Riley stepped forth, trying to appear more energetic and aggressive than he felt. “Aye, this is the very specimen. She ain’t got none of the Queen’s English, so I does her talking. She’s high-strung, too, so you gotta approach her careful and always frontwise.”

“My name is Bob Winkle,” said the boy, who could have been any color under the dirt that encrusted his skin, and who had about as much fat on his bones as a tinker’s ferret. He was no taller than a ten-year-old, but his voice and face were older. “You need any’fing? Booze, bread, or contraband? Bob runs a clean service. Robs to order, too, whatever you like.”

Riley reckoned that young Winkle’s service was about as clean as his face.

“If we have need, we will rap on the floor. But if you come up, no arm waving, or the Injun princess is like to rip yer throat clean out.”

The boys covered their throats and cleared a path, waving Chevie through like royalty.

They mounted the stairs toward their rented loft, steeling their hearts against the glazed eyes of the residents they encountered on the climb. Young girls brawled, dragging clumps out of each other’s matted hair. Grandfathers sat wedged in corners, sucking on empty pipes and swearing into space, and everywhere the clamor of despair rose through the house, funneled skyward by the stairwell like a cry to heaven.

Three flights up, they arrived at a door at the end of an uncommonly rickety set of steps. Riley twisted the wooden knob and was not surprised to find their room unlocked. A heavy brick stood against the wall inside, to be used as a stopper if the occupants required some privacy; but what would be the point when the walls of the loft were pocked with sledgehammer holes?

Chevie hurried in and hefted the brick.

“Come on,” she urged Riley. “Let’s get this secured.”

Riley obliged with some reluctance. “I never dreamed these poor people could sink so low.”

The brick scraped across the floor as Chevie wedged it against the door. “You’ve never been here?”

“Never. I fled to Saint Giles once and thought that a proper slum, but I’ve seen nothing like this before. I understand now why Garrick vowed never to return.”

Chevie tore brown paper from one corner of the small window to let some air into the rank chamber, though it was hardly worth the effort.

Riley wrapped his arms around himself, sinking to the rotting wooden floor. “We are between the workhouse and the grave here,” he said quietly. “Londoners fear Old Nichol because it awaits us, each and every one.” He shuddered. “I should not have brought you here, Chevie, and you a lady.”