The Angel of Highgate

31 AN AUDIENCE WITH THE DEVIL

Thraxton and Algernon stood looking up at a giant red devil, ten feet tall. Next to the painted devil faded white lettering spelled out “Lucifer Matches.” The building had once been a match factory, but times had changed and the foul-smelling Lucifers were beginning to fall from favor. Congreve matches, which used white phosphorus and had no smell, were now the choice of many.

Running alongside the factory was the foul Lethe known as Filthy Ditch. In their peripatetic wandering, Thraxton and Algernon had scribed a ragged circle and now found themselves back at the same narrow canal they had crossed over to enter the rookery.

The two friends studied the façade of the hulking brick building. “How do we get in?” Algernon whispered.

Thraxton nodded. Up ahead an open doorway gaped blackly. The two men ducked inside. No sooner had they entered than a long, low whistle sounded. At the signal, men stepped from shadowed doorways and quietly dropped over walls until a small army of around thirty stealthily converged outside the door the two gents had just entered.

Inside the match factory, most everything of value had long since been pilfered, stripped and hauled away. They found themselves in the echoing first floor, a large space empty apart from a stout ladder that passed vertically through a hatch in the ceiling. They both stared up at the ominous black opening.

“Should we go up?” Algernon whispered. “Someone could be waiting for us.”

Before Thraxton could answer both men heard a sharp whistle and suddenly the door banged open as a horde of mobsmen armed with cudgels and clubs poured in.

“Yes!” Thraxton shouted. “We should go up!”

Algernon scrambled up the ladder as fast as he could. His friend followed close behind and was almost through the hatch when a mobsman seized his leg. Thraxton back-heeled him in the face, sending him tumbling back down the ladder, knocking other mobsmen with him. The second floor was also empty but had a second ladder nearby that ascended through another hatch in the ceiling. The two friends sprinted to it and began to climb just as the first mobsmen reached the second floor.

“They’re goin up!” one of the mobsmen yelled. “Stop ’em, Charlie!”

But both men had already reached the third floor. Holes gaped in the roof through which moonlight streamed, dimly illumining the room. A few wooden barrels stood here and there, labeled “tar” and “sulfur.”

“Algy,” Thraxton shouted. “Keep them at bay!”

As the mobsmen surged up the ladder, Algernon held them off, flailing wildly with his walking stick, beating the heads and shoulders of mobsmen who tried to surge out of the open hatchway and stamping on the hands that gripped the ladder rungs. Thraxton spun the barrel over to the opening, pried the wooden top loose with the tusks of his snarling boar’s head walking stick, and then tipped it over. Thick black pitch poured out, deluging the mobsmen clinging to the ladder. Angry curses and shouts came from below. Blinded and coated with slippery tar, men toppled from the ladder onto those below.

“Algy. Let’s tip it up!”

Both men grabbed the bottom of the barrel and upended it so that it dropped into the open hatchway like a cork in a bottle, sealing the opening. Thraxton heaved his weight onto the barrel to firmly wedge it into place.

“They won’t be coming up that way, soon,” Thraxton said.

“Yes, but there’s probably other ways up here.”

Thraxton drew the dueling pistol from his belt. “We’ll need these, now.”

The two men ran through a succession of empty rooms. The match factory seemed empty and deserted and Thraxton began to wonder if it really was Fowler’s lair. They reached a final darkened doorway and exchanged glances.

“I wish we’d brought lanterns,” Algernon whispered.

“Could be a trap. Keep your pistol ready.” Thraxton cocked his pistol and Algernon followed suit. Cautiously, they eased through the doorway into darkness, eyes wide, straining to make anything out.

“Nothing… I don’t think—” Thraxton started to say, but then a vertical panel slammed down behind them, sealing off the doorway they had just come through and blocking their retreat. Blinding light flared as the two men found themselves caught in the convergence of several lantern beams.

“Well, if it ain’t the toffs!” a voice boomed.

Thraxton and Algernon pointed their pistols this way and that. They knew immediately who the voice belonged to and now he stepped forward from behind the glare, a surprisingly short, fat, bestial man: Mordecai Fowler. Both men trained their pistols on him, but he showed no concern, taking another step forward.

“Thought I’d have a little party for you, so I rounded up all the lads.”

“You know what I’ve come for,” Thraxton said.

“Yeah,” Fowler hissed, the simian face smirking. “Your little dolly-mop. Tells me you’re a lord and how you’re gonna come and get her. That you ain’t feared of nuthin’. She don’t half moan when you’re giving her the old in-and-out,” Fowler preened, thrusting his hips obscenely. “Especially wiv this.” He drew out Mister Pierce and showed it to Thraxton. The polished tip shone silver in the lantern glare.

Thraxton’s jaw clenched. A horrible sickness roiled in the pit of his stomach. “If you have so much as touched her, Fowler…” Thraxton said in a trembling voice.

“That’s Mistah Fowler, Esquire, to you, Your Lordship. You is a lord, isn’t ya? Well, Lord Toff, you’re on my patch now. And here I’m more than a lord — I’m the king. I decide who lives… and who don’t live.”

“We have money,” Algernon said. “We are willing to pay—”

“Had money,” Fowler corrected. He drew one of the sacks of sovereigns from his coat and shook it before their eyes. “Mine now.” Fowler nodded and one of his men stepped forward from behind the Bullseye lantern beams, dragging something which he dumped at Fowler’s feet. A body. Fowler rolled it over with a kick. Titch’s dead face stared up at the ceiling. “Poor little Titch. He tried to steal from me. He won’t do that no more, will he?”

Fowler nodded to one of his men. “Get rid of him, before he starts to stink up the place.”

The darkness resounded with the twin thwacks of deadbolts being shot and then two wooden doors swung open onto the night, spilling in a swirl of smoky air. Beyond the doors, a short loading balcony jutted out onto a precipitous drop. Dangling above, the jib of a crane used to winch goods up to this third-floor room from the ground below. In the hazy distance glimmered the gas lights of London.

Two burly men stepped forward and dragged away Titch’s corpse. When they reached the open loading doors, they hefted the small corpse between them, gave a one-two-heave-ho and launched the body into the darkness. Seconds later, a splash resounded as the tiny corpse cleared the cobblestone loading dock below and plunged into Filthy Ditch.

Fowler laughed darkly. “We comes from the filth and we goes back to the filth. That’s how things are in the Seven Dials.” The High Mobsman tossed the purse and caught it, reveling in the chink of sovereigns. “I consider this a payment for me allowin’ you to make it this far alive. But now I’ll be askin’ for them fine pistols you and your mate have been wavin’ about.”

Thraxton answered by leveling the pistol directly at Fowler’s nightmarish face. “The only thing you’ll get from me is a pistol ball in the brain.”

Fowler grinned in response. “Oh, I think you’ll be well happy to give us them pistols, Lord Toff. And in return I’ll give ya this here rope what Snudge is holdin’.” He nodded to his men and the lanterns swiveled around, illuminating the room they stood in. Standing beside the open loading doors was Barnabus Snudge, who held tight to Aurelia, a gag in her mouth, wrists bound together. At the sight of his beloved, still alive, Thraxton’s heart soared then sank. But then Fowler gave a nod and Aurelia was swung out onto the jib and left dangling by her wrists, high above the cobblestones.

“You see, if Snudgy here lets go of this rope, your little dolly-mop is gonna drop fifty feet straight down. Be nothing left but a bag of broken bones for you to snuggle up with. Won’t look too pretty then, either, wiv a cobblestone smashed through her face.”

Aurelia moaned beneath the gag.

“Now then,” Fowler said. “Hand over them pistols.”

Torn, Thraxton hesitated.

“If we surrender the pistols,” Algernon muttered, “they’re likely to shoot us anyway.”

Thraxton gasped in exasperation. He glared at Fowler. “If we give you the pistols, you will release Aurelia. You give us your word as a gentleman?”

“As a gennulman?” Fowler cackled. “Oh yeah. My word as a gent all right.”

Thraxton nodded to Algernon. Reluctantly, they uncocked the pistols and handed them, grip-first, to Fowler. He hefted them in his thick-fingered hands, ogling the pistols appreciatively.

“A matched set of dueling pistols. Very fine. Very fine, indeed,” he said, then tucked them into the rope hawser tied around his waist that served as a belt.

“And now, as I am a gennulman of my word… Snudge, toss ’em the rope. Snudge threw the loose end of the rope to Thraxton. As he let go, Aurelia plummeted toward the ground, screaming. Thraxton dropped his walking stick and dove for the rope whiplashing across the floorboards. He managed to grab it, but Fowler kicked him in the side of the face, tumbling him over. His grip loosened and the rope sizzled through his fingers. Just before the end flew through his hands, he gripped the rope, burning his hands as he fought to slow it, arresting Aurelia’s plummet just ten feet from the ground. She swooned.

Thraxton stiffened as a pistol was pressed into the side of his head. “Let go,” Fowler said.

“You will have to shoot me.”

Fowler sniggered. “We ain’t gonna drop her again. That was just a bit of a larf. Naw, she’s worth more to me alive.”

Snudge grabbed the rope from Thraxton and started hauling the unconscious Aurelia back up until the other mobsmen were able to pull her back inside.

Thraxton found himself staring into the muzzle of one of his own pistols. “Now that you know I ain’t playin’, let’s talk about dosh. I fink an ’undred pounds is a very tidy figure.”

“A hundred pounds! You must be mad!”

“One ’undred or me and the lads will have ourselves a right gay old time wiv your little dolly-mop until her fanny’s as loose as an old whore’s.”

“But it would take a month to liquidate my holdings and come up with such a sum!”

“Well, well. You have gotta problem then, ain’t ya?”

“Ten guineas. I have it in my rooms. I can put the money in your hands in just a few hours. Ten guineas.”

A shifty smile smeared across Fowler’s face.

“Right then. Ten guineas. But you best be quick about it. If you’re not back in four hours my friend Mister Pierce is gonna poke his nose into her business — if you know what I mean.”

Thraxton choked on his anger, but said nothing. He picked up his walking stick. “Come on, Algy.”

“Oh, he ain’t goin’ wiv ya.”

“But you already have Aurelia. Surely you have no need of a second hostage.”

“I don’t want him for no hostage. I just wanna show you I mean what I say.”

Fowler snatched loose one of the dueling pistols and tossed it to Walter Crynge. “Mister Crynge. Shoot blondie in the head.”

Crynge cackled as he pressed the pistol to Algernon’s temple. Thraxton’s fingers fumbled along the length of his walking stick until they found and folded out a hidden trigger mechanism.

“Go on!” Fowler urged. “Top him!”

Crynge pulled back the hammer with his thumb.

Algernon realized he was about to die and threw a terrified look at his friend. Thraxton slowly raised the walking stick until it was pointed at Crynge’s face. The boar’s head stick contained a single-shot shotgun. Thraxton slipped his thumb into the boar’s mouth and pressed the jaw down until it locked, cocking the weapon. He squeezed the trigger and the stick fired with a tremendous boom! The blast caught Crynge square in the face, splashing his brains across the wall and killing him instantly. Another of Fowler’s men sprang forward and leveled a pistol at Thraxton, but his angry scowl turned to a look of horror as Algernon drew the sword cane and plunged it through his heart. The pistol tumbled from the mobsman’s hands and discharged as it hit the floor. The bullet hit Tommy Ebbs in the leg and dropped him screaming to the floorboards. Bang. A confused melee followed. Shouts. Curses. More gunshots. Blinding gunpowder smoke billowed. But in the mayhem, no bullets hit their mark. The mobsmen panicked and bolted from the room. Thraxton snatched the dueling pistol from Crynge’s cold fingers and raised it, but Fowler had thrown his arms around Aurelia and now he dragged her backward from the room using her as a shield. The door slammed after them and locked, leaving Algernon and Thraxton sealed in.

On the other side of the door, Fowler tried to regroup his men as Aurelia kicked and struggled in his arms.

“They ku-ku-killed Bob and Crynge,” Whitey Smith stammered. “And Tu-Tu-Tommy’s still in there!”

Fowler shoved Aurelia into Snudge’s arms. “Lock her up in the snug.”

Snudge wrapped his huge arms around Aurelia, but glared at Mordecai Fowler, his lower lip jutting. “Why’d you kill little Titch?” he demanded. “He was my friend.”

“Why? ’Cause the little bleeder tried to steal from me. That’s why I killed him!”

Snudge’s face purpled with rage, but Fowler ignored him, turning to his men. “There’s only the two of ’em. Follow me, you lot. We’ll go downstairs and shoot up through the floorboards. That oughta make ’em dance!”

Tommy Ebbs moaned and writhed in agony. The bullet had shattered his femur and severed an artery. Blood gushed in a widening pool.

Algernon looked with amazement at the still-smoking walking stick clutched in Thraxton’s hands. “Any more shells for that thing?”

“None, unfortunately.”

“Now what? We’re trapped.”

Thraxton’s eyes scoured the empty room until they found the rope still dangling from the crane jib.

“The rope. We can swing across to the next room.”

“Fowler’s in there.”

They turned at the sound of a thump. Tommy had staggered upright on his one good leg and hopped toward the door; thump, thump, thump. Suddenly, the floorboards beneath him exploded with a cacophonous volley of shots. Hit twice more, Tommy screamed and toppled. A moment later, another volley erupted, blowing the floorboards to splinters and killing him outright.

Algernon looked at Thraxton. “We’re dead if we remain in here.”

“There’s only one way out.” Thraxton nodded at the open loading doors and the rope dangling from the jib. Thraxton seized the rope, lashed the loose end around a cleat screwed to the wall, stepped back a few paces, then threw himself into space, swung in an arc, and landed neatly in the open doorway next door. He leaned out the window and called out, “Algy, I’ll swing the rope back. Get ready to catch it.”

Unbeknownst to Thraxton, Fanny was creeping up behind him. Algernon caught the rope, then swung toward the open doorway. Fanny ran up behind Thraxton and shoved him just as Algernon swung in. The two collided and Thraxton grabbed his friend and hung on as they swung back out into empty space. But Fanny’s own momentum carried her forward and she tumbled out and fell screaming all the way to the cobblestones below.

Algernon and Thraxton swung back together and fell in through the open doorway. Thraxton scrambled to his feet.

“Aurelia!” he shouted.

They heard pounding from somewhere, small fists beating against a door, then Aurelia’s muted cries for help.

“Up there!” Algy said, pointing toward a door at the top of a narrow staircase.

The two friends pounded up the squealing steps. Fortunately, the dim-witted Snudge had left the key in the lock. Thraxton turned the key as Fowler and his mobsmen came thundering up the second-floor stairs and burst into the room.

“Look lively!” Algernon shouted. They snatched the key, ducked into the snug, and locked the door from the inside.

“Geoffrey!” Aurelia cried and leapt into Thraxton’s arms.

“I had feared I would never see you alive.”

“I am so sorry,” Aurelia sobbed. “This is all because of my foolishness.”

“We may not be alive much longer,” Algernon said. “There’s no way out of this room.”

“No, there is!” Aurelia said, and pointed up at the hidden roof hatch young Titch had dropped through.

Outside the snug, the mobsmen hastily reloaded their pistols.

“We got you now!” Fowler shouted. “Come out. If I has to come in there it will be the worse for ya. And don’t try nuffink with them fancy walkin’ sticks!”

Fowler banged on the door of the snug with the meat of his fist and jumped back. No response. He looked around at his men.

“Right lads, give ’em a volley!”

The mobsmen leveled their pistols and fired a deafening fusillade, splintering the door into matchwood. When the gunpowder smoke cleared, he gave the nod and Snudge crashed through the ruined door. Fowler followed, rushing in with pistol drawn.

But the room was empty.

“Where the bleedin’ hell?” Fowler muttered, bewildered. But then he looked up and saw the roof hatch open to the night sky. “They’re up on the tiles. Get the lads out. All of them. I ain’t done with Lord Toff yet, not by bleedin’ half. When I get me mawleys on him, he’ll beg for death!”

The rooftop pitched down precipitously on either side. The three crept along the apex, one foot on either side, but the slates were loose, missing or slick with decades of green slime and greasy soot. One slip and the hapless person would toboggan down the slippery tiles and be launched into thin air. Algernon led the way, with Aurelia in the middle and Thraxton following behind. Their only hope of escape was to slip back inside the building far enough away from Fowler and his mobsmen to make good their escape. But the dilapidated roof was treacherous: in places it sagged perilously or gaped with jagged holes.

To complicate matters, the air was choking. Dense fog crackled with fiery cinders. Chimney smoke roiled with the pestilential vapors rising from the canal below. They reached their first obstacle, a large chimney stack. Suddenly two of Fowler’s men leaped out from behind. One was armed with a sickle that he swung wildly at Algernon’s head. He missed and swung again, and this time Algernon dropped, thrust his walking stick between the man’s legs, and twisted. The man’s feet splayed beneath him and he fell. The man dropped the sickle, scrabbling for grip with both hands as he slid down the steeply pitched roof then flew out over the edge, screaming all the way to the ground. Meanwhile Thraxton faced off against a big man wielding a cudgel which whished through the air each time he swung at Thraxton’s face, forcing him to back away — the walking stick too light to catch any of the blows. Behind him a hole gaped in the roof and he was being driven steadily toward it. Thraxton caught his heel on an upraised tile and fell at the edge of the yawning hole. His attacker laughed and raised the cudgel high over his head, but then Aurelia ran from behind and shoved him. The cudgel-wielder staggered forward, tripped over Thraxton’s body and toppled through the hole, crashing to the floor of the room below with a bone-splintering thump followed by a low and agonized moaning.

“Look,” Algernon said, pointing farther ahead. “The roof steps down and there’s a walkway. If we can just reach—”

He was interrupted by the boom of gunfire and the slate tiles around them shattered and exploded as bullets whizzed past their heads. He looked back to see Mordecai Fowler clambering out of the trap door in the ceiling of the snug. He was shortly followed by twenty of his mobsmen. The pursuers saw the three and filed along the apex of the roof toward them.

“We must reach that walkway!” Thraxton said.

They hurried onward and unexpectedly came to the end of the roof. What had seemed to be an easy escape route proved to be a deadly trick of perspective. An unjumpable gap separated the roof of the building they were on from the building with the walkway. The drop to the cobblestones below was easily sixty feet.

Trapped.

“Well, well. No place to run to, eh, Lord Muck?” Fowler cackled as he duck-walked along the tiles toward them, dueling pistol in hand, his mobsmen marching behind. “After me and the lads have taken turns with your little dolly-mop she should be nicely broken in for the paying public. She’ll make a nice two-shilling whore down in Whitechapel.”

Fowler brayed a coarse laugh and his men joined in. “As for you, Mister Toff, you and my friend Mister Pierce are gonna spend some long, long hours gettin’ to know each other.”

“You think you’re the equal of any gentleman, Fowler,” Thraxton shouted back. “You think you are just as good as I am… prove it!”

“I don’t gotta prove nuffink to the likes of you.”

“You are the lowest form of filth. Lower than the lowest mud lark or sewer scavenger, for at least theirs is an honest trade. You could never be a gentleman. Not in this life nor any other.”

Fowler flourished the dueling pistol as he shuffled closer. “Like I told ya, in the Seven Dials, I’m the king, and I decide who lives or dies.”

Thraxton laughed scornfully. “A king? You? You are the king of nothing. Look around. You live in a cesspool of filth and decay. But even if you had been born into the highest house in the land, this is where you would end up. Because you are filth and could never be a gentleman, never.”

“Oh, you are gonna wish you had a spare set of lungs, ’cause you’re gonna need ’em for all the screamin’ you’re gonna do!”

“Prove me wrong, Fowler. If you really think you’re a gent, then fight me like a gentleman.”

Fowler’s face concertinaed in puzzlement. “Wot?”

“A duel. That is how gentlemen settle their differences. Or have you not the spine for it?”

“Duel you? Why the bleedin’ hell should I?”

“To prove yourself. To prove to your men that you’ve got the guts to fight me man-to-man.”

“Rubbish!” Fowler laughed, but this time the men did not join in.

“Go on, Mordecai,” Snudge goaded. “Fight ’im! Show ’im you ain’t scared… unless you is scared. Scared like a little weasel.”

Fowler threw a hateful glare at Snudge. “I ain’t scared. I ain’t scared of no bleedin’ toff. I ain’t scared of nuffink!”

“Go on, Mordecai,” piped in another mobsmen. “Let’s see you take him.” Suddenly all the mobsmen joined in, calling for Fowler to accept the challenge.

“All right, all right!” Fowler bellowed. “A duel it is. I’ll even give you the first shot, Lord Toff.”

Thraxton walked up to Fowler and held out his hand. “I must reload the pistols.”

“This one ain’t been fired,” Fowler said, patting the pistol in his hand.

Thraxton nodded and pulled out a slender powder horn, removed the cap, and began to pour gunpowder into the barrel of his dueling pistol. Algernon threw him a concerned look. Thraxton gave his friend the slightest nod to indicate that he knew full well his pistol had not been fired. Despite that, he poured enough powder for one shot but then kept pouring and pouring until he emptied the powder horn. Next, he drew a ball from his pocket, showed it to Fowler, dropped it in the barrel, then shoved a piece of wadding in and drove in the tamping rod, ramming everything home.

“Very good,” Thraxton said. “I am ready.”

“You challenged me,” Fowler said. “That means I have first choice of weapons.”

Thraxton nodded uneasily.

“Surprised a gutter-snipe like me knows the rules of dueling, aren’t ya, Mister Toff?” He nodded at the pistol in Thraxton’s hand. “I’ll take that pistol.” He snatched it from Thraxton. “And you can have this one.”

Thraxton hesitated, looking suspiciously at the pistol in Fowler’s pudgy hand, and then reluctantly took it.

“Sorry, Mister Toff, but we play my rules in Seven Dials.” Fowler turned his head and called out: “Mister Crynge.”

“He’s dead,” Snudge reminded.

“Oh, yeah. Well then, Mister Snudge, do us the honors.”

Thraxton stepped over to Algernon and leaned in close.

“Algy, I have no right to ask you this, but if I should fall—”

“I will defend Aurelia to the death,” Algernon replied, squeezing his friend’s arm.

Thraxton hugged Aurelia, looking down into her tearful face. “Death, if it comes, shall not separate us.”

“Geoffrey,” she whispered breathlessly. “I must tell you… I carry your child.”

Astonishment washed across Thraxton’s face. He had not been fearful until that moment, but now he trembled as he paced off the distance and turned to face Fowler.

“Mistah Fowler!” Snudge called. “Prepare to receive Lord Toff’s fire!”

Fowler stood face on, relaxed and unafraid, a smirk on his face. Thraxton’s breath plumed as he exhaled nervously. He raised the pistol slowly until the fore and aft sight coincided with Fowler’s broad chest.

The mobsmen fell silent.

Thraxton’s hand shook a little, and he fought to steady it. His finger tightened slowly on the trigger, squeezing until it released.

The hammer fell with an empty click.

Thraxton’s eyes widened in shock. His jaw dropped.

Fowler cackled. “Oh dearie me. Seems I did forget to reload after all.”

He nodded at Snudge who chuckled dimly, then shouted: “Mister Toff, prepare to receive Mister Fowler’s fire.”

Thraxton turned sideways, crouching slightly, his pistol hand drawn across his chest in an attempt to protect his heart and vital organs. He threw a last despairing look at Aurelia who watched with tears streaming down her face.

“You were right,” Fowler brayed. “I ain’t no gennulman, and I don’t fight like one. Ain’t that right, lads?” The mobsmen burst into laughter which drained away as Mordecai Fowler raised the dueling pistol and aimed.

“Death,” Thraxton whispered under his breath. “Death, I need you. Where are you now?”

“Goodbye, Lord Toff!” Fowler bawled. His face clenched, lips pursed, as he squinted along the pistol barrel centering Thraxton’s chest in his sights. His finger squeezed. The hammer fell. A flash of orange. A drawn out pffffffffffffffffffttt and then…

…nothing.

White smoke pearled from the gun. A stunned look spread across Fowler’s grizzled features and then… KABOOOM! The pistol exploded in his face. For long seconds, everything vanished in a white cloud. When the smoke dispersed, Fowler was still standing, though his hat was gone and his hair and clothes were charred and smoldering. The ruined pistol, its barrel peeled back by the explosion, dropped from the burned stumps of his fingers. He staggered backwards, hands clamped to his face. When he pulled the hands away, nothing remained of his left eye but a gory socket. His face gaped with fish-mouthed wounds, ripped open by shrapnel from the exploding gun. By overcharging with too much powder, and then loading two balls into the muzzle and tamping everything down tight, Thraxton ensured that the resulting overpressure would destroy the pistol.

Maimed and partially blinded, Fowler took a staggering step, lost his footing and fell, sliding down the steep pitch of the roof. As he flew out over the edge, he flailed out and managed to catch hold of the guttering. But under Fowler’s bulk, the guttering started to buckle and pull loose of the rusted brackets holding it to the brickwork.

“Lads!” Fowler called out. “Help me, lads!”

None of the mobsmen stirred.

“I’ll fall! C’mon, lads. Snudge… Snudge, get your arse over here!”

But Snudge didn’t move. “You killed little Titch. You shouldn’t not a done that, Mordecai. And I ain’t your horse to be doin’ wot you say no more.”

The guttering creaked as it tore away from the brickwork. Fowler let go with one hand, fumbled in his coats, drew out Mister Pierce and rammed the spike into the roof. He let go of the guttering and wrapped both hands around the handle of the spike, trying to heave himself back onto the roof, but the handle was slippery with blood — for once, his own blood.

“I ain’t done wiv you, Lord Toff! You’re gonna suffer, you and your pox-rotten dolly-mop! Soon as I get up this roof, I’ll show you all about pain and sufferin’!” But then Fowler’s hands lost their grip on the slippery handle. He grabbed at the guttering and as his weight hit it, the final rusted bolts sheared off. Fowler rode the downspout as it pivoted away from the building then buckled and collapsed. He fell fifty feet and splashed down in Filthy Ditch, sending up a huge spray of putrescence. Bubbles erupted for several seconds and then Fowler burst to the surface, gagging, spitting filth, gossamer wings drooping from his arms. He sank a second time, going down with a slurping sound. More bubbles, a huge stream at first that gradually slowed to a trickle and finally one huge bubble that formed on the surface, shimmering in obscene colors, then burst.

Silence.

All eyes turned to Snudge. As the second of Fowler’s leftenants, he inherited command. Thraxton and Algernon shared fearful looks. They had but one weapon, the sword cane, against an armed mob of thirty men. Snudge carefully stepped down the roof’s dizzy pitch, one hand resting against the tiles until he reached the spike Fowler had left impaled in the roof. He snatched it out and rose to his feet. For a moment he stood examining it. But then he seemed to lose interest and calmly flicked Mister Pierce away. The spike made a whicker-whick sound as it tumbled end over end, hit the surface of the ditch with a faint plash and vanished instantly. Snudge watched the fading ripples for a moment, then trudged back up the slope of the roof and walked away, back toward the trap door. Silently, the other men fell in behind him.

Thraxton, Aurelia and Algernon shared looks of disbelief as they watched the mobsmen meekly walk away.

By a miracle, they had all survived.

Footsore, battered and weary, Thraxton, Aurelia and Algernon crossed the rickety footbridge and finally emerged from the dark alleyway to find Aurelia’s father and Harold still waiting by the brougham. On sight of him, Aurelia ran and threw her arms about her father, although she wept to see the beating he had suffered.

Mordecai Fowler was dead.

Of that much, Silas Garrette was certain. He sat in the gloom of a black carriage parked directly across from Robert Greenley’s house, watching in disbelief as Thraxton’s blue brougham discharged its passengers.

There he was, the Mocker of Death himself, the detestable Lord Thraxton, helping Greenley hobble up the front steps of his house. Behind followed the slender figure of Aurelia Greenley and a fair-haired man Garrette recognized as one of Thraxton’s seconds from the duel.

The doctor did not linger to observe the happy homecoming. He rapped on the ceiling of the hansom with his knuckles, shouted, “Drive on!” and the carriage lurched away into the night.

He had seen all he needed to see. Thraxton either had the luck of all the angels on his side or he was a more formidable opponent than Garrette had estimated. Perhaps Mordecai Fowler had been a poor choice: ruthless and totally evil, but lacking in intelligence — a blunt cudgel where a keen scalpel was required.

No. There was no other choice. He would just have to do the job himself. Besides, he had seen Aurelia Greenley up close. Since then, he had been able to think of little other than the tiny life growing inside her.

He was impatient to greet his new child.