Jim Morgan and the King of Thieves (17 page)

ll right, Jim, I think we started all wrong last time.” George was stretching and loosening up his arms and hands, cracking his knuckles like a card dealer, twisting and turning his back and shoulders and even doing a couple of jumping jacks to get his blood moving.

“You know,” Paul added. “With the apples and all.”

“Yes, he knows we mean the apples Paul,” Peter chided his brother when he saw Jim’s cheeks flush with leftover embarrassment. “No need to bring that up.”

“It’s okay,” Jim said, taking a deep breath. The four boys were standing around the corner of an alleyway in downtown London while hundreds of pedestrians walked to and fro on the streets before them. Jim’s stomach tightened into a knot as he thought about his incident
at breakfast a few days before, and he was less than eager to experience that kind of trouble again. But he had to get his box back and it seemed that this was the only way.

“It is okay!” George said encouragingly. “Because my brothers and I put our heads together over the last couple of nights and have come with…”

Peter drummed his hands on his legs until the three of them leapt together with outspread arms and glowing smiles.

“… the Official Ratt Brothers Course to Thieving and Pickpocketing!” they cried together.

“By George!”

“Peter!”

“And Paul Ratt!” After each said his name they bowed together with a flourish, hats in their hands.

Jim couldn’t help but laugh, clapping politely for their showmanship. “I’m proud to be your first student,” he said.

“I still don’t know why I have to go last,” Paul grumbled, slapping his hat on his head.

“Because you’re the youngest!” the other two said together. “And besides,” George said. “You get to say: ‘Ratt’ at the end of your name, which is more than Peter gets to say.”

“Yeah,” Peter said, as if that fact had just dawned upon him. “That IS more than I get to say. This is bollucks!” And he threw his hands up in outrage.

Jim thought he was about to witness yet another Ratt brother brawl, swearing to himself that the three brothers would end up being more famous for their scuffling than for their thieving, but George spotted what he wanted to see in the streets and called Jim over, effectively forestalling the inevitable fisticuffs.

“Lookie there, Jim,” George said, pointing at a rather tall lady, who was either noble herself or married to a noble family, Jim noted. She wore a huge, pink dress that absolutely billowed out from her waist and ruffled down to the ground, and in spite of the fact that she wore a gigantic brimmed pink hat, a servant scuttled along beside her
with the sole purpose of holding an umbrella over her head to protect her delicate skin from the harsh sun.

“It’s a good thing that umbrella’s there,” Paul said with a smirk.

“Why?” Jim asked.

“Because with her nose held up that high, she’d go blind staring right into the sun.” The boys laughed and Jim had to admit it was true. For the first time he wondered if that is what he and his aunt had looked like from the outside not so long ago. If it was, Jim thought to himself, it suddenly looked far sillier than it did noble.

“Okay, Jim,” George said with unmistakable confidence. “You are about to witness the perfected Welshman’s Waltz!” He slid out onto the street, blending in with the crowd as Jim and the other Brothers Ratt watched intently from the safety of the alley. Like a hunting hawk, George glided through the crowds, weaving in and out of the bustling rows of people until he was headed straight for the woman in pink.

“George really is the best pickpocket in all of London,” Peter said, admiration beaming in his voice. “He knows all the moves!”

“Yeah,” Paul chimed in. “The Dragons only steal more ’cause there’s more of ‘em. But they’re jealous of the skill set, have no doubt. Look, here he goes!”

Jim leaned in over the Ratts shoulders to see the action and found George walking with his hands in his pockets as though he had not a care in the world.

“He’s not even looking at her,” Jim said. “He’s headed right for her! They’re going to crash!”

“That’s the point,” Peter said, a wicked smile spreading across his face. George did indeed run right into the woman in pink, but instead of knocking her over or being knocked over himself, he deftly wrapped his arms around her, spinning them both around as gracefully as a ballroom dancer before twirling off behind her.

“Watch where you’re going, you filthy little boy!” the woman shrieked, trying to wipe some imaginary dirt from the front of her dress.

“Well!” George mustered up the most indignant look he could manage, turning his nose up as high in the air as the woman’s.
“Excuuuuse ME!” Then he wiped his rags of their own imaginary dirt, stomped his foot, and strutted off down the street. In a moment’s time he crept back in the alley, flipping a fresh and shiny silver coin back and forth over the back of his knuckles.

“That was brilliant!” Jim exclaimed.

“It definitely was one of your better performances, George,” Peter said with a nod.

“The main thing is, Jim,” George said, looking Jim right in the eye. “You’ve got to put their mind on somethin’ else. Distraction is a thief’s best friend.”

“That’s good n’ all George,” said Paul. “But I think style may be just as important. For instance, I prefer the Welshman’s Waltz with the English Finish, meself.”

“What’s that?” Jim asked, but George was already out on the street and headed in a beeline for a stuffy merchant’s wife dressed all in satin. He crashed into her, spun her, and twirled away - except this time when the lady cried out about a filthy little boy, George took off his hat and bowed low to the ground.

“My lady,” he exclaimed. “The pleasure was all mine!”

Jim laughed so loud from the alley that their hiding space was compromised and they had to flee a constable’s deputy for three blocks. But, they all agreed later, the laughs had been worth it, and in the back of Jim’s mind, a small glimmer of hope suggested he may get his box back after all…just maybe, if nothing else went wrong, that was.

EIGHTEEN

any, many miles from London, where Jim Morgan was taking his first steps toward becoming a master thief under the tutelage of the Brothers Ratt and living with them in their cellar beneath the old shoe factory, Bartholomew Cromier stood alone atop a gray tower overlooking his family estate, built on the hard coast of the sea, where the waves crashed against the rocks from morning until night – Shade Manor.

The bricks in Shade Manor’s walls and the tiles on her many roofs were so dark they leeched the very light from the air, and the billowing sea mist, like a never-ending fog, turned the stones blacker still. Brown ivy, more dead than alive, crawled up the walls facing away from the ocean, and all the trees in the orchards grew fruitless and
crooked. Even the fountain water, cascading over the stone saint in the courtyard, trickled down the carved face like forlorn tears.

Traveling folk would walk for miles just to skirt around Shade Manor, and nobles and merchants alike, living in the nearby towns, whispered among themselves that the dark manor was not only one of the dreariest and coldest places in all of England, but that it was also cursed, perhaps even haunted.

Bartholomew Cromier, however, cared nothing for rumors or for travelers, nor for ghosts or for curses, for his cold heart and steely mind were too far bent toward his and his father’s dark purposes to bother with such trivialities. Even at that very moment, his raven-black hair dampened from the sea mist, his coat whipping in the icy wind, Bartholomew silently brooded over their incomplete vengeance against their old enemy, Lord Lindsay Morgan. The fact that Lord Morgan’s mysterious treasure had somehow slipped through their fingers drove Bartholomew nearly mad. It had been one week to the day since Count Cromier had told his son that the treasure was not at Morgan Manor, and by that seventh day, Bartholomew had brooded himself into a whirlwind of silent fury.

“What do you mean it’s not there?” Bartholomew had shouted as loud as he dared at his father.

“Just that,” his red-wigged father had replied, stomping his foot, “the treasure isn’t there. Not that I expected it to be hidden beneath the parlor, mind you. But some clue or map to the treasure’s location should most definitely have been on or near Lindsay Morgan’s person.”

“What do we do now?”

“We wait!” his father had shouted back.

“WAIT FOR WHAT?” Bartholomew had screamed as his father stomped away. But since then, there had been no more shouting, only silent plotting, stewing, and slow-boiling frustration at the top of his tower, glaring out over the colorless, angry sea and the black rocks drowning in the tide. Not only had Bartholomew refused to speak during that entire time, he had refused to eat as well, and he had grown more pale and gaunt than ever before. Beneath his raven-black
hair and his piercing blue eyes, the young captain looked more ghoul than man.

“All of our carefully laid plans,” he muttered to himself occasionally, often followed by either “ruined!” or “all for nothing!” Then he would shake his head and furrow his brow and go back to brooding and glaring.

However, on the seventh day, it finally seemed as though whatever Count Cromier had been waiting for had finally happened. Up the narrow steps that circled the inside of the gray tower one of the servants came, stepping out into the mist, a candle rack in hand, to tell Bartholomew his father requested his presence, and most urgently.

“All for nothing,” Bartholomew muttered to himself, shoving past the servant with a grunt and skulking down the stairs, storming through the mirthless halls of Shade Manor to his father’s study.

Yet as daring and dangerous as Bartholomew Cromier was, and however dark his mood, he forced a calm veneer over his face when he arrived at the study door, for the only person more devious than Bartholomew was his father, Count Cromier – the Red Count. Bartholomew paused at the doorway and took a steadying breath to cool his temper. Unfortunately for Bartholomew however, a shrill yet mannish voice shattered his delicate calm the moment he stepped inside.

“Oh, hullo Barty!” Margarita Morgan shrieked upon Bartholomew’s appearance. Bartholomew only hoped that the slamming door behind him and the roaring fire in the hearth drowned out the sound of his teeth, which were grinding. “So good to see you again, Barty!” Margarita bellowed, hoisting up a nearly empty bottle of wine. “Let’s toast the young man’s health!”

Even more infuriating to Bartholomew than their failure to find the great treasure was the knowledge that ever since Lindsay Morgan’s demise, Dame Margarita had been living like a queen in Morgan Manor, ceaselessly throwing opulent parties and gossiping all days of the week with her ridiculous friends from London. And when she wasn’t doing so at Morgan Manor, which was bad enough for Bartholomew, she was
doing it here at Shade Manor, which was worse. She sat on a divan near the fireplace, dressed in a finely made gown from Austria, a silver tiara atop her blonde wig, and jangling jewels garishly draped about her plump neck and wrists. Bartholomew was about to spew some nastiness in retort to Margarita’s toast when a graveled voice rumbled from the study’s desk.