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He saw the Coughing Gent reappear almost at once. The man hung well back for
the moment, careful to keep groups of London shoppers between himself and
Mallory. The Coughing Gent was perhaps thirty-five, with a bit of grey in his
side-whiskers, and a dark machine-stitched Albert coat that did not look like
anything remarkable. His face was that of anyone in London, perhaps a little
heavier, a little colder in the eyes, with a grimmer mouth beneath the
button-nose.
Mallory took another turn, left up Bruton Street, his clock-case growing more
awkward by the step. The shops here lacked conveniently angled glass. He
doffed his hat to a pretty woman, and pretended to glance back at her ankles.
The Coughing Gent was still with him.
Perhaps the Coughing Gent was a confederate of the tout and his woman. A hired
ruffian; a murderer, with a derringer in the pocket of that Albert coat. Or a
vial of vitriol. The hair rose at the base of Mallory's skull, anticipating
the sudden impact of the assassin's bullet, the wet burning splash of
corrosion.
Mallory began to walk more quickly, the case banging painfully against his
leg. Into Berkeley
Square, where a small steam-crane, chugging gamely between a pair of
splintered plane-trees, swung a great cast-iron ball into a crumbling Georgian
facade. A crowd of spectators was enjoying the
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them behind the saw-horse barricade, amid the acrid smell of ancient plaster,
and sensed a moment's safety. He spied out the Coughing Gent with a sidelong
glance. The fellow looked sinister enough, and anxious, having lost Mallory in
the crowd for the time being. But he did not seem mad with hatred, or nerved
to kill; he was glancing about among the legs of the spectators, hunting for
Mallory's clock-case.
Here was a chance to lose the rascal. Mallory made a swift break down the
length of the
Square, taking advantage of the cover of the trees. At the Square's far end he
turned down Charles
Street, lined right and left with enormous eighteenth-century houses. Lordly
homes, their ornate iron-work hung with modern coats-of-arms. Behind him a
sumptuous gurney emerged from its carriage-
house, giving Mallory the chance to stop, and turn, and study the street.
His gambit had failed. The Coughing Gent was mere yards behind, a bit winded
perhaps and red-
faced in the sullen heat, but not deceived. He was waiting for Mallory to move
again, careful not to look at him. Instead, he gazed with apparent longing at
the entrance of a public-house named I
Am the Only Running Footman. It occurred to Mallory to double back and enter
the Running Footman, where he might lose the Coughing Gent in the crowd. Or
perhaps he could leap, at the last moment, onto a departing omnibus -- if he
could cram his precious case aboard.
But Mallory saw little real hope in these expedients. This fellow had the firm
advantage of the terrain and all the sneaking tricks of the London criminal.
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Mallory felt like a lumbering
Wyoming bison. He trudged ahead with the heavy clock. His hand ached; he was
becoming weary . . .
At the foot of Queens Way, a dragline and two excavators were wreaking
progressive havoc in the ruins of Shepherd Market. A hoarding surrounded the
site, the boards cracked and knotholed by eager spectators. Kerchief-headed
women and chaw-spitting costermongers, displaced from their customary sites,
had set up a last-ditch rag-shop just outside the fence. Mallory walked down
the line of ill-smelling oysters and limp vegetables. At the end of the
hoarding, some accident of planning had left a narrow alleyway; dusty planks
to one side, crumbled brick to the other. Rank weeds sprouted between
piss-damp ancient cobbles. Mallory peered in as a bonneted crone arose from a
squat, adjusting her skirts. She walked past him without a word. Mallory
touched his hat.
Heaving the case above his head, he set it gently atop the wall of mossy
brick. He shored it up securely with a chunk of decayed mortar, then placed
his hat beside it.
He flattened his back against the wall of planks.
The Coughing Gent appeared. Mallory lunged for the man, and punched him in the
pit of the belly with all his strength. "The man doubled over with a spit and
a wheeze, and Mallory clouted him with a short left to the side of the jaw.
The man's hat flew off, and he tumbled to his knees.
Mallory grabbed the back of the villain's Albert coat and flung him hard
against the bricks.
The man rebounded, sprawled headlong, and lay gasping, his whiskered face
smeared with filth.
Mallory snatched him up two-handed, by the throat and lapel. "Who are you!"
"Help," the man croaked feebly, "murder!" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]