The rumble and stink of a night-soil wagon floated through the air, and he tugged the window shut against them.

He was relieved that Stapleton had given in without more struggle; the man was certainly clever enough to have realized that the sword Grey held over his head was a two-edged one. True, Grey claimed to have been in Lavender House only as a matter of inquiry—and the only person who could prove otherwise was the young man with dark hair—but Stapleton didn’t know that.

Still, if it came to a conflict of allegations between himself and Stapleton, there was no doubt who would be believed, and Stapleton obviously realized that, as well.

What he didn’t realize, just as obviously, was that Richard Caswell was one of the flies in Mr. Bowles’s web. Grey would wager half a year’s income that that fat little spider with the vague blue eyes knew the name of every man who had ever walked through the doors of Lavender House—and what they had done there. The thought gave him a cold feeling at the base of the neck, and he shivered, drawing his coat closer in spite of the mildness of the night.

A sudden slap at the window beside him jerked him upright, pistol drawn and pointed. No one was there, though; only the smeared print of a hand, excrement-smeared fingers leaving long dark streaks on the glass as they dragged away. A clump of noxious waste slid slowly down the window, and the guffaws of the night-soil men mingled with the bellows of the coach’s driver.

The coach heaved on its springs as the driver stood up, and then there was the crack of a whip and a sharp yelp of surprise from someone on the ground. Nothing like avoiding notice! Grey thought grimly, crouching back in his seat as a barrage of night soil thumped and splattered against the side of the coach, the night-soil men hooting and gibbering like Barbary apes as the coachman cursed, clinging to his reins to stop the team from bolting.

A rattling at the coach’s door brought his hand to his pistol again, but it was only Stapleton, flushed and breathless. The young man hurled himself onto the bench across from Grey, and tossed a scribbled sheet of paper into his lap.

“Only two,” he said brusquely. “The Antioch, sailing from the Pool of London in three weeks time, or the Nampara, from Southampton, day after tomorrow. That what you wanted?”

The coachman, hearing Stapleton’s return, drew up the reins and shouted to his horses. All too willing to escape the brouhaha, the team threw themselves forward and the coach leapt away, flinging Grey and Stapleton into a heap on the floor.