Where Shadows Dance

Chapter 26

Sebastian drove through long stretches of biscuit factories and anchor forges close built with sail lofts and tumbledown cottages. At the outskirts of the Greenland Dock, he left the curricle with Tom in the shade of a big brick storehouse on a quiet, cobbled lane and pushed on afoot through throngs of workmen in leather aprons and merchant seamen stinking of gin and old sweat.

The Surrey Docks were a jumble of harbors, canals, and timber ponds lined with warehouses and granaries and immense piles of timber or “deal wood.” The vast whaling fleets of the previous century were almost gone now, their place taken by ships bearing timber from Scandinavia and the Baltic or wheat and cotton from North America. The air was thick with the stench of tar and dead fish and the raw sewage that scummed the water.

Sebastian had a double-barreled pistol in the pocket of his driving coat, primed and ready, and a knife in his boot. But he had every intention of heeding the landlady’s warning to be gone from the waterfront before nightfall.

An army of quayside workers swarmed the docks, lightermen and deal porters and the unskilled laborers who assembled every morning at area pubs like the King’s Arms or the Green Man, where foremen selected their day’s crews. A few carefully worded questions and the discreet distribution of largesse eventually brought him to a decrepit old wharf near the canal, where a big-boned, black-bearded Irishman named Patrick O’Brian was supervising the unloading of a cargo of Russian hemp from a sloop.

“Aye, we worked the Baltimore Mary, all right,” he said, hands on his hips, eyes narrowed against the glare of the water as he watched his lads toiling on the ship’s deck.

“She was from the United States?” asked Sebastian.

“That’s right. Carryin’ a load o’ wheat.”

“Landed last Saturday?”

OʹBrian sucked on the plug of tobacco distending his cheek and grunted.

Sebastian stared out over the grease-skimmed waters of the basin, with its hundreds of crowded hulls, their bare masts stark against the blue sky. “Yet she sailed again on Tuesday? How is that possible?”

“Never seen anythin’ like it, meself. Paid a premium, they did, to get that cargo off in a rush.” He winked. “And ye can be sure the captain greased the palms o’ the attendin’ revenue officers, to get it through customs that fast.”

“Why the hurry?”

“That I couldn’t tell ye.” He shot a mouthful of brown tobacco juice into the water. “I have meself a theory, though.”

He paused to stare at Sebastian expectantly.

Sebastian obligingly passed him a coin. “And?”

“Normally, ye see, a ship’s captain will unload. Then he’ll go to the Virginia and Maryland Coffee House on Threadneedle Street, or maybe to the Antwerp Tavern. That’s where all the traders go, lookin’ to consign a cargo to some captain fittin’ out fer the return voyage.”

“But the captain of the Baltimore Mary didn’t do that?”

“Nah. He unloaded his ship, took on a few supplies, then sailed out o’ here with naught but ballast. Heard tell he was headin’ for Copenhagen, plannin’ to pick up a cargo and do his refittin’ there. But I couldn’t say for certain.”

“Now, why would he do that?”

O’Brian laid a finger alongside his nose and grinned. “Only reason I can figure is that he had a powerful reason to get out o’ London. Fast.”

Sebastian studied the dock man’s craggy, sun-darkened face. “What was this captain’s name?”

“Pugh, I believe. Ian Pugh.”

“Had you ever worked with him before?”

“A few times.”

Sebastian handed over another coin. “So your theory is—?”

OʹBrian glanced in both directions and dropped his voice. “There was this passenger aboard the Baltimore Mary, one Ezekiel Kincaid. He had quite a row with the captain, he did, just after they docked. And then, the next day, what do we hear but that Kincaid has turned up missin’ and ain’t never been found.”

“So you’re suggesting—what? That Captain Pugh murdered Ezekiel Kincaid?”

“Not sayin’ he did; not sayin’ he didn’t. I’m just sayin’, it makes you wonder.” He looked at Sebastian expectantly. “Well, don’t it? Don’t it?”

Sebastian walked through darkening, empty streets echoing with the clashes of shutters as apprentices closed up their masters’ shops. The evening breeze blowing off the water brought with it a welcome coolness but did little to alleviate the area’s foul stench. He wondered if it was possible that the murderer he sought was indeed some American sea captain, at that moment organizing the refitting and loading of his ship in Copenhagen.

Possible? Yes. Except, what possible connection could exist between the unknown Captain Pugh and Alexander Ross? And how then to explain the intruder Sebastian had encountered at St. James’s Street?

He was still pondering the possibilities when he turned into the quiet cobbled lane and saw his curricle standing empty before the looming warehouse, the chestnuts tossing their heads and sidling nervously. Two men loitered near the open doorway of the warehouse; rough men in black neck cloths, scruffy brown coats, and greasy breeches. One was chewing on a length of straw; the other, a younger man, held himself stiffly to one side.

Tom was nowhere in sight.

Sebastian became aware of the echo of his footfalls in the silent street, the steady beat of his own heart, the icy chill that coursed through him. There was no doubt in his mind that Tom would never abandon the chestnuts. Not willingly.

Slipping his hand into the pocket of his driving coat, Sebastian walked up to the man with the straw dangling out of the corner of his mouth. Of medium height and build, he had dark hair and a beard-grizzled face split by a provocative smirk.

“The groom who was with the curricle,” Sebastian demanded, his voice tight. “A lad in a black and yellow striped waistcoat; where is he?”

The man cast a glance at his companion, then used his tongue to shift the straw from one side of his mouth to the other. “Nipped off to the gin shop up the lane there,” he said, nodding toward the top of the hill.

“A gin shop?”

“Ye heard me.”

Reaching out, Sebastian closed his fist around the front of the man’s coat with his left hand as he whipped the pistol from his pocket. Drawing back the first hammer with an audible click, he shoved the barrel into the man’s face. “I’ll ask one more time. And you’d best give me an honest answer because I won’t ask a third time. Where is my tiger?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Sebastian saw the other man shift his weight. A length of iron bar dropped out of his sleeve and into his hand. He took a step forward, the bar raised to strike.

Without losing his grip on the first man’s coat, Sebastian pivoted, leveled the pistol over his outstretched arm, and fired.

The shot hit the ruffian at the base of his throat, the force of the blast slamming him back against the wall behind him. He slid down the wall slowly, his body crumpling sideways as he hit the earth.

“Jackson!” shouted the first man.

“Your friend was stupid,” hissed Sebastian. Tightening his grasp on the man’s coat, he pushed the ruffian back against the rough brick wall and shoved the hot muzzle of the gun up under the man’s chin. “Let’s hope you’re smarter.”

The smell of sizzling flesh filled the air and the man yelped, his eyes going wide.

“I want to know two things,” said Sebastian, pulling back the second hammer. “Where is my tiger, and who sent you?”

The man licked his lips, his eyes darting toward the darkened entrance of the storehouse. “He’s in there! He’s not hurt. I swear it!”

“You’d best hope for your own sake that he is not.” His finger on the trigger, one hand still fisted in the man’s coat, Sebastian hauled him toward the open doorway. “You first.”

Yanking him up short, Sebastian paused in the entrance to give his eyes time to adjust to the gloom. A vast cavernous space with a brick floor, the storeroom was filled with piles of crates and barrels and one small wriggling boy lying just to the right of the entrance.

It was Tom, his hands and feet bound, his mouth pried apart by a gag, his eyes open and alert. Sebastian felt a rush of relief, followed by a renewed upsurge of rage.

“Here’s what we’re going to do,” Sebastian told the hireling, dragging him over to the wide-eyed tiger. “You’re going to kneel right here”—he shoved the man to his knees—“and you’re going to hold yourself very, very still. Do anything stupid and you’re dead. Understand?”

The man nodded, his jaw set hard.

Hunkering down beside Tom, Sebastian transferred the gun to his left hand. Keeping the barrel trained on the man, he eased the knife from his boot. Quickly but carefully, he sawed through the ropes binding the lad’s wrists. He was setting to work on the bindings at the boy’s ankles when Tom yanked the gag from his mouth and yelled, ʺLook out!ʺ