“You have the wrong end of the stick, I’m afraid,” said Crane. “Since I’m not getting any of the stick at all, if you follow me.” Town, who loved a filthy joke, spluttered into his whisky. “He’s a friend of one of my cousins, got some kind of interest in the place. Not my bag, but I can play the head of the family by palming him off on Shaycott and Almont, and if he’s grateful enough, who knows, the palming off may not stop there.”
“Hah! Well, good hunting, my dear fellow,” said Town, with comfortable callousness. “Though I don’t rate your chances if Peyton’s buttonholing him with stories of your disgraceful doings. He followed him out a few minutes back.”
“Blast. Oh well, it was a long shot. Have you seen Rackham recently?”
Apparently Town hadn’t, nor did he have any new gossip to offer. They chatted a little longer. Stephen didn’t reappear when Peyton did, but some time later a waiter brought a note which Crane read, then stuffed into his pocket.
Peyton was watching. “Bad news, Lord Crane? I do hope your plans for the evening haven’t been spoiled for any reason.”
“Trivial,” said Crane.
Merrick got back to the flat some half an hour after Crane, looking decidedly the worse for wear.
“Fun evening?”
“You might say.” Merrick tried to hang up his hat, and missed. “You got any idea what that Miss Saint can do?”
“Drink a grown man under the table, apparently. Did you find out about the shamans?”
“Yeah. It was rats.”
“No trouble?”
“Not to speak of,” Merrick said. “You?”
“Not much success. And the Amazing Vanishing Shaman has buggered off again, without a word, as usual.” Crane’s tone wasn’t quite as light as he’d intended.
“Cor, dear.” Merrick shook his head. “You have got it bad, ain’t you?”
“Shut up.”
“I’m just saying. Round his little finger.”
“Shut up.”
“Pining, that’s what you are. I didn’t recognise it at first, but—”
“Shut up, you repulsive inebriate, or I will dismiss you without a character. And go to bed. We’re up early tomorrow.”
“Gawd, are we? Why?”
“Rackham,” said Crane. “He gave me till Friday and that’s tomorrow. So we’re going to see him first thing.”
“He won’t be up first thing.”
“He will once I’ve dragged him out of bed. Leo Hart sent me a note, he’s asked her for five hundred pounds. She’s fairly upset. And since we’ve got nowhere finding anything good on him, we’re going to have to act a bit more directly.”
“Good-oh. What we going to do?”
“Break his legs, I suppose,” Crane said. “Or offer him five hundred quid to fuck off. Or both.”
“Better not break his legs if you want him to fuck off on ’em. What’s Mr. Day say?”
“He’s got troubles of his own. I want Rackham to stop being one of them.”
“Yeah, you take charge of that.” Merrick yawned widely. “Gawd knows he can’t handle himself. And you never know, do enough stuff for him, he might stick around a bit longer.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
Merrick gave him a look. “Means you need to do a bit more thinking, that’s what. You reckon if I was a Long Meg like you, I’d act like I ruled the world too?”
“I do not act like I rule the world, and what’s my height got to do with anything?” Crane snapped. “What brought this on?”
“You work it out. I’m going to bed.”
“Fuck you too,” said Crane, and stalked off in a thoroughly bad mood.
He was still in a foul temper the next morning as they knocked at the door of Rackham’s lodging house. It was off Cable Street in a rather miserable area of town east of the Tower. The house was damp, the landlady not overwhelmingly respectable or polite. She was torn between contempt for anyone who wanted to see her unloved lodger and awe at Crane’s obvious wealth.
“Well, I dare say you can go straight in then, sir,” she muttered, pocketing the generous tip Crane offered for her trouble. “You’ll be lucky to find him up. Lazy worthless piece of trouble, that man is, with his dirty Chinee friends.”
Crane and Merrick followed her through the low door, through a dank and cabbage-redolent corridor, and up an ill-swept landing, where she left them with something close to a flounce, and a suggestion that Crane could mention the matter of this month’s rent to his friend.
“Well, he’s not spending his ill-gotten gains on luxurious living.” Crane banged on the door.
Merrick hunched his shoulders. “He deaf or what? That racket’s giving me a headache.”
“No, that was you getting sloshed with a small child.”
“Barely had a drop. God, she can drink, that one.”
“Stephen too,” Crane said. “It doesn’t seem to touch the sides. Must be a practitioner thing. What did you mean, last night, about me thinking I rule the world?”
“Did I say that? Must have been trollied.”
“You were. What did you mean?”
Merrick looked at him out of one eye, assessing. “Yeah, well, maybe not rule the world, as such…”
“What, then? Come on, spit it out. I want to know.”
“If you say so, my lord. You’re bloody tall. And you’re rich, and you ain’t stupid, mostly, and there’s people reckon you’re not bad looking, which I got no opinion on, and your old man was an earl and that shows. It always did.”