” and “Can’t ’ear you, Granddad.”

And then came an interruption of a different sort. I couldn’t see from my vantage point, but the crowd shifted and muttered, and I heard the whoops and cries of a youthful and undisciplined mob surging toward the square. Some of the fossilized gentlemen on the grandstand stood up and looked about anxiously, no doubt reminded of the war cries of the sepoy regiments who’d turned on them during the mutiny and wondering how to find immediate transport to the rear. The guild members and the other dignitaries craned their necks and looked annoyed. Things were not going as planned. The thin bloke in the top hat stuttered to a halt, looking, I thought, rather relieved at the disruption. Behind him a few of the dignitaries, including the lord mayor of the city, held a hurried confab, and one of them gestured peremptorily to Stoke, who’d been sitting quietly in his seat feigning complete ignorance of the developing situation. The last thing I saw before all hell broke loose was Stoke getting a flea in his ear from the lord mayor.

Then the crowd shuddered around me and from the edge of the square came hoarse shouts and the sound of women screaming. Over the noise of the crowd I heard the eldritch cry of what appeared to be an Apache war party.