A Plague of Bogles Read online

  But she didn’t even glance in his direction. Her anxious eyes were fixed on John Gammon’s butcher shop. When Jem saw her vanish into its depths, he began to gnaw at his fingernails. What on earth was going on? Why were the butcher and the Pickles clan in cahoots like this? Did Sarah know where John Gammon had buried a body or two? Was that why he was helping her?

  Perhaps she had entrusted the information to a third party and had threatened Salty Jack with exposure if she was arrested—or, indeed, if he tried to dispose of her. It was the only scenario that made sense. Certainly Sarah wasn’t the type to make friends with a possible rival, even if he was from the other side of town.

  Waiting nervously for Josiah Lubbock to return, Jem could only hope that Eunice had been flushed out by him. Could she be seeking advice, or refuge? Could she have excused herself to avoid answering questions? If that was so, however, the showman should have been close at her heels.

  Unless he was busy talking to Sarah Pickles . . . ?

  Then, all at once, something dawned on Jem. He gasped and bit down hard on his thumb. Sarah. Mr. Lubbock had used the name “Sarah.” How had he known it? Jem had never once mentioned Sal’s formal name—not in the showman’s hearing. Neither had Alfred, nor Birdie, nor Ned. Yet Mr. Lubbock now seemed familiar with Sarah’s identity. Somehow he had put two and two together. Perhaps he’d been reading last summer’s newspaper stories. Perhaps one of the people working for him had jogged his memory.

  He’ll try to blackmail her, thought Jem, with mounting despair. He’ll threaten to tell the police unless she stumps up. It was obvious now why Josiah Lubbock had been so helpful. He’d been planning a caper. He was that kind of man. But he had no idea how dangerous Sarah Pickles could be when cornered.

  He was a false, greedy, swindling fool.

  Jem was about to slip out of the passage when Eunice suddenly reappeared in the doorway of Mr. Gammon’s shop. With her was a burly man in a bloodstained butcher’s smock and leather gaiters. He had a broad chest, massive shoulders, and huge hands. All the hair on top of his head seemed to have fled to his bushy sideburns and big, black handlebar mustache. His pale eyes flashed around the street before he advanced one step beyond his own threshold.

  Jem decided that this hulking great butcher was probably Salty Jack. He watched the two of them walk away, Eunice scuttling and the butcher stomping. When they turned into Red Lion Court, Jem was drawn after them. He couldn’t help himself. Though he knew in his gut that the butcher was dangerous—though he himself was very, very frightened—he pulled his cap brim down to his nose and sidled back into Cock Lane.

  His thoughts were careening around in his head like panicky chickens. What should he do? Run away? Keep watch? Go knocking on doors, looking for Mr. Lubbock? When he reached Red Lion Court, he stopped and peered into it. Eunice had already vanished. Her companion was entering the crooked side alley. There was no one else in sight.

  “Jem?” somebody called.

  Jem gave a start. Then he glanced up, his heart in his mouth.

  Alfred Bunce was walking along the street toward him.

  27

  A View from the Top

  “I left the other young’uns at Bloomsbury,” said Alfred. “Now I’ve come to fetch you.”

  Though not exactly threatening, his tone had an edge to it. His clothes were so sodden that they looked almost black. His wet mustache drooped. Water dripped from his hat brim. His shoulders were bent beneath the weight of his sack. All in all, he cut a gloomy, disheartening figure—yet the sight of him made Jem feel almost dizzy with relief.

  “He’s in there!” Jem gabbled. “Lubbock! With the butcher!”

  “What?”

  “He knows who Sarah is! He’s bin scheming!”

  “Whoa.” Alfred placed a hand on Jem’s shoulder, then leaned toward him and said, “Slow down. What’s amiss? Tell me.”

  Jem explained what had happened. When he described the butcher’s appearance, Alfred’s face began to sag.

  “This here ain’t summat we can deal with,” Alfred declared. “If Salty Jack’s got ahold o’ Lubbock, ’tis a police matter.” As Jem opened his mouth to protest, Alfred continued, “Fetch Constable Pike.”

  “Constable Pike?”

  “At the market. Off you go. I’ll stay and keep watch.”

  “But—”

  “If you cannot find Pike, bring another market constable. Or go to the police station at West Smithfield. We passed it earlier.”

  “But them traps won’t listen to me!” Jem exclaimed. He stared at the bogler in disbelief. “They’ll toss me out like a mangy dog soon as I ever set foot in the place!” Seeing Alfred frown, Jem knew that he’d struck a chord. “You go,” Jem went on. “I’ll stay. The crib I’m seeking must be at the rear o’ the inner court, else I’d have spied one of ’em on a doorstep afore now.”

  Alfred hesitated. He glanced down the alley, then back at Jem. His grip tightened. “You’ll keep watch?” he asked. “Nowt else?”

  “I’ll do nothing foolish,” Jem promised.

  “If anyone comes out, you’re not to trail ’em,” Alfred warned. “You’re to stay where you are.”

  Jem nodded. Still Alfred seemed reluctant to move. At last Jem said, “We ain’t doing no good standing here like a couple o’ well pumps.”

  “You’re right.” The bogler abruptly released Jem before hurrying back toward Giltspur Street. Jem set off down the alley. He wanted to station himself at the entrance to the inner court. From there, he’d have a good view of every house opening onto the privy yard. He’d even have a sheltering doorway if the rain got too heavy.

  The rain worried Jem. Though London was full of people leaning against walls and sitting on doorsteps, the number of folk taking the air always dropped dramatically in bad weather. No matter how cramped it might be indoors, a dry space was preferable to a damp one. For that reason, Jem couldn’t help feeling that he would look suspicious, loitering in a persistent drizzle. Certainly there was no one else about—except the old man with the pipe, who was still eyeing the empty yard from his threshold as he puffed away. It was impossible to study any of the houses while he was there. Instead, Jem had to slouch listlessly, his head bent and his arms folded, trying very hard not to look like a cracksman’s crow. Sometimes he would yawn, or shift his limbs, and then a sidelong glance would tell him that the yard was still deserted. But he couldn’t inspect windows or check doors. Not beneath the old man’s blank, rheumy gaze.

  Suddenly the door behind Jem swung open.

  “Hoi! Get out of it!” A blow to the shoulder sent him stumbling forward as someone small and shrill attacked him like a guard dog. She was a skinny, angular woman with a harsh voice and a sour face. Her apron was soiled, her hair greasy and unkempt. She carried a straw broom, which she jabbed at Jem as if he were a pile of kitchen scraps.

  “I know yer game, you thieving little snipe!” she squawked. “You don’t live here! Move! Go on!”

  Startled, Jem began to edge away. But she chased him, still swinging her broom. “Hook it!” she screeched. “This is private property! We don’t want no filthy housebreakers here!”

  Jem didn’t know what to do. Normally, he would have told her where she could stick her damned broom, but he didn’t want to cause a ruckus. So he retreated toward Cock Lane with the angry fishwife snapping at his heels.

  “Thief! Burglar! We’re respectable folk in this neighborhood!” She kept swiping at his legs, pushing him out of Red Lion Court. Meanwhile, the nearby windows were filling up with spectators. Jem couldn’t see a single familiar face among them, but he didn’t want to take any chances.

  Besides, he’d had an idea.

  “You gammy old haybag!” he snarled, then took off toward Giltspur Street. By the time he reached Pye Corner, he’d shaken off the woman with the broom. Perhaps she’d turned back because she’d driven him into Cock Lane—or perhaps she was too old and breathless to pursue him any farther.

  Whatev
er the reason, he was alone as he headed for Saint Sepulchre’s. Here, he stopped by the watch house, to peer up at the houses backing onto the churchyard. Though screened by a few scrappy trees, these houses weren’t hard to identify. Jem had last seen them from the front, in Red Lion Court. The privy yard lay just beyond them.

  But he couldn’t squeeze between them because they were rammed together like books on a shelf.

  His gaze skipped up a cliff face of brick, wood, and peeling plaster. The walls of the houses were pierced here and there with small windows. They were also trimmed with rusty drainpipes. A couple of wooden boxes hung off the upper floors. From the chimneys all the way down to the coal sheds, there was a clear path for anyone with enough nerve, skill, and energy to use it. Jem’s practiced eye picked out this path at once.

  He glanced back at Giltspur Street. Thanks to the wet weather, it wasn’t very crowded. Carriages were passing but not many pedestrians. The buildings opposite were veiled in rain. The churchyard was empty.

  I can do it, he thought. I can get onto that roof. And from the roof he would have a commanding view of Red Lion Court.

  Jem slipped through the churchyard fence and ducked behind a statue. Then he took off his boots and tied the laces together. He was about to sling them around his neck when the sight of his pale feet against the dirt made him stop and think. Peering up at the nearby houses, he saw that they were dark with soot. So he spent a couple of minutes rolling on the muddy ground, collecting grime.

  Only when he was well camouflaged did he swarm up the nearest tree, pad swiftly over the roof of a coal shed, and attach himself to a crooked drainpipe that would (he hoped) carry him up the wall he’d chosen to climb. It didn’t look like a difficult task, since the back of each terrace was studded with all kinds of flues, hooks, windowsills, gas pipes, stringcourses, planks of wood, missing bricks, and irregular patches. Jem’s only concerns were the rain—which made everything slippery—and the people on the street. Though shielded by foliage during the first leg of his climb, he would be fully exposed upon reaching the third floor. It was his hope that any passersby at ground level would be keeping their gazes cast down, for fear of getting water in their eyes.

  Jem decided to stay away from the windows. Instead, he used other footholds to inch his way, step by step, toward the roof. He found that the best way of doing this, as always, was to concentrate on the details directly in front of him and not think of what lay behind, or ahead. He tried not to listen to the sound of raised voices from within the building, or the clatter of hooves from without. He ignored the water dripping from his nose and the empty boots thudding against his chest. He simply kept going—hand over hand, breath after breath, stretching and heaving and pushing and straining.

  At one point someone opened a window nearby. Jem froze. A pair of hands tossed a bucket of water into the churchyard, then slammed the window shut again. Only when a tuneful whistle had faded into silence did Jem once more start moving.

  By the time he reached the eaves, he was gasping for breath. His muscles ached and his fingers were beginning to cramp. His face felt red hot. But he was able to haul himself up over the eaves and scramble across the slate roof until he reached a chimney. Here he rested for a moment, clinging to the chimney pots.

  When his head cleared, he began to assess his surroundings. He was on the very apex of the roof. Behind him lay Saint Sepulchre’s churchyard and spire. In front of him was Red Lion Court. He could see the uneven roofline of the houses enclosing it, but he couldn’t see right down into the yard itself.

  He would have to move forward if he wanted to watch people coming and going.

  Unfortunately, the roof was quite steep. And wet. And full of holes. It had no fence or balustrade along its rim. But it was punctured by a couple of dormer windows, which reared up midway between the chimneys and the gutter. Jem decided that the closest of these windows would be a good place to start, so he carefully edged his way along the ridge until he was directly behind the little roof that covered the window. Then he slid toward this little roof until he was sitting right on top of it.

  That was when he heard a familiar voice—and his heart missed a beat.

  “If this cove were a young’un, I’d know what to do with him. But them creatures down there don’t take their vittles full grown.”

  It was Sarah Pickles. Jem recognized her harsh drawl instantly. For one horrible moment he thought that she was on the roof with him. But then he realized that her voice was leaking through the open dormer window.

  “Stop fussing,” someone else growled. “There won’t be no trouble with this here chest. The contents might take a week or so to perish, but no one’ll hear it. And what’s done with the remains is me own business.”

  “But he’s fat as butter, Jack,” Sarah objected. “What if he don’t fit?”

  “Oh, he’ll fit,” her companion said grimly. “Even if I have to take him apart with a boning knife, he’ll fit.”

  By this time Jem had slipped down one side of the window. With his left arm clamped across its roof, he slowly positioned himself so that he could sneak a look inside. He wasn’t particularly worried about being heard, because of the noise Sarah was making. And when he peeped into the garret, he saw what all the banging and crashing was about.

  Sarah and the butcher were trying to stuff Josiah Lubbock into a large oak chest.

  Jem pulled his head back quickly. He sat for a moment, sweating and staring at the sky. Sarah hadn’t changed a bit. She was the same blowsy, shambling, sharp-eyed old crone she’d always been. But Mr. Lubbock wasn’t looking as dapper as usual. His hat was missing; his suit was torn; his left ear was bloody. What’s more, he was bound and gagged.

  Jem decided, in a dazed fashion, that the showman probably wasn’t dead yet—or why would Sarah have bothered gagging him? Then the noise in the garret abruptly stopped, and Jem began to wonder why. Had the job been done? Had Sarah left the room? He was about to take another peek when all at once a big, hairy arm lunged out of the window toward him.

  Next thing he knew, he was caught by the ankle like a rabbit in a snare.

  “No-o-o-o-o-o!”

  Jem screamed. He kicked. He writhed and scratched and clawed at the slates, but it was no good; he was too weak, and his position was too perilous. One wrong move would have sent him plummeting to the ground.

  Seconds later he found himself on the floor of the garret, with the butcher’s hand around his throat.

  “Well, I’ll be blowed,” Sarah Pickles remarked. “If it ain’t Jem Barbary, come to pay us a call . . .”

  28

  Cornered

  “You know this kid?” said the butcher. Close up, he looked even more terrifying than he had from a distance. His neck was as wide as a bull’s. His forearms were like giant hams. His eyes were even harder than Sarah’s, though they resembled pale slivers of ice rather than dark chips of shale.

  “He used to work for me,” Sarah admitted. Then she gave Josiah Lubbock a prod with her foot. “I’m a-thinking he must work for this’un now.”

  “No! You’re wrong!” Jem squawked. But he couldn’t speak properly—not with all the pressure on his throat.

  “Shut yer mouth.” The butcher slapped him across the face. “No one’s talking to you.”

  “It don’t signify who sent him,” Sarah pointed out. “He knows me and can swear to it in court. That’s what should be worrying us, Jack.”

  “Seems to me you’re more trouble’n you’re worth, Sal,” the butcher muttered. He was crouched over Jem, who could hardly breathe. “First the notice, then the slang cove, now this here young shaver. Seems to me I oughter throw you in the chest as well.”

  “And risk having our mutual friend in Whitechapel telling the beaks what he knows about yer business, Jack? I don’t know as how that would be too smart.” Sarah smirked when the butcher scowled. “I’ll put this young’un out o’ the way, don’t you fret,” she promised. “Just as long as you tend to his
boss.”

  Suddenly Jack rose—and Jem found that he could gulp down air again. Coughing and gasping, he tried to stand up. But he was still on his knees when Sarah seized his earlobe, pinching it between her fingernails.

  The pain was agonizing.

  “Ahh! Ow-ow-ow-ow . . .”

  “Get up,” she ordered, yanking at the tiny flap of skin. “Come on!”

  As Jem staggered to his feet, he saw through a film of tears that Jack had somehow maneuvered Mr. Lubbock into the huge oaken chest. BANG went the lid. Click went the lock. With the butcher’s back to him, Jem saw his chance. He hurled himself at Sarah, instead of trying to pull away. She staggered beneath his weight as he barreled into her. “Ooof!” she said, releasing her grip.

  But Jem wasn’t halfway out the window before Jack caught him again.

  “He-e-e-e-elp!” Jem screeched. “Help! Murder!”

  WHOMP! This time the blow left his ears ringing. Lights danced before his eyes. His head swam and his stomach heaved and he must have blacked out for an instant, because the next thing he knew he was tucked under the butcher’s arm like a side of pork, with the butcher’s big, hairy hand clamped across his mouth.

  “Lock the door behind us,” Jack told Sarah. All at once the room around Jem began to bob and sway as he was carried out of it. He noticed dust, cobwebs, and joists riddled with dry rot. He caught a glimpse of an old wicker cradle. Then he was whisked into a stairwell lined with peeling wallpaper, where he felt so dizzy that he had to close his eyes for a moment.

  “This ain’t what I allowed for,” the butcher was saying. “No questions asked, Sal—that’s what you promised. No questions, no problems, no traps sniffing around—”

  “Since when did the traps come into it?” Sarah interrupted sharply. “I ain’t seen no coppers on our doorstep!”

  Jem tried to announce that the police were on their way, but he couldn’t. Not with Jack’s hand over his mouth. All he could do was mumble and groan.