“Coffee, of course!” Lillehorne told the young girl who came to take their order. He was already spreading the Pin upon the table before him. “Two!” he said, before Nack could open his fanged mouth and frighten the dame. “Black and medium-sweet,” he went on, with no mind nor care as to what Nack desired. “Oh … and by the by,” he said with silk in his voice, for this was not the same girl who had served him three days before on his last visit, “remind Mr. Chomley that this order is for Gardner Lillehorne, Esquire. He will know the name and the position, and that all shall be square with the bill.” Then, with the maid’s departure, he turned his attention to the news of the day, read beneath a flickering lantern and a dead man’s disapproval.

“Lord God!” Lillehorne said, at his first sighting of the large print declaration across the top of the sheet.

“Read it, read it!” Nack was pressing forward over the table, his cheeks flushed with excitement.

Lillehorne did: “Albion and the Monster Of Plymouth Still At Large.” Beneath that was a declaration in smaller print but no less emphatic: “Constables Fear Renewed Murder Spree.” And tucked under that, a third: “Beware Albion’s Wicked Blade and the Evil Hand Of Matthew Corbett.” Then Lillehorne repeated his first reaction, but with a quieter breath: “Lord God.”

“I knew that damn Corbett was a rotten apple!” said Nack, with the smack of his palm against the tabletop. “Couldn’t sit still in New York, he had to follow our tails over here! I shoulda brained him when I had the chance!” He frowned. “What’s a spree? Sorta like a squirt?”

“In this instance, more like a puddle of piss.” Lillehorne shook his head. “Zounds, what nonsense! As far as I know, we fear no renewed murder spree, or squirt, or whatever. At least not from Albion or Corbett. I have to say, Nack … this puts a sodden rag on my belief in the Pin. Of course many of these articles are fantastical—the item about the ape rampaging through Parliament, for one—but I had thought there was a fig of truth in most of it.”

“What?” Nack sounded shaken to the soul. “Y’mean Lady Everlust didn’t birth no two-headed child?”

“Entertaining, but doubtful. This thing about Albion and Corbett … well, it’s true they’re connected in some way, but …” Lillehorne let it trail off. The golden-masked killer and phantom of the night had indeed taken Corbett from a guarded coach bearing the New York ass-pain to Houndsditch prison nearly three weeks ago, and from there both Albion and Corbett had seemingly vanished from the face of the earth. Then Hudson Greathouse and that irritating Grigsby girl had come to the Old Bailey wanting to know where Corbett was, and what could be said? Nothing but the truth, and it be damned: somewhere, if he were still alive, Matthew Corbett was in the clutches of a masked maniac who had already dispatched six victims by the sword.