Alex Grecian - The Yard

“Just upstairs?” he said.

“Yes.” She peered at him and stuck a finger up in the air. “I know who you are.”

“You do?”

“You’re no sweep at all, are you?”

“But I am, ma’am.”

She winked at him. “You look like a sweep would look, but there’s something not quite right, I think. But never you mind. Your secret’s safe with me…” She paused and leaned forward, looked over her shoulder at the empty hall behind them, and whispered, “… Officer.”

Sam blinked at her, but said nothing. He’d encountered his fair share of dotty old bats in his time.

“Head on up. It’s there at the end of the hall. The second flat. He’s waiting for you.”

Sam nodded and hoisted his bucket, getting a better grip. He started up the staircase and turned back when the old lady hissed at him.

“Never mind what I said before,” she said. “You’re quite convincing.”

Sam shook his head and trudged up the remaining stairs to the top. The old lady followed him and broke off to scurry into a flat. Sam moved on to the door at the far end of the hall and rapped lightly on the jamb.

“Come in,” a man’s voice said.

Sam Pizer used his free hand to turn the knob and stepped inside the flat. He closed the door behind him.

The coachman pried open a window and let himself into the tailor’s house. He checked it thoroughly, but Cinderhouse wasn’t there and neither was the boy. He’d hoped to find Fenn in a closet somewhere. He could take him, sell him to Sam Pizer the chimney sweep, and Cinderhouse would simply assume that the boy had escaped again. A neat profit for the coachman, and with no consequences to worry about.

Next, the coachman went round to the tailor’s shop, but it appeared to be empty as well. Just to be sure, the coachman felt along the top of the door frame where he knew Cinderhouse kept a key. He unlocked the door and went inside. He almost locked the door behind him, but decided that he’d only be there for a minute. The shop was clearly deserted.

The tailor’s white cat rubbed against his leg. It dropped something at his feet and sat back, looked up at him, and purred. The coachman bent to look at the object and recoiled when he realized it was a dead rat. He kicked at the cat and missed, and the damned thing trotted away, its tail in the air.

The coachman ignored the rat at his feet and tried to focus. He couldn’t think where the tailor might be. Surely he wouldn’t take a walk in the rain with the boy. Of course he could have hired another carriage, but it wasn’t the sort of day for an outing, was it?

The coachman had just decided to give up and head back to his own home and a nice warm cuppa when he heard something, a faint and faraway noise. He cocked his head and listened and heard it again.

It sounded like someone yelling for help.

The coachman poked his head out the front door, but heard nothing outside over the rushing sound of the rain. Inside again, he wandered about the shop, keeping his ears open, aware that the sound might be nothing more than the mewling of the white cat. But again and again he heard the small, muffled voice shouting for help.

The coachman opened closet doors and toppled mannequins over, ripped curtains from the walls and pulled drawers out of the wardrobes. Finally, he pried off a rusted padlock and opened the cupboard doors beneath the long counter in the middle of the room.

There, in the floor of the cupboard, was a large square hole. He guessed that it was the entrance to some abandoned root cellar. It was possible that the tailor’s shop had once been a residence, and when it had been converted to a business, the cellar had been covered over and finally forgotten.

The coachman stuck his head inside the cupboard and yelled, “Hallo! Is someone down there?”

There was a moment of silence, and then a small voice. “Please help me! My foot is stuck!”

It was the boy.

The coachman smiled. It was his lucky day. The child had been left there alone.

“I’ll have you out in a jiffy, boy. Hold tight and I’ll be back.”

“Don’t leave me,” the boy said. “There’s rats here and I’m afraid they’re hungry.”

“They might be at that. Don’t you move now.”

The coachman searched the shop and, when he didn’t find any rope, tore part of a bolt of linen into long strips. He tied the strips together and secured one end around the sewing machine that was bolted to the counter. He tossed the other end down the hole in the floor.

“Ready or not, here I come,” he said.

He lowered himself into the coal-black cellar.

Mrs Flanders looked up from her book. She’d been so absorbed in the story she was reading that she couldn’t be sure she’d heard anything at all. She listened carefully. Just as she gave up and returned to the story, there came a strangled cry and a thump from the flat next door.

She waited several moments, but heard nothing more.

She clucked her tongue at the wall. Boys will be boys, she thought. But she would have to ask Mr Hammersmith to hold his police meetings elsewhere. Hers was a respectable building, and she couldn’t have riffraff traipsing in and out and horsing about making noise, even if they weren’t really riffraff but were actually policemen in disguise. The neighbors didn’t know that.

She shook her head and turned her attention back to the new penny novel she was reading. It told the story of a raffish gentleman thief and murderer and it was absolutely thrilling, even if it wasn’t particularly true to life.

Inside the hansom cab was dark and dry, and Hammersmith came gradually awake feeling refreshed and more completely himself than he had in the past two days. His mouth was dry and tasted like dirt.

Blacker wasn’t in the cab with him. Hammersmith assumed the detective had decided to let him sleep. He pulled the curtain aside and felt immediately disoriented. The rain had picked up and visibility was low, but he could see well enough and the Shaw brownstone was nowhere in evidence. Nor was the willow tree or the stone wall across the street from the Shaw home. Whichever direction the cab faced, Hammersmith felt he ought to see something familiar.

He opened the door and stepped out into the storm. He was immediately soaked to the bone. He turned his face to the sky and opened his mouth, swished the rainwater around, and spat it out in the street. His mouth felt and tasted marginally better.

He was in front of the tailor’s shop. He’d been here with Pringle many times before. How long had he been asleep? Had Blacker finished the interview with Penelope Shaw and moved on?

He tried the door and it swung open. Inside the shop he shook his overcoat out and ran a hand through his hair to stop the water running into his eyes. The place appeared to be empty. Blacker was nowhere to be seen. Hammersmith couldn’t see many places a grown man might hide in the little shop. He felt something at his ankle and looked down to see a cat rubbing against him. He stooped to pet it.

The cat was white and fluffy, and some of its hair clung to his wet fingers. There was a small hard nugget in the cat’s coat and Hammersmith prodded at it while the cat undulated and purred. When he plucked the speck from its fur, the cat yowled. It grabbed his hand between its paws and bit down on the web between his thumb and index finger. He yanked his hand away and the cat ran off.

Hammersmith frowned at the tiny bead he was holding. It was dark brown and there were cat hairs stuck to it. He was certain it was blood.

Day had said something about cat hairs. Something about Pringle’s trousers.

He let the crumb of dried blood fall to the floor and stood, wiping his fingers on the leg of his trousers. The stillness of the shop felt eerie to him now. At his feet, the tangle of white fur bound in blood might well have been an omen. And now the shop came into focus for him, wardrobes flung open, drawers pulled from cabinets, something tied to the sewing machine on the counter.