But Mrs. Harrogate did not seem to think it ridiculous. She’d moved closer to the window and stood now warily just behind the creature, trying to see what it sensed. “What is it? Is something out there?”
The keywrasse did not move.
“Yeah, there’s something out there,” said Alice. “A mouse.”
Mrs. Harrogate did not smile. “My name is Margaret Harrogate,” she said politely. “We have summoned you because we wished to introduce ourselves. We will ask your assistance tomorrow night; we will go out into the city, looking for the one we seek. A servant of the drughr.”
The keywrasse’s ink-black tail flicked, curled, flicked again. Otherwise it gave no indication of having heard Mrs. Harrogate at all.
“Miss Quicke,” she continued. “If you would insert the wooden weir-bent in the lock, our guest would be able to leave us.”
And Alice did so; and the keywrasse, or cat, or whatever it was, as if understanding Mrs. Harrogate perfectly, sniffed and lazily dropped back to the floor.
But then, as if to prove leaving was its own idea, it paused a long moment in the open door before sauntering out into the hall. Quickly Alice shut the door, and withdrew the wooden key, and tied the leather cord around her throat.
The room was still; Mrs. Harrogate had turned back to the window, peering out at the fog.
“What is out there?” she murmured.
But Alice, for good measure, opened the door a crack; the hallway was deserted; the many-eyed cat had vanished.
* * *
They did not go out again for several nights. Harrogate collected broadsheets by the dozen, scanning the headlines, then feeding the pages to the fireplace. She was waiting for another killing in Limehouse. At last a lighterman was fished in pieces out of the river, and it was time. After nightfall, Alice drew on her heavy oilskin coat and tied her hair back and pulled her hat low over her eyes. Across the room, Mrs. Harrogate set a small wooden case on the bed and took out a bull’s-eye lantern and two long cloth-wrapped bundles. Alice came over.
They were two knives, identical, their blades evilly sharp, with little iron rings along the grips for knuckles to go through and a slender pipelike spike underneath. Killer’s blades.
“Jesus,” whispered Alice, lifting one. “Where did you find these?”
“The Crimea,” said Mrs. Harrogate matter-of-factly. “They were taken from a Russian scout. They will be of some use, perhaps, if we encounter Walter.”
Mrs. Harrogate slid the blades into her belt. They sat well. Alice checked her Colt Peacemaker and pocketed a fistful of extra bullets like loose change. She saw Mrs. Harrogate take out a little silver-plated pistol from her handbag and check its workings and then tuck it back in and button it fast.
Alice grinned. “Look at us. You’d think we were going to war.”
“We are,” said Mrs. Harrogate, attaching her veil.
Last of all, Alice went to the door and inserted the weir-bent and let the keywrasse, purring, slide through. It went at once to the window, as if it knew exactly their intentions, and there it paced back and forth in a tight impatient patrol.
“Now,” said Mrs. Harrogate, lifting the window so that the reeking air of the streets drifted in, “let us go to the deadhouses, Miss Quicke, let us set this keywrasse on the scent.”
The streets were wet and dark with a heavy fog as they made their way slowly over to Limehouse. The keywrasse kept close. There were crowds in the streets all shouting and selling and sneaking despite the hour and there were sailors curled in doorways drunk and waifs in rags sweeping the crossings and once more the city, as it always did, made Alice vaguely angry and sad.
But in the air was fear, more than anything, fear of the monster stalking the docks and lanes of Limehouse. There’d been seven killings now and maybe more to come and no constable seemed to care. It felt strange to Alice to be drifting under the protection of a little black cat. But she was past belief and doubt. She’d seen too much. There were shadows in the world that were alive.
They found the body at the fourth mortuary they tried and stood in the weak orange gaslight amid the reek of formaldehyde and gaseous fumes while the night embalmer wiped his hands on his apron and tried to understand their business.
“What, the one they drug out the Thames?” He scowled.
The room was small, shabby, with a door ajar in the beyond leading back, Alice supposed, to the unclaimed bodies. “We’ll have no gawkers here, and no newspaper folk neither. This is a respectable establishment, it is.”