“Gudrun, there you are. Perry, you don’t need a muffler, dear, it’s such a warm night.” She unwinds the scarf from around the young man’s neck and pushes him gently toward the door. “Now hurry along, do, all of you. There’s not a moment to lose.”

Bram finds himself being steered out of the house.

“Where are we going?” he asks, his feet not yet recovered from all the walking he has done, and feeling his arrival has somehow not received the reaction he was hoping for.

Gudrun dips her hand into Perry’s inside jacket pocket and removes a lighter. She lights her cheroot and replaces the lighter, letting her hand rest a moment on the lapel of the jacket as she does so. It is a small gesture, but one that strikes Bram as intensely intimate. All the more so because the young man does not take the slightest notice of her doing it. She inhales deeply, leaving her friend to answer Bram’s question.

“Jane wants us to retrieve Mangan,” he explains.

“Fetch!” says Gudrun through whirls of smoke. “Like we are the good little dogs.”

“He went off in a frightful tizz, determined he was going to Mr. Chow Li’s place.”

“Mr. Chow Li?”

Perry’s legs are fractionally shorter than those of Gudrun and Bram, so that he has to scamper to keep up.

“He has an opium den. It’s quite famous, you know. Down by the river.”

“Wouldn’t it be quicker to take a cab?” Bram suggests.

Gudrun looks at him keenly.

“Are you rich, Artist?”

“No, I’m not.”

“Then keep your money. You’ll need it.”

Perry laughs. “She’s right. We’ve never a shilling between us, any of us. It’s not that far to walk, really.” Remembering his manners, as if they were some unpracticed skill, he sticks out his hand. “I’m Peregrine Smith, Mangan’s assistant. Call me Perry, everyone does.”

“That’s what you think,” says Gudrun cryptically.

“Bram Cardale.” He shakes his hand. “Does he let you help? Really? With his sculptures, I mean?”

“Oh.” Perry colors. “Hardly. I just help with … you know … things. Make myself useful. But I do dabble a bit. When I have time. Nothing in the same league as Mangan, goes without saying…”

“Then why bother saying it?” Gudrun lengthens her stride and puts some distance between herself and the men.

“Is she always this … difficult?” Bram asks.

“Oh no,” says Perry, “sometimes she’s much worse.”

They laugh, and then fall to silence as they make their way through the teeming streets. They quickly leave the more salubrious area of the city and begin to wind between narrow rows of dingy little houses. The roads are, in many cases, nothing more than alleyways, and soon the summer stink of the river water drifts up from the Thames, guiding them toward Mr. Chow Li’s dwelling.

Chapter 3

3.