The Affair of the Porcelain Dog (26 page)

Swiping a sleeve across my eyes, I took off after the hansom. My heart pounded, my arms and legs pumping as I followed it down Narrow Street, only peripherally aware of the bloody, blistered mess my feet had become. The driver slowed to make the turn onto Horseferry.

I leaped.

Only to be tackled by a third imbecile.

"What the
fuck
?" I cried as we both went down hard.

I rolled across the cobblestones trying to dislodge him, but he clung fast.

"I'll kill you!" I shouted, swinging blindly. "Cain!"

The carriage was getting away. I flailed my arms, trying to find a soft spot with either fist or elbow. Eventually I came up on my stomach and pushed myself onto my knees. I threw my weight forward, hoping to toss the cretin over my shoulder, and promptly found myself on my back. I tried to rise, but couldn't move.

"Care to reconsider your response, Adler?" Lazarus asked, standing over me while I choked dust and blinked up at the night. He looked exhilarated--he hadn't even wrinkled his jacket. He held out a hand to help me up. I slapped it away.

"I..." I gasped as I struggled to my feet. My chest felt like a clenched fist.

"Don't panic," Lazarus said. "I just knocked the wind out of you."

I stood there doubled over while Goddard's coach disappeared. As my breath returned, I lunged at him.

"Why did you stop me?" I shouted. I shoved his chest hard. He staggered back. I stepped toward him again, then, thinking better of it, thrust my hands in my pockets so I wouldn't strangle him. "I should be with him," I said miserably. "He needs me."

"He needs a doctor, and no doubt has the best in London. Our real concern now is who caused the explosion. Because they're behind that building."

I swallowed. Taking a deep breath, I followed his gaze to the warehouse. Smoke was billowing from a hole in the right side of the roof. Flames were shooting up into the dark sky. Lazarus was right. There'd be no catching the carriage now. But we could get the son of a bitch who'd blown up the building.

"All right," I said.

Signaling for me to follow, Lazarus took off into the crowd. When we reached the left side of the warehouse, he flattened himself against it and pushed me back with an arm across my chest. The air was acrid there, as hot and dry as the wood at my back. Inside the warehouse, the beams crackled and groaned. There was a crash as a pane of glass exploded from the heat.

"What the devil are you doing here, anyway?" I hissed.

"Shh," said Lazarus.

A few yards ahead of us, the ground dropped off sharply where the back wall of the warehouse ended in a concrete loading dock. A small boat bobbed up and down in the water behind the building--not much more than a glorified punt, really--too small to be safe even within the confines of the canal. In the rough, congested waters of the river just a few yards south, it would be a death trap.

"Your Mrs. Wu, I believe," Lazarus said, nodding toward a tall, thin figure illuminated by the flames.

"She did this?" I cried. "But what? Why?"

"Shh," he said again.

Like the two men standing with her beside the boat, Mrs. Wu was wearing black trousers, boots, and a pullover, but her long rope of hair was unmistakable. She had a sack slung over one shoulder. Goddard's scout lay, unmoving, on the ground nearby. Something was huddled in the belly of the boat. A sudden rain of sparks revealed several pairs of frightened eyes. In the whisper of flames across timber, Nate's dying words came back to me:
Mrs. Wu...ware'ouse...the children...

I elbowed Lazarus. "The children from the brothel," I whispered. "They're in that boat."

"We have to leave, now," one of the men said to Mrs. Wu. "The fire brigade will be here any minute, and the police won't be far behind."

"We can't leave without Turnbull," said Mrs. Wu.

"Where is he, then?"

"The river is jammed," Lazarus said to me. "They'll be smashed to bits in that little thing."

"Mrs. Wu has the porcelain dog. If we let her get away, we may never find it."

Lazarus looked at me, the seriousness of our situation heavy in his deep brown eyes. He drew a Webley service revolver from beneath his coat.

"Then we can't let that happen," he said.

"Where did you get that?"

"When Christopher James Parker perished in a snowstorm outside of Caboul, his weapon found its way into the hands of a certain Timothy Lazarus. How exactly I'm not at liberty to say."

With a quick smirk, he stepped down onto the concrete path running alongside the canal. Farther down, the conversation between Mrs. Wu and the men had turned to argument.

"We can't wait any longer," said one of the men.

"Mr. Turnbull has put himself at great risk to get us this far," Mrs. Wu argued. "We can't leave without him."

"You'll have to," Lazarus said, coming up behind them. "Mr. Turnbull died in my surgery earlier today."

"He's dead?"

I turned at the sound of the voice behind me. Soft. Sad. A burst of flame illuminated the figure on the cement walk beside the canal, not far from where I was standing. He wore a magnificently cut coat that clung to his thin torso, a top hat, and a face full of blond whiskers that formed a point at the end of his chin. It was difficult to make out his features in the dark, but it wouldn't have been a stretch to imagine that years ago, he might have been Goddard's "rat-faced little upstart."

But now Nick Sinclair sounded like a child who had lost his favorite toy.

"My men brought him to the clinic as quickly as they could," Sinclair told me.

"After watching him take a beating like that," I said. "Very decent of you."

We stared at one another for several long moments. Behind me, the muted voices of Lazarus and Mrs. Wu carried on a terse exchange. There was a great clatter of hooves and bells as the fire wagon pulled up Narrow Street, and the shouts of firemen as they bullied the remaining onlookers into work crews. Behind Sinclair, a wave sloshed up over the concrete, pooling around his expensive boots.

"I did everything I could," Sinclair said. "But Acton was there. I'd have been killed."

Some bogeyman, I thought with disgust, reduced to sniveling over his own inaction.

"But they killed Nate instead, and you didn't do a thing to stop it." I hopped down onto the concrete walk so that I could look into his face. "Blackmail is a coward's game, Mr. Sinclair." I spat on the ground near his feet. "It suits you."

His face went white with fury.

"What do you know of it? What do you know of anything? Who are you?"

"The friend of an enemy," I said.

Rage burned inside me, bubbled up my gullet, and tinted the entire world red. I'd never killed a man. I doubted I could have killed in cold blood. But at that moment, my blood was anything but cold. Nate was dead, Goddard was dying, and it was all Sinclair's doing.

"This is for Cain," I said as I stepped toward him. "This is for Nate."

Recognition lit his face as I threw myself on him. The last vestiges of fear drained away as a sense of righteousness settled over me. He had threatened my lover and my home, and stood by while Acton's men beat my best friend to death. Whether the explosion was his doing or Mrs. Wu's was immaterial--he could carry the blame for that as well. As long as Nick Sinclair had breath in his body, I would not rest. All it would take was one good bash to the head. A crack, a splash, and it would all be over. I pulled him off the railing and flung him into the concrete wall of the dock. Behind me, there was a loud boom as a ceiling beam split inside the burning warehouse. The flames shot higher, lighting up the dock like daylight.

"Now!" Sinclair shouted. "Never mind me, go now!"

Footsteps slapped on the wet concrete as two men rushed out of the shadows and pushed past us.

"Tim!" I called.

"Over there," Sinclair shouted. His voice was filled with triumph. "Make sure to get the woman! She's the one you want!"

He pushed off from the wall, slamming me against the metal railing. Pain shot up my spine.

"This had nothing to do with you, boy," Sinclair sneered.

One of my arms was pinned against the railing, the other trapped between us. Sinclair's face was so close to mine I could see the cracks between his uneven teeth.

"If you'd kept out of it, you'd have been out of prison in two years, and no worse for it. I might even have let you come work for me."

"Over my dead body," I said.

"Yes, well, these things can't be helped."

Gunshots rang out near the boat. I glanced over, only to be rewarded with a punch to the kidney. My boots slid on the wet concrete as I struggled to stay on my feet. Sinclair rammed me against the railing again. I felt the barrel of his revolver beneath my chin.

"Tim!" I shouted again.

"You don't understand anything," Sinclair said.

"I understand that Nate--"

I didn't see the fist coming, but felt the crack of my jaw and tasted the warm, coppery flood. I saw stars out of my left eye. For an instant I floated outside myself. More gunshots came from the direction of the boat. There was a shout, a splash, and then--nothing.

"Don't you dare say his name," Sinclair growled. "Nate was dead from the moment he cast his lot in with her." He jerked his chin toward the boat. "She and her anarchists have been a thorn in my father-in-law's side for a long time. Blowing up buildings, stealing valuable property...He'll be very pleased when I bring her, and his property, back to him."

"People aren't property," I spat.

"Some people are." He caressed my cheek with the muzzle of the gun. "But you'd know more about that than I would."

I hazarded another glance toward the boat. Mrs. Wu's men lay dead on the ground beside Goddard's scout. One of Sinclair's men had Mrs. Wu's head in a solid lock, her arm pinned painfully behind her. The other stood at the edge of the water, the little boat's mooring rope in his hand. Lazarus stood back from the water, training his gun first on one man, then the other. He was holding them for now, but sooner or later one of Sinclair's men would find his advantage and take it.

"Giving her to Acton might get you back in his good graces," I told Sinclair, "but what will Zhi Sen do when he learns that you've handed over his daughter to a murderer?"

"Zhi Sen was a means to an end," Sinclair said. "He doesn't matter in the long run."

"No. In the long run you want it all: Goddard and St. Andrews in prison, Acton dead, and the entire criminal underworld yours for the taking."

Sinclair laughed mirthlessly.

"Is it wrong to aim high?"

"And in the meantime, you're wasting your time with the woman, when the one Acton really wants is over there." I nodded toward Lazarus.

The split-second glance was his fatal mistake. I brought my knee into his groin so hard that it met bone. His eyes went wide, and he slumped against me, gurgling insensibly. I pushed him off and relieved him of his gun as he stumbled back.

"Adler!" Lazarus called.

The man holding Mrs. Wu was backing up a staircase, putting her between himself and Lazarus. I pointed Sinclair's revolver at the man by the boat and pulled the trigger. The shot hit his shoulder and pushed him backward into the canal. There were a few horrible seconds of screaming and splashing before he disappeared for good.

"I'm going after them, Adler!" Lazarus shouted as Sinclair's man pulled Mrs. Wu up the stairs. "If I'm not back by dawn, give the ledgers to the police. Tell them they'll find Acton at the East India Officers' Club, St. James's!"

Shots rang out from the direction of the staircase. Lazarus disappeared into the shadows.

"Tim!"

His head popped up, and with a quick wave toward me, he darted up after them.

I let out a long breath. Sinclair was moaning in a heap at the edge of the dock. Before I could think of my next move, I realized I was not alone. A broad, muscular chest pressed against my back. Hot breath ruffled my hair. Before I could cry out, thick arms wrapped around my shoulders, enormous hands closed around my gun-hand, and my attacker spun us both around to face Sinclair. I squeezed my eyes shut as he pulled my finger against the trigger. When I opened my eyes, there was a mass of blood and bone and brain where Sinclair's face had been, and the muzzle of the gun was burning into my face just in front of my left ear.

"One down," Collins said, his breath eerily intimate on the top of my head. "I can't tell you how satisfying this next one is going to be." His right arm circled my neck. His other hand trembled, as if he were savoring the last seconds before my murder.

"Cain..." I gasped as he subtly crushed my windpipe in the crook of his arm.

"Dr. Goddard should have listened to me in the first place. It was one thing to satisfy his unnatural urges with the occasional renter, but trying to build a life around perversion only leads to tragedy. He should have learned his lesson at Cambridge."

I gasped for breath and clawed at his arm. Inside the warehouse, something heavy crashed to the ground. The diamond eyes of my golden snake ring flashed orange in the firelight.