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When Richard was back in London, he wasted no time in taking himself to an insalubrious neighbourhood, and finding a barefoot boy waiting about, ready to carry messages or run errands for the price of a gin.

“Take me to Sharp Rick,” Richard told the orphan, remembering the most dangerous of the pack he’d encountered. “I want to see him.”

“Not a lot of folk want to see Sharp Rick. Most gents run the other way.”

“I’m eccentric,” said Richard.

“You’re what?”

“It doesn’t matter. What matters is that there’s sixpence in it for you if you bring him here before the clock strikes the hour.”

“You’ll have to go to him, sir.”

“Then take me to him.”

The urchin gave a shrug as though to say, it was Richard's funeral, nodded his head, and made off down an alleyway. 

There were no boards to save his shoes, and as Richard followed, he wished he had not been in such a hurry, that he had gone to his lodgings and changed into older boots. There was no help for that now. He stepped through puddles and muck, the smell of rotting meat and human waste cluttering the alleyways. After a long, torturous way, the gamin told him to wait, and vanished into a tall, rickety house that could not be anything other than a rookery.

As he waited, Richard thumbed the hammer of the pistol in his pocket and waited to be led inside. Along a narrow hall, past doorways which smelled of damp clothes and unclean flesh, he was led into a room that was fitted up in the manner of a gentleman’s parlour of about twenty years past. The only light was from the falling embers of a fire. 

Sharp Rick sat back in a slightly battered armchair and turned his head as Richard entered. “Well, well,” he said, in a voice not much marked by friendliness. “Mr Richard Thornton. I never do forget a face.”

“I don’t believe I told you my name, Rick.”

“I make it my business to know such things as these, Mr Thornton. What can I do for you?”

“I did you a favour, Rick.”

“Favour he calls it. You hear that, Bruiser?”

Someone very tall and wide stepped out of the shadows and shut the door by which Richard had entered. Richard was careful not to put his hand to the pocket where the pistol was kept. Instead, he stood straight and continued to look directly at Sharp Rick.

“He’s a cool one, Mr Rick” said the wide, tall person.

“He’d have to to be, Bruiser, to show his face around here after what came of his last visit.”

“Well, that’s precisely what I want to know, Mr Rick. What did come of my last visit?”

“Well, my best fighting man got made a cripple, Mr Thornton, and the young gentleman responsible skipped off without reprimand. Not my preferred outcome, you understand. I don’t know how you gentlemen at the Treasury would take such an occurrence, but in these parts we consider it bad for business. Some men might take it personal when such things are allowed to happen.”

“Should I chalk him, Mr Rick?” said Bruiser.

“Now, now, Bruiser. I’m sure there’ll be no need for that. Mr Thornton here is a gentleman. You must forgive Bruiser, Mr Thornton. He don’t like it when folk play me for a fool.”

Richard inclined his head. “As far as I was aware, Edward Valance was unarmed. He told me as much himself.”

“And you trusted him?”

“I trusted this,” said Richard, and drew the pistol from his jacket.

Silence.

He levelled it at Sharp Rick.

“That’s a very pretty antique piece, Mr Thornton,” said Sharp Rick, “but I’m sure there’ll be no need for such things.”

Richard attempted to hide the trembling that was making its way up his spine.

“Now, Mr Thornton, how’s about you put the popgun away and we can discuss this like reasonable men.”

“I’m more comfortable behind it, thank you.”

“Let’s not make a scene, Mr Thornton.”

“There’ll be no need to, if you’ll just answer my question.”

“And what question is that?”

“Why didn’t you kill Edward Valance? I told you where he was hiding. I led you right to him.”

“It seems that you’re labouring under a misapprehension, Mr Thornton. My men and I ain’t murderers. We’re in the same line of business as you. Gentlemen of finance.”

Richard breathed out, long and unsteady through his nose. “I was given to understand…”

“Then you was given to mistake. We didn’t want the gentleman dead. We wanted an example made of him, for the benefit of any other who might chose to welch on his payments.”

“So why didn’t you make an example of him?”

Sharp Rick gave Richard a long measuring glance, not unlike the ones that miscreants had given him at times in the past, when he had still wielded some authority. He steadied his grasp on the pistol, and he primed it. 

Sharp Rick nodded, as though notionally satisfied. “We was interrupted.”

“By whom?”

“Some moonraker. Bloody stupid name. Don’t care to bring it to mind. He was able to settle Mr Valance’s debt.”

“And what was his interest in the matter?”

“Claimed the gentleman had come into an inheritance. His note was good, and all or there would have been strong words. By the time we got back, Valance and his moll had done a flit. No idea what happened to them after that. Don’t care to know.”

“And this inheritance?”

“What about it?”

“What was it, this so-called inheritance?”

“Can’t say I rightly recall.”

“I thought you made it your business to know such things, Mr Rick.”

“No need to be clever with me, Mr Thornton. Sometimes a man is permitted to forget things which give him pain.”

“Do you know where I might find Valance now?”

“No, I do not, Mr Thornton. And I advise you to quit the premises before Bruiser takes that gun out of your hands and shoves it up your arse.”