Toby nodded. Then Philo made for the front door, with Fettler close at his heels. But even as Philo reached it, the door swung open, and he found himself confronted by a tall figure wrapped in a bulky greatcoat. Under a cocked hat streaked with tallow-wax, two moss-green eyes widened as they met Philo’s.
Philo recognised those eyes. He’d last seen them in Cucumber Alley, after being kicked in the chest.
‘You!’ Gugg Worris cried in disgust.
He lunged. Philo bolted. He hurled himself towards the kitchen – because Gugg was blocking the front door. Threading his way between the bar and the booths, Philo worried that Scamper or Cockeye might grab him. But he was too quick; they’d barely registered that something was wrong before Philo had passed them by, leaping over a dog as he went.
He flung an empty chair onto the floor behind him, then slammed into the dark, greasy kitchen. Here he almost collided with a kitchen-maid, who jumped back with a shriek. His mind was working furiously; he knew that there was a rear entrance leading into Maidenhead Yard, so he pounded past the huge, roaring fire, jumped over a basket of cabbages, and charged out the only door he could see. Sure enough, it opened onto the yard. And since the yard opened onto Dyott Street, Philo headed back in that direction.
But he wasn’t fast enough. As he rounded the eastern corner of the building, he spotted someone waiting up ahead. Cockeye McAuliffe was blocking the Dyott Street exit. Unlike Gugg and Scamper, who were still crashing through the kitchen, Cockeye had gone the opposite way.
As Philo slid to a halt, Cockeye grinned slyly, beckoning with one finger. Then Gugg burst through the kitchen door. Philo had about two seconds’ grace. Spinning around, he galloped straight for a wagonload of flour-bags sitting in one corner of the yard, directly behind the parish school on Plumtree Street. Using the hub of one wheel as a foothold, he threw himself up onto the wagon, climbed its stack of flour-bags, and heaved one of them off the pile. It fell like a boulder, landing on the ground just a foot or two from Gugg Worris – who had been running to intercept him.
The bag split, throwing up a dense cloud of flour. Gugg and Scamper both barrelled into this white mist as Philo jumped onto the roof of the school. He could hear them coughing and sneezing, but he didn’t pause; he couldn’t afford to. The roof was a single plane, propped at a shallow angle against a sheer brick wall that shot up another two storeys. Philo knew that he wouldn’t be able to scale that wall quickly enough to dodge his pursuers. So he headed for the nearest chimney.
It was a big, square, brick chimney, and it wasn’t smoking. It didn’t even smell of smoke. Part of it seemed to have been lopped off, and the tufts of green sprouting from its crumbling mortar suggested that it hadn’t been used for some time. Peering into it, Philo could see a patch of murky light at the bottom – which wasn’t far away. For about half a second he weighed up the flue’s length, width and stability, before deciding in its favour. Though tall for his age, he was very thin. He thought that he could probably fit down the shaft.
So he lowered himself into the chimney, feet first. With his hands clamped to its uneven rim and his legs dangling, he hesitated for a moment, wondering if he’d made a bad choice. He could hardly breathe, and his nose was no more than an inch or two away from the damp black brick in front of him. But the sound of Gugg’s furious shout gave him all the motivation he needed. Gasping with fear, he relaxed his grip on the top of the chimney.
Whomp! Down he went, about six feet or so. He landed heavily on a bag of coal, which was being stored in what appeared to be an unused fireplace. The impact left him grazed and winded, but not badly hurt. Though he’d scraped the skin off his knuckles and torn a few holes in his stockings, he hadn’t snapped any bones.
The space into which he’d fallen seemed to be a storeroom. It contained a lot of wood and coal, a few broken chairs, a broom, a bucket, a mop and a loose collection of framed slates. The only window was shuttered, the only door firmly closed – though not locked. When Philo turned the handle, it yielded to his pressure.
So he flung the door open, and found himself staring at a sea of boys’ faces in a large, well-lit room.
Some of these faces were dirty, some clean; some were dark and some were fair. Philo recognised a number of the boys, though they were all very young. Lined up on long benches, they sat facing a desk and a book-cupboard.
Behind the desk was a young man dressed in black, whose jaw dropped when he spotted Philo.
‘What the—?’ he spluttered.
Philo knew this gentleman. He was Mr Bramwell, Master of St George’s parish school. For a split-second Philo toyed with the idea of offering an explanation, then decided not to bother. Instead he stumbled past Mr Bramwell, heading for the exit.
‘I say! You there! What do you think you’re doing?’ Mr Bramwell’s outraged voice followed him into the open air – where Philo turned left instead of right. He knew that the housebreakers would be running to intercept him on Broad Street (if they’d decided to chase him at all), so rather than take the quickest route home, he chose the longest and most roundabout. By losing himself in the back-end of Bloomsbury, he hoped to shake off even the most dogged of the gang, who were bound to lose interest sooner or later.
After all, he’d done nothing but call Gugg Worris a thief in public.
Wending his way towards Great Russell Street, Philo stopped worrying about his own neck and started fretting over the safety of other people. Fettler Ben, for instance; had he got away? He’d had plenty of time, because the housebreakers had been concentrating on Philo. But what if Fettler had been stupid? What if he’d hung back to defend his captain?
And then there was Garnet Hooke. Scamper Knaggs had threatened to have a ‘word’ with Garnet. What did that mean, exactly? In the past, Garnet had always been shielded from rebuke by the fear that he might lay a curse on someone. But what if Scamper’s crew weren’t scared of a cunning man who couldn’t deliver what he’d promised?
And why hadn’t he delivered? Could it be because the new uprightman wasn’t a spriggan after all?
As he hurried past the handsome buildings on the western end of Great Russell Street, Philo was acutely conscious of all the foul alleys that lay just behind them. He felt as if the stately façades were strung together like a dam, holding back a swirling tide of dark, noxious sludge. On reaching Tottenham Court Road, he headed towards the pound with great caution, his ears pricked and his eyes peeled. He kept hiding behind carts and coaches and sedan chairs, flitting from one to the other as he plotted a course for Hog Lane. From there, it was just a few blocks to Seven Dials – and Philo always felt safe in Seven Dials. It was his neighbourhood; he knew it better than anywhere else. There were any number of bolt-holes in Seven Dials where he would be welcome.
Firstly, however, he had to make a quick detour. Susannah still had to be told about the spriggan – and Philo wondered if he should also mention the failure of the sprite-trap. Would that mean anything to her? On Denmark Street he scanned the faces streaming past, conscious that he was heading back towards the Maidenhead Inn. But he was sure that Scamper’s crew would have given up, by this time. It had been a good half-hour since Philo’s escape through the chimney.
With the spire of St Giles looming over him, Philo fought his way through a mob of Frenchmen before emerging into the open space in front of the church. It was quite busy, thanks to a hurdy-gurdy player stationed near the entrance to the livery stables. But Philo didn’t even glance in that direction. He was too busy staring at the Resurrection Gate, where Susannah Quail was talking to a couple of men.
One of the men was Gugg Worris. The other was Scamper Knaggs.
It was an appalling sight. Susannah looked so small and fragile next to the large, menacing housebreakers. Phil’s head was in a whirl. How could he possibly defend her? He glanced around in search of a weapon, but saw only cobbles and cabbage-stalks.
‘Hoi! Scamper Knaggs!’ he cried, hoping to draw the men away. At least a dozen
heads snapped around – Scamper’s among them. Gugg glanced up too. Then he grimaced, and started towards Philo.
Scamper Knaggs, however, didn’t budge.
Philo plunged into the crowd of people to his right. All of them were clustered around the hurdy-gurdy man, who was playing ‘Beggar Boy’. Weaving between their closely packed bodies, Philo headed for Lloyd’s Court, mentally cursing Toby Mackett. Toby must have told the housebreakers about Susannah Quail; there was no other explanation for their sudden appearance outside the church. Scamper must have heard about Philo’s meeting in the tavern with Toby, who must have told Scamper – under duress – that Susannah had given Philo some St John’s wort . . .
From Lloyd’s Court, Philo took the tight little passage that doubled back into the livery stables. He knew that Gugg was somewhere behind him, but couldn’t leave Susannah alone with Scamper Knaggs. So he pressed on, finally emerging into the stable yard. Here a dozen or so hackney coachmen kept their horses and carriages, though there wasn’t any sign of them so early in the afternoon. Most of the stalls and coach-houses were empty. Philo’s gaze swept the whole yard, alighting on a range of objects: a rake, an axe, a scattering of straw-bales, a rusty coach spring, a splintered axle-tree. An ostler was chatting to a waterman at one end of the yard, but they hadn’t noticed Philo.
Checking behind him, Philo saw no sign of Gugg Worris. Though he knew he didn’t have much of a head start, he lingered long enough to snatch up the nearest straw-bale, which he threw across the narrow mouth of the alley he’d just left behind. Then he grabbed a pitchfork and laid it in front of the straw-bale, with its prongs pointing at the sky. Finally he made for St Giles’s church, hoping that Gugg would leap over the straw-bale and tread on the pitchfork.
Even if the housebreaker’s boots were too thick for a metal prong to pierce, he was bound to get whacked in the face when the pitchfork’s wooden shaft flipped up.
Philo wished that he could borrow something from the stables before he went to face Scamper Knaggs. The axe, for instance, would have made a handy weapon. But he didn’t want to be charged with theft, so when he emerged from the stable yard, he was empty-handed.
It didn’t matter, though. One look at the Resurrection Gate told him that Scamper had disappeared.
And so had Susannah.
CHAPTER 18
CONTAINING SEVERAL
NEW MATTERS NOT EXPECTED
Philo stood frozen with shock. The hurdy-gurdy was still wailing nearby, as people clapped along to the strains of ‘Prince Rupert’s March’. There was a lot of noise.
‘Susannah?’ Philo shouted. He pushed past a giggling knot of kitchen-maids, heading towards the church. Simon Edy was there, along with his dog. The sexton was emerging from the vestry house. But Susannah had vanished.
‘Susannah Quail!’ Philo wondered if Simon knew what had befallen her. Surely she hadn’t been abducted? In broad daylight? In front of such a large audience?
‘Philo?’
He recognised Susannah’s voice at once; it was coming from behind him. Whirling around, he saw that she was over by the entrance to Lloyd’s Court, basket in hand.
His relief was profound but short-lived. He had other things to worry about.
‘Where’s Scamper?’ he exclaimed, rushing towards her. He was listening for a distant roar of pain that might signal Gugg’s encounter with the pitchfork – but it was hard to hear anything through the drone of the hurdy-gurdy. ‘What happened? Where are you going?’
‘To look for you,’ Susannah replied. She seemed startled when he grabbed her hand and began to pull her away from Lloyd’s Court. ‘Are you all right, Philo? Is that flour in your hair?’
‘Scamper Knaggs. The man in the cheap wig. You was just talking to him—’
‘He asked me about the wort I gave you. He wanted to know if I’d got it from your master.’
‘From Mr Hooke?’
‘I told him I hadn’t.’ Susannah spoke patiently as she limped along behind Philo. ‘He seemed angry. He asked why Mr Hooke hadn’t given Gugg any wort, if it was so good against spriggans.’
Philo grimaced, glancing towards the stable yard. Gugg still hadn’t appeared. ‘He mentioned the spriggan?’
‘And pressed me for advice. I said I had none.’
‘I’m sorry Scamper came to you,’ Philo muttered. ‘’Twasn’t my doing. Someone gave him your name.’ He paused for a moment, still eyeing the entrance to the livery stables. ‘Where did Scamper go?’ he said at last. ‘Did he set off after me?’
Susannah shook her head. ‘He went to speak to your master.’
‘What?’
‘He said your master had used him falsely.’
Philo swore under his breath. Dragging his gaze away from the stables, he fixed it on Susannah. ‘You should go home,’ he said. ‘They might come back.’
‘They’ll not hurt me,’ she assured him. ‘Why should they?’
‘They’re rogues, that’s why.’
‘I cannot abandon my post, Philo, or I might lose it.’ She smiled up at him, her tone as mild as milk. ‘I am not a seamstress. I cannot earn my daily bread at home.’
‘Aye, but—’
‘You’re the one being chased. You’re the one who should leave.’ Susannah removed her hand from Philo’s and gently patted his arm. ‘Don’t trouble yourself on my account. I have a strong charm to protect me. It works well, or I’d not be here now.’
Philo hesitated, torn between his concern for Susannah and his concern for Garnet Hooke. Both were frail and slow and undefended. But Susannah had the church within reach; Garnet’s bed offered no such sanctuary.
‘Run to the church if Gugg bothers you again,’ he advised her. Then, as the hurdy-gurdy fell silent, he heard the unmistakable yelp of someone in pain.
‘Ah – ah – that damn moon-curser! I’ll tear his head off!’
Philo saluted Susannah and dashed back up to Broad Street. (He wasn’t about to take the shorter route home, because it would have taken him past the livery stables.) At the almshouses he turned right, and was soon careening down King Street towards Cucumber Alley. By this time it was raining – a fine, misty rain that turned the dusting of soot and flour on Philo’s clothes into a kind of thin paste. He was tired and cold, and the rain trickled down from his hatless head into his collar. When a friendly bookbinder hailed him, he couldn’t dredge up the energy to reply. He just raised his hand as he veered into Queen Street.
He heard Garnet’s cough before he’d even arrived at his lodgings; it sounded as if Garnet was hacking up bits of lung. A quick scan of the alley told Philo that Scamper Knaggs was nowhere in sight. Neither were any of Philo’s team. But when he pushed open the front door, he heard someone calling to him – and he looked up to see Fettler Ben huddled outside Garnet’s room.
‘God ha’ mercy, Captain, I’m glad to see you!’ Fettler exclaimed. He was still wearing his feeble disguise, and hadn’t yet cleaned the soot off his face. He must have come straight from the Maidenhead Inn. ‘They didn’t snap you? I thought they must have, when I saw Scamper—’
‘Where is Scamper?’ Philo interrupted, from the bottom of the staircase. He’d barely finished speaking when he heard a raised voice behind Garnet’s door.
‘In there,’ Fettler said, pointing. ‘I tried to stop him, but Mr Hooke wouldn’t let me.’
Philo was already bounding up the stairs, two at a time. When he reached Garnet’s room, he put an ear to the door and listened intently, trying to make out what was being said. But Garnet’s voice was little more than a hoarse wheeze; it was possible to distinguish only one word in ten.
‘. . . bait...gold...tempting. . .’
‘’Tis the lure at fault, then – not the trap?’ Scamper’s response was loud and clear, and edged with menace. ‘When the spriggan comes, it will be caught?’
‘...book...claim...faery hoard...’
‘Well, I hope so.’ Scamper tone was sceptical. ‘For if that gold don’t
work, you’ll see me back here. And I’ll not be alone.’
Philo didn’t wait to hear more. Grabbing Fettler’s sleeve, he pushed the door open and burst into Garnet’s room, where Scamper Knaggs was standing by the window, his wig askew and his arms folded. It was very warm and stuffy. Scamper’s face was damp with sweat, as were the armpits of his brown buckram coat. He smelled of ale and old cheese.
Garnet was sitting up in bed, his chest labouring, his eyes bloodshot. His face looked grey; his nose was as sharp as a pen. The sight of his shaking hands caused Philo’s heart to sink. Though Garnet had been ill for as long as Philo could remember, he wasn’t usually this ill.
‘Theophilus.’ Though Garnet could barely force the words out, his gaze was hard enough to make Philo wince. ‘I don’t believe I invited you to join us.’
‘That’s the lad I spoke of,’ Scamper announced, before Philo could answer. ‘The one with the wort.’
‘Hmm.’ Garnet pulled a sour face. ‘As I may have observed, Theophilus seems to be following his own path. I was not the source of that herb.’
‘’Tis a good ’un, though?’ asked Scamper. ‘For spriggans?’
Garnet shrugged. Then, quite unexpectedly, he broke into verse.
‘St John’s wort doth charm all witches away
If gathered at midnight on the saint’s holy day
Devils or witches have no power to harm
Those that gather the plant for a charm.’
As Philo stared at him, drop-jawed, Garnet smiled crookedly. ‘The old lore recommends it. That is all I can tell you,’ he finished.
The housebreaker pondered this, scowling. At last he demanded, ‘Would it shield me, if I was to attack a spriggan?’
Garnet spread his hands. ‘The old lore would have it so,’ he replied. ‘But I’d not attempt it without a good weapon and a staunch lieutenant.’