The Devil in the Marshalsea - [2]

A lantern flared into life, illuminating his attackers. Now, at last, he knew them, and why they had come. He tore frantically at the heavy leather purse tied about his neck for safe-keeping and flung it at their feet, gold and silver coins scattering across the floor.

The man holding the lantern reached down and plucked half a guinea from the dirt, turning it slowly between his fingers. ‘D’you think this will save you?’ He gave a thin smile and tossed the coin back to the floor. Nodded to his accomplice.

Then they sent him to hell.

The watchman found the body the next morning, hanging from a beam in the Strong Room, too high for the rats seething and scrabbling in the shadows below. The turnkeys cut him down and laid him out in the yard, away from three Common Side prisoners taken by fever in the night. The captain may have fallen on hard times, but he was still a gentleman.

The chaplain pointed to the dead man’s battered face and broken body and insisted that the coroner be called at once to investigate. The governor, who’d been drinking with his cronies in the Crown for hours, spat in the dirt and called it suicide – and a pox on anyone who said otherwise. The coroner would rule the same; he’d make sure of it.

Up in the captain’s room, his friends gambled hastily for his scant belongings before the serjeant took them. Clothes, tobacco, a pound of bacon. A small cooking pot smeared with the remnants of last night’s supper. No money. But that was no surprise in a debtors’ gaol.

A young maidservant paused on the landing, arms laden with fresh linen. She stood for a while in the shadows, watching the game and the men who played it. She’d learned a long time ago to keep her eyes and ears open. A good secret was better than gold in the Marshalsea – and more deadly than a blade if you used it right. Her eyes flickered to the floor. Strange. Someone had swept the floor clean in the night. She tucked the thought away, like a stray lock of hair beneath her cap, and returned to her chores.

The killers had swept the floor, but they’d missed one small thing. A coin had skittered across the room in the struggle, coming to rest in a dark corner beneath the captain’s bed. And there it remained as the long months passed, hidden in the dust – a silver crown stained with blood. Waiting to tell its story.

Waiting for me to find it.

PART ONE: ROBBERY

Chapter One

‘You have the luck of the devil, Tom Hawkins.’

I grinned at the man across the bench. It was a warm September night, I had a full purse for the first time in months and we had just found a table in the most disreputable coffeehouse in London. Life could not be better. ‘It wasn’t luck,’ I replied, shouting over the din.

Charles Buckley, my oldest friend, shot me a look I had come to know very well over the years: exasperation, disapproval – and a flicker of amusement glowing deep in his eyes. I settled back, content, and lit a pipe. One of my greatest pleasures in life was making Charles laugh when he knew he shouldn’t.

A serving maid passed close to our table – a pretty girl called Betty with tight black curls and skin the colour of roasted coffee beans. I beckoned her over and ordered a bowl of punch.

‘A bowl of coffee,’ Charles corrected. ‘And then home. You gave me your word, remember?’

I slipped a shilling into Betty’s hand. It felt good to have money again – and to spend it. ‘Coffee. And a bowl of punch. We’re celebrating,’ I said, dismissing Charles’ protestations with a lordly wave.

Betty arched an eyebrow. There were only two reasons to celebrate at Tom King’s coffeehouse – a win at the tables or a full recovery from the clap.

‘I took ten pounds at cards tonight,’ I called out hastily, but she was already gliding through the crowds to the coffee pots hanging over the fire. When I turned back, Charles had his head in his hands.

‘What am I to do with you?’ he groaned through his fingers.

I looked out across the long, low room, breathing in the heady fumes of smoke, liquor and sweat. I would hang up my coat tonight and in the morning my little garret would be filled with the same familiar scents. ‘One bowl of punch, Charles. Just one! To toast my skill at the tables tonight.’

‘Skill?’ He dropped his hands. Charles had a pleasant countenance, his features as neatly arranged as a well-proportioned drawing room. It was not a face created for outrage, but he did his best, widening his dark brown eyes a fraction. ‘Skill? You risked everything on the turn of a card! Down to your very last farthing! That is not skill, it’s…’ He shrugged, helplessly. ‘It’s madness.’

I didn’t argue with him. Charles refused to believe there was anything more to gambling than blind luck – in part because he played so ill himself. No use explaining that I had known three quarters of the men in that hot, smoke-filled gaming room – had played against them so many times that I understood their strengths and failings better than my own. No use explaining that even half-drunk I could remember every card that had been played and work out the odds in a flash. To be fair there was some truth in what Charles said – I