The Ladder Dancer (23 page)

There was a yell from Joseph in the passageway.

Thirty

Material possessions show the character of those that own them; choose wisely therefore.

[
A Gentleman’s Companion
, October 1731]

I dashed out into the passageway, Mally close behind me. It was pitch black out there; I smelt acrid smoke from extinguished candles. The only light was from the kitchen, and that stretched hardly a foot or two. Flickers of spirits danced in the darkness high up under the ceiling, casting no helpful light at all. One flitted across the wall next to me and I jerked back. ‘Get the devil!’ it shrieked. ‘Get him!’

Even with Joseph’s candles extinguished, there should have been light from the torches in the yard. The door at the far end of the passageway must have been shut.

There was a scuffling noise.

‘He’s in here with us!’ Mally said hysterically. ‘He’s going to kill us all!’

I pushed her back into the kitchen. The two male servants were standing like idiots by the big table. I had to see what was happening out there! ‘Candles,’ I whispered, waving my hand towards them. One of the servants reached for them – and snuffed them out.

The kitchen was plunged into darkness; Mally stifled a shriek and swore. I gripped her arm. ‘Stay here. All of you.’

‘Think I’m a fool?’ she muttered.

I no doubt was. I edged back out into the passageway. There was no point in hunting round the dark kitchen for the fire tongs or a skillet – by the time I’d done that, any intruder would be long gone. So I went unarmed, heart in mouth.

There was no sound now. Perhaps the intruder was hesitating, as I was, trying to gauge my position as I was trying to gauge his. I crept on, hand trailing along the wall to orientate myself. I could see a vague dark shape near the door to the yard, staggering about as if drunk . . .

My exploring hand met emptiness. I stumbled, grabbed at nothing. Of course! The gap where the steps climbed up to Nightingale’s room. I glanced up but there was only darkness. The candles up there must have been blown out too. This must be another attack on Nightingale.

Joseph had to be my first concern. Nightingale was a dead man even if he’d not stopped breathing. I waved my hands about until I found the wall again and edged on.

Brilliant light flooded the passageway. One of the male servants said, ‘I lit the candles again.’ I stood, dazzled and cursing, a wonderful target for any attacker – I’d never felt so vulnerable. Then my eyes adjusted and I saw Joseph staggering towards me, blood streaming down the left side of his face.

He tumbled into my arms, trying to get words out. ‘Hit – hit!’ He gestured at his head. ‘Yard—’

‘Someone came at you from the yard?’ He must have been looking down the passageway towards the kitchen, distracted perhaps by trying to hear what we were saying. Or perhaps he’d dozed off again. Someone had come up behind him, hit him—

‘Someone’s after the beer!’ Mally exclaimed. ‘Not again!’ She hurried to the door opposite the stairs to Nightingale’s room, tried to open it. ‘It’s still locked. Maybe Joseph frightened them off.’

‘Did you see who it was? Where they went?’

He shook his head, groaned, managed to say, ‘Fell. Don’t remember— Woke up, yelled—’

He must have lost consciousness, perhaps only for a few seconds – ample time for the intruder to do what they wanted before he came round and yelled for help. The beer cellar door was locked, confirming there was only one place the intruder could have gone. Nightingale’s room. He could be up there even now . . .

I jerked my head at the male servants. ‘One of you go for Gale the surgeon. The other one, help me get Joseph into the kitchen.’ The spirits were skittering around in joyous excitement; one yelled from near the door, ‘There’s a cobble here. Blood all over it!’

The servants looked unhappy. One disappeared into the kitchen; the other said, ‘Is he still around?’

‘Who?’

‘The assassin. The fellow what tried to kill him.’

‘Don’t fancy dealing with an intruder?’ I asked. ‘Too much for you?’

He straightened, pulled his coat down. ‘Didn’t say that.’

Behind him, the other servant came rushing out, dashed past, brandishing fire tongs. He tore open the passageway door and bolted across the yard.

‘I’ll help,’ Mally said, exasperated, and hoisted Joseph’s arm over her shoulder. ‘If you want a job doing, do it yourself!’

I let them carry Joseph off, took up the kitchen candles and a poker from the fire. Draughts tugged at the flames as I went up the three steps to Nightingale’s room, accompanied by a brace of eager spirits, who dashed about, shrieking, dashed out again. I was already tolerably certain I’d find no one there – the spirits would already have investigated.

The candles guttered wildly as I went into the room, my gaze drawn straight away to the still figure in the bed. It was not the bloodstained scene of slaughter I’d anticipated. Nightingale was still alive, lying on his back as ever; I drew back the sheet and saw the bandages were undisturbed. His breathing was more laboured than ever, his face white as ice, his hands as cold as the grave.

The candles flared again. I looked about the room. The chair Mally should have occupied had been pushed back. Nightingale’s trinkets still lay on the bedside table beside a jug of water and a glass. His pink clothes were folded on one end of the travelling trunk that stood under the window.

The window was open. Wide open. That was what was causing the candles to flare. And the pink coat had slipped from its neat folds; part of it was hanging over the edge of the trunk.

I left the candles and the poker on the washstand near the door, went to the window. As I touched it, it swung open wider, unsecured. I looked at it, and at Nightingale’s trunk that stood beneath it. Cautiously, I stretched to peer out of the window, looked out on the alley where Nightingale had been attacked. There was little to be seen in the darkness but I remembered it was barely two or three feet down to the ground. This was the way the intruder had escaped; it would have been all too easy to clamber up on top of Nightingale’s trunk, the window was wide enough even for a bulky man and then there was only that low drop to the alley below. The intruder could have been away before Joseph shouted out.

But
why
had the intruder been here? I’d assumed he’d come back to finish Nightingale off but Nightingale was unharmed. Had the attacker fled in panic after hearing Joseph call out? Or—

There was something wrong about the room, something missing. Something not as I’d seen it the previous day, at any rate. I pushed the window shut as the candles flared again, and turned to scan the room. Water in a jug on the table, a slip of paper containing powders left by Gale. A newspaper tucked under the foot of the bed next to the chamber pot.

My gaze came back to the table. A few pennies, a bill from the dressmaker’s, presumably for Kate’s dress. What else had been on the table before, that was missing now? I’d barely glanced at it on my last visit but—

There’d been a watch. Nightingale’s watch had gone.

Thirty-One

Do not believe everything you hear; the lower orders do not know the difference between truth and falsehood.

[
A Gentleman’s Companion
, January 1730]

I fingered the empty space as I heard someone come cautiously up the steps from the passageway. Mally peered round the corner of the doorjamb, looked relieved when she saw Nightingale unaltered. ‘Spirits just sent a message from the surgeon,’ she said. ‘He’s on his way.’

I shifted so the table was behind me and she couldn’t see it.

‘I was wondering if we shouldn’t put Mr Nightingale’s watch somewhere for safe keeping.’

She glared, no doubt thinking I was casting doubt on her honesty. ‘Suit yourself,’ she said. ‘It’s on the table. I wouldn’t bother – it’s cheap and nasty.’ And she flounced out.

I didn’t remember the watch very well but I was inclined to think Mally was right. But who’d go to such lengths to steal a cheap watch? Was it worth attacking a lad and leaving him injured? And if so, why?

I closed the window and drew the curtains – they didn’t quite meet in the middle – and went back down the stairs. In the passageway, Mally was flirting with the excited spirits; the remaining male servant, clearly disgruntled, was straightening Joseph’s chair and generally removing any evidence that might have been there.

I interrupted Mally. ‘You didn’t see anyone loitering outside the inn before any of this happened?’

‘Not been out for hours,’ Mally said.

‘Catch him, catch him!’ shrieked one of the spirits. ‘Call the constable!’

The other spirit sounded smug. ‘Never saw a thing. I was upstairs, in the attics.’

‘And we all know why,’ Mally said, giving me a look.

‘I was
conversing
with the maids.’

‘Giving them the once over, you mean.’

‘A little friendly admiration,’ the spirit conceded.

‘Don’t know why. It’s not like you can do anything about it.’

‘Oooh!’ shrieked the first spirit in outrage.

‘All talk and no action,’ Mally said. ‘What good’s that to a girl?’

This had the sound of an old argument and I got out of it quickly. I went outside, a candle in hand. The yard was darkening still further; one of the remaining torches had burnt out. Gale the surgeon was walking through the arch, looking tired and irritable.

‘Joseph’s in the kitchen,’ I said, indicating the passageway. Gale grunted and went in.

Just outside the door, in the yard, was an area of damaged paving. Cobbles had been prised from their settings and a hole dug into the earth beneath; dirty water glinted at the bottom. The servant had tossed the cobblestone used to hit Joseph back on to the pile – it was obvious from the dark splash of sticky blood on it. A half-cobble with a very sharp edge; Joseph had been lucky – it must only have been a glancing blow.

I tried to reconstruct what had happened. The attacker must have walked into the yard not long after I had. The passageway door had been open; the intruder would have seen Joseph lit by his branch of candles, dozing, or distracted by what was going on in the kitchens. The sound of his own footsteps on the cobbles need not have been loud if he’d gone carefully, and would not have alerted Joseph. He’d picked up the cobble, hit Joseph with it, slipped up the stairs to Nightingale’s room and taken the watch, then made his getaway through the window.

I walked out into the street, taking the candle with me. A breeze had risen, and tugged at the candle flame; I sheltered it with my hand. In the dark alley, light from the window of Nightingale’s room pooled across the cobbles. I stooped to peer in. Through the gap where the curtains did not quite meet, I could see the man in the bed, the candle on the table, the space where the watch had been. And the girl’s chair, pushed back and unoccupied.

The most obvious conclusion was that it was Nightingale’s original attacker, come back to finish off the job. But Nightingale had not been attacked again; instead his watch had disappeared. Was it then simply an opportunistic theft? A drunken man wandering down the alley, peering in and seeing the watch? If the window had originally been closed, then he’d have had to go in through the yard. A weapon lay ready to hand in the pile of cobbles. That alone suggested an impulsive act; if this had been planned surely the attacker would have brought a weapon with him.

At least one thing was tolerably clear – the intruder was not Kate. If her abilities were as good as I thought, she’d no need to sneak into Nightingale’s room; she could simply have stepped through from the other world.

But the intruder, whoever he was, would have had to be acquainted with the Golden Fleece to know how to reach Nightingale’s room. Would an opportunistic thief not simply have broken the window and climbed in? Though how would he have known Nightingale wouldn’t wake and apprehend him? At a casual glance, Nightingale looked as if he was merely sleeping.

Ridley would have known Nightingale would not stir, but would he have known where the room was?

I went back into the street. Lights were dancing in the darkness beyond the Guildhall; I heard raucous laughter. I blew my candle out and left it on a windowsill in the Fleece’s yard, walked across the deserted Sandhill to the Guildhall. Behind the building, three or four young fellows were stretched out on steps overlooking the Key; a fishing boat bobbed at its mooring. It wouldn’t be long before the tide turned; they must be preparing to sail.

They looked up when they heard my footsteps. They’d stuck two or three candle stubs to a step and were playing dice in the flickering light. I nodded in greeting. ‘Seen anyone pass in the last half-hour?’

One of them wiped his nose with his sleeve, and grinned. ‘Who’s asking?’

They didn’t look particularly respectable characters – rough men in their twenties, dressed in shabby clothes, with the smell of gin about them. I suspected they’d probably wish a thief good luck. I produced a shilling from my pocket, feeling as if money was slipping through my hands like water. Much more of this and I’d be as blasé about it as Ridley.

‘Just a couple of old wives passed a while back,’ said one of the men, eying the shilling. ‘On the way to a laying-out.’

‘There was that old fellow,’ another said, stretching out lazily and kicking at the cobbles of the Key. ‘The one as lives on the doorstep of the Printing Office.’

I contemplated them thoughtfully. They grinned. I put the shilling back in my pocket.

‘Oi!’ said one of the lads.

I let the silence grow. One of the candles expired in a hot pool of wax. They looked at each other, shrugged. The lazy one lit another stub and said, ‘One of your stupid foppish fellows, all smiles and friendliness.’

‘Sneering,’ said another.

‘Trying to pretend he’s one of us,’ said a third. ‘As if!’