“Indoors?” said Riley. “This ain’t the Savoy, Chevie.” He thought for a minute. “I need a beautiful assistant. How would you feel about that?”
“I could do gun tricks, maybe,” said Chevie. “And take on all comers for money.”
Riley leaned in close, as though someone might hear. “No need. We have money. It’s blood money and there’s no denying it, but maybe we can wash it clean again by putting it to decent purposes, eh?”
Chevie meant to smile, to assure Riley that she would stick with him and help out in the theater, do whatever was needed, but she could not escape a sad conclusion.
“I will never know for sure how my father died, or my friend DeeDee. Or even if they died at all.”
Here was something they did not share. Riley knew exactly how his parents had died: throats slit by the blade of Albert Garrick.
“Betimes, Chevie, the knowing of things ain’t no help regarding peace of mind. Knowing things ain’t no boon at all, if you ask me.”
Footsteps echoed from the Orient’s cozy foyer, and soon a figure caught up with the footsteps and revealed itself to be Bob Winkle. He ran flat out down the aisle, barely stopping before the orchestra pit.
“Ha!” he said, pointing at Chevie. “Injun princess, they are saying all over town, and I just knew it was Miss Chevron back with us again. Bob, says I to meself, there’s only one lady who could send a dragon into the Thames with no return ticket—Miss Chevie Savano, I says. And I was right.”
The youth was breathless and excited. “I just hopped off the Brighton train to find the whole of the city in an uproar.” Bob stopped and sniffed the air. “What is that ungodly stink, boss? Is the drains playing up again?”
Riley grimaced. “That’s we two, I am afraid. We was engaged in a bit of toshing.”
This didn’t seem to surprise Bob one whit. “Yep, toshing will do that to a body. Carbolic is the only thing for it, and you may as well burn your garments.”
Chevie didn’t like the sound of that. Her strange hybrid suit was all she had left from her future. She had even worn it under the dancing girl disguise. Burning her clothes would be like an admission of defeat.
“I will soak my clothes for a few days,” she said. “I am fond of this suit.”
“We will ask Figary for advice,” said Riley. “I bet he can get the whiff out of anything.”
“So he can,” said Chevie, and they both smiled, marveling that Figary was such a character that simply repeating his catchphrase could cheer a body up. Even Bob Winkle showed his teeth, though he had never met Missus Figary’s boy.
“Anyway,” said Bob once his breath came back, “I ain’t a-running because of all that’s been happening around here. I am running because I have news.”
“News?” asked Riley, jumping from the lip of the stage and rushing to Winkle’s side. “What news?”
“News viz your brother, Tom.”
Riley stepped back. This could be the very best of news, or the very worst, and he thought on his recent declaration that knowing things weren’t no boon at all.
But I have to know, he thought.
“You found Tom in Brighton?”
“I found Tom’s trail in Brighton,” Bob corrected him. “A trail wide as Blackfriars Road, it was. Your boy Tom is quite the character.”
Riley’s heart beat hard in his chest. “Is? Is quite the character. So he’s alive, then, and living in Brighton?”
“Yes to the first and not to the second. Tom is alive, but his misadventures have led him here to London. No more than a few miles from where we stand.”
Riley felt weak, light-headed. “London. We must be away from here and visit him. But first, new duds, Chevie. We can’t have my brother clapping eyes on us in this state. Or clapping nose on us, for that matter. I cannot believe that my own Christian name can finally be revealed. Perhaps I am an Albert, or a George. I fancy Oliver, so I do.”
Chevie was watching Bob, and she saw in his face that the news was not yet fully transmitted.
“What else, Bob? There’s more, right?”
Bob swallowed, a little nervous to be delivering the bad news, though Riley was a good employer who had never been anything but kind. Still, sometimes the messenger was blamed for the message.
“There is more, Riley. Visiting Tom is not such a walk in the park as a fellow might think.”
Riley was bubbling with his excitement, so Bob’s tone did not penetrate.
“Of course it is. I know we don’t look our spiffing best at the moment, but half an hour in the tub and a lick of the soap will sort us out right as rain.”
“It ain’t that, pal. Tom ain’t just any old where.”
“London. You said he’s in London.”
“In London, right enough. In the most reviled pile o’ stones we has in the city, leaning on its leeward shoulder again’ the Old Bill Bailey itself.”
Riley knew exactly the building that Bob was circling and trying not to utter.
“Newgate?” he said, the excited rouge in his cheeks fading fast. “Tom is in Newgate Prison?”
“He’s in a debtor’s cell.”
Debtors. The most hated species in London. Lower in the law’s eyes than smugglers or highwaymen.
“He ain’t to be stretched in the morning, is he?” Riley asked Bob Winkle.
“Nah, he ain’t hanging tomorrow,” said Bob the Beak. “They ain’t stretching him till Thursday.”
This was indeed devastating news, and it bent Riley in two like a gut punch.
“An attorney,” said Riley, when he had recovered himself somewhat. “We need the best attorney in London.”
“That would be Sir James Maccabee, the man defrauded by your brother. The case is done and dusted beyond appeal, Riley. I hate to be the one bearing this foul parcel.”
Riley’s eyes were wide, and he waved his arms around like a man in pitch-blackness searching for a familiar sur
face.
Chevie felt her post-traumatic depression disappear. She had a new mission now.
“We need to break him out,” she said. “Pack your bag of tricks and let’s get a move on. I need to see this Newgate before I can put a plan together.”
Riley looked at his future friend up on the stage with the light behind her, a true heroic figure that would give a body hope.
“You would help me in this matter?”
“Of course. We are a team.”
“A team. Of course.”
Chevie hopped off the stage. “We already took down an entire empire this week. What chance does a prison have?”
Riley thought that his friend was underestimating her opponent, as usual. Newgate Prison was a veritable fortress that foiled escape attempts every day of the year and swallowed criminals as effectively as a monstrous hungry beast. Liberating Tom would be the very devil of a job; but Riley thought it best not to deflate his partner, for they would need any good spirits they could find.
“That prison has no chance at all,” he said, bolstering his words with a steel he did not truly feel. “Newgate will open its doors to the two of us, and Tom will be restored to me.”
Bob Winkle had no intention of being left out. “Count me in that number, Riley. Without you, I would still be smoking wallpaper in the Old Nichol.”
“Three, then, there are three of us. Together we cannot fail.”
“We cannot fail,” agreed Bob.
“Failing not allowed,” said Chevie.
It seemed to Chevie that all this repetition of the word fail would surely ensure that failure would take place, so she attempted to put a positive spin on the situation by raising her hand for a group high five.
The other two simply stared puzzled at her elevated hand.
“Come on, team,” she said. “Don’t leave me hanging.”
Which was, perhaps, a bad choice of words in the circumstances, so Chevie tried again.
“Here we go again, boys. Off on another adventure. This time busting Riley’s brother out of prison. There will be danger; there will be spills and thrills. There will be knives and there will be guns and there will be people saying stupid things at the worst possible time.”