“Very well,” Ethan said. “I’ll use the rear entrance.”
“Aye. That’s a fine idea.”
Ethan exited the shop through the door in back and returned to Middle Street by way of a narrow alley. By the time he reached the front of the shop, however, Richardson was no longer standing in front of the signs. Scanning the mob, Ethan spotted the man talking to the driver of a horse and cart, and gesturing back at the effigies. Ethan hurried toward them.
“… Run them down!” Richardson was saying.
“No, sir,” the cart driver replied. “Even if I were inclined to, it might hurt my horse or my cart.”
“It will do neither.” When the driver said nothing more, Richardson dismissed him with a wave of his hand. “Fool!”
“Mister Richardson,” Ethan said, “you need to get off the street.”
Richardson rounded on him. “And who are you to tell me what I ought to be doing?”
“My name is Ethan Kaille, and I’m-”
“You’re that thieftaker who Theophilus hired.”
“Yes, sir. Mister Lillie is concerned for-”
“You’re not doing much to earn your wage, are you Kaille? These signs and such are a disgrace. They need to be torn down.”
“I’m less concerned with the signs than I am with keeping Mister Lillie safe. And he’s concerned about you, sir. This mob is getting more agitated by the moment, and you’re not exactly their favorite person.”
Richardson dismissed this remark much as he had the cart driver. “I don’t give a damn about that. Let ’em come on me. I’ve got my guns loaded.” He turned a quick circle. “Ah! You there!” He bustled off toward a charcoal carter who was making his way through the throng.
Ethan didn’t bother to follow, but he watched as the customs man, his gesticulations growing ever more animated, tried to convince the charcoal man to knock down the signs with his cart. Once again, however, Richardson was rebuffed.
By this time, more people in the crowd had noticed him. Some were pointing; others shouted his name.
Richardson paid them no heed. He was as a man possessed. Unable to find a cart driver to knock over the offending signs, he strode to a small chaise that sat near another shop. Its driver had stepped away to speak to a few of the street toughs, and before this man could stop him, Richardson climbed in and grabbed the reins, shouted at the horse, and steered the chaise toward the effigies.
Aware now of what the customs man was up to, the mob blocked his way and tried to pull him from the carriage.
Fearing for Richardson’s life, Ethan clambered toward him, pushing his way through the sea of men and boys. He knew though that he wouldn’t reach Richardson in time.
But to his surprise, Richardson escaped the chaise on his own and beat a hasty path toward his home. Several men accosted him, and the boys shouted “Informer!” again and again.
Richardson answered the taunts of several of the men with cries of “Perjury! Perjury!” And when at last he reached his door, he turned, and said to those baiting him, “By the eternal God, I’ll make it too hot for you before night!”
With that, he shut the door in the men’s faces.
Relieved that Richardson had reached the safety of his house without injury, Ethan turned, intending to make his way back to Lillie’s shop.
“Come out, you damn son of a bitch!” one man shouted at Richardson’s door. “I’ll have your heart out! Your liver out!”
To Ethan’s amazement and consternation, Richardson opened his door once more, and jumped out into the street, his fists raised.
“C’mon, you bloody bastards! I’ll fight all of you. I’ll make it hot for every one of you!”
The mob of men and boys that had gathered around Lillie’s door swept toward Richardson’s house as if compelled by a tide, calling him an informer and shouting other insults.
“Go off!” Richardson warned, his voice carrying along the street. His wife joined him in front of the house, and shouted most unladylike epithets at her husband’s enemies.
The mob laughed at them both.
“We’ve as much right as you t’ this street, informer!” one young man called.
His companions cheered.
Snowballs, chunks of ice, and pieces of refuse rained down on the Richardsons, forcing them to retreat once more into the house. Ethan hoped that this time the customs man would have the good sense to remain inside. He should have known better.
The door opened again, and Ethan drew breath to shout a warning. Richardson held in his hands what Ethan took at first for a longrifle, though as Richardson shook it at the mob and traded more insults with them, he realized it was nothing more threatening than a stick. Again the customs man ducked back through his door, but this time instead of closing it, he threw a brickbat out at the mob. It didn’t hit anyone, but it further enraged his harassers. A man grabbed the brick and threw it through one of Richardson’s first-floor windows.
A roar went up from the mob. They pressed forward, pelting the home with sticks, rocks, eggs and pieces of fruit from nearby shops, and anything else they could lay their hands on. More windows shattered. A woman cried out from the upper floor. A man Ethan didn’t know leapt up onto the doorstep and, after speaking briefly with Richardson, was ushered into the house.
The door was barred, even as more projectiles flew at the windows and door. In short order, most of the glass on the front of the house had been broken. One man called for Richardson to be dragged from his home and hanged. Several other men-older than most of those in the mob-tried to dissuade the toughs from doing more damage, but the crowd seemed to be beyond reason. There were as many young boys as there were men. A number of them were laughing, seeming to think it all a great game. The scene reminded Ethan of the Pope’s Day riots that used to pit North End gangs against ruffians from the South End.
Ethan watched the house, thinking-hoping-that at last Richardson had tired of the confrontation. Perhaps if the customs man kept out of sight for a time, the crowd would disperse, or at least turn their attention back to their less combative demonstrations in front of Lillie’s shop.
But even as he formed this thought, he felt a low thrum of power in the icy street. A spell? Reg, still beside him, though ethereal in the daylight, cast a sharp look Ethan’s way.
“That was a conjuring, wasn’t it?” Ethan asked the ghost, whispering the words.
Reg nodded, his eyebrows bunched.
“Do you know where it came from?”
A shake of the ghostly head. No.
He had other questions for the specter, and he sensed that there was more Reg wished to communicate to him. But he had no opportunity to ask. Richardson appeared at a downstairs window, and this time there could be no mistaking the musket he held in his hands.
He knelt and rested the barrel on the windowsill, seeming to take careful aim. But though it seemed to Ethan that he pulled the trigger, nothing happened. With a crash, the mob broke through Richardson’s door. Those closest to the house appeared to be taken aback at what they had done; no one entered. But volleys of rocks and ice still flew at the structure. Richardson stepped away from the window, though only briefly. Seconds later he was back, kneeling again.
The second man stood behind Richardson, also holding a musket, but it was Richardson who aimed at the crowd once more.
And this time when he pulled the trigger, the weapon fired with a report that reverberated through the lanes.
For the span of a heartbeat, all was still save for the receding echo of that gunshot. Then the stunned silence gave way to shouts of outrage and screams of panic. More stones hit off the facade of the house and flew through the unglazed windows. Someone cried, “He’s shot the boy!”
Richardson yelled back at the mob, aiming his musket again. The second man moved to the window and aimed his weapon toward the open doorway. Some who had advanced on the entrance retreated again. Several ran around toward the back of the house, no doubt hoping to gain entry that way.