“Luce.” Matthew touched her arm lightly. They were glamoured, and the crowds moved around them, parting like a river forking around a central island. Newsboys hawking the Evening Standard darted up and down the streets: Matthew had greeted one earlier, explaining to Lucie that he was an Irregular, one of the many Downworlder street urchins who ran errands out of the Devil Tavern. “There is something rather odd I wanted to talk to you about. Charles—well, Charles is always odd, but Charles and Grace—”

“James! Cordelia!” Lucie rose up on her toes, waving through the crowds. Her brother and Cordelia had alighted from their carriage some distance away and were walking toward them. They were clearly deep in conversation, their heads bent together as if they were exchanging secrets.

Lucie sank back down on her heels, a little puzzled. She rarely saw James lost in conversation with anyone other than his three closest friends.

“Interesting,” said Matthew, his green eyes narrowed. He raised a hand and waved, and this time James saw them. He and Cordelia darted through the crowds to catch them at the corner. Lucie stared a little: Cordelia looked so very different out of the awful clothes her mother made her wear. She was in gear: a long tunic over boots and trousers, her red hair caught back in a braid, and a leather satchel over one shoulder. She looked even younger and prettier than she had at the Institute ball.

“It’s a boardinghouse,” said Matthew as soon as Cordelia and James were within earshot. “We’ve already been inside. The landlady said our friend Emmanuel Gast was ‘away from home for an indefinite period.’  ”

“Matthew was unable to charm her,” said Lucie. “The woman is a block of concrete in human form. We did manage to find out the flat’s the one on the third floor, though.”

A smile crept over James’s face. One of the things he enjoyed most about patrolling was clambering around rooftops. “Then we go up the side of the building.”

“I was afraid of this,” Matthew muttered as they followed James into a narrow, rubbish-choked alley. “My boots are new.”

“Stiffen your sinews, Matthew,” said James. “And cry God for Harry, England, and Saint George!”

“Shakespeare,” said Cordelia. “Henry V.”

“Well spotted,” said James, and produced a grappling hook. He threaded the end of a rope through and stood back to throw it. His aim, as always, was excellent: the grappling hook sank into the lintel of a third-floor window; the rope unfurled down the side of the building. “Once more unto the breach,” he announced, and began to climb.

James was followed up the rope by Cordelia, then Lucie, and Matthew last, still cursing the dirt on his boots. Lucie was halfway to the window when she heard a yell. Glancing down, she saw that Matthew was on his hands and knees in the alley. He must have fallen from the rope.