Ianira shivered. Another casualty of war: innocence.
"Then we must hope," Ianira said gently, "that the bad men never come, because I will never let anyone harm my beautiful little girls."
As she hugged her daughters close, Ianira could sense danger beyond the walls of their house in Spitalfields. It was not the same danger she had felt in John Lachley's presence. This was a cold, implacable danger which threatened from the future, from the world beyond the station's Primary Gate. Somewhere nearby, the killers who had sought Jenna's life in New York and their own lives on the station were searching for them in the dismal, rain-drenched streets of London.
Skeeter was up at the crack of dawn and on the street very shortly afterward, with Margo as a guide. They left Spaldergate House in company with a mass of Time Tours baggage handlers, groomsmen from the stables, even a couple of the housemaids, all detailed to the search team.
"We'll spread out through SoHo first," Margo briefed them in the dimly lit stable. "We'll search street by street, combing the clothiers shops. We're looking for a merchant or merchants who've been robbed with counterfeit banknotes. Strike up casual conversations, see what you can turn up. If you stumble onto a hot lead, get word to Skeeter and me. I'll be wearing an earpiece under my hat, so you can signal me by radio." She handed around miniaturized transmitters, which vanished into coat pockets. "I'd advise taking umbrellas, since it looks like more rain. And here are the photos Mr. Gilbert reproduced last night." She handed out thick, card-backed "tin-type" prints of Noah Armstrong, Marcus, and "Benny Catlin" as they'd appeared at the lecture, taken from Margo's scout log. "Any questions? All right, then, let's move."
A Time Tours carriage drove Skeeter and Margo to Regent Street, an ultrafashionable thoroughfare lined with ritzy tailors' establishments, fine bootmakers' shops, ladies' milliners, every sort of fashionable emporium a Londoner might want to visit. At this hour, Regent Street was very nearly silent, the shops deserted and the streets clear of traffic. "We won't actually be searching Regent Street," Margo told Skeeter, carefully holding her skirts and long umbrella aside as Skeeter handed her down to the pavement. "But Regent Street forms the western border of SoHo, which is jam-packed with the kind of shops middle-class businessmen frequent. These," she waved the tip of her umbrella toward the expensive establishments along Regent Street, "won't even open for a couple of hours, but SoHo gets up with the birds, same as its clientele."
She was right about that. As Skeeter escorted her eastward, activity and noise picked up sharply. Delivery wagons groaned through the streets, their heavy drays straining against harness and collar, heads thrust forward and hooves ringing against the cobbles with the sharp sound of iron on stone. Shop keepers rattled open doors, jangling tiny brass bells against the glass, while clerks arranged window displays to their liking and called greetings to the draymen or dickered over prices and freight charges with delivery men. Shop girls, neat as pins in their starched dresses and aprons, bustled to greet early customers. A tantalizing drift from a bakery's open door set Skeeter's mouth to watering.
"Let's start there," Margo decided, nodding toward a respectable looking shop advertising gentlemen's suiting off the rack.
Skeeter held the door, escorting Margo inside. A middle-aged clerk in a well-made if inexpensive suit greeted them. "Good morning. How may I assist you?"
Margo gave the clerk a surprisingly cool smile, causing Skeeter to glance more sharply at her. "Good morning," she inclined her head politely. "My name is Smythe, sir, and this is Mr. Jackson, of America. We're hoping you might be of some assistance in a rather difficult situation. Mr. Jackson is a Pinkerton man, a sort of private police agency. He's come to London on the trail of a counterfeiter, a man who's deprived me of a considerable sum of money I could ill afford to lose."
"Counterfeiter?" Genuine alarm showed in the clerk's guileless eyes. "D'you mean to say we've a counterfeiter working in SoHo?"
Skeeter produced a sample of Goldie's fake banknotes. "These are some of the forgeries recovered from Miss Smythe, here. I have reason to believe the men producing these banknotes are passing them somewhere in SoHo. This young lady is not the only vicitm they have damaged. I've traced this gang from Colorado to New York to London and I mean to locate them, sir."
The clerk's eyes had widened in sympathetic surprise. "I should hope so! I'll check the cash drawer at once!" The clerk searched carefully, but located none of Goldie's fake banknotes, nor could he recall having seen any of the gentlemen in the photographs Skeeter produced. The clerk frowned over them, shaking his head. "No, sir, I'm afraid I don't recognize any of them. But I'll certainly be on my guard and I shall inform my employer immediately to be wary of any fivers and ten-pound notes we receive."
"My card," Skeeter handed over the first of several dozen Spaldergate's staff had run off for him the previous night, "if anything should turn up."
"Deeply obliged, sir," the clerk said earnesly, "for the warning. I'll keep your card right here in the cash drawer."
Skeeter tipped his hat as Margo thanked the clerk, then they headed for the next shop. And the one after that, moving from street to street, until Skeeter's feet ached and his throat burned and the skies poured miserable, sooty rain down their collars. He and Margo hastily opened thick umbrellas against the downpour and checked the time on Skeeter's pocket watch.
"One o'clock. No wonder my feet are killing me."
"And my stomach's about to have a close encounter with my spine," Margo said ruefully. "Let's find something to eat, then keep searching."
The afternoon was no more profitable than the morning had been, just wetter. By the time Margo admitted they'd struck out, the sun was already below the rooftops and the chilly evening wind was biting through Skeeter's overcoat.
"I'm afraid there's not much more we can do today," Margo sighed.
"Maybe someone else found something?"
"They would've contacted us," she said with a slight shake of her head. "Let's get back to Spaldergate. We'll cross check with everyone else and come up with a new plan of attack for tomorrow."
"My feet aren't even going to speak to me by tomorrow," Skeeter groaned, flagging down a ratty-looking hansom cab.
The two-wheeled, open carriage slithered to a halt at the kerbside. "Battersea," Margo called up as Skeeter handed her into the cab, "and I've consulted Mogg's!"
"Why, I'd never cheat a lady, miss!"
The cabbie flicked his reins and they set out at a jolting trot.
"What's Mogg's?" Skeeter asked, hanging onto his seat and struggling with his stubborn umbrella.
"Mogg's maps." She pulled a little booklet from her handbag and passed it over. "Study it carefully. It lists the fares for every conceivable route through the city. Otherwise, cabbies will cheat you blind."
"I'll remember that," Skeeter said as the horse jolted around a corner and swung smartly into heavy traffic, nearly colliding with two carriages and a drayman's wagon and eliciting rude commentaries from cabbies they narrowly avoided while rounding a traffic circus Skeeter didn't recognize. "If we survive so long. Man, not even New York traffic is this nuts!"
Margo just grimaced and held on.
True to Margo's prediction, nobody else had found a trace of counterfeit banknotes, nor had anyone located a witness who could identify Armstrong, Catlin, or Marcus. Skeeter was feeling massively discouraged when he eased his aching, blistered feet into a basin of hot water in his bedroom. Maybe they hadn't bought their clothes in SoHo? Or maybe they'd lucked out and used genuine banknotes when making the purchase? What else would they have to buy, which could be paid for with Goldie's counterfeit banknotes? Food, of course, and coal for the cookstove and fireplace. But they weren't likely to pay for any of that with five- and ten-pound banknotes.