Authors: Sharon Joss
Steam Dogs (11 page)
Back in his cramped cabin aboard the
Il Colibri
, Simon spent most of the night tinkering with wire and a
few pieces of tin. Gregorio’s resonant snore echoed through the ship. Another
good reason to stay in a hotel, he mused. Carefully, he twisted a length of braided
silver wire around a handful of green glass marbles he’d picked up on the
island of Murano. Perhaps this toy version of the
Il Colibri
would soften Welsie’s harsh opinion of him. Not that he
hadn’t earned it, of course, but he just couldn’t have her think of him like
that. Every time he thought of her, his cheeks warmed with callowness of his
own words.
Not even the sight of dog wights on the road at
night could distract him from his thoughts of her. He just
had
to make it up to her.
#
The hammering of rain on the metal roof of the airship hangar woke
Simon the next morning. The gentle sound of soft drizzle was amplified to a din
by the tin roof and the massive scale of the building’s architecture. He’d
slept little, and with that racket, he wouldn’t be getting any more.
He rose, dressed, and found Arvel and the rest of the crew
gathered around a portable stove they’d set up beneath the ship. Seated on
wooden crates, they picked glumly at a cold breakfast of cheese and dried
fruit. The air was thick with tension.
“What’s the matter?”
“Emile disappeared
last night,” Arvel told him.
“Something got him,” added Gregorio, pulling down his lower eyelid.
“
Il Maloccio.
Only blood left
behind.”
Gregorio was more than a little superstitious.
The rest of the crew nodded, clearly spooked. “I’ll bet he’s dead,”
added Nuncio.
Simon’s mouth went dry as he remembered the two huge
things
he’d seen chasing after the
carriage on the road the previous night. He started to tell them about it, but
Arvel interrupted.
“There was a policeman here, asking questions.”
That’s the last thing we
need. Better not say anything.
“What did you tell him,” asked Simon.
“There was nothing to tell. It was
Il Maloccio.
We had nothing to do with it.” Gregorio tapped his
temple. “But we know his body will never be found.”
Louie brought him a cup of steaming fresh coffee. “The police
inspector asked a lot of questions about the damage to our ship. He’s going to
be watching us, I think.”
Arvel pulled him aside. “You may want to rethink your plans, my
friend.” They both knew there was no hidden meaning in Louie’s
comment—Arvel was the only other person who knew about Simon’s plans for
the Queen’s safe. And now Arvel was offering him a chance to back out.
Simon frowned. “A fellow disappears and they think it’s our fault?
That’s crazy.”
In spite of what happened last night, or what he’d seen on the
road, Simon wasn’t ready to walk away before they’d even started. And while Arvel
had faith that the
Il Colibri
’s
capabilities would win the Queen’s favor and a commission to build a fleet, after
seeing the German airship, Simon was no longer certain. If they lost to the
Germans, a single diamond brooch or necklace from the Queen’s personal jewel
box would bring enough to fund an entire fleet of airships.
“Gregorio’s right,” Simon agreed. “This doesn’t have anything to
do with us. We need to concentrate on getting the gondola fixed in time for the
airshow. We can decide about adjusting the plans later, if we have to.” He
hadn’t even had a chance to go over to Greenwich yet.
Besides, he wanted to see Welsie again.
Twitchell Crisp walked quickly away from the station house,
keeping his head down, feeling the eyes of both Greenslade and his partner
boring into his back.
Across the street, Janey and a couple of the younger kids threw
hand signs at him, questioning everything from what he got to eat to whether or
not he’d named names. Angrily, he slashed the signs-
-they let me go. Leave now. Don’t follow.
He kept moving, the warmth of the dry cell fading as rain quickly
soaked through his thin shirt. He turned up Billson, toward Stebondale Street,
where he knew he could lose himself. He had to make sure he wasn’t being
followed. He slipped around the back of the Builders Arms and entered the
vacant building next door through a boarded-up window. To the casual observer, the
boards appeared intact, but they’d been set up on hinges and swung aside as
easily as a cupboard door. The building had once housed an apothecary, but he used
it as a bolt hole. Someplace he could safely spy out from and see the whole of
Stebondale in both directions from the half-round second-floor window.
He ran lightly up the stairs, careful to watch the telltales he’d
set from his previous visits. The sulfur dust and talc remained undisturbed on
the stairs.
Keeping back from the windows, he watched the caddies standing
idle on the busy street, waiting to run errands. There was Frenchie, wearing a
veil over her face today; no doubt one of her customers had blackened her eye
or split a lip. Gordie the coal merchant’s horse was limping much worse; if he
didn’t do something, the skinner would have a new hide before long. Not a
single slopseller so much as glanced up at the window, and not one of the
mudlarks appeared to have followed him.
Good.
It would turn out bad for
the both of them, if anyone had.
The rain was letting up. Better go now before he lost his nerve. He
quick-stepped back down the stairs and out, pausing only for a moment to make
sure no one was watching his exit, then slipped out and away from the busy
streets of Stebondale and Ferry Road in favor of the empty sedges and fields,
past the Air Hangars, toward south Millwall. Cutting across the center of the
Island would keep him off the roads and hidden. He knew from painful experience
that one did not approach the rendering house without caution. Especially in
daylight.
He trotted past the old killing fields, where even at the ripe old
age of twelve, he would not dare to venture near after dark. He moved
cautiously along the wall surrounding the docks, through the narrow alleyway
that connected to Ferry Road, past St. Paul’s chapel, down Clause Street to the
riverwall, where the windmills once stood, and around the corner to the
two-story brick building which housed the butchery.
As always, Twitch wrinkled his nose at the smell, strong enough to
curl his back teeth when the wind was wrong. At one time, the slaughterhouse
had processed all the livestock on the island, but in the last few years, few
farmers sent their stock to the island for fattening anymore, and the airfield
took up a good portion of what had once been grazing land. The shambles now
rendered carcasses, fat, and blood into other goods.
And on occasion, other services could be rendered for those who
could pay.
The sound of hammering from the ship yard next door drowned out
any noise, so Twitch checked the street one last time before he dashed out of
the shadows and tried the front door. Locked. He slipped around to the side of
the building and shinnied up a drain pipe to peek into the office window on the
second floor. If the owner had been there, he would have left as silently as
he’d come, and try again later. But today, there was no one working on the
ledger at the desk, or napping on the horsehair sofa, or reading by gaslight.
Using his foot to lift the unlocked sash, Twitch slipped inside,
closing the window just far enough that he could ease it open again on his next
visit, but not visibly open to the casual observer. The reek from below was
worse here, but not as raw as it would be when he went downstairs. He panted
for a few moments, to get accustomed to the smell, then padded downstairs to
find John Raikes.
He found the knacker in the aboitor, as usual, butchering a horse,
his back turned. Twitch paused in the doorway of the windowless room as he
considered how much he might be able to charge for the information. Money would
be welcome, but he might do better to trade for horsemeat, which might bring
more.
As if he’d caught his scent on the air, Raikes stopped his cleaver
in mid-swing, and turned toward him.
“Where you been,
Twitchy? What do you want?”
John Raikes had a nose for lies, and Twitch had learned early that
the man liked nothing better than to coax the truth out of a lad, and he had
the most painful and humiliating ways of doing it. Few ever lied to John Raikes
twice.
“Been locked up. Coppers caught me with your knife.” As Raikes
patted his pockets, Twitch rushed to tell him everything. “
I swear, I found it!
I knew it was yours and was running to bring
it to you. They thought I was runnin’ from a snatch. I told ‘em I found it, but
he didn’t believe me.”
Raikes picked up a bloody rag and wiped the blade of his cleaver. “Who
didn’t believe you?”
“Greenslade. And the new one, Stackpoole.”
The folly girls all liked Raikes well enough when he wasn’t
drinking, but Twitch couldn’t understand why. He was a hulk of a man,
broad-shouldered with black hair that he kept tied back in a tail. Cold blue eyes,
a squashed nose and heavy brow gave him a menacing appearance. And right now, Twitch
felt as if all that menace was directed at him. “I didn’t steal it, I found it!
I was comin’ to give it to you,
I swear I
was
! They nabbed me before I could, as all.”
Raikes glared at him with a feral stare and set the cleaver down
on the cutting table.
He really was a big brute of a man.
“Where is it then?”
In spite of his menacing appearance, he always sounded
pleasant—cheerful, even. Maybe that was what the women liked. In all the
time he’d been running errands and selling bits to John Raikes, Twitch couldn’t
remember a single time when the man had ever raised his voice. Even now, as
Raikes came toward him, he spoke to him as if he would a kitten. Relaxing,
like. “They’ve got it. Wouldn’t give it back.”
“And they let you go. Right nice of them. And so you came runnin’
right over here to tell me, didn’t you?”
The room felt suddenly close. Twitch grabbed the doorway for
support, the buzzing of flies hummed loud in his ears. “No. I checked real
careful. No one followed me. Not even the ’larks.”
“Where did you find it?”
Twitch wondered if he dared to ask for a pound. That seemed like
so much; the lamb stew he’d gotten at the jail was already a distant memory. His
stomach gurgled. He could eat for days with that kind of money. The thought of a
kidney pie set his mouth to watering. “Pay me a pound, and I’ll tell ya”
Raikes grinned ear to ear, and Twitch thought that maybe he’d
blown his luck.
“Why of course, young Twitch. This is your lucky day, lad. Right
this way, I got me money right back here.”
Relieved, Twitch followed the butcher through the curtained
doorway leading to where the man slept. Who knew he’d be such a good sport
about this?
Should have asked for two pounds.
A watered silk sky hovered over the Thames the next morning, weaving
a few pink and lavender strands among the grey ceiling of dawn. Simon arrived at
the floating ferry dock at the appointed hour. It was a dodgy structure cobbled
together from half-rotted lumber, rope, and tin. Rows of ramshackle doghouses
lined up along the river banks on either side. Cully, one of the crewmen,
helped him aboard.
The
Hound of the Mist
was not much more than a low-walled platform powered by a smoky, noisy coughing
clanker of a steam engine that Gregorio would have scoffed at. The ferry
offered no shelter from the elements, and no way to avoid the soot and smoke
belched out by the ship’s single smokestack.
On this day, at least, there was no livestock, although based on
what he’d heard in the pub, this was not always the case. To Simon’s view, the
ferry was in a sorry state even for animal transport. The brass fittings had
lost their gleam., and bird guano coated the railings. The decks were slick
with muck and animal waste, although Cully wiped the damp off one of the bench
seats along the rail with a filthy rag for him. He politely declined, opting
instead to join the other two passengers huddled alee of the pilot house.
A filthier ship, he’d never seen.
As if he’d read Simon’s mind, Cully pointed out the captain,
inside the pilot house. “Captain Foine knows the river better’n anyone and none
‘ave his touch with a paddle steamer. Before he got the ferry contract, he ran
a tug service up and down Thames,” Cully confided. “No better pilot anywhere.”
The flesh-faced, snub-nosed oaf with sausage fingers looked as if
he hadn’t bathed in weeks. Hamm Foine’s natural expression seemed a permanent
scowl. Crikes, what could a woman like Welsie have possibly seen in him? She
could have had her choice of men, certainly. She was a looker and bright; a
merchant of some standing or even a banker would not have been above her
station. Why would a woman like that settle for a man who stank of horse shit
and sewage-laden river mud?
As the lines were cast off, Simon’s esteem for the swine-faced Captain
Foine was only slightly appeased by the man’s obvious skill in negotiating the
river traffic. The Captain handled the ship through the powerful currents masterfully,
avoiding the slightest backwash. He had to admit, he’d had rougher rides in a
rocking chair.
The trip, although damp and miserable, did not take long, and less
than thirty minutes later, they arrived at the Greenwich Dock, which at least
appeared solid enough, and he did not have to walk in the mud to get up to the
street.
Cully had given him useful directions to get to the Observatory,
but Simon had no intention of going there. He walked up Thames Street until it dead-ended
into London Street, then followed it back toward the River, and his true
destination, the Greenwich Pier. The streets were lined with fine homes in the
Tudor and Georgian styles, and well-tended gardens on large lots. Unlike that
poverty-stricken ghetto across the river, there was real money here.
Even the air smelled better.
Gentle men and women swept past him on the sidewalk, and fine
carriages with matched warmbloods trotted briskly past. Unlike the flat,
uninteresting marshlands on the island, Greenwich was built up around a hill;
bringing to mind his childhood home in Ryde.
Ten minutes later, Simon reached Greenwich pier, a grand, stretch
of heavy planks separating the river from the park-like setting below the Hospital.
From the pier, he had a good view of the Dreadnaught Seaman’s Hospital, an old
battle ship he remembered from his youth. It was docked at the stairs below the
naval collage, used as a quarantine hospital for sailors. At the far end of the
pier, separated by several hundred meters from any other ship, sat the Queens
own yacht, the
HMY Victoria and Albert II
.
Simon found an inconspicuous bench along the wharf area where he
could observe the comings and goings of the ship. A double guard stood watch at
the gangplank, but the pier was open and busy with strolling couples,
sightseers, and fishermen—the guards paid no attention to them. Feeling
more at ease, he strolled the pier, silently stepping off the length of the
ship, estimating as he did, the onboard crew count.
The numbers did not look good.
The royal yacht was much, much bigger than he remembered. This
ship was big enough to require a substantial crew. Uniformed guards patrolled
every deck, and even without the queen aboard, rounds were made at twenty-two
minute intervals. His mood blackened further as he observed the loading of
furniture, trunks of clothing and comestibles, which indicated that the Queen
was indeed planning to depart soon. The ship was big enough to carry a city!
His chances of getting aboard, much less getting anywhere near the
queen’s stateroom without being detected looked impossible.
I must’ve remembered it
wrong
.
As a boy, he’d often seen the royal yacht out on the Solent;
sailing from Gosport to the island every May for her annual holidays at Osborne
House, her summer residence. The royal yacht, which was easily recognized from
the queen’s red, yellow, and blue royal standard, was instantly recognizable. But
in his mind, the ship had been half the size of this one.
Even the distance from the waterline to the railings was greater than
he remembered. No chance of slipping over the side from the water. And the three
masts, two smokestacks and all that rigging would make an overhead boarding
dicey as well.
The longer he observed the ship and her crew, the more improbable
his plan became.
I shouldn’t have come
back
.
Nothing is as I remembered. England
is as dead to me now as it was when I left.
Simon spent the entire day at the pier, observing the crew and
mentally timing the patrols. When finally decided to leave, he discovered that
the tide had turned and he missed the ferry. Disgusted, he caught a cab and crossed
the Thames at London Bridge, a noisy, unpleasant ride that took more than two
hours.
He spent the ride pondering what he’d seen, unable to shake the uneasy
feeling that he was missing something important. His memories of Queen
Victoria’s arrivals to Wight could not have been so flawed. Simon prided himself
on his powers of observation. In his business, he had to astute—notice
things other people missed. Not unreasonable to expect the Queen would have
changed her habits since his boyhood days, but that could not explain his
recollection of the size of the royal yacht.
Perhaps seeing it up close like this was what had unsettled him
so. It seemed a ridiculously large conveyance for the Queen and her household
for a half-day trip to Osborne House. Yet it was clear from the wagons full of
furniture and foodstuffs being laded, that the
Victoria and Albert II
was being stocked for a pleasure voyage, and
the Queen always travelled to Osborne House for her birthday, which was
less than a week away
. No other
destination made sense. Certainly no foreign trip had been announced. If there
had, it would have been in all the papers.
By the time he reached the hangar, he’d all but decided not to
even try. He told Arvel about the problems with boarding the ship, and
explained that there were entirely too many members of the Queen’s household
and guards on watch to sneak on board.
“The deck is too far from the waterline. I’d need rigging to climb
up, and the deck patrol would see it. It’s like a floating palace; even if I
could board it unseen, there’s at least 200 crewmen on board, not to mention
the Queen’s staff. And her personal quarters are located such that the
passageways will never be empty.” He shook his head. “There’s no way to get
anywhere near her stateroom without being seen. And even if I could, I
certainly couldn’t do it twice. You know I won’t risk a job that big without
knowing I can do it first.”
“What if you snuck on board and stayed?” Arvel suggested. “Nuncio
could box you up as part of the household cargo with the hinges on the inside. Once
you’re in the hold, you’d wait for the right moment and then empty the safe.
“Crikes, no.” Simon barely suppressed a shudder. The thought of
being cooped up in the dark somewhere brought back memories of Benoit’s dungeon
he’d never fully managed to shake.
Arvel gave a derisive snort. “This doesn’t sound like you. This is
something we’ve both wanted for years. Now we’re here and ready to put
everything on the line, and you want to back out?”
“I didn’t say I wanted to back out, I just don’t want to be nailed
into a box. I need some more time, to think about it, that’s all. There’s got
to be another way.”
“You’ve lost your nerve, haven’t you? Admit it. It was a crazy idea
all along.”
Arvel’s good-humored jibing was nothing new. Simon knew that
whatever he decided, Arvel was the one person in the whole world who had his
back and respected his judgment.
“It’s not that.” Although admittedly, now that Arvel thought he
wanted to back out, he really didn’t want to. “All I need is four minutes access
to that safe.” The royal family put Chubb safes on all their yachts, and in
spite of the company’s claims that their safes could not be cracked, there was
not a Chubb lock made yet that he could not pick. “I’m not saying I’m ready to
walk away yet. Those jewels will bring us at least half a million pounds. Enough
to build a dozen airships.” While the Queen didn’t wear extravagant jewelry on
her family vacations, she was never without her diamond studs or the jewels Albert
have given her before he died. Not the crown jewels but more than enough.
“You’re just being stubborn now, and won’t admit it.”
“It isn’t that at all. I need time to think. I don’t want to argue
about it.”
Maybe it was the girl.
Welsie.
She’d distracted him from his purpose, and he wasn’t thinking clearly, that’s
all. He couldn’t seem to get her out of his head; she kept popping in at the
most inconvenient times. He liked thinking about her. And felt awful about
propositioning her. In Italy, the women he knew expected such talk.
“I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m not walking away from
something this rich, Arvel. I just need another day.”
“Good thing the weather is so bad. Looks like you’ll have two.”
Simon’s stomach rumbled. “Come on. I found a place last night. The
food is good.”
Arvel rolled his eyes. “How would you know, English? Your idea of
good food is burned shoe leather. More likely there’s a pretty barmaid.” But he
grinned as he shrugged into his greatcoat.
“What, you’re a mind reader now?”