Page 60 of The Journal of a Thousand Years
Willie raced after him. I took the seat she’d vacated and released a pent-up breath. “Thank you, Juan. This could be the breakthrough we need.”
He patted my hand. “You look very sad, Sylvia, but Gabe will be all right. Stanley will not hurt him.” He didn’t sound convinced, however. Like me, he knew Stanley was desperate enough to throw caution to the wind and take too much blood from Gabe.
Would Gabe’s magic save him if that happened? What if he lost consciousness? Would his magic still work then?
What if Stanley wanted answers to those questions, too? If Gabe’s magic failed because he was weakened through blood loss or unconsciousness, Stanley would have his answers—but perhaps at the expense of Gabe’s life.
Juan and I joined Willie and Alex at the telephone booth that was available for the use of the building’s occupants. Alex informed us that he was waiting for his father to telephone back with an address. The minutes ticked by interminably slowly. None of us spoke. Residents passed us, coming and going from the building as the late afternoon turned to dusk. Juan waited for a while then left to meet the co-owner of the nightclub before it opened. Time dragged.
The irony of the perception of how time seemed to slow wasn’t lost on me.
We all jumped when the telephone rang. Alex snatched up the receiver and gave an uncharacteristically brusque response to the operator on the other end. Finally, Cyclops must have been put through. Alex listened then repeated the address out loud. “Milsom Court, Whitechapel.”
“That’s not far,” Willie shouted into the mouthpiece. “We can be there in a few minutes if we drive real fast.”
I could hear Cyclops’s voice down the line, but not his words.
“We’ll do whatever is necessary,” Alex said into the receiver.
Before he hung it up, his father’s final word came down the line, as clear as a bell. “Alex!”
“He ordered us to let the police handle it.” Even as Alex said it, he was striding to the door. He had no intention of waiting.
Thanks to Alex’s driving skill, we reached the Royal London Hospital mere minutes later. We turned down one of the streets to the east of it, then another and another, each narrower than the last, until the motorcar wouldn’t fit if another vehicle passed in the opposite direction. We stopped at the entrance between two houses that had probably once been grand residences but had long ago been turned into lodgings that could be rented by the room. No wider than a doorway, we would have missed the entrance to Milsom Court if it wasn’t for the sign attached to the bricks above the arch. There was just enough light for us to read it. Soon, these streets would be as black as night, while the more open avenues in the better parts of London would still be bathed in twilight’s glow. I glanced at the nearest streetlamp, wondering if it worked.
Alex led the way through the passage into the court beyond. Buildings rose out of the gloom on all sides, suffocatingly close. The owner of the two houses must have built these dwellings in his backyard many decades ago, leaving just the oddly shapedcourtyard in front of them. Hidden from the main street, the court appeared to serve as a laundry room, tavern, sleeping quarters, and meeting place for residents. Going by the scantily clad women lounging in doorways, it wasn’t much of a stretch of the imagination to assume the sort of meetings that were conducted were mostly of the prostitution kind.
There seemed to be far more people about than could possibly be housed in the tenements, all of them watching us with the interest of a fighter sizing up his opponent before a bout. The buildings themselves didn’t seem old, yet their roofs were missing tiles, some of the windows were missing glass panes and, in the case of one rotting wall, missing nails altogether. It seemed to be held up by nothing more than dirt and cobwebs. The landlords who built or owned cheap dwellings in their yards were called slumlords for a reason.
To think, Stanley was one of them.
It was in a court like this, not far from here, that the infamous Ripper had committed some of his murders decades ago. I could imagine a shadowy figure prowling the night, hunting for his next victim. The whores were easy prey, exhausted, drunk, and desperate as they were.
Whores beckoned Alex with a crook of a finger, not shy in their promises as they competed for the custom of the well-dressed newcomer who’d arrived in a flash motorcar. Some tried to lure Willie, too, but none bothered with me. The men, however, couldn’t take their gazes off me. Fortunately, most seemed too drunk to be of any harm, but I kept a wary eye on them, nevertheless.
There was no sign of the police. Scotland Yard was some distance away, but Cyclops would have telephoned the closest station to Milsom Court and ordered men to be dispatched immediately. Neither Willie nor Alex suggested we wait forthem. Nor did I. Every moment mattered and I wasn’t going to waste a single second.
Alex bypassed a glassy-eyed man drinking from a tin cup and approached the most sober-looking woman. I stayed back with Willie and gazed up at the windows, searching for the face of Stanley Greville. Several residents stared down at us, but he wasn’t one of them.
Moments later, Alex returned. Behind him, the woman’s skirt pocket now bulged. He must have paid her a considerable sum. “Stanley owns this entire court and every building in it. Apparently he inherited it from his father before the war, but rarely came here. She recognized him, though. He’s in there, first floor, at the back.” He nodded at the building to our right.
“It could be a trap,” Willie said, eyeing the door.
“He couldn’t have known we’d find him.”
“It’s too easy.”
Alex indicated a man slumped forward over a broken crate, an empty bottle lying on the cobblestones beside him. “We knew Stanley would take Gabe to a place where an unconscious figure is a common enough sight. But he hadn’t factored in his tenants’ dislike and distrust of their landlord. Add a healthy bribe into the mix and she gave him up without hesitation.”
We could take Stanley by surprise if we acted quickly. He could look out of a window at any moment, or one of the other residents could alert him. “There’s no reason to wait,” I urged.
Alex grabbed my elbow and directed me deeper into the shadows. “We still need a plan.”
Behind him, Willie withdrew her gun and marched toward the tenement. When he realized, Alex swore and ran after her.
She was already heading up the staircase, gun at the ready, when I entered the dingy house. Dampness and the stench of urine seemed to ooze from the very floor and walls. Fortunately, it was too dark to identify the stains. Carnal sounds coming froma nearby room covered the creak of floorboards beneath our feet as we crept up the staircase.
Then Willie tripped on a broken step. She fell to her knees but managed to quickly pick herself up and continue. She’d not let go of her gun.
