Twilight Robbery (35 page)

‘But . . .’ Light was dawning in Sir Feldroll’s gaze. ‘What are we to do about this? If we cannot send Miss Mye letters through this drop . . .’

‘. . . then we cannot even warn her that the drop is compromised,’ continued Clent, clasping his hands and examining their interweaving. ‘Our young delver into the night town is herself in considerable danger. If we leave a note for her, it will be read. If we leave no note, they will know that
we
know that the drop is compromised. Mosca will become their only lead. They will follow her . . . or more likely wait to ambush her at the drop.’

Sir Feldroll creased his narrow, tufted brows. ‘Half a dozen of my men will arrive later today – men with night names. His lordship the mayor is willing to make arrangements with the Committee of the Hours so that they can be let through the Twilight Gate tonight. Miss Mye is expecting them – if she has good sense, she will be waiting at the Gate to meet them. They can warn her about the drop then. And she can lead them to ambush this man Appleton at her next meeting with him.’

‘Assuming, of course,’ the mayor muttered dangerously, ‘that it is not the girl herself that has betrayed the location of the drop in exchange for her own freedom.’

A maid came in to clear the breakfast table, but the mayor continued speaking. Clent winced, and his hands made tiny involuntary motions, as if patting some restive child back to sleep.
Hush, hush
.

‘Indeed,’ continued the mayor, apparently oblivious to Clent’s concern, ‘if it were not for the testimony of Mistress Jennifer Bessel, I would have considerable doubts about placing my reliance this far on
you
, Mr Clent. However, given that you have managed to earn the respect of a lady of such elevated sensibilities and decency . . .’

A couple of expressions pulled Clent’s face to and fro between them like puppies trying to fight their way out of a bag.

‘Ah, yes – an admirable, ah, admirable creature. With boundless . . . qualities, and unfathomable . . . talent.’

‘I cannot imagine where this household would have been without her this last day or so.’ A gentle expression wandered on to the mayor’s angular features, where it looked rather out of place. ‘But then I suppose she discovered an inner strength and courage after the death of her husband.’

‘The death of her – ha, hmm, of course.’ After a brief convulsion Clent’s face took on the kindly expression of a pitying cherub. ‘So tragic. And . . . extremely unexpected.’

The maid departed again, tray in hand. Clent waited until the door closed behind her, eyes raised as if assessing the thread by which his good graces hung.

‘My lord mayor, I know that you have grave doubts about my secretary.’ He paused, then sighed. ‘Gentlemen, let me be perfectly candid with you. Before we came to Toll, Miss Mye and I had some . . . encounters with the Locksmiths – with Aramai Goshawk specifically. We did not precisely make an enemy of the gentleman, as you can see by the fact that we are both still above ground, but we most certainly did not make a friend.

‘Miss Mye knows all too well that crossing his path again would probably have fatal consequences. She
cannot
betray us to the Locksmiths without risking her own neck. If I might be blunt, you can place your trust in her because you are still her best . . . her
only
chance of weathering these disasters without being undone entirely.’

Neither of his listeners looked approving, but his words appeared to have sunk home.

‘Very well.’ The mayor settled back in his chair. ‘Then we had better contrive some letter to leave in the chink – something that will tell the Locksmiths nothing.’

‘And let us pray to the Little Goodkin that she goes to the Twilight Gate before the drop,’ murmured Sir Feldroll.

Like a good housewife eking out her store of dried fruits, Eponymous Clent knew how to make a little truth go a long way. It was a matter of theatre, like everything else. You sighed, as if you had given up all pretence, as if your listeners had been too shrewd for you. You spread your arms or your hands, as if flinging wide the doors of your treasury of secrets. And then, in tones of weary resignation, you said something like,
Gentlemen, let me be perfectly candid with you . . .

In short, you let your audience examine your pockets so that they did not think to look up your sleeves. Eponymous Clent was sometimes candid. But he was never
perfectly
candid.

For example, his mind was currently full of thoughts that he had no intention of sharing with the mayor or Sir Feldroll at all. The letter drop had been discovered. How? Had Mosca betrayed them, or been clumsy and let herself be followed? Both were . . . possible. And yet he thought both unlikely.

Somewhere our secrets are spilling out of the sack and into the hands of the Locksmiths,
he mused silently to himself as his feet led him away from the mayors abode.
And I will wager my wits the hole is in the mayors own house. If I were Aramai Goshawk I would have placed a spy in the mayor’s household as soon as I arrived in Toll – before my horses flanks had even dried. And the mayor speaks of covert matters before his servants as if they had no more ears than a hatstand
.

So. The Locksmiths have an agent in the mayor’s household, and so I suspect do the kidnappers. Are they one and the same? Are the Locksmiths and the kidnappers working together? Pray heavens they are not, or we shall have the devil’s own time rescuing the mayor’s daughter
.

One thing was certain. Another means of contacting the night town was needed. And Clent’s daylight allies could not be trusted with knowledge of it.

An hour later, in a very different part of the town, a wooden door was flung abruptly open, so that daylight flooded into the scruffy little room beyond. The two figures within started and gaped, the fingers of one halting on the keys of his spinet, the other ceasing to drag his bow across the strings of his violin. In spite of their startled paralysis, music could still be clearly heard, and amid it the quavering of an invisible flute and the silvery glissando of an unseen harp. This phantom melody limped on for a few confused bars until the spinet player beat out a panic-stricken tattoo on the back wall with his fist, at which point the sound stumbled to a halt.

‘Sir!’ The violinist was the first to recover. ‘I . . . We are busy rehearsing, sir!’

‘Oh yes.’ The portly intruder offered him a beatific smile and invited himself into the room. ‘I was rather counting on that.’ He settled himself down on a battered chair and beamed. ‘I hope you will pardon me running you to ground in this irregular fashion, but I have a lifelong passion for the arts. I myself am a poet, but music – ah, music! Without it my soul has no wings. Oh, that I could only understand the way in which talented spirits like yourselves can pluck the very notes from the air . . .’ He stared about in ecstasy, as though untamed notes were flitting around him like silver fish.

The spinet player attempted a confused, seated half-bow, and the violinist managed a wan smile. Both were making a point of not glancing back at the wall from which the mysterious music had issued.

‘Though I must confess,’ continued the plump intruder in a lower tone, ‘I would be considerably more interested to know how one violin and a spinet can produce five instruments’ worth of melody.’

Both musicians promptly stammered and went crimson, which was more and at the same time less eloquent than they evidently intended.

‘Yes, I saw you perform at the mayor’s house a couple of nights ago. I daresay that in the better circles it is terribly bad form to notice that you two gentlemen are the only members of your troupe actually playing . . . and yet somehow managing to sound like a five-piece orchestra. Talking of manners, I have quite forgotten mine.’ The stranger pulled off his glove and held out his hand, so that his unbranded right palm was clearly visible. ‘Eponymous Clent.’

Recovering a little, the musicians each shook Clent’s hand, still regarding him warily.

‘I can guess how it happened.’ Clent’s narrowed eyes gleamed like parings from a silver coin. ‘The whole orchestra was made up of dayfolk, am I right? And then over time some of you were reclassified and sent into the night? And since then you have been rehearsing and performing in places where the walls are thin enough that your nightling brethren’s instruments can be heard as well as your own?’ He looked meaningfully towards the back wall, the one against which the spinet player had knocked his signal. From somewhere beyond it there was a stifled sneeze, and a muffled ‘hush’.

The two musicians glanced at one another. Then the violinist gave a small and rueful nod.

‘So you pay some day friends a few pennies to pose with instruments when you perform,’ continued Clent, ‘and most people do not notice, and the few that do turn a blind eye to it. Of course they do. If they did not, then they would have to go without decent music. Now, I am sorry to breach etiquette in this fashion, but the moment I thought about your position properly I realized one important thing.’ Clent leaned forward and dropped his voice. ‘The whole orchestra simply had to meet up from time to time, in a place where you could hear one another. How else would you rehearse, or discuss where you would be performing next? And –’ he raised his voice a little, glancing towards the back wall – ‘if I could only interrupt such a rehearsal, I would have a way of getting a message to somebody in the night town. This is something I must do – as soon as possible.

‘Trust is always a gamble, is it not, my dear fellows? Particularly with a stranger. Can you trust me? Can I trust you? It seems I must. This is a matter of life, death and . . . remuneration.’

This last word brought a glimmer of light to the musicians’ eyes, and the violinist recovered the use of his voice. ‘Re . . . remuneration? What kind of remuneration?’

‘Well –’ Clent spread his hands – ‘I fear I have no
actual
money, but nonetheless I suggest we go and visit some of the town’s better shops. Strangely enough, since it became known that I was staying with the mayor, I have had no trouble acquiring credit throughout town. My dear fellow, money is no substitute for the
right kind of friend . . .’

There was one more conversation that Clent needed, but before he sought it out he took certain pains. He obtained the services of a barber, ‘borrowed’ a cloth rose from a milliner by claiming he wished to compare it for colour to his new waistcoat and pounded some of the dust out of his coat. Hence when he met with Mistress Bessel in the pleasure garden he had all the extra dapperness that haste, eloquence and no money could apply.

She smiled at his flower, with the even smile of one who knows where their purse and wits are, thank you very much, and does not intend to be distracted into losing track of either.

‘I gather that your inestimable qualities have made a considerable impression on a certain esteemed gentleman,’ Clent remarked pleasantly. ‘I should doubtless shoot myself through broken-heartedness, or perhaps shoot him – I am yet to decide which would have greater romantic flourish.’

Mistress Bessel’s smile thinned and her eyebrows raised.

‘Yes . . . I gather he is particularly impressed by your courage in the face of bereavement,’ Clent continued, finding fascination in his own fingertips. ‘Out of interest, what did your husband die of this time?’

Mistress Bessel bristled like a fat ginger cat with a trodden tail. ‘Eponymous Clent! Have you said anything to the mayor to sour the jam?’

‘No. No, Jen, I would not dream of spoiling any tale of yours.’ Clent gave her a brief glance in which there was enough affection that the spoonful of sadness was almost lost in the mix. ‘Ah, winter is coming, and we cold birds must all feather our nests as best we can, must we not, Jenny-wren?’

The nickname won a small smile from his companion, and something crumpled in her face, making her look both younger and older.

‘And there are few enough feathers to go round,’ she admitted. ‘The mayor says he might need a housekeeper. And take that look off your face, Eponymous Clent! I said a
housekeeper
.’

‘If you say so, then be it so. And . . . if in time the mayor should decide to marry his housekeeper . . .’

‘Then what would you have her do?’ Mistress Bessel demanded crisply. ‘Spit in his eye?’

There was a long pause, during which Clent twirled his false flower between his fingers. ‘No,’ he said at last, placing the flower into her hand. ‘No. You should take everything fine that can be squeezed out of this bitter little life. And I will aid you any way I can. Friends scratch one another’s backs, do they not?’

‘Hold hard – are those the words of a man with an itchy back?’ Mistress Bessel’s brow darkened. ‘I knew it! You want something from me!’

‘A trifle, a morsel, a mere nothing.’ Clent’s hands danced before him, pinching the air into minuscule gobbets. ‘But, ah, an important nothing. You, my dear, are currently a light in the mayor’s darkness, the warm hearth to which he gratefully creeps after the cruelties of life. And if he values you as he seems to, doubtless he takes you into his confidence and gives you the run of the house . . .’ He trailed off and gave a small shrug. ‘He trusts you, you trust me and the world is richer for the benison of trust.’