Richard and Judy Bookclub - 3 Bestsellers in 1: The American Boy, The Savage Garden, The Righteous Men
It was the sort of drawing a man does with his hand while his mind is occupied elsewhere.
I smiled as though the sight of it pleased me and tried to hand it back to Mary Ann. She squealed and cooed and made it clear with her hands that she wished me to keep it. I slipped the paper inside my coat and said goodbye. She smiled shyly at me, gave me the slightest of waves and dived back beneath her bedclothes.
Iversen was still waiting in his chair at the back door. “You’ve made a conquest, my dear sir, I can tell that. We rarely have the pleasure of hearing Mary Ann so loquacious.”
I ignored this attempt at wit. “Thank you. If there’s nothing more you can tell me, I shall take my leave.”
“Now you’re in the yard, it will be more convenient for you if you go down the entry.” Iversen indicated the narrow passage beside the privy, a noisome tunnel leading through the depth of the house to the street on the other side. “Unless you want your fortune told, that is, or a charm to make the lady burn with passion for you.”
I shook my head and walked into the passage. I hurried along the entry towards the foggy bustle of the street beyond. The air smelled particularly dank and rotten. A great grey rat ran over my foot. I took a swipe at it with my stick but missed and hit the wall instead. My mind was full of pity for the girl and anger towards Iversen, who I suspected was her procurer.
The attack took me completely by surprise.
I was two-thirds of the way down when a man propelled himself out of nowhere into my right shoulder. I fell back against the opposite wall and tried to raise my stick. But the narrowness of the passage and the man’s body itself impeded me. I had an instant in which to realise that a side door from the house opened into the passage. The door was recessed, with enough room for a man to lurk on the step.
Not just one man but two: the second flung himself at me. Both wore dark clothes. I twisted in the grasp of the first. Metal chinked on the brickwork. I smelled hot, stale breath. A voice swore. I heard footsteps running through the muck from the street.
“God damn you,” a man howled.
A great blow hit my head. Pain fogged my vision. The last thing I heard was another man yelling: “Mother of Christ! Get the God-damned blackbird!”
I retain little memory of what happened next. I lost all awareness of my surroundings for several seconds, perhaps longer. Nor, when I regained it, was I much the better for the achievement. It was only with an immense effort of the intellect that I was able to determine that the fog was as heavy as ever, and that for some reason someone was half carrying, half dragging me through a crowd of jostling people.
I gasped for air. A man shouted something very near to my ear, and a moment later I found myself being bundled into a hackney. I collapsed on to the seat.
“Brewer-street,” said a man beside me.
“He’s foxed,” said a second voice.
“No. He’s fainted. Nothing more.”
“If he flashes the hash in there –”
I heard the chink of coin, and the voices fell silent. A moment later the hackney began to move. Our progress was slow. I huddled in the corner with my head in my hands. The swaying of the carriage made me feel nauseous, and for a while I thought the coachman’s fears would be justified. Time ceased to mean anything. The light hurt my eyes. My companion did not attempt to speak to me. I doubt if I could have answered him if he had.
The hackney pursued a zigzag course and in time its swaying became familiar, almost a source of comfort rather than of unease. I opened my eyes and squinted outside. There, looming out of the fog, was the unmistakable shape of St Ann’s Church with its slatted belfry and swollen spire. The recognition gave my mind a jolt which seemed to free some internal mechanism: the cerebral processes began to flow smoothly once more.
What the devil was I doing in a hackney? Had I been kidnapped? Try as I might, I could remember nothing between being thrust into the carriage and, at some undefined point earlier, Iversen the shopkeeper watching me as I went through the contents of Mr Poe’s valise. Slowly I turned my head, and the movement made the ache worse.
“Ah,” Salutation Harmwell said. “The colour has returned to your face, Mr Shield. That is a good sign.”
“Mr – Mr Harmwell. I don’t understand.”
“You remember nothing?”
“No – there seems a gap in my memory.” Even as I was speaking, that mysterious void disgorged a fragment of information. “The blackbird.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I remember someone – damned if I know who, or when, or why – an Irish voice, I think – someone saying something about a blackbird. And in St Giles, as I recall, the word is commonly used –”
“To describe a man of colour?”
“Precisely. Pray, Mr Harmwell, can you enlighten me as to how I come to be here?”
“I chanced to be walking down Queen-street when I heard the sound of an affray. I looked into the passage of the shop I was passing and saw you engaged in a struggle with two desperate ruffians. Not that I recognised you at this point – all I knew was that some poor innocent was in the process of being beaten and robbed. So I knocked one of them down. The other ran off and I judged it prudent that we should withdraw as soon as possible.”
I glanced down at his hand and saw that his knuckles were badly grazed. “I am much obliged to you, sir.” I rubbed the side of my head where a bruise was already forming. “I – I do not know what I would have done if you had not happened to be passing.”
“You have lost your hat, I am afraid. Indeed, I think it must have taken the full force of the blow, and you would have been in a much worse state if it had not been there. I believe you had a stick, too, but that has gone as well.”
I nodded. I had not noticed the absence of either. I bit back the observation that it was surely a remarkable coincidence that Harmwell should have happened to be passing. The fact that the coincidence had been of great service to me was neither here nor there.
“Do you still have your purse?”
I felt in my pocket. “Yes.”
“That is something.”
I knew only that I must be cautious, not why. I said slowly, “Perhaps I was passing along the street, and they dragged me into the passage in order to rob me.”
“That is unlikely,” Harmwell replied. “I think I should have seen you, despite the fog. It is more probable that you entered the passage from the other side, or possibly from a side door of one of the houses it serves.”
The hackney moved steadily westwards, wriggling through the bustling streets into the heart of Soho. At last we reached Brewer-street. Harmwell directed the coachman to a house on the north side, near the corner with Great Pultney-street. He waved aside my attempt to pay the fare.
The dizziness returned when I stood up. Harmwell helped me down and lent me the support of his arm as we went into the house. A servant with a blank face and shabby livery conducted us upstairs. It appeared that Mr Noak had taken the whole of the first floor. There was a sitting room at the front, and Harmwell settled me on a sofa beside the fire and told the servant to bring me a glass of brandy. He went in search of his master. By the time he returned with Mr Noak, I had swallowed half the brandy and regained a few more of my wits. But I still could not remember what had happened in the interval of time between my being in Mr Poe’s room in Queen-street and Harmwell bustling me into the hackney.
God-damned blackbird?
As I heard that coarse voice in my mind, an image from those