John Drake - Skull and Bones

"Now then," cried Mr Abbey, clapping his hands. "Let's see you do it!"

Selena stretched out her hands, and found the pistol and paper cartridge on the table in front of her. She felt for the flint, to make sure it was in place, set the lock to half-cock, bit off the end of the cartridge, primed the lock with powder, snapped down the steel, poured the rest of the charge down the up-ended barrel, and rammed ball and paper down the barrel with the ramrod, which she neatly replaced before cocking the lock, levelling and giving fire with a flash and a bang… and a loud CLANG from the great sheet of iron plate hung on a ropes ten paces to her front.

Cheers filled the amphitheatre as Selena pulled off her blindfold, threw it away, put down the smoking pistol, and stamped forward again, smiling and bowing with easy grace to left and right, and blowing kisses to all the house… as she'd been taught.

Mr Abbey, Katty Cooper and the company surged forward, ears ringing from the shot and the clang, and laughed and surrounded Selena.

"Where did you learn that?" said Mr Abbey. "Do you hunt?"

"No," said Selena.

"Then what do you shoot?" said Abbey, for he affected gentlemanly pursuits, including shooting, and went out after game of all kinds, and it was his own conversation on this favourite topic which had led to Selena's boast that she could load a gun blindfolded. "So what have you shot?" he repeated. "Do tell us!"

"Nothing…" she said, in a small voice "… only men."

Everyone thought this a wonderful joke. They laughed enormously, even Katty Cooper, who knew less about Selena than she thought. And as they laughed, inspiration crept up on Mr Abbey. He noticed that some of the dancing girls were clustered around Selena in their gowns and pumps, which made them seem smaller than Selena with her boots and her pistol…

"Stap me!" he said, growing excited. "Do you know, dear heart, I think I might cast Mrs Henderson as the principal boy player in one of my pantomimes!"

Katty Cooper frowned.

"But she's a woman."

"That's the whole point!"

"What is?"

"Well, if we present her – with legs and tits – stamping around the stage pretending to be a man, firing off pistols, and taking the heroine in her arms…"

"Ahhhh!" said Katty Cooper, beginning to understand, for many gentlemen of her professional acquaintance were exceedingly partial to such displays between women.

"We'll have something the men will adore," said Abbey, "while the ladies and children will think it mere innocent nonsense…"

"Which will offend nobody."

"Not at all, not even clergymen," said Abbey, and laughed… and gasped and all but staggered, as he received the second wave of inspiration. He spun Katty Cooper around by the arms, and looked up into her pretty little face. "D'you know what I'm going to do?"

"No?"

"I'm coming with you!"

"You are?" Katty frowned.

"Yes! In fact, I'm taking you. We shall tour together: York, Edinburgh, Exeter, Chester – all of them, at my expense!" Katty's frown darkened, but Abbey failed to notice. "I shall form a travelling company. I shall write a piece!" He waved a hand. "Songs, dances, scenery – everything. We shall tour!" His eyes gleamed. "And then we shall descend upon Drury Lane in triumph!" Katty Cooper growled. "And the lynch-pin and keystone shall be Mrs Henderson," he said. "And I shall make her fortune, mine – and yours, dear heart!"

"Mine?" said Katty Cooper with a twinkling smile, for until that instant she'd seen herself written out.

"Yes!" said Abbey. "And you must not even think of entering her into your profession -" He blinked. "I mean… I mean… your old profession, dear heart."

"Must I not?" she said nastily, for the dear little face could display tremendous spite when it chose to do so.

"God stap me, no! You'll make ten times the money this way!"

"Ahhhhh!" Katty smiled again. That was different.

"Then you agree?"

"Oh yes," said Katty Cooper, and delivered yet another pretty smile.

She smiled and smiled… but Katty Cooper hated Mr Abbey from that moment on, because although she could never say no to money, she was so corrosively – so viciously – selfish that she could abide no plan than her own, nor any hand than hers upon the tiller.

Worse still, Katty Cooper now hated Selena, too, for being better than her mentor and not needing her.

And so, Katty Cooper began to think of ways to punish Selena.

Mid-morning, 25th June 1753 Jackson's Coffee House Off the Covent Garden Piazza London

"No room, sir!" said the head waiter, shaking his head.

"No room at all!" And he planted himself defiantly in front of John Silver and Dr Cowdray as they came through Mr Jackson's neatly glazed door.

The waiter had been appalled the moment he spotted them through the glass. They were clearly the wrong sort – seafarers, no less! None such were admitted, save officers in His Majesty's sea service, or nabob captains of East Indiamen, and then only if properly dressed. The two men in front of him wore plain old clothes and not a wig between them. And if that weren't bad enough, the tall man was ruined by the loss of a leg and leaned grotesquely upon a crutch, which Mr Jackson would never allow, for he permitted no disfigurement within the house.

"No room?" said Silver, his big, square-chinned face looming down over the waiter as he fixed him with his eye. The waiter swallowed and trembled but stood fast, for his job was at risk. "So what's them empty benches, my lad?" said Silver, pointing into the room.

"Reserved, sir! Reserved for a large party."

"Ah!" said Silver, and nodded, and smiled kindly down on the wretched waiter in his long white apron. "Now see here," he said, "you're a bright lad: smart as paint! I see'd it the instant I clapped eyes on you." The waiter blinked. Silver patted him on the shoulder, and brought out a clunking fistful of big silver coins. "D'you know what these are?" he said.

"Spanish dollars," said the waiter.

"That they are, my lad! And could you tell a poor sailorman, fresh arrived in port, what they might be worth, in King George-God-bless-him's own money?"

"Four to the pound, sir."

"And how many pounds might a lad like you earn in a year? Ten? A dozen?" The waiter nodded. "Well, lad," said Silver, "there's four dollars here what's telling me there's room for me and my matey, over in the corner yonder."

"Ah… hmm" said the waiter. "Perhaps you may be correct, sir. If you'd just follow me…"

"Aye, lad," said Silver. "And I've another four that says, so soon as Mr Jackson's in the house, why, he'd like to lay alongside o' me, for to parlay."

The waiter went chalk white. He knew Flash Jack very well, and all his likes and dislikes. Silver saw his expression, and smiled a wide smile and winked, and prodded the waiter in the ribs and leaned very close.

"Could be more than four dollars," he whispered. "Very much more. Heaps and piles of 'em. Ready cash money. You just tell Mr Jackson that, and send him to me!"

And so they were duly seated, and served, and they drank their coffee and ate their cakes, and ignored the sneers of the other occupants of the room.

"You've grown cunning, John," said Cowdray, smiling. "The man I knew three years ago would have knocked down that waiter as soon as look at him!"

"Well, I ain't that man," said Silver with a scowl. "Not no more."

"Hmm," said Cowdray, and shrugged. "If you're offering money about, how much is left of McLonarch's three thousand?"

"Some," said Silver.

"But how much?" said Cowdray.

"Pah!" said Silver. "Let me worry about that."

"What about Allardyce? He was strong for McLonarch -"

"Who's dead!" said Silver, interrupting.