Page 46 of Lord Gabriel’s Undoing

“On the dip?”

“Picking pockets.”

But they drew her gaze, nevertheless. Although the unpleasant thought that they, and the adults too, must be alive with vermin arose. However, there was nothing she could do about how close anyone came to her. She couldn’t move without having to shoulder past someone, who, if she pushed too hard, rounded on her with an angry leer and a gust of stinking breath that sent her scuttling even closer to Gabriel.

Gabriel pointed to their right where another street, even narrower and more crowded than this one, lay. “Down here,” he said, keeping his voice low. “This is Church Street, not that you’d know it as it’s not got a church in it.”

Surely this street couldn’t be worse than the last one? But it was. She had to turn her eyes away from the sight of a half-naked old man almost lying in the gutter while a group of small, jeering urchins hurled lumps of filth at him. A pack of dogs was digging frantically in the dirt against a ramshackle wall as though some quarry had gone to ground. She averted her gaze. Hopefully a rat, but it could just as easily have been a cat, or even a child.

It only got worse.

Ahead, Gabriel turned left into a slightly wider street and Phoebe did her best not to look at anything but him as she followed him down it. If she didn’t look, it wasn’t there. If she didn’t look, she wouldn’t be as horrified. But she could still smell it.

Two more turns and she found herself in the vilest street so far, barely more than an alleyway, and outside a building that boasted a rotten sign swinging from a metal stanchion. This declared that they were at the Rat’s Castle. Whatever that was, it didn’t sound good.

This establishment possessed a door…of sorts, that might once have been painted blue but now hung lopsided and paintless on rusty hinges. Gabriel pushed it open and they went inside.

*

The Rat’s Castle was the beating heart of the Rookery of St Giles, if it could be said to have one. It was where every criminal, of which there were many, came to do his business. If you wanted something done, or obtained for you, you came to the Rat’s Castle for it. If you wanted information, you came here for that too.

It was where Gabriel fenced his stolen gems.

He could hardly do it on the streets of Mayfair in his own persona. No, he’d decided right at the start that he needed an alter ego to go into the very place the law wouldn’t dare to look for the Mayfair Highwayman. He’d needed Joe Booth, cocky, streetwise young burglar and jack-the-lad, to swagger his way into the rookery and make himself at home in this den of thieves.

Of course, he’d not gone barging in with a pocket full of gems to begin with. Oh no. He’d built up to that gradually, over time building the character of the fellow thief he wanted them to see him as. So when the first time he’d needed a fence had come, he’d had Joe Booth’s established persona to slip into.

And right now he was ready to fence the jewels Phoebe had given him only a few short days ago.

The interior of the Rat’s Castle was, if anything, more densely packed than the streets outside. Men stood shoulder to shoulder or crowded round dirty trestle tables downing ale from flagons or gin from small, grubby shot glasses. Several scarred and ferocious looking dogs lay in front of the sluggish hearth fire, and more than a few people slumped against the walls, snoring as they slept off the excesses of last night, or perhaps this morning.

Business as usual. He’d never seen it any different, no matter what time of day he went there.

Very much aware of how tightly Phoebe was hanging onto his coat tails, he scanned the assembled faces for that of the man he wanted. It took a while in so crowded a hostelry, but he finally spotted him lounging at a table in a far corner, a flagon of ale in front of him and his battered straw hat pushed far back on his balding head. He appeared deep in conversation with a burly cove in a black coat and cocked hat seated with his back to the room.

Towing Phoebe after him, Gabriel shouldered his way through the crowd and approached the table.

Abner O’Hanlon, Gabriel’s fence, spotted them coming, his dark, beady eyes fixing on Gabriel more than a little avariciously, and no doubt wondering what gewgaws he might have hidden about his person. The cove he’d been talking to rose with a grunt and sloped off into the crowd, keeping his back turned as though he didn’t want Gabriel to see his face. There were a lot of men like that here. Men who liked to keep themselves to themselves and took immediate offense if you looked at them for more than a second or two, suspecting you might be in the pay of the Runners. Not that a Runner would dare to show his nose even on the outer edge of the rookery. Far too dangerous for them. So the rookery criminals were in the main left to themselves. Which suited Gabriel to perfection.

He sat down in the chair the other man had so recently vacated and felt it shift and creak under him. Probably wood-wormed. With a nod, he indicated to Phoebe to take a seat on the high-backed bench beneath a very small and dirty window. Instinct must have told her the best way to behave, for she perched on the edge of the seat and hung her head in a manner indicative of a wish not to be noticed. Just as a boy should in a place like this.

“Guv’nor,” Abner said, with a grin that showcased his alarming lack of teeth. “Ain’t seen you for a while. Bin takin’ your lurries to some other hedge, have you?” He wiped his hand across his long, hooked nose, handily removing the drip on the end of it. “Nah, don’t answer that. I don’t want to know. But don’t go expectin’ any favors from me after leavin’ me high an’ dry fer so long.”

Gabriel grinned, conscious of the fact that he himself possessed an extremely well-cared-for set of teeth, hardly in keeping with the locality. “I just haven’t had any business for you in a while.” He stretched out his long legs and glanced at Phoebe, who hadn’t moved, but whom he could sense listening to every word that was being said. Right at the start of his endeavor, he’d come to the conclusion that trying to speak like the inhabitants of the Rookery was out of the question. He’d only have sounded silly and fake and they’d have realized straightaway and not been pleased about it. So instead, he lowered his voice and roughened it as much as he could, but hung onto the grammar he’d been brought up with. No one so far had questioned him, and if they did, he planned to say he’d been educated at Christ’s Hospital, that London institution not far from St Paul’s which chose to educate poor but bright boys, often for army or navy posts. They might well be deeply offended that he’d decided his alter ego had attended their hallowed portals.

“That so?” Abner said. “Sayin’ as I b’lieve you, p’raps if you’ve somethin’ good fer me terday, I might see my way to an exchange of some sort.” He rubbed thumb and fingers together.

Gabriel screwed up his face as though considering this offer. “I might have,” he said, as noncommittally as possible. It didn’t do to come out with what one had, or wanted, straightaway with men like Abner who were always out to squeeze the last penny out of you in a deal. But he was used to haggling now, and Abner knew it.

The fence’s beady eyes roamed the room as though he thought there just might be someone amongst the crowd who would take it into their head to steal any money or goods if they were to make an exchange here in the tap room of the tavern. Not that they ever did. That would have been foolish. Abner never went anywhere unarmed and had eyes as sharp as an eagle.

Gabriel controlled a chuckle. Every single one of the occupants of the Rat’s Castle, from the small boys squeezing between the men at the bar down to the old man snoring in a chair by the hearth would cheerfully have cut their throats for what he had in his pocket. Best not to tell Phoebe that, though. She looked frightened enough already.

“Not here,” Abner said. “You an’ your boy, get up an’ leave an’ I’ll give you five minutes and foller. My place. Same as usual. Make damn sure you ain’t follered by no one.”

Gabriel jerked his head at Phoebe. “Come on, lad. Gotta move. Now.”

This time he made no attempt to check she had hold of his coat, but without looking back hoped she was following him. Fear was probably fixing her to his back like a limpet on a seaside rock, but he wasn’t about to look and check, much as he wanted to. That would have looked odd in a place where boys were ten-a-penny and easily replaceable.