The Shadows of London by Andrew Taylor

Author:Andrew Taylor [Taylor, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollinsPublishers
Published: 2023-01-31T17:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

THE CANDLES WERE still burning brightly. There was more than enough light to see that the stranger was trembling.

The grubby sheet of paper had been clumsily folded several times. It was unsealed. Written on the outside were the words To Mistress Hakesby at the sign of the Rose, Henrietta Street. The handwriting looked like Marwood’s, Cat thought, though it was less neat than usual. Either it was his or a very good copy.

First came relief that he was alive, then a spurt of anger with him, followed by anxiety for his safety. Cat tugged at the letter and smoothed it out on her drawing slope.

Meanwhile the stranger stood with his back to the wall near the door, now closed and bolted. Sam was beside him, his dagger drawn. On the floor was a huddled mass of clothing: Marwood’s cloak with the lion’s head on the fastening, his beaver hat and his best wig. All of them looked as if they had been dragged through the mud.

Cat looked down at the letter.

Madam,

I met with an Accident last Night and was

rudely assaulted by Lincoln’s Inn Fields by two rogues and left for

dead. This man rescued me

and has tended me ever since. Pray send a coach and a man with the Bearer of this

Letter (whose name is Brown) to fetch me hence, together with a purse to

enable me to reward him as he deserves.

JM

Why did the letter contain so little information? Was it a trap? It was hard to see how or why. She reread it more slowly. Something was odd about it. The language? The handwriting?

She looked up. ‘Is he badly hurt?’

‘A little bruised about the head. He can’t walk steadily, or without pain.’ The stranger’s voice was pleasant enough to the ears, though no one would mistake him for a man of breeding. ‘At first I thought his wits were astray but probably that was the wine.’

‘He’s drunk?’ Cat’s concern for Marwood veered back towards irritation.

‘He was last night. Even now he stinks like a brewer’s dray. He—’

‘And why are you wearing his clothes?’

‘He lent them to me, mistress. You see, I have a trifle or two of debt about the town. I don’t want to wear my own clothes abroad. And Mr Marwood said wearing his cloak would prove I came from him.’

Cat’s eyes dropped to the letter again. This time she was struck by the jaggedness of the right-hand margin, which was not only unsightly but a waste of paper. Paper was expensive. Marwood was not a man who wasted it, whether it was his own or anyone else’s. She glanced at Sam, who was chewing his lower lip.

whose name is Brown …

Suddenly she saw what Marwood was telling her.

‘Tell me, Iredale,’ she said. ‘Where exactly are you hiding?’

‘Who?’

‘Don’t play the innocent,’ she snapped.

‘You mistake me. I—’

‘Your name’s John Iredale,’ Cat went on. ‘You’ve been missing from your lodgings ever since the body of a murdered man was found at the Chard Lane almshouse ten days ago. You’re certainly a rogue and quite possibly a murderer.

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