Andrew Taylor - The American Boy

"What is it? What do you wish to show me?"

This time her cry was sharper, even with an edge of anger. She gestured vigorously with her right arm, pointing towards the end of the street, and motioning with her other hand, as if to reinforce the urgency. Then she pushed me away from her, and as she did so, her eyes slid across the road to the shop. I saw the fear in her face, this time quite unmistakable. She bunched her hands into fists and pretended to punch me in the chest again and again and again, the blows light, meant for show, not for harm: to tell me something.

"They are coming to find me?" I said. "They mean to hurt me?"

Her mouth opened into a great oval, showing the rotting teeth within. Her squeals became louder. She passed the flat of her hand across my windpipe.

Cut-throat.

"Tell me one thing before I go." I felt in my pocket for my purse. "Has Mr Iversen still got his bird? The one that says ayez peur, the one he used to keep in the shop?"

She shook her head and shooed me, as if I were a wandering chicken.

"What happened to it?" I opened the purse and showed it to her. "Where did it go?"

She spat at the purse, her spittle spraying on my hand.

I cursed myself for a fool. "I'm sorry. But when did the bird go? Within the last week?"

In the dull evening light, dusk contending with flaring lamps and torches, Mary Ann's face grew even paler and the freckles stood out like typhus spots. She was looking not at me but across the road. Two heavily built men in black coats had emerged from the passageway beside the shop. One of them glanced at me and I saw him touch his companion's arm.

At the same time, I saw something else, something so wholly unexpected I could hardly believe it. Passing in front of the two men, impeding their rush across the road at me, was a small, lopsided but intensely powerful figure. He pushed open Mr Iversen's door – by some acoustical freak I heard the jangle of the shop bell – and vanished inside. But I recognised him. It was the tooth-puller, the man called Longstaff, who lived with his mother in Lambert-place, quite a different neighbourhood from this; the man who had given me the satchel containing the severed finger.

Mary Ann screeched and ran away down the street. I walked hurriedly in the opposite direction, towards the crossroads that gives Seven Dials its name. I glanced back and saw the men plunging across the roadway, careless of the traffic. I abandoned dignity and broke into a run.

For the next quarter of an hour, we played fox and hounds, and all the time I made my way south and west. In the end I lost them by ducking into an alley off Gerrard-street and working my way along the backs of the buildings till I could emerge at the eastern end of Lisle-street. I slowed to a more comfortable walk and took my time strolling among the bright lights of Leicester-square. I did not think they would dare attack me there, even if they had been able to follow me. I made two leisurely circuits of the square, enough to convince me that I had thrown them off.

At last I made my way back to the Strand and Gaunt-court. I was exhausted, and faint with hunger for I had not eaten since long before I met Sophie. Far worse than weariness and sore feet, though, were the anxieties that weighed down my spirits.

A hackney was waiting near the entrance to Gaunt-court, its driver huddled under his greatcoat on the box. The glass was down and the smell of a cigar wafted out into the evening air, its fragrance momentarily overwhelming the smells of the street. I had a glimpse of two eyes, their whites quite startling in the half-light of the evening, and heard a deep, familiar voice.

"Well met, Mr Shield," said Salutation Harmwell.

At Mr Noak's lodgings in Brewer-street, Salutation Harmwell provided me with a sandwich and a glass of madeira. The refreshment was welcome, but its effect, combined with the warmth, the lateness of the hour, the softness of my chair and above all my tiredness, was my undoing. As we waited in the big, shabby room on the first floor, I fell into a profound sleep.

A rapping on the street door brought me suddenly to my senses. In that instant, poised between sleeping and waking, a bed of red roses glowed and pulsed like embers in a dying fire, and time stretched into the dark, illimitable wasteland around them. Then the roses became tufts of wool, a faded carpet shimmering in the lamplight: time was no more than the ticking of the clock above the fireplace and the expectation of the sun rising.

I heard footsteps below, the rattle of a chain and the withdrawing of a bolt. In some confusion, I sat up and cleared my throat. I had an uneasy suspicion that I had been snoring.

"I beg your pardon," I said. "I had fallen into a doze."

Salutation Harmwell, still as a hunter, silent and alert, was seated bolt upright on the other side of the fireplace. "It does not matter in the least, Mr Shield," he said, rising from his chair. "The fault is ours, for bringing you here at this hour. But now at least your wait is over."

There were footsteps on the stairs. The door opened, and Mr Noak bustled in. He advanced towards me with his hand outstretched.

"It is good of you to come, Mr Shield. I am sorry you have had such a delay. I was dining with the American Minister, and I found he had invited several gentlemen expressly to meet me. I could not with decency leave Baker-street until I had talked to them all."

I protested automatically that he had not inconvenienced me in the slightest, wondering a little at the civility he showed me. Mr Noak waved me back to my chair. He himself took the seat that Harmwell had vacated. The clerk remained standing – attentive to Mr Noak, as always, but never subservient – his dark clothes and skin blending with the shadows away from the circle of light around the fireplace.

I said, more abruptly than I had intended: "May I ask how you found my direction, sir?"

"Eh? Oh, my London lawyers recommended an inquiry agent who does that kind of work." He glanced at me over his spectacles. "You did not give him a great deal of trouble."

I fancied there was a hint of a question in his words but I chose not to hear it. I said, "When did he find me?"

"Earlier this week." After a pause, he added, his voice suddenly sharp, "Why do you ask?"

"He was noticed at the house where I lodge."

"Yes. I shall not employ him again. He was less discreet than I would have wished." Noak hesitated, and then continued, "You see, when I commissioned him to find you, I was not sure when – or even whether – I might wish to see you. But today there have been a number of events which make renewing our acquaintance a matter of urgency."

"For whom?"

"Oh, for both of us." The American sat back in his chair and a spasm of pain passed over his face. "In my opinion, that is to say. You of course must be the best judge of your own interests."

"It is difficult to be the judge of anything when one has no idea what is happening, sir."

He inclined his head, as though acknowledging the force of my argument, and said in his flat, quiet voice: "Murder, Mr Shield. That is what has happened. And now there are consequences."

"You mean Mr Frant's murder?"

Noak said: "We go too fast. I should have said: murders."

The plural form of the word filled the room with a sudden, uncomfortable silence. It is one thing to articulate a theory in the privacy of your own mind; it is quite another to hear it on the lips of someone else, particularly a man of sense.

I pretended ignorance. "I beg your pardon, sir – I do not catch your meaning."

"The man who lies in St George's burial ground had lost his face, Mr Shield. The law decided he was Mr Frant but the law may sometimes be an ass."