* * *
She and Coulton ate a late dinner on the riverboat, the only two dining so.
They had left the boy Ovid in Coulton’s cabin, pretending to sleep, his wrists unbound, in the belief he would not trust them if they did not trust him first. In the saloon the gaslights were turned low, the paddle whumping faintly in the darkness beyond. A black waiter leaned against the brass railing of the bar watching them in the mirror. Coulton chewed his steak in small bites, stacking his cheeks with potatoes and gravy. Alice had little appetite.
“Did you know?” she asked. “Did you know he could do that?”
Coulton held her eye. “I did not,” he said softly.
She was shaking her head. “That deputy tried to explain it. He tried to tell us.”
“These kids, these orphans. They’re none of them normal. It doesn’t make them monsters.”
She thought about it. “Doesn’t it though?” She looked up. “Isn’t that exactly what it makes them?”
“No,” he said firmly.
She sat with her hands folded in her lap and stared at her plate. It was true, there was about all of them, all of those orphans, something strange, unaccountable, not to be talked about by her or by Coulton. Wisps of rumor followed them out of their old lives.
“He could’ve got away at any time,” she said then, in a slow voice. “He had a knife inside him. The whole time. Why didn’t he try to run before?” She looked up. She thought of how unsurprised Coulton had been back in the cell and she felt suddenly foolish, like she’d been lied to. “What exactly is the Cairndale Institute, Mr. Coulton? And don’t tell me these children are afflicted. Who is it I’m working for?”
“We’re the good guys,” he said quietly.
“Sure.”
“We are.”
“Everyone thinks they’re the good guys.”
But Coulton was serious. He smoothed the stray hairs over his scalp, frowning. “I told Mrs. Harrogate, before we left, that you ought to know more. She wasn’t certain you were … committed. But I reckon it’s time. You just keep your questions clear in your own head, and you can ask her yourself, when you’re back in London.”
“She wants to meet with me?”
“Aye.”
Alice was surprised; she’d met her employer only the once. But she was satisfied with that. She picked up her fork and knife. “I don’t know how you stand it,” she said, changing the subject. “These people. That judge. I’d have thrown him out of his own damn window.”
“What good would that have done us?”
“It’d have done me good.”
“I know this world some, Miss Quicke. Here courtesy is more important than truth. More important than being right.”
She thought of the boy in rags, shivering in that warehouse. “Courtesy,” she muttered.
“Aye.” Coulton gave her a grin. “That’s maybe a tricky one for you.”
“I can be courteous.”
“Sure.”
“What? I can.”
Coulton paused in his chewing. He swallowed and took a drink of wine and then he wiped at his mouth and met her eye. “I never in my entire life met a person more like a boil on a baker’s bright red backside than you, Alice Quicke. And I mean that in the nicest way possible.” He reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a small folded slip of paper. “Messenger lad delivered this to the hotel,” he said, chewing again. “New assignment. Name’s Marlowe. You’re to go to the Beecher and Fox Circus in Remington, Illinois.”
“Remington.”
“Aye.”
“My mother’s asylum’s in Remington. Or just outside it.”
Coulton watched her. “Is it a problem?”
She hesitated, then shook her head. “It’ll be fine. It’s just the wrong end of the backside, is all.” She paused. “Wait. I’m to go? You’re not coming?”
“I’ll be escorting the Ovid boy back to London.” Coulton withdrew a new envelope from his pocket. “There’s a ticket in here for a riverboat to St. Louis, sailing at first light. Don’t worry, it doesn’t put in at Natchez. You’ll take the railway up to Remington. You’ll also find some testimonials I’ve taken the liberty of writing out for you, documents and the like. Also the address in London where you’ll find Mrs. Harrogate. Wire her directly, if anything comes up. Also some bills to cover expenses, also two second-class tickets for a steamer out of New York in eighteen days’ time.” He took another bite of his steak. “And an account of how this Marlowe lad was stolen by his nursemaid as a babe and ferreted out of England, and how his family has hired you to track him down, et cetera et cetera.”