The Ruby in the Smoke by Philip Pullman Read Free Book Online Page B

mouth, thinking.
    "By the Old Stairs," she said.
    "All right. By the Old Stairs, every night, half-past
    SIX.

    "I gotta go now," she said.
    "Don't forget," he called. "Half-past six."
    But Adelaide had vanished.
    13 Fortune Buildings
    Chandler's Row
    Clerkenwell
    Friday 25 October 1872
    Miss S. Lockhart
    9 Peveril Square
    Islington
    Dear Miss Lockhart,
    I beg to inform you that I have discovered something about the Seven (7) Blessings. There is a gentleman called Mr. Bedwell at present situated at Holland's Lodgings, Hangman's Wharf, Wapping, he has been taking opium and talking about you. He has also said the Seven Blessings but I do not know what it means. The landlady is Mrs. Holland, she is not to be trusted. If you come to the bandstand in the Clerkenwell Gardens tomorrow at half-past two I can tell you more.
    I beg to remain,
    Your humble and obedient servant,
    J. Taylor, Esquire (Jim)
    Thus wrote Jim, after the best models of clerkly correspondence. He posted the letter on Friday, in the confident expectation (this was the nineteenth century, after all) of its being delivered before the day was out, and of Sally's tomorrow being the same as his.

    Holland's Lodgings
    Hangman's Wharf
    Wapping
    25 October 1872
    Samuel Selby, Esquire
    Lockhart and Selby
    Cheapside
    Lx)ndon
    Dear Mr. Selby,
    I have the honor to represent a gentleman, who has certain information, concerning your enterprises in the East, this gentleman wishes it known, that he will be obliged to publish what he knows in the papers, unless certain conditions is agreed to. As a sample of his knowledge he has asked me to mention the schooner Lavinia, and a sailor named Ah Ling. Hoping this proposal is agreeable to you, and this finds you as it leaves me.
    Yours truly,
    M. Holland (Mrs.)
    P.S. An early reply would be appreciated by all.
    Thus wrote Mrs. Holland, after a particularly interesting afternoon with Bedwell, the drug, and her pencil and paper.
    Sally stood under the inadequate shelter of a nearly bare lime tree in Clerkenwell Gardens and waited for Jim. The rain had already soaked her cloak and hat, and was now insinuating itself down her neck. In order to come out at all she had had to disobey Mrs. Rees; she dreaded the reception that awaited her return.

    But she did not have long to wait. Presently Jim came running, even wetter than she was, and tugged her over to the empty bandstand that stood on a patch of soggy grass.
    "Under 'ere," he said, lifting a loose panel in the side of the little stage.
    He dived into the gloom like a ferret. She followed him more carefully through the tunnels of folding chairs and arrived at a cavelike hollow where he was already lighting a stump of candle.
    She settled down opposite him. The floor was dusty but dry, and the rain drummed on the stage overhead as he set the candle carefully upright between them.
    "Well?" he said. "D'you want to hear, or not?"
    "Of course I do!"
    Jim repeated all that Adelaide had told him, but more crisply. He was good with words: the penny dreadfuls had taught him well.
    "What d'you think of that, then?" he said when he came to the end.
    "Jim, it must be right! Mrs. Holland—it's the woman Major Marchbanks told me about. Yesterday, in Kent—"
    She told him what had happened.
    "A ruby," he said, awestruck.
    "But I don't see how it ties in with the rest of it. I mean, Major Marchbanks had never heard of the Seven Blessings."
    "And this bloke of Adelaide's never said nothing about a ruby. Maybe there's two mysteries, and not one. Maybe there's no connection."
    "But there is a connection," said Sally. "Me."
    "And Mrs. Holland."
    There was a pause. "I'll have to see him," said Sally.

    "You can't. Not while Mrs. Holland's got him. Oh, yeah! I forgot—he's got a brother who's a parson. His name's Nicholas. They're twins."
    *'The Reverend Nicholas Bedwell," said Sally. "I wonder if we could find him. Perhaps he could get his brother out. .. .
    "He's a slave to opium," said Jim. "And