IF I THOUGHT MORDECAI SMITH’S BOAT RENTAL establishment looked a bit rundown and disregarded, I should have perhaps saved that assessment for my first view of Mrs. Smith. It seems that she was expected to mind the shop and mind the little ones and mind anything that was at all important while her old man ran about getting up to… whatever it was disreputable tradesmen got up to of an early Sunday afternoon.
She looked as if she’d had about enough of it.
She came at our second knock, swinging open the door to reveal a tousle-headed six-year-old standing beside her who looked as if he’d just done something perfectly horrible to her laundry. “C’n I help you gentlemen?” she asked, in the tone of one who absolutely does not care if they can help you.
“Ha ha! Maybe you can. Maybe,” said Holmes. He was wearing his friendly-as-you-like face, for I’d been coaching him on the brief walk to the door. We were not here to make any accusations, I had said, nor scare anybody. We wanted to be amiable. Harmless. We were here to charm information, nothing more. Holmes took a breath, forced his smile even wider and said, “But first you must tell me: who’s this charming young nipper?”
“That’s Jack. Right little bastard today, let me tell you.”
“Ha ha!” said Holmes. “Come here, Jack! Come over here and tell me: is there anything you would like?”
The little boy shuffled forward warily, wiped his nose on one sleeve and shrugged. “Like a shilling, I guess.”
“Nothing you’d like better?”
“Like two shillings. And maybe you’d better hand ’em over, or I’ll tell everyone you ’sploded a demon in front of our shop.”
“Ha ha! Um…”
I found that I quite agreed with Mrs. Smith’s opinion of her son. He was a right little bastard. I stared at him levelly for a second, then said, “The policeman gave us three coppers; you can have those.”
“Fine,” he said. “Whatever.”
The bribe delivered, he scuttled off to finish destroying the family’s laundry. Mrs. Smith turned her eyes back to Holmes and me and wondered, “Anything real I can help you with?”
“We were hoping to speak with your husband about renting a boat,” I said.
“Well, you’re out of luck, for he’s gone in it. Won’t be back until the wee hours of tomorrow morning, from what I hear. Of course, there’s the dinghy. You can have that. But you might not want it, unless your plans is for a good Sunday drownin’. That’s all the boats I got, nowadays.”
“You used to have more?” I asked.
“Oh yes! Three steam launches for daily hire—and a good business we did with ’em, too. But then Jim—that’s me eldest—he convinces his father that the latest thing is them steam boys, so shouldn’t we sell all three of those slow old things we got and get one fast one. And Mordecai—bein’ a damned fool—does it!”
My heart sank. Steam boys. Why did it have to be steam boys? Or, as they preferred the appellation, Steem Boyz. And they did tend to insist that—even when spoken—they could hear if you were spelling it the “correct” way or not. They were the bane of the Thames, and that was saying something.
The River Thames is London’s foremost avenue of traffic and trade, filled with innumerable barges and scows, ferrying goods from the ports to the city and back. Yet, in this, the forty-seventh year of Victoria’s reign, the thing that most dominated the Thames was the steam launch. In the time of my grandfather, they’d been naught but a curiosity, occasionally exploding when something predictable occurred to their early-model boilers. But as the years moved on they became cheaper, better, less likely to disappear in a scalding puff of vapor, and evermore quick and nimble.
So, of course, it wasn’t long until a certain class of young sailor emerged, who wondered just exactly how quick and nimble they could be made to be. Boat-tuners. Steem Boyz. Gangs of useless thugs who slouched along both banks of the Thames in packs, wearing extra-baggy canvas sailor’s trousers and turning their caps around backwards. One could find them lined up outside certain taverns at all hours, their launches parked in shining rows. Occasionally they’d all pile out onto the docks at once and stoke up all their boilers at the same time, just to see which one made the most smoke. They were numerous. They were devoid of tact or taste. They were convinced they were the fastest thing on the water.
And the most infuriating thing about them?
They were right.
So my odds of tracking Mordecai Smith’s boat might be decent. My odds of catching it, out on the river… somewhat worse. At least I could gather information.
“Just the one boat, then? What was her name? Galloper wasn’t it?”
“What? No! The Aurora!”
“Ah, yes. That was it. The black one with two red streaks. Black funnel with a white band.”
“No, no, no,” Mrs. Smith corrected me—just as I’d hoped she might. “Bright blue! Chromed-out funnel—a great big wide one. She’s got the names of all the fellows who designed her bits painted all over her. The boiler’s done by the Mugen brothers in Portsmouth and her rudder and keel by that nice Mr. Nismo, from just down the way. They’ve painted a muzzy-haired lad on one side, making a sort of odd sign with his hand and sayin’ ‘Wozza!’ And there’s a little plaque stuck on the back, what says ‘Me other ride’s your sister’. God help me, but that’s the sort of thing that makes all the sailor boys laugh.”
Despite the affront to decency and taste, I could not be better pleased. If that didn’t help me pick the Aurora out of the crowd, nothing would.
“And you say you don’t expect your husband until tomorrow morning?”
“Yeah. Two gentlemen hired ’im to carry them out to one of them rather suspicious steamers at the mouth of the Thames. So the boat’s off at the tuner’s today and they’re all gonna meet up tonight and God knows where me husband and me boy and the two gentlemen have got to.”
“I think I know one of the gentlemen you’re speaking of. Had a peg-leg, right? Name was Miller, I think.”
“Yeah, one of ’em had a peg and a big bush of hair. The other fellow, though! Short as a child and all wrapped up in that black cloak so no one could see ’im. Scared the hell out of the cats, he did! As to the name, I couldn’t tell you. Oh! But it’s right here, in the rental register. Let’s see… Signed as Michael Falsename. But then, don’t they all?”
“Any luggage?”
“Just one big iron chest, but they took it with ’em.”
“Any idea which tuner has the Aurora?”
“It might be any of ’em.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Smith; you’ve been most helpful. Holmes, shall we?”