Page 47 of Lady Edith and the Registry Office
Not surprisingly, Cecil was also not at home and his butler had no idea of his whereabouts. Nathaniel asked the man to inform his employer of his visit. As he returned to the street, he encountered Mr. Bones.
“Good day, my lord.”
“Good day, Bones. Do you know where Lord Wycliffe might be at this time of day?” He paused. “It is important that I speak with him.”
The man nodded several times as if making his mind up about something. “He’s in St. Giles, my lord. Not sure exactly where, mind you, somewhere on Dyott Street. Said as he had to speak with an Irishman.”
“Thank you, Bones. If you have any contacts in Lord Norwich’s household, I would like to know for a certainty that the earl’s butler is not involved in the disappearance of one of our veterans, Seaman Thomas Wilson.”
“Very good, my lord.”
The man tipped his cap, turned, and headed back down the street, and destinations unknown.
St. Giles. Not a neighborhood he would venture to alone. He tried to tell himself Cecil might have already completed his business in the district.
“Nothing for it.” He walked down the street until he spied a hackney. Entering the conveyance, he called to the driver, “Dyott Street!”
When the coach arrived at the north end of Dyott Street, the hackney driver insisted he would go no further into the slum. The journey had been a long one across London, taking nearly an hour.
“I can’t wait here,” the driver told Nathaniel after he exited the coach and handed the man a guinea. “It’s not safe for me to stay in this area, let alone for the likes of you.”
“I’ll manage.”
The driver shrugged in reply, and the coach rolled away. Nathaniel immediately saw people watching him through the broken-out windows of the dilapidated buildings surrounding him. His hounds-head walking stick was a sword stick containing a triangular fullered blade. He carried neither a pistol nor any other weapon.
St. Giles was known as a rookery, a slum. The windows of the surrounding dark, rundown buildings were broken, some patched. An unpleasant stench filled the air, made up of sweat, grime, and human feces.
Children skulked along the muddy road, most wearing oversized, tattered coats. Some of the girls appeared to be wearing nothing else. An urchin approached him, the soil beneath his feet wet, glistening. There was slime beneath his own shoes, and he couldn’t think about what might be in the sludge, or he might cast his accounts right there.
Nathaniel pulled a bag of coins from an inside pocket and gave one to the grubby child despite knowing he would soon be surrounded by all of the children in the area. His wallet and pocket watch were tucked away in a hidden pocket of his waistcoat.
“For me! For me! My lord!”
The children called out to him, their presence ostensibly keeping the adults away for now. He spied more people in the shadows of doorways, crouched behind piles of rubbish in front of the buildings. He could see a black coach further down the road surrounded by four men in black livery.
Cecil’s nondescript black coach. He slowly made his way to the carriage as the coins in his pouch dwindled to nothing. He halted beside Cecil’s driver as the children shouted at him for more coins.
“Lord Wycliffe is inside one of these buildings?” Nathaniel asked loudly over the din.
“Aye, my lord.” The driver grimaced and looked about him. “Be off with you,” he growled at the urchins, “unless you want a cuff around your head.”
The surrounding onlookers, big and small, retreated only a few paces.
“Where is he?”
“Just there.” The man jerked his head toward the building on his left.
Nathaniel walked cautiously to the open door of the building the driver had pointed out. “Cecil! Cecil, it’s me, Nathaniel!”
He heard a bark of laughter. “Come join your friend. The more the merrier!” The voice held a trace of Irish lilt.
Nathaniel stepped through the doorway, greeted by the worst odor he’d ever experienced. A few tallow candles were lit in the tiny space, illuminating little in the gloomy room, the sound of their sputtering reaching his ears.
“Nathaniel!” Cecil stood in the center of the room, face to face with a mountain of a man.
The man towered over the viscount, his broad shoulders a sight to behold. With flaming red hair and beard, Nathaniel was sure Cecil had found his Irishman.
He halted near the entrance to the house, afraid he would pass out from the smell.
