“Hullo, guv’ner.”
I raised my eyes from the cobblestones and found a man wearing a bowler hat scowling at me. His right hand gripped a billy club. I’ve seen enough of London to know that this was not my fairy godmother.
I tried the old tip-hat-cheerfully-and-walk-by routine, but the fellow missed his cue.
“Get in the cab,” he said.
I glanced over my left shoulder for an escape route and discovered the fellow’s twin three feet behind me.
I pasted on my best grin. “Kind of you to offer.”
They pushed me through the black curtains that blocked the window and forced a wool sack over my head. I gasped for air and grain dust nearly choked me.
Thirty minutes later they dragged me into a building, dumped me into a chair, and snatched the sack from my head. A small man in thick-soled boots, holding a riding whip, stood in front of me.
“You know who I am?” the man asked.
I blinked in the half-gloom of an abandoned warehouse. “Should I?”
“The name Dalton mean anythin’ to you?”
I gulped. It meant quite a lot, actually. The Dalton Gang happened to be the most powerful crime syndicate in London. Even the coppers steered clear of them, the few whom Dalton hadn’t bought.
I nodded. John Dalton was famous for carrying a riding whip. And he didn’t use it on horses.
Dalton took a pipe from one of his henchmen and waited for his second man to light it before shoving the stem between his teeth and sucking a stream of smoke.
I cleared my throat. “I’m afraid that you’ve made a mistake. I don’t know anybody who would fork over five pounds to ransom me.”
“You killed Sterling.”
I blinked. I expected that as much as a cat expects a mouse to play fetch. “Yes . . .”
“He was a brick. You hadn’t got no right to kill him.”
I let the sweat from my palms soak into the wooden armrests. “He was a liar, and he cheated at cards. Anyway, he would have made a terrible husband for Maria.”
Dalton nodded approvingly as if I was reinforcing Sterling’s good character. I tried another tack.
“Technically, I didn’t kill him. It was the gypsies who bumped him off.”
Dalton growled. “You wrote the blooming story.”
He had a point there. Sterling was one of the characters in the weekly serial that brought me just enough money to keep my stomach quiet during church. I knew the stories were reasonably popular, but I didn’t expect John Dalton to be an avid reader of Regency romances. And I certainly didn’t expect ever needing to explain to him why I chose to have Charles Sterling, the handsome heir to Bradbury Manor, killed off in last Monday’s installment.
“I want him back,” Dalton said.
“Pardon?”
“Bring Sterling back next week.”
I coughed. “I’m afraid Sterling really is dead. Why don’t I give some more space to Harville next week instead?”
“Harville wouldn’t know a billy club from a belaying pin.”
Granted, Harville did spend too much time reading Jane Austen, but Dalton had to see that Sterling was definitely out.
“I appreciate your, er, appreciation for my serial, but Sterling is not an option. He bled to death, you may remember?”
“Make his blood clot.” Dalton eyed me as if to say that my own blood would not clot if he took the trouble to let it loose from my veins.
“That’s an excellent suggestion,” I said, “but I don’t think it’s sufficient. If you care to cast your memory back slightly further you’ll recall that the gypsies drowned him first.”
“He was faking.”
“Ah, yes.” I tapped my chin. “Was he also faking when they cut off his head?”
That touch was terribly melodramatic and penny dreadful and all, but I had a miserable head cold and a furious editor pounding at my door. If only I’d had him die in his sleep.
Dalton took several puffs on his pipe while considering this latest sticking point. “My mum read me about how them Red Indians in America topped their heads with fake ‘uns and pretended to get ‘em chopped off to show how magical they were.” He waved his pipe at me. “You do that.”
“Fake head. Right.” I coughed again. “What about the part where they dropped him off a cliff and broke every bone in his body?”
Dalton snorted. “What kind of a writer are you? That’s easy as picking pockets.”
I didn’t know that picking pockets was particularly easy, but now didn’t seem the best time to argue the point.
“You have a solution?” I asked.
“Sure. He fell on a ledge, then climbed himself down when the gypsies wasn’t looking. His gang comes along an’ chucks a bucket o’ fake blood over him so as to make him look smashed up.”
So, now Sterling had a gang. And I thought I was challenged juggling the current thirty-three characters.
“You have some excellent ideas, Mr. Dalton, but I’m afraid there’s one last tiny problem that creates a bit of a difficulty.”
Dalton cocked an eyebrow.
I licked my lips. “How do I reverse the gypsies burning his body and scattering his ashes on the river?”
“Did your mum drop you on your head?” Dalton asked.
I chose to consider the question rhetorical.
“It’s plain as the nose on your face,” Dalton said. “When the gypsies wasn’t looking, he upped and chopped off one o’ their heads and smashed up the bones nice so as the gypsy looked like him. Then they burn their friend and he walks off to tea with Maria.”
My chest deflated. Once, just once, I wanted to kill a character and let him stay dead. Is there no justice?
I snapped my fingers. “I have an idea. How about instead, I add a new character. He would need a good name . . . something that rolls smoothly off the tongue, maybe starting with a D . . . Dalton! Let’s name him Dalton, with a good solid first name, such as Tiberius, or Boaz, or . . . John! Yes, let’s name him John Dalton.”
Dalton opened his mouth but I hurried on.
“He’s quite a handsome chap, with one of those devil-may-care grins and a bit of a swagger. Sort of a lovable rogue, don’t you know, with a sharp eye for the ladies and an open hand for any business deals that come his way.”
Dalton grinned. “Now you’re startin’ to sound like a real writer. You write this Dalton mug in next week and make him one o’ Sterling’s right-hand chums.”
“Ah. Yes, Sterling.” I screwed my courage into one final question. “If by any chance it happened that Sterling was not resurrected . . . what would happen to me?”
Dalton smiled so wide his pipe almost fell out. “Why, laddy, I’d give you two choices. You want your ashes spread on the Thames or the Lea?”
I stood up. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Mr. Dalton. I’m sorry to leave so soon, but I need to go write an explanation of how Sterling faked his death in time for next Monday’s serial.”
I hiked the steps to my tiny lodgings that night with a cheerful gait. Yes, Sterling was alive again, but it was worth it. I now had the corker of an idea for a new serial.
Boy detective stalks criminal mastermind and systematically destroys mastermind’s empire while humiliating bowler-hatted henchmen every other page.
Most importantly? I’m using a pen name.
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