Andrew Watley hated the luggage business.
His father had insisted he begin his apprenticeship in the tannery in Limehouse, where the raw hides were scraped and cured and the offal slung into the Thames. Those who exulted in the aroma of fine leather knew nothing of the stink of rotting flesh and the eye-stinging fumes of formaldehyde and tannic acids that went into its construction: All this on top of five centuries’ accumulation of fish scales and green slime on the docks.
“How you exaggerate, Andrew! You should try a season in a stable.”
What did the old man know? It had been twenty years since his own trial by stench. Things had reached the point where his son could no longer stand even the genteel smell of the merchandise in the shop. Odors of any kind seared his nostrils and soured his stomach.
When his father told him to stay away from the shop for a week, he was elated at first, then suspicious. He hadn’t had more than Sunday morning off in two years. The old man had never before shown he possessed a bump of generosity on that thick skull.
“Why? Sneaking in a tart?”
He got his ear boxed for this suggestion.
“Find Virgil and go do whatever it is you two do when I’m not around to keep you from trouble.”
Andrew, his head still ringing from the blow, stood watch from the doorway of the tallow shop across the street. He recruited Virgil, his father’s other apprentice, to spell him.
“Sounds dull as paint. What’s he about anyway?”
“If I knew that, mallethead, we wouldn’t be doing this. Smuggling, maybe. If it’s bad enough, he’ll either have to cut us in or pay to keep our mouths shut.”
“You would extort money from your own father?”
“I’d deem it the rise I’ve been two years asking for.”
“Ballocks. He’s too old and fat for a pirate.”
Virgil had the brains of a born tanner.
They watched for most of the week. Customers came and went bearing nothing more interesting than satchel-shaped packages or claim checks for items they’d left for cleaning or repairing. It began to look as if Andrew had squandered his holiday on a bum steer. On the seventh day, Virgil didn’t show up. Thinking he wasn’t as stupid as he’d thought, Andrew decided to pack it in himself. He had a week’s worth of carousing to make up for in one afternoon.
He was stepping into the street when a man carrying a large bundle stopped at the door. When he glanced up and down the street, Andrew retreated into his doorway out of sight. A shop that sold bags and briefcases was not a brothel; no one need be concerned about who saw him enter. And the bundle was intriguing. It didn’t look as if it contained luggage.
He strode to the corner, crossed the street, and used his latchkey on the service entrance. This let him into the back room of the shop. He stationed himself in a corner beyond the lamplight, behind a dilapidated trunk stood on end with a stack of baggage balanced on top; torn and worn-out things, good only for harvesting hinges and latches.
His breathing quickened. His heart started thumping to get out. He hadn’t played hide-and-go-seek since he was small, and had forgotten the thrill when the seeker came near.
Time slowed to a stop. He heard only murmurs from the other side of the wall. No one seemed inclined to enter the room. Pulse and respiration slowed. Was it a wild-goose chase after all? The stranger had looked too ordinary for a brigand.
The door opened from the shop; the rush of stirred air made him jump. His father came in, followed closely by the man with the bundle.
Arthur Watley, the proprietor, had greeted his visitor without offering to shake hands. The man’s right arm was engaged with the bundle he was holding, but in any event the luggage-maker sensed they were not equals.
This parcel, wrapped in brown muslin and tied with cord, was the approximate size and shape of a side of mutton, but much lighter, from the ease with which he handled it.
Watley dismissed it from his thoughts. He was not an incurious man, but he was being paid for his silence, which included asking questions that wouldn’t be answered anyway. He turned the CLOSED sign round on the door and locked it.
“It’s ready?”
“You said a week, and that’s what it’s been.”
“A worthless thing to say. I’m not a calendar.”
Watley raised the counter flap and they went into the back room.
The valise on the bench was large enough to contain two suits of clothes and a variety of necessaries, fitted with brass and secured with straps. The quality was obvious. The stitching was uncommonly fine and the leather was full grain, the best available. But from its appearance the item had seen much use and careless handling. The corners were scuffed, the brass nicked and tarnished by fumes from a bucket of common launderers’ bleach; Watley knew all the tricks. The sides were cross-hatched with scratches applied with a copper scouring pad. The rolled leather handle was dark, as if soaked deep with the sweat of dirty hands (soot from a coal stove), but stout overall, although it was a shame the lightweight frame of brittle birch would not hold up as long as dependable rock maple.
The customer opened the case. It was deeper than it appeared from outside. The panel that would be inserted to create a false bottom lay beside it, a rectangle of birch veneer an eighth of an inch thick, nearly as light as New World balsam. The furniture maker who had supplied it had not been informed as to its purpose. Watley had concealed it between layers of paper-thin leather sewn together, from the same dye lot as the material he’d used for the valise.
The customer held it to the light, observing the holes round the edges where the panel would be stitched into place.
Watley considered the thing a masterpiece, both of construction and deception. It was a shame he could not advertise it.
“Satisfactory. I’ll tell you when the panel can be installed.”
“Yes.” Watley returned to his shop.
The Viper made sure the door was on the latch, then placed his bundle in the bottom of the valise, smoothing its surface like a bedsheet, and lowered the panel on top of it. He pressed down on it with both hands, compacting the contents, but the holes did not line up with those in the case. An air pocket had formed, creating resistance.
He lifted out the panel, removed the bundle, and untied it, spreading the muslin and exposing the contents. He rearranged them and circled his palms out from the center in a kneading motion, distributing the pressure evenly. Air escaped with a faint sigh. He rewrapped and retied the bundle and replaced the panel. This time the holes were in line. Experimentally he closed the lid and tested the valise for weight. It lifted easily. Under casual inspection it would seem empty to anyone unaware of the flimsy framing material.
Something rustled in a darkened corner of the back room. He put down the valise, listened without moving. The noise wasn’t repeated.
A mouse, probably. The shops on that street were old and teeming with vermin.
He strode to the door and rapped. Watley stepped in, wearing a sailmakers’ palm strapped to one hand.
The customer stood out of his way but in full sight of the procedure. A large curved needle passed deftly through the holes in panel and case, sealing the one to the other with a thong, thin but supple, fashioned from bull’s sinew. No motion was wasted and the stitches were even. This was the work of half an hour.
The luggage maker knotted the thong on the underside of the panel and cut it with a blade like a razor.
“You see, sir,” he said, straightening, “how the stitching doesn’t show. I stained the sinew with tea to match the case.”
The customer handed him a second sack laden with gold sovereigns and left through the front, carrying his valise as easily as if it contained nothing.
After his father left the room, Andrew remained motionless, breathing as shallowly as possible.
His heart was pounding as before. What he’d seen when the man unwrapped his intriguing bundle had increased his curiosity rather than lain it to rest.
He’d expected contraband—arms, money, South American cane sugar, rubber from British colonies in Asia—something the Crown either banned outright or imposed a hefty duty upon when it passed through its inspection posts. From there it set sail for the Continent or America, which levied costly tariffs: smugglers’ bait. But of this—if it was what he thought it was—he could form no conclusions.
Except that if the stranger thought it worth hiding, its secret was worth paying to keep.
Andrew Watley, son of Arthur Watley, luggage-maker by appointment to the royal family, came out of hiding in a murk of thought. Whom to approach, his father or the customer?
The customer. He stood the most risk and would not bargain long. If Andrew moved fast enough, he would catch sight of the man carrying the valise and follow him to some quiet spot where he could make his proposition.
Virgil needn’t be told. He’d lost interest; most likely he’d forgotten the affair already. That meant more for Andrew. That was only fair. It was his idea from the start.
He hurried out the back door, straight into a blow in the stomach.
It emptied his lungs of air. Gasping, he felt warm wetness soaking his shirt and coat and down the front of his breeches.
The man carrying the valise planted his boot on the boy’s instep, holding him in place as he pulled the dagger from between his ribs with a rotating motion.
Brace yourself with your foot and twist; Cadoudal’s orders to his rebels in training. The fool was an assassin at heart, whether or not he owned to it.
Their eyes met, Viper’s and victim’s. He saw the light go out, an ember among ashes. The pressure of his foot was the only thing keeping the boy upright. When he withdrew it, the boy collapsed.
The Viper bent to wipe both sides of the blade on the boy’s coat, and almost as an afterthought went through his pockets, retrieving a cloth pouch with a few shillings inside, a rather fine clasp knife with an ivory-inlaid handle, and a pair of plain keys on a ring. One would belong to the luggage shop’s back door, making the youth either Watley’s son or his other apprentice. He returned the ring but kept the money and knife. Since the arrival of fleeing French nobility and their servants, no one in London was safe from thieves who would kill a man for a handful of pence. The police would look into the atrocity, make routine queries, file the record with the other unsolved investigations, and move on. Pocketing the booty, the Viper surveyed both ends of the street, saw no one, and took himself away, scabbarding the dagger under his greatcoat and swinging the valise as he walked. At the first sewer opening he came to he committed the pouch and clasp knife to the sea.
That night he rode to Lord Rexborough’s house, met with Cadoudal, spent his pleasant hour with Lady Carolyn, and left the next morning for France. The weather had turned foul. He anticipated a rough crossing.