Bernard Cornwell - Gallows Thief

'It's called a sheep,' Sandman said, 'vulgarly known as a woolly bird.'

'A device that does not leave dung,' Lord Alexander said acidly, then smiled at Lord Christopher Carne. 'Of course you must spend the evening with me, my dear fellow. Perhaps you can explain this man Kant to me? Someone sent me his last book, have you seen it? I thought you would have. He seems very sound, but he was a Prussian, wasn't he? I suppose that wasn't his fault. Come and have some tea first. Rider? You'll have some tea? Of course you will. And I want you to meet Lord Frederick. You know he's our club secretary now? You really should join us. And you wanted some linseed oil for the bat? They do a very acceptable tea here.'

So Sandman went for a lordly tea.

===OO=OOO=OO===

It was a cloudy evening and the sky over London was made even darker because there was no wind and the coal smoke hung thick and still above the roofs and spires. The streets near St James's Square were quiet, for there were no businesses in these quiet houses and many of their owners were in the country. Sandman saw a watchman noting him and so he crossed to the man and said good evening and asked what regiment he had served in and the two passed the time exchanging memories of Salamanca, which Sandman thought was perhaps the most beautiful town he had ever seen. A lamplighter came round with his ladder and the new gas lights popped on one after the other, burning blue for a time and then turning whiter. 'Some of the houses here are getting gas,' the watchman said, 'indoors.'

'Indoors?'

'No good'll come of it, sir. It ain't natural, is it?' The watchman looked up at the nearest hissing lamp. 'There'll be fire and pillars of smoke, sir, like it says in the good book sir, fire and pillars of smoke. Burning like a fiery furnace, sir.'

Sandman was saved more apocalyptic prophecies when a hackney turned into the street, the sound of its horse's hooves echoing sharply from the shadowed white house fronts. It stopped close to Sandman, the door opened and Sergeant Berrigan stepped down. He tossed a coin up to the driver, then held the door open for Sally.

'You can't…' Sandman began.

'I told you he'd say that,' Berrigan boasted to Sally, 'didn't I tell you he'd say you shouldn't come?'

'Sergeant!' Sandman insisted. 'We cannot…'

'You're going for Meg, right?' Sally intervened. 'And she ain't going to take kindly to two old swoddies doing her up, is she? She needs a woman's touch.'

'I'm sure two old soldiers can gain her confidence,' Sandman said.

'Sal won't take no for an answer,' the Sergeant warned him.

'Besides,' Sandman continued, 'Meg isn't in the Seraphim Club. We're only going there to find the coachman so he can tell us where he took her.'

'Maybe he'll tell me what he won't tell you,' Sally said to Sandman with a dazzling smile, then she turned on the watchman. 'You got nothing better to do than listen to other folks chatting?'

The man looked startled, but followed the lamplighter down the street while Sergeant Berrigan fished in his coat pocket to bring out a key which he showed to Sandman. 'Back way in, Captain,' he said, then looked at Sally. 'Listen, my love, I know…'

'Stow it, Sam! I'm coming with you!'

Berrigan led the way, shaking his head. 'I don't know what it is,' he grumbled, 'the ladies tell you that life ain't fair because men get all the privileges, but the mollishers don't half get their own way. You notice that, Captain? It's bitch about this and bitch about that, but who gets to wear the silk, gold and pearls, eh?'

'You talking about me, Sam Berrigan?' Sally asked.

'True love,' Sandman murmured, then Berrigan put a finger to his lips as they approached a wide carriage gate set in a white wall at the end of a short street.

'What it is,' Berrigan said softly, 'is that it's a quiet time of day in the club. We should be able to sneak in.' He approached a small door set to one side of the gates, tried it, found it locked and so used his key. He pushed the door open, looked into the yard and evidently saw nothing to alarm him, for he stepped over the threshold and beckoned Sandman and Sally to follow.

The yard was empty except for a coach, its blue paint trimmed with gold, that had evidently just been washed for it stood gleaming in the dusk with water dripping from its flanks and buckets standing by the wheels. The badge of the golden angel was painted on the door. 'Over here, quick,' Berrigan said, and Sandman and Sally followed the Sergeant to the shadow of the stables. 'One of the lads will be washing it,' Berrigan said, 'but the coachmen will be in the back kitchen there.' He nodded to a lit window in the carriage house, then turned in alarm as a door in the main house was thrown open. 'In here!' Berrigan hissed, and the three of them filed into an alley that led beside the stables. Footsteps sounded in the yard.

'Here?' a voice asked. Sandman did not recognise it.

'A hole twelve feet deep,' another voice answered, 'stone-lined and with a masonry dome over the top.'

'Not much damn room. How wide's the hole?'

'Ten feet?'

'Christ, man, it's where we turn the carriages!'

'Do it in the street.'

Berrigan swayed close to Sandman. 'They're talking about building an ice house,' he breathed in Sandman's ear, 'been discussing it for a year now.'

'What about behind the stables?' the first man asked.

'No room,' the other man answered.

'I mean between the stables and the back wall,' the first man said, and Sandman heard his footsteps getting closer and knew it was only a matter of seconds before they were discovered. But then Berrigan peered out of the alley's far end, saw no one and dashed across a smaller yard to a door that opened into the rear of the house. 'This way!' he hissed.

Sandman and Sally ran after him and found themselves on a servant's stairway that evidently ran from the kitchens in the basement to the upper floors. 'We'll hide upstairs,' Berrigan whispered, 'till the coast's clear.'

'Why not hide here?' Sandman asked.

''Cos the bastards could come back in through this bleeding door,' Berrigan said, then led them up the unlit stairway. Halfway up he edged open a door that led into a corridor that was deeply carpeted and had walls covered in a deep scarlet paper, though it was too dark to see the pattern of the paper or the details of the pictures that hung between the polished doors. Berrigan chose a door at random, opened it and found an empty room. 'We'll be all right in here,' he said.

It was a bedroom; large, lavish and comfortable. The bed itself was high and huge, plump-mattressed and covered with a thick scarlet covering on which the Seraphim's naked angel took flight. A fireplace was there to warm the room in winter. Berrigan crossed to the window and pulled back the curtain so he could gaze down into the yard. Sandman's eyes slowly adjusted to the dim light, then he heard Sally laugh and he turned to see her gazing at a picture above the bedhead. 'Good God,' Sandman said.

'There's a lot of those,' Berrigan commented drily.

The picture showed a happy group of men and women in a circular arcade of white marble pillars. In the foreground a child played a flute and another plucked a harp, both ignoring their naked elders who coupled under the moon that lit the pillared arcade with an unearthly glow. 'Bloody hell,' Sally said respectfully, 'you wouldn't think a girl could do that with her legs.'

Sandman decided no answer was necessary. He moved to the window and stared down, but the yard seemed empty again. 'I think they've gone back inside,' Berrigan said.

'Another one,' Sally said, standing on tiptoe to examine the painting above the empty fireplace.

'D'you think they'll come in here?' Sandman asked.

Berrigan shook his head. 'They only use these back slums in the winter.'