Grace and Disgrace by Kayne Milhomme Read Free Book Online Page B

voice was less than convincing, but he put on a brave smile.
    “Come on, then.” Tuohay led them to a narrow alley crowded with discolored boxes and crates. The scent of the sea washed over them as the alley opened onto a seaside wharf, a pair of thirty-foot cutters lashed along its length. Iron rings and multi-hued buoys lay scattered on the jagged deck, joined by foot-snaring seaweed, rope, and the occasional moldy oar.
    “Thick as pea soup,” Eldredge commented, the renewed blanket of gray fog smothering the quay before them.             
    “Where’re we going, Jack?” Eliza asked, stumbling as a rope squelched under her boot.
    As if in response, a gigantic dual-stacked steamship emerged from the fog, gray vapors spilling down its barnacle-encrusted bow like the strands of a hag’s mane. The massive ship rested between the tight confines of two protruding piers, the image not unlike a stiffened body trapped in an unyielding coffin. The deep clang of a bell broke from above the bow like a warning.
    “Is that the ship Crippen was on?” Eldredge asked. “We cannot reach it from here.” Isolated shouts rang out from the far wharf.
    Tuohay stopped his advance. “Damn. Yes, it’s the ship. We are on the wrong side of the waterway. How do we get over there?”
    “Backtrack,” said Eldredge.
    “Give me a boost,” Eliza demanded, stepping onto a rickety crate. The two men looked at her in confusion. “A boost up to the roof. Quickly.”
    “Right.” Tuohay moved into position, and Eliza used the crook of his shoulder to step within reach of the warehouse crown. The roof was gently sloped and ran the full gamut of the wharf, stretching into the mist in either direction. Scrabbling with her hands and elbows, Eliza unceremoniously twisted up and over the ridge. On all fours, she peered back down at her partners. “I’ll go to the other side. The piers bend around, and I should be able to see where they link up. Back in a jiff.”
    She stood and raced up the roof, the thump of her boots on the wood slates subsiding quickly. Tuohay and Eldredge stared up into the silent gray after her. Suddenly, a loud clap reverberated off the walls of the surrounding warehouses, followed by more shouts.
    “Another shot! And it sounded close,” Eldredge breathed, looking about in alarm. “In the same direction Eliza just went.”
    Tuohay swore under his breath. “Eliza!”
    Silence persisted.
    “Come on, John—” Tuohay was cut short by the sound of tramping feet from above. Eliza appeared and crouched at the edge of the roof.
    “Quickly, head through there,” she said, pointing to an adjacent warehouse with a faded sign reading Agricultural Warehouse . “It connects through an old merchant house, and there’s an exit on the other side.”
    “Away from the steamship?” Tuohay asked.
    “Yes, away from the steamship! He’s on the run.”
    Tuohay broke into a limping stride down the wharf, reaching the dark entrance of the heavy brick warehouse referred by Eliza. A stout brass plate and its inscription of welcome were ignored as Tuohay limped past, his cane echoing off the wooden floor within. The interior was barn-like, intensified by the scent of stale hay, vegetables and horse dung. Tuohay and Eldredge entered a low row of make-shift hallways.
    “Look there—banana crates!” Eldredge declared as he jogged beside Tuohay. He was pointing over the low wall to a pillar of crates nearly two stories high. “It reminds me of the statistics I ran on trade revenue in Boston last autumn. Technical abstracts from the import department were lacking, revealing an imperfection among the previous studies, including agriculture—”
    “John.”
    Eldredge bit his tongue. “Right. I do tend to ramble when I am nervous.”
    “It would be something if your rambling at least made sense, old boy.”
    Tuohay shouldered a small door open and the pair stepped into an abandoned tea shop, facing the opposite side of the