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“Yer Grace,” he said, bowing as much as his stomach would allow.

“I am very grateful for your assistance with this problem,” Simeon said.

“Sewers is my business,” Mr. Merkin said. “There’s no one who knows the inside of a sewer better than I do.”

“It’s not really a sewer,” Simeon said. “My father put in a water-pumping system—”

“Sewer,” Mr. Merkin said cheerfully. “Just because it don’t work so well doesn’t mean it’s not a sewer. I can smell its perfume, so why doesn’t your butler here show me the place and I’ll do an assessment.”

Simeon stood up. “I shall accompany you myself. I am curious about the solution.”

“I can tell you on the hoof,” Mr. Merkin said, taking a generous pinch of snuff as he led the way out of the room. “I’ve seen this over and again. It’s meant to flow, and it ain’t flowing. You could do dirt, but you han’t done dirt.”

“Ah,” Simeon said.

“Have to pipe it,” Mr. Merkin said.

“I’m not sure I follow the question of dirt?” Simeon said.

They arrived at the door to the first-floor water closet. Honeydew, with a look of fastidious agony, directed a footman to remove the felt blanket that had been tacked tightly to the wall so as to cover the entire door.

“This’ll be the heart of it,” Mr. Merkin said. “The rest of the closets feed into the pit here. I’ll send the men in. We’ll have to clean it all out; you do realize that.”

“I had hoped so,” Simeon said.

“We have to take it out through the front door,” Mr. Merkin said. “There’s them as has palpitations at that thought, but there’s no other way to do it. The pipes are blocked; we need to clean it out right good and then pull all the pipes and replace them. They’ll have fallen to bits.”

“Perhaps we should simply—”

The footman pulled down the last corner of the green felt and opened the door; without thinking, Simeon fell back a pace. The smell reached out to greet them, as thick and loathsome as a London fog. It felt like something that had weight and mass. Perhaps even life.

Mr. Merkin walked forward as if he smelled nothing.

“Your Grace need not follow,” Honeydew said, with a note of conscious heroism in his voice. “I will accompany Mr. Merkin and ascertain if he needs assistance.”

“Could it be that something died there?” Simeon asked, feeling himself turn pale. “I once came on a village ravaged by the plague and the odor is disconcertingly similar.”

“Always a possibility,” Merkin called back. “Rats need air like anything else. If one fell in, it’d be dead within minutes. I’m just—” there was the sound of wood shattering—“removing the seat so I can see the size of it.” He backed out a moment later and Simeon was oddly gratified to see that he was mopping his forehead with a red handkerchief. “That’s a bad one, that is.”

“How can you possibly clean the pit?” Simeon asked.

“Oh, my men will do that. We’ll set up a dumbwaiter and take it out in wheelbarrows. Your man said you wanted the best, and you’ve got them. I brought the Dead Watch with me.”

Simeon backed up as Honeydew closed the door to the water closet, with the air of someone shutting the door on a wild animal. “What is the Dead Watch?”

“The Dead Watch,” Merkin repeated. “London’s finest. You’re paying them double, of course, but it’s worth it. Penny wise, pound foolish, I always say. The lads will be down there in a thrice and clean it until it sparkles like a plate. You’ll have to maintain it, of course, Yer Grace. No more of this foolishness. You’ll need me to check your pipes every three months; fresh water twice a day. I can lay it all out with your butler here. If you love your sewer, it’ll love you back.”

Simeon could hear Honeydew making a sound like a rusty grate, which he thought indicated some reluctance to love the sewer. “The Dead Watch?” he persisted.

“The part of the Watch that cleans up the dead,” Merkin replied. “The floaters, in the river, of course. But there’s them as get stuck in a house and no one finds them. There’s the murders, of course. The Dead Watch doesn’t do your ordinary killing. But a truly nasty one? They’re the men for the job!”

His cheerfulness made Simeon feel a bit ill.

“I always use them for this sort of thing,” Merkin continued. “They’re down at the pub, waiting for me, Yer Grace, and if you’ll excuse me, we’ll start on the job.”

“Of course,” Simeon said.

“I’ll be putting a pipe down there first. I have to get the gas out, or me lads will keel over. No air. Then yer butler and I will be figuring out the way to get the muck out of the house with the least fuss. And I’ll be asking yer Grace to leave.”