Madman's Dance (Time Rovers #3)(24)

Once the potato was gone she rose. In the distance something caught her eye. It was red, moving in the sooty breeze.

“Pretty,” she said, clambering over the low fence. She heard something rip when her skirt caught. Looking back, she saw a small section of cloth trapped in the boards. She pulled it off and put it in her pocket, not sure why she did it. Her hand touched something else. She unfolded the handkerchief like it was a treasure.

The paper inside was still damp. “Jacynda.” That was who she was. That was all she knew. She hid it away again and set her sights on the red shawl hanging on the line in the next backyard. A quick tug made it hers. It smelled clean. She wrapped it around her shoulders and continued on.

When someone brushed against her on the street she jerked away, anxious. Just an old woman with a basket of apples. They looked so good. Maybe she could take one and the old lady wouldn’t notice.

“Hey, girl,” a man called out. “Pretty shawl ya got there.”

“It’s mine,” she declared, looking around for a means of escape.

“I didn’t say it wasn’t,” the man replied with a toothy grin. “Why don’t we go into the pub? Have a drink and a laugh.”



“No,” she said, backing up. The leer on his face frightened her.

“Ya hungry?” he asked, moving in closer. “I got some food.” He stretched out his hand, displaying a half loaf of bread.

Not right.

She fled before he could reach her.

~??~??~??~



Keats moved closer to hear the man’s voice, he spoke so softly.

“It was that warehouse there.” The watchman pointed, then spat on the ground. “Heard about Effington. Good riddance.”

Clancy snorted his approval.

“Were you there the night Dillon was hurt?” Keats asked.

“Yeah.” The watchman pursed his lips. “I never seen nothin’ like that. Just hit him, no warnin’. Left him bleedin’ like ya would a dog. Couldna cared less.”

“Dillon asked about a particular load. Did you see it?”

The man nodded. “I saw the casks. Somethin’ odd about them. Got no notion of what was in them boxes.”

“Boxes?” Keats repeated, his pulse picking up like a hound sighting a hare.

“Yeah. Didn’t have no markin’s on ’em.”

“I’d like to see them.” As well as Ramsey’s face when I deliver them to Chief Inspector Fisher.

“They’re gone. Left a few nights ago with the casks.”

“Flaherty took them?” Keats pressed.

“Don’t know. I wasn’t on duty that night.” The man spat again.

“Can we see inside the warehouse?”

The fellow frowned. “Why do ya care about all this?”

“’Cuz of Dillon,” Clancy replied. “He’s bad off now.”

“Yeah. I heard that,” the man noted with a small shudder. “I’ll take ya inside, but I don’t want nothin’ to do with that Irishman. That’s pullin’ the devil’s tail, it is.”

Keats took his time searching, though clearly the watchman wanted to be somewhere else.

“Ya think all of it was here?” Clancy asked.



“Not likely.”

“I heard he had two loads of the gunpowder.”

“He did, but I got half of it that night in Whitechapel. And a lot half load of rum,” Keats replied. “It’s how he hid it—rum on top of the load, gunpowder casks on the bottom.”

“So what’re we lookin’ for?”

“Fenian fairy dust,” Keats told him. That earned him a confused look.

It wasn’t until they moved some barrels around that he found what he was looking for. Keats knelt and ran a finger through the black spot on the warehouse floor and smiled. Gunpowder. A bit farther away he ran his hand over something else and sniffed it, then hastily wiped his hand on his coat.

When he stood, he wavered, dizzy.

Clancy grabbed his arm. “What’s wrong with ya?”

“Dynamite. It gives you a headache if it’s leaking. The nitroglycerine does it.”

His companion frowned. “That’s not good, is it?”

“No, it’s not.”

Clancy’s frown transformed into a smile. “It’d be a right shame if Flaherty blew himself up, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, it would.” He’d take my alibi with him.

~??~??~??~



Cynda stood on the shoreline, hands on her hips. Across the water were the gray walls. Inside of those was a tall white tower. Maybe it was like the other place. Maybe they had a Mouse Lady and someone would feed her. But how would get she get there?

She pulled the shawl tighter, puzzling as to why she had thought she could cross here. There were only two stubby piers in the middle of the river. Something was missing. She scratched her head, trying to make sense of the jumbled images floating through her mind.

A boat glided by and a waterman called out, asking if she needed a ride. That confused her. There should be two of them in the boat, like last night. She shook her head and continued to stare at the open air above the piers. Her mind came up with something stone, really tall. But what was it? Looking back up the way she’d come, she saw what was missing.