Lady of Devices (9 page)

Inside the derelict building, the gaseous miasma had already begun to clear, not finding the walls and roof any great impediment to its rise through the atmosphere. But Claire still felt a stinging in her eyes, like an echo of the pain endured by the criminals outside.

Criminals, hmph. They were children. How was it possible that so many children should be parentless and forced to make their own way in the world? It was one thing to be eighteen and possessed of an education. It was quite another to be ten ... or four ... and possessed of nothing at all.

Master Willie, being closer to the ground and less affected by the remnants of the gas, found her a lamp on a hook. Then he towed her over to her trunk, which lay empty on its side next to a cold fireplace that appeared not to have been cleaned since the Queen of Empires had begun her glorious reign.

“Ah. Here’s a start. Well done.” She righted the trunk and laid her embroidered waist inside. Then, holding the lamp high with one hand and her skirts with the other, she followed Willie carefully up a rickety stair—more of a ladder, really—that creaked alarmingly at their combined weight.

As she collected her various bits of clothing—underthings, blouses, walking skirts, dresses, hats—she saw they had already been sorted into heaps with sundry like items that were not nearly as clean. “Willie, were these going to the ragmen in the morning?” He nodded, his eyes tearing a little at the last remnants of the gas. “It’s a lucky thing I acted quickly, then. If I had waited, I should never have seen my clothes again. You wouldn’t have observed a small traveling case containing a Bible, would you?”

The little boy glanced to the rear of the apartment, where there was a single plank door. Everywhere else, it appeared the members of this gang were using the piles of rags and clothes as bedding until enough had accumulated to go to the ragman or the stall-keepers in Petticoat Lane. But someone rated the privacy and status of a door, and she had one guess as to who that might be.

“Is that Snouts’s room?” Willie nodded. “Since he has given me
carte blanche
to recover my property, I shan’t feel too badly about invading his privacy, then.”

Willie looked alarmed, and she suspected all the children were under threat of death if they, like Bluebeard’s wives, succumbed to the temptation to open the door.

For all his status as leader, Snouts had not much more than his minions, she saw as she stepped cautiously inside. A pile of rags, a pipe, a cage containing rags, and a window with real glass in it was the extent of his worldly goods. The room stank of acid alcohol and offal. Primming her mouth in disgust, Claire rooted through the rag-pile until her hands touched a hard and rectangular shape.

Her traveling case. She carried it over to the lamp and opened it to find only the Bible inside. The lock of hair still lay within, so that was another blessing. But what of the rest? She tipped up the false bottom and peered in, then felt the compartment with her fingers.

Nothing. No notebooks, and certainly no jewelry.

“Willie, have you seen any sign of a book and a notebook for writing in? They were in this case.” Again, he shook his head, looking worried. “Never mind. I shall have to conduct an interrogation, that’s all. Best to do that while the suspects are still somewhat incapacitated. Will you help me return these things to the trunk, please?”

A muffled sound, like water bubbling in a pipe, came as though in reply. Willie’s eyes widened and she glanced in the direction of his gaze. “Is there something alive in there?”

What she had mistaken for a heap of rags inside the cage moved and lifted its head. Two black eyes regarded her with suspicion, and the bubbling sound came again.

“Good heavens. Is that a chicken?” Willie gripped the windowsill and stood on tiptoe to peer into the cage. “Snouts keeps a chicken in his room? Why on earth should he do that?” The little boy gestured with both hands and she understood. “Ah. An inexhaustible source of food. What a pity he doesn’t understand that one needs to care for one’s birds in order to expect something in return.” If she had been angry before, it was nothing to what she felt now. This poor creature, locked in the dark with nothing to eat, expected to produce food until—what? It died?

“Come along, little bird.” She picked up the cage. “Willie, you are in charge of lighting us downstairs.”

In a few moments she had repacked everything into her trunk, and closed the lid. She was not sure how she was going to move it, and she did not yet know where the landau was, but she could only accomplish one thing at a time.

“Thank you for your assistance, Master Willie. Your help has been invaluable.”

For the first time, a smile broke out on his face, and she saw a dimple wink on each side of his mouth. He hugged her knees and she dropped to his level, carefully putting the cage on the floor before she hugged him back. When she tried to rise again, he hung on. “What is it, Willie?”

His grip tightened.

“You don’t want me to take the bird? No. You don’t want me to go outside again? But I must. It is clear that a few of my possessions are secreted upon the persons of your friends, and I intend to retrieve them.”

He shook his head, as if her guess was incorrect, and held her immobile with the force of his affection. “What is it, dear? I don’t understand.”

He released her and ran to the largest rag-pile, where he busied himself making the hollow in it larger, as if to accommodate a—

“Willie, is it that you want me to stay here?”

Beaming, he nodded, and sat himself in the hollow he had made, patting the space next to him. Unaccountably, her eyes filled with tears.

“But my dear, I must go. I must find a place to lay my head this evening, and then continue my search for employment. I appreciate your help deeply, and someday when I can, I will repay you, but I cannot stay.”

The smile faded from his face, and even the pathetic hen in the cage made a sad sound. Compassion warred with practicality. It was one thing to rescue a hen that was probably on its last legs anyway. It was quite another thing to rescue a child—or a number of children. Some things were just beyond her means and ability at the moment. She had never realized the power in a child’s tears—especially when this particular child had so little, and she was about to take even that away.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. Grasping the hen’s cage, she went outside.

The members of the gang—oh, for heaven’s sake, the children—had pulled themselves into a knot on the steps of the rope-maker’s establishment opposite. When she appeared, they stirred uneasily. Well, they didn’t know she had nothing but a cardigan in her satchel, did they?

“Thanks to Master Willie’s assistance, I now have most of my things,” she said, taking up a schoolteacher’s stance before them. “I now require two books, a parcel of pencils, a ring, and a pearl necklace, and I also require the whereabouts of my landau.”

They shifted, making themselves smaller on the steps. Snouts gulped audibly and climbed to his feet, brushing the fronts of his patched trousers. “We—we gots a proposition for you, lady.” Then he peered through the gloom. “Izzat my Rosie you got there?”

“If you mean this unfortunate scrap of poultry, then yes. I am in the process of rescuing her.”

“But she’s mine. How’m I gonna eat?”

“I suspect you’ll develop the same skills as your companions, Mr. Snouts. You have starved and degraded this poor creature until it’s a wonder she’ll give you anything but a sound pecking.”

“’E caught ’er in t’market in Poultry Street,” Tigg said. “’E were gonna eat ’er but t’Mopsies talked ’im out of it.”

The Mopsies glared at her, as if she’d singlehandedly undone all their good work. “You may rest assured no one will eat her whilst she is in my care,” she assured them. “Now. My property, if you please.”

“Our proposition first,” Snouts said.

“Mr. Snouts, you are hardly in a position to bargain. I am the one with the poisonous chemicals.”

“McTavish.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“My name’s McTavish. Snouts is just a handle.”

“And a fair one it is,” Tigg snickered.

“’At’s enough! I’m doing a spot o’ business ’ere, can’t you see?” He turned back to Claire. “Our proposition is, we give you back yer stuff if you stick aroun’ an’ teach us ’ow to make them chemicals and such.”

Willie crept up behind her and wrapped his arms around her knees. Snouts McTavish nodded. “Willie likes yer, so ye must not be like them toffs wot beat us off their fancy carriages.”

Memory flared. It had been the day she’d driven Gorse home from school—the day she’d caused the explosion in the laboratory. “That was you. You stopped my landau in front of Pilkington’s Hotel. I gave you all the change I had.”

Snouts shrugged. “So those’re our terms. For every day you stay wiv us an’ teach us summink, we give you back one of your gewgaws.”

“And my landau?” For the first time, Snouts lost his bravado. He sucked his upper lip into his teeth. “Mr. McTavish, do you have my landau or do you not?”

“Not,” he mumbled.

“You don’t? Then where is it?”