by Fletcher Walker
“Six this week,” Jimmy said as he and Morris walked through the London fog. “I ain’t seen the Black Maria anywhere near these past weeks. Don’t seem to be the Bobbies nipping off with urchins.”
Morris didn’t think so either. “But if they ain’t being snatched by thief-takers, where are they all?”
“Sleeping somewhere other than the Inn?”
Morris shook his head as they turned onto Fleet Street, looking for an apple cart or ginger beer seller who’d pay ’em a few coins for guarding their goods. “We’d see the missing ones out making their coins if they were still around. No one’s seen hide nor hair.”
Jimmy scratched at his head, just below his hat brim. “We could look for them, but we’d not have time to earn our rent for tonight.”
“I don’t want to sleep on the street,” Morris said. “’Specially if someone’s snatching urchins.” He let out a tight breath. “But we gotta look or no one will.”
“We’ve another mystery to solve then, do we?” Jimmy grinned at the promise of a puzzle.
“Seems we do.” Morris liked a riddle as much as his friend did. “Have we enough extra for the Innkeeper tonight?”
“We can use some of what we’ve secreted away,” Jimmy said.
It’d be worth it. They might’ve been only twelve years old and not the oldest of the Inn’s urchins, but they looked after the others.
Rather than stop at the costermonger cart and enquire after pay, they kept on.
“All the missing ’ns work this area,” Jimmy said. “Whatever’s snatching ’em’s likely around here.”
They’d solved many a mystery on the streets of London. The skeptical in Town would probably be surprised at how many of those answers were otherworldly. They’d found and defeated ghosts, encountered monsters, outsmarted villains. If history held true, they weren’t searching out anything humdrum.
“John-John was the last to go missing,” Morris said. “He always does his diving near Covent Garden. I’d say we’d do best to sniff around there a bit.”
The market was busy, as always. Sellers shouted flattering descriptions of their wares. Most were probably lies. Ends didn’t meet on the streets of London without a bit of stretching.
“I see a flower seller I know,” Jimmy said. “Perhaps she’s seen somethin’.”
Morris nodded, looking over the crowd for anyone he thought might have something to offer. A boy with a familiar, dirt-smudged face slipped around the back of a vegetable cart, nipping a carrot before scurrying off. Morris followed quick on the boy’s trail. The little one was fast, but not fast enough.
He snatched hold of the boy’s arm. “Morris here, George. Only Morris.”
That put an end to the fight just beginning. “Thought you was the police.”
“Have the police been snatching up urchins, then?” Morris had been sure that wasn’t the answer to their mystery.
George shrugged. “Someone ’as.”
“Then you ain’t seen nothing.” A disappointment, that. “John-John works this corner of things. Jimmy and I thought maybe someone would have an idea what’s happened to him.”
George snapped off a bite of the carrot, talking as he chewed. “John-John told me he’d come into the cream and wouldn’t need to filch here no more. I said he had the best fortune of anyone. Maybe he weren’t so fortunate.”
Morris could see the worry growing in the boy’s eyes. “Maybe he were. Maybe ol’ John-John found himself a flush post after all.”
George’s little brow angled sharply. “Don’t sell me a dog, Morris. This ain’t my first day on the streets.”
He ought to’ve known better than try to tell a lifelong urchin to imagine the best when the worst made more sense. They learned young that it was better to be clever than rosy-eyed.
“Did he tell you anything about going anywhere or with anyone?”
George shook his head. “Only said he’d be nose-deep in the clover. He were right pleased.”
Didn’t sound like he’d been stolen. Maybe John-John really had just gone to a better situation.
Jimmy returned, looking as confused at Morris felt. “Becky, what sells the flowers, says John-John left to work for some swell.”
Same as George said.
“Odd, though,” Jimmy continued. “She said Sally, who disappeared from the Inn last week, told her the same. That she’d a chance for something better and meant to take it. Becky said neither of them seemed afraid.”
Morris scratched at the back of his neck. “So maybe we ain’t searching out a kidnapper but a do-gooder?”
George spoke again, still working at his carrot. “Sally wouldn’t’ve gone off without Mary. Best mates, ain’t they?”
Morris met Jimmy’s eye. There was truth in George’s view of things. Neither Jimmy or Morris would trek off to a grand opportunity without the other. Sally and Mary were the same.
None of this made a lick of sense.
The three of them wandered away from the market, none speaking. Where had the missing urchins gone? Were they in danger? Had they all gone to the same place? Was none of it connected and they were just chasing steam?
George whistled low and long. “A grand bit o’ wheel there, i’n’it?”
There was no need to ask what he’d seen that’d so impressed him. The same gold-accented carriage Morris had seen a week earlier rolled slowly down King Street. Fitting that it’d be on a lane named for royalty. It looked the sort of thing a monarch’d ride in.
“Could you imagine having money enough for something like that?” Morris mused aloud. “Hard to even think of when we’s spending our days nipping carrots off carts and dropping coins in the claws of the Innkeeper.”
“Maybe John-John got ’imself a job polishing the gold on a carriage like that.” George motioned to the vehicle with his stub of a carrot. “He could eat for weeks just selling what rubbed off on the cloth.”
“All the more reason to look for ’im,” Jimmy said. “He might have a few cloths to spare.”
George wandered off, looking for coins or whatever work he could manage before returning to the Inn. Jimmy and Morris walked on together.
“Do you really think John-John and Sally went to work somewhere?” Jimmy asked.
Morris shook his head. “Sally would’ve told Mary. And John-John would’ve crowed about it to all of us before claiming his fortune.”
Jimmy stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Maybe this time, instead of going up against a ghost or a monster, we’re facing down a rich man.”
“Almost more scary, i’n’it?”
“Not almost.”
Morris glanced back as they walked, eyeing the gilt carriage once more. It had stopped, and the door was open. He tugged at the sleeve of Jimmy’s coat, motioning at the vehicle with his head.
A pair of bare feet, small like a child’s, could be seen standing on the paving stones facing the carriage, but the open door hid the rest of the little one.
“Who’s that?” Jimmy asked.
“Don’t know.” Morris stepped closer, studying what little he could see. “Ain’t a gentry child, not barefoot like that.”
Something was tossed to the ground. Green. Leafy. He recognized it in the next instant: the top of a carrot.
Jimmy sucked in a breath. “George?”
The little feet stepped up into the carriage. Morris’s heart dropped to his stomach. George. Disappearing into a rich man’s carriage, just like they’d worried had been happening to the urchins of the Inn.
He ran. He ran fast and hard, Jimmy close on his heels.
The carriage began rolling away, but was slowed by the press of vehicles on the busy street. Morris and Jimmy wove around hackneys and coaches, keeping track of the one they sought. If only it didn’t get going too quickly.
It picked up pace. Morris made a lunge for the back, managing to snatch hold before the carriage sped out of reach. Jimmy snatched hold right beside him. Clinging for dear life, they rode the carriage further from Covent Gardens, further from the streets they knew, and, Morris feared, closer and closer to danger.
This one was smaller than the rest. The master wouldn’t like that, but the children were getting wise and wary. It was becoming more and more difficult to lure them away with the promise of fortunes or food or comfort. He knew better than to frighten them; they’d raise the alarm. His master needed a full supply of fresh, young victims when the time for rejuvenating arrived. He would not disappoint his master. He didn’t dare.