Twilight Robbery (45 page)

‘Oh . . . fates have mercy. Very well.’ Clent’s face disappeared again as he rose to his feet again. ‘Jen,’ he called aloud, ‘will you humour an old friend? If I might take you by the –’

His words were cut short by a screech that sounded more like a scalded vixen than any human sound. All other conversation in the room was killed in an instant. There was a shocked silence, then feet thundered from the room and down the passage to the front door, which banged open. A patter of steps receded into the drowsy noises of the winter morning.

‘Clent!’ bellowed the mayor. Mosca had the feeling that he had leaped to his feet. ‘What did you do to her, you devil!’

‘I . . . took her by the hand,’ faltered Clent, sounding stunned and incredulous. ‘All I did was . . . take her by the hand.’

‘But that scream! And the way she looked at you before she ran – as if you were something venomous!’

A long pause, then a soft but drawn-out sigh.

‘Jen.’ There was no obvious emotion in the word, and if Mosca had known Clent less well it might almost have sounded offhand. ‘Oh, Jen.’ Mosca found a peephole through which she could see the back of his head. He was still staring at the door by which his oldest friend had departed with so little warning.

Yes, Mr Clent. You understand it now. She leaped away and looked poison at you because you gripped her right hand. The hand she’s been protecting since the night of the Pawnbrokers’ Auction, where she sold her services for good and all. It’s why she couldn’t carry her own bags and boxes, why she couldn’t grab hold of me properly that day in the pleasure garden. It’s her palm, Mr Clent; it hasn’t had time to heal since the Locksmiths put their brand on it
.

She’s a Locksmith, Mr Clent. It’s how she got into Toll after I stole her money. It’s why she changed her lace gloves for kid, so nobody could see the brand. It’s the reason she asked me to go after the Luck – the Luck that the Locksmiths wanted. She probably knew the Luck was a person and that I couldn’t steal it; all she really wanted was a description of the room so she knew if there was a way in . . . and I told her everything the Locksmiths needed to know
.

‘I would not bother going after her,’ Clent remarked, as calmly as if he was recommending trout over tripe. ‘They will have given her very specific orders, you see, concerning where she is to run if she is, ah,
unmasked
. Preparations will have been made. By now she is gone, and I do not think we shall be seeing the lady again. She will be sent elsewhere – wherever the Locksmiths need her next.’

‘The Locksm— what? Impossible!’ The mayor sounded as if he might explode.

‘Far from impossible, I fear.’ Clent sighed. ‘Has anybody here seen her take off her gloves, even when sewing indoors?’ Silence. ‘My lord mayor, cast your mind back to your conversations with her. Did you, by any chance, confide in her the location of Mosca’s letter drop, or the imminent arrival of Sir Feldroll’s men the night before last?’

‘Do you mean to say that all this while she has been . . . ? That duplicitous adventuress!’

‘No, no.’ Clent’s tone was wistful and gentle. ‘Just a sorry autumn soul. The tide of one’s years and fortunes goes out, and one is left on the shingle to scramble for a living as best one can. And the things one resolved never to do are suddenly a way of surviving long enough to see next year’s snowdrops. Ah, poor Jenny-wren.’

The mayor made a squashed noise. ‘Wren? No, vixen! Harpy! Yes, she tricked me into speaking of the letter drop and Sir Feldroll’s men! And all this last night, when she and I and my steward were locked in the counting house, her crocodile sympathy . . . coaxing me to tell her more of my daughter’s kidnap! The names of the kidnappers – the circumstances of her disappearance – the nature of the ransom itself !’

‘And . . . how much did you tell her?’

Silence.

Everything
, thought Mosca.
You told the old tabby-cat everything
.

‘Ah. I see. But this does at least mean, gentlemen,’ Clent went on, ‘that I can at last unbind my tongue. For the last two days I have suspected that we had a spy in our midst, and could not speak freely without danger. But now . . . I believe that it is about time I told you all a story. A tale of a radish, a midnight horse race and a ferret-featured child with the devil’s own wits.’

And a tale he told of Mosca Mye, with much flash and flourish, a tale that took all dangers and made them magnificent as djinn, a tale that gilded each sickening gamble with a dashing nonchalance. A pair of coal-black eyes watched him from the dank cellar below, widening as their grubby, battered owner heard herself become a heroine for the span of his story. A story which ended triumphantly with an account of that daring heroine’s infiltration of the salvation hole.

‘But . . .’ The mayor seemed to be piecing things together. ‘Does that not mean that right now the child is . . .’

‘Over ’ere under the floor, yer lordship!’ Mosca called out. There was a host of small scuffles and thuds, suggesting that several people had jumped out of their skins.

‘Precisely.’ Clent sounded a little smug. ‘Forgive us our reticence, but it did not seem prudent to mention Miss Mye’s masterful intrusion before the Locksmith spy had been driven from our midst.’

‘My lord mayor – can the floor not be raised?’ asked Sir Feldroll.

The mayor gave orders, and tools were brought by mystified servants, but a few experiments with pick and saw quickly revealed that under the chapel’s tiles lay solid stone slabs on timber beams, sealed into place with mortar. There was no way to break through to Mosca’s cell and haul her up into the day.

Clent waited until the servants had left once more before continuing.

‘Gentlemen, thanks to our intrepid miniature agent below, we know where Miss Beamabeth is, and the Locksmiths at present do not – but, mark my words, if they mean to find her then they
will
. And when they have her what are they likely to do? To hand her back to her friends with a doff of the cap? Or will they perhaps tell you, my lord mayor, that they are better able to arrange her safety than yourself, just as they did with the Luck? Will they perhaps choose keep her in Night, like the old folktale about the Princess of Butterflies who married the Lord of the Dead? Or will they ask a second ransom, one that you can ill afford now that the first is gone?

‘If we wish to recover her, then it must be done with the greatest of haste. Rescuing her from the scurrilous Skellow and his coterie of cut-throats is likely to be hazardous . . . but I would not give half a fig for our chances of snatching her from the clutches of the Locksmiths once they have her. And if the nefarious Skellow
does
have the ransom it might, I fear, bode badly for the lady’s future unless we can slip in before, shall we say, the fall of the blade.’

‘The Locksmiths’ letter . . . the Luck . . . my hands are tied.’ Such a short time ago the mayor had seemed like a cliff of granite, towering, harsh and capable of weathering anything. But the recent succession of shocks seemed to have broken him apart. Now others could scoop him up by the handful like gravel, and the Locksmiths currently had the largest scoop.

‘Yes, my lord mayor,’ Clent hastened to agree. ‘Yes . . . your hands are tied.’ There was the tiniest hint of stress on the word ‘your’.

‘But mine are not,’ responded Sir Feldroll promptly. ‘And you, my lord mayor, are not responsible for anything I do. Perhaps, Mr Clent, you would be so good as to tell us what you have in mind?’

There were a lot of questions Aramai Goshawk wanted answered. Why, on the night of Saint Yacobray, had his men stumbled upon a come-as-a-Clatterhorse party? How had Mistress Bessel been detected as his spy in the mayor’s household? But at the moment the most pressing question was, where is Beamabeth Marlebourne? And the woman before him apparently could not answer it.

‘So what
do
you know?’ he asked, without looking up.

Mistress Bessel was perched on the edge of her seat, under the gaze of two dozen golden eyes. Stuffed owls regarded her from bench and shelf with frozen, predatory astonishment, as though she was a novelty mouse.

‘Only what the mayor himself told me before Eponymous tumbled to my secret – but that was a good deal. The names of the kidnappers’ ringleaders – Rabilan Skellow and Brand Appleton.’

‘Appleton,’ repeated Goshawk, with such relish that the word might indeed have been an apple to be polished on his mind’s sleeve.

He prided himself on noting curiosities and inconsistencies, because they were so often important. Hence he had noticed that of late a well-brought up young man – by the name of Appleton – had been exposing himself to the hazards of the Bludgeoncourt to win sweetmeats and little luxuries. Now he was experiencing the exquisite satisfaction of one who has preserved half a broken cup just long enough to find the other half. ‘So
that
is why he had such a need of candied violets – he had the tastes of a little captive princess to pamper. How gentlemanly.

‘Now what in the world,’ Goshawk murmured, raising his eyes to stare at Mistress Bessel, ‘should I do with you?’

His colourless gaze covered her face like a cold, damp cloth, just long enough for her autumnal ruddiness to wane and pale under his scrutiny.

‘I think your talents will serve us best in Dogmalton for a while, until we can discover how far news of your . . . allegiance has spread.’ She read his dismissive gesture correctly, and gratefully fled his presence.

As a matter of fact, Aramai Goshawk was fairly well pleased with Mistress Jennifer Bessel, particularly for helping him with his long-term plan to seize the Luck, but he had no intention of telling her so. Such as she were often most useful when kept slightly uneasy and off balance. He cleared his throat, and by the time he looked around two men were at his side, gloved hands neatly clasped before their bellies.

‘Brand Appleton,’ Goshawk said aloud. ‘He has lodgings in Preck Street, and he might be just stupid enough to be found there. If not, hunt down the girl known as Laylow. If she is suiting her actions to her name, seek out every rat-cranny she has ever used as a bolthole. Tell her that we are looking to take Appleton, and if she helps us find him we might choose to take him in one piece.’

Ah, the difficulties of
balance
. If one wished to control, the balance of fear had to be just right. You could not allow people to become desperate, or they lost all fear and did wild and unpredictable things. And yet you could not let them become complacent, or they became impudent and rash. These kidnappers, for example. Daring to set up their own little scheme in Goshawk’s town without consulting him.

The daughter, if she could be recovered, would be valuable, for it seemed that most of Toll-by-Day was within half a hop of falling in love with her. However he doubted that she was still alive, now the ransom had been paid. The jewel, however, was of considerably more interest. If he gave the kidnappers time to catch their breaths, they would find eager buyers among the Pawnbrokers, and if that happened the gem would slip through his fingers and out of Toll.

‘Abject lessons are in order, I think.’ His tiny, childlike hands interleaved, forming a toy church and steeple. ‘These kidnappers must be dead by dawn. Find this ransom, and silence anybody who sees you taking it. Have a couple of men watching the Twilight Gate entrance in case the mayor or this Sir Feldroll have sent any more clod-hopping oafs to rescue Miss Marlebourne. If any such do appear . . . follow them and arrange for them all to be personally introduced to the Langfeather.’

His oyster-pale eyes narrowed for a second.

‘If the mayor heeds my letter and sends nobody, we might even ransom his daughter back to him, if we can recover her alive. But if he does send more marauders into our streets . . . then I suppose poor Beamabeth Marlebourne will have “died during a botched raid by the mayor’s men”. A lesson in the dangers of taking things into one’s own hands instead of leaving it to the professionals. She is useful to us, but, now that we have the Luck, not essential.’

The finger-church unfolded itself, and Goshawk thoughtfully fiddled with his blotter before speaking again.

‘If you can . . . try to keep that headstrong urchin girl alive.’

‘The urchin – do you mean Eponymous Clent’s girl, sir? The one he sent nightside a couple of nights ago?’

‘Mm? Oh. No, actually I meant Laylow. As for Clent’s girl . . . yes, I suppose it is
possible
that she is still alive after three nights. If so . . . she is just another messy detail. Dispose of her.’

In the heart of the Clock Tower cog fought cog in darkness, each biting with all the force of its metal teeth, never guessing that they were part of one great, relentless machine. Somewhere on the walls of the town a bugle blew, and the clock answered with a tinny ditty of its own. Across Toll, the day retreated indoors and at the same time the little model of Goodlady Blatchett with her bright eyes and sack of toads retreated into the darkness of the clock archway. As the second bugle sounded and night prepared to advance, Goodman Garotten emerged to take the Goodlady’s place with his sickle and scales. His painted eyes were yellow as yolk, his tiny teeth clenched and bared.