Jamie sat back in his chair, at the same time reaching for the whiskey bottle and refilling his glass. The stale stench of Johnson’s sweat throbbed in his nostrils and turned his stomach. God, but it would be good to get out of this place and have a bath and a shave.

“Who sent you ’ere?” he asked when the little man across from him was squirming.

“I ain’t s’posed to tell you that.”

Jamie’s fingers flexed over the handle of the blade. “If I ’ave to, mate,” he muttered, his shark’s smile never wavering, “I’ll cut the name out of you.”

Johnson paled beneath his coating of grime; clearly, Jamie’s reputation had preceded him. “Now, you just keep that blade right where it’s at. I don’t need no trouble. ’Twas Bert Dunnigan what made me do it. Said he’d tangled with you once too often.”

“Aye,” Jamie reflected. “He did that, for a fact. Tell me, was it Bert that put Pipher’s mark on Peony Ryan?”

Johnson shook his head wildly. “No! That were just some scum off a ship from the States, lookin’ for easy money.”

Easy money. Jamie felt sick, and he marveled that he’d ever been a part of this man’s world, lifting wallets and watches and eventually learning less subtle thievery from Cutter. “They’re gone again, I suppose,” he prompted, setting aside his own shame to deal with Johnson.

The little man shrugged. “Dunno, mate. They might be, and they might not.” There were crescents of sweat under Johnson’s arms. The stuff stood out in beads on his upper lip, and he was having trouble meeting Jamie’s gaze.

Jamie sighed and sipped languidly at his whiskey, lulling Johnson into a false state of security. In the next instant, however, he’d not only drawn his blade, but planted it firmly in the tabletop between two of his companion’s grubby fingers. “Names,” he breathed.

His meaning was obviously clear to Johnson. “Mig Wilbertson and H. P. Cook!” he spat. “They’re holed up down at Shallie’s place—probably drunk as lords in the bargain!”

Jamie knew Shallie’s—it was a pub at the end of the street, close on the water. Idly, he worked the knife free, but his lack of hurry was deceptive. He ached to find Wilbertson and Cook. “If you warn them,” he said quietly to Johnson, “I’ll break all ten of your toes, one at a time. And when I’ve finished that, mate, I’ll start on your fingers. Now, did you get all that, or do I ’ave to repeat meself?”

Johnson shook his head. “No, sir, I heard you clearlike.”

“Fine,” Jamie said with a smile that was at once affable and quietly lethal, and he kept his knife in his hand as he rose to his feet. “There’s just one more thing I want to know. Where do I find Increase Pipher?”

The thug swallowed visibly. He couldn’t have guessed, from Jamie’s manner, how important the answer was to him. “Pipher had a room at the Victoria Hotel, uptown, but he’s gone now. Dunnigan said the old man went back to Brisbane.”