A Christmas Revelation Read online

  “So, you were taken…”

  “Yes. He was tempted by his share of the gold they were going to take. It would have got us out, and all right again. But then he changed his mind,” Eloise went on.

  “After they took it,” Squeaky concluded. It was not really a question. They wouldn’t be after him if not.

  “Yes. He got the gold, to look after it, but they didn’t want to give him his share.” She looked Squeaky straight in the eyes as she said it.

  For a moment, he believed her without question, then his common sense reasserted itself. “That what he told you?”

  “I saw it. And…” She hesitated. A bitterly painful memory, or a careful lie. “I saw him fall in the river. Tide’s swift there. And it’s cold and dirty. Especially this time of the year. Bitter. Take your breath out of your body. He went down, and he never came up…” The tears were undeniably real this time. Unusually, she managed to weep without grimacing.

  Squeaky could imagine how Worm would be feeling. His heart would be aching for her. He had never had a father, or a mother, that he knew of, but sometimes dreams painted a softer picture than reality. Squeaky did not turn to look. He must concentrate on Eloise. Was she telling the truth? He stared hard at every line in her face. Her hands, still wet from the mop, rested on the table. He could not tell.

  “They weren’t there?” he asked. “The old one and the young one?”

  “No. They drove him there, lost him for a minute, but he knew they were after him and he had nowhere to go. They as good as killed him.”

  “Where were you, that you saw this?”

  “Next wharf over,” she said without hesitation. “They came onto the other wharf just after he’d gone in.”

  “They didn’t see?”

  “Yes, they did.”

  “And this was two years ago? Then why are they only just getting nasty about it now? Don’t make sense,” Squeaky pointed out.

  “They were looking for me,” she said quietly, “and they managed to find me. The only reason they haven’t hurt me really badly is because I’ve told them my father is still alive.”

  Worm was looking at her intently. “Is he?”

  She closed her eyes, but the tears escaped. “No. I told you. In effect they killed him when they chased him along one of the wharfs leading from the warehouse they own. But I told them they were wrong, that he went off the end, all right, but landed on the ledge below.”

  “And he had the gold with him?”

  “No. He hid it somewhere. I don’t know where it is, but I told them I did.”

  “Why?”

  Before she could answer, Worm interrupted, “What’s a ledge? What’s it made of?”

  She seemed confused.

  Squeaky looked at her. “I’ve never seen a ledge below a wharf. There’s just water, and if you fell into the water…No one falls into the Thames around here, where there’s mud and tides and eddies and stuff, and comes out again alive.”

  “They don’t know that!” she said defiantly. “Not as they can prove! He could be alive!”

  “But he ain’t, right? You’ve never seen him, that day to this,” Squeaky insisted.

  There was a long moment’s silence.

  Worm looked from Eloise to Squeaky, a shadow across his face.

  Squeaky hesitated. Should he let it go? No. He couldn’t. If they followed this through, whatever it was, she would take her chance to avenge her father’s death or, worse than that, she would create a chance. It had driven her this far already. She was living in a filthy wreck of a house. All her scrubbing would never make it clean. Decades of filth were probably what held it together. Either one of the two men could turn violent and ugly, awake whatever violence lay dormant in them from the beginning. When she didn’t have the gold, and they found that out, what then?

  Had she never thought that far?

  Or did she know where it was?

  No, that made no sense. She could have changed it for money a little at a time, and lived very nicely. She didn’t even have to stay in London. She could go to any of a hundred smaller cities and disappear.

  “You don’t have the gold.”

  She started to speak, then stopped abruptly. She did not know what to say. All answers put her in trouble. She needed to claim ignorance to put Squeaky off, and yet she needed to know where the gold was to inveigle the two men watching her into her plan. But to do what?

  Was she after the gold? Or after revenge?

  Squeaky looked at her face. It was strong, and yet curiously vulnerable. She was afraid. And she could not look at Worm. Did she have any idea of how beautiful she was to him? Worm thought he saw in her beauty of the mind, a purity and gentleness. Like any other child, he saw what he needed—what the Christmas story offered to him: the perfect mother figure.

  Not a hurt woman greedy for gold and, above all, for revenge.

  Poor Eloise! Damn the two men who had hurt her so badly. Damn the sun for coming out for an instant, when Worm was looking, to shine on her.

  There was no time to think of something. Worm was waiting, watching her.

  “We’ve got to catch them,” Squeaky said slowly. “Or we’ve got to confuse them. Put them off. Separate them, perhaps.”

  “Why?” Worm asked.

  “Because they are after the gold, and Eloise doesn’t have it, but they think that she knows where it is.”

  “It’s lost?”

  “Yes. But they won’t leave her alone until they believe that.” Would he see the hole in that argument?

  Worm turned to Eloise. “You don’t have to stay with them. You don’t have the gold, and your father can’t be hurt anymore. The river got him.”

  She bit her lip. “They think I have the gold because I told them I did. If I say I don’t now, they won’t believe me.”

  Worm looked at Squeaky. “What are we going to do?”

  Squeaky was backed into a corner. “We confuse them. We make them doubt themselves. Your father…what was his name?”

  “Horace,” Eloise replied slowly. She was staring at Squeaky. It made him slightly uncomfortable.

  “What did he look like?”

  She drew a deep, slightly shaky breath, and then let it out slowly. “He looked a lot like you. Not as tall, but otherwise…well…if I turned round quickly, I could mistake you for him.”

  Squeaky stared at her. She looked back completely innocently…didn’t she? Was anyone so pure?

  She read his thoughts and smiled. “It’s a good idea,” she said softly. “I’m sure I can think of some things that will help. We had better start straightaway. You will do it?” It was a question, but only just. She already knew he would.

  There was no way out. Squeaky accepted, as if he had intended to all along. “Let’s start to plan…”

  The first thing was to create confusion. They began by considering the older man, Oldham, perhaps the more vulnerable. Eloise reiterated what Goldie had said: that he wanted to be important, known by everyone. Eloise assured Squeaky that he did not care if he was liked. To be feared was good, but to be known was what really mattered. You could build whatever you wanted to upon that.

  To create an illusion that would take Oldham in, she also schooled Squeaky in little matters. “Horace used to clear his throat a lot when he was angry or uncertain. When any kind of emotion was there. He had long hair, like yours, sort of…untidy. Ran his hands through it, like you do sometimes.” She smiled to rob the comment of any offense. “I never saw him with a hat. You’ll have to put that away.” She looked at his rather battered black hat with regret. “Pity, it’s nice. I’ll find you a scarf for round your neck, one like his. He wore it a lot. Especially this time of year.”

  Squeaky began to feel backed into a corner, but he accepted that it was necessary. If he was going to do
this at all, then he should do it properly. It was more than a matter of price. He was growing increasingly aware that it might even become a matter of survival. These men, if they were caught for the death of Horace—and it might not have been an accident—coupled with the robbery of the gold, would be facing the rope. A short walk and a long drop, as people put it. He should not forget that. They wouldn’t!

  He could see very clearly now that it would have been immeasurably easier if he had let Worm face the guilt for not helping Eloise, or the disillusionment that she was a liar and probably a lot of other things, too. Someone would let him down—someone already had—before he was grown up, never mind later on. He would survive it. He was not Squeaky’s responsibility.

  And yet Squeaky would probably do it again. He knew that, too.

  “How did he walk?” he asked Eloise.

  “What?”

  “How did he walk? Can’t you hear straight? Did he limp? Take long strides? Or short ones? Lean forward? Favor one foot over the other? Think, girl!”

  She tried her best to hide a smile. Something about his wish to do it properly amused her. Perhaps at another time he would have seen the funny side of it. Not now.

  “Well?” he demanded. “The laugh’s on us if we do it wrong!”

  She cleaned the smile from her lips, but not her eyes. “You’re a proper artist, aren’t you! You’ve done this before?”

  “What I’ve done before is none of your business. What’s the answer?”

  “Turned his left foot in a bit, and I suppose he favored the right, kind of guarded the left, if you know what I mean? And he leaned forward. Moved quick. I suppose that’s how he got away from them.”

  “And took the gold with him? So it’s in the river?”

  “No, I told you. It was hidden; they know that. Gold’s heavy, mud’s deep. If they knew it was in the river they wouldn’t be after it still, and they must have known my father didn’t have the gold with him when he escaped from them at the wharf.”

  Which still left the questions: Did she want the gold…or did she want revenge? Or did she somehow think she was going to get both? So much for the lady with the light in her hair!

  Squeaky could not even look at Worm, who was watching all this. What did he believe now? Did he realize she was using him to get her revenge? Maybe he thought it was all right. He had never had a father. Maybe he thought all fathers were good, special, that they should be saved if possible, and if not, then at least vindicated? Or else avenged? How the hell was Squeaky going to explain all this to him?

  And why was Squeaky not just walking away from it all, as any sane man would?

  Because Worm believed she was innocent and in danger. She was in danger.

  But she was about as innocent as any other conniving little tart with money and revenge on her mind. And the ability to make daft little boys think she was some kind of an angel. No, that was not right. Angels could look after themselves. This woman was the sweet, gentle mother he didn’t have, the one who would have loved him.

  That was why Worm wouldn’t let her down.

  And why Squeaky, God help him, couldn’t let Worm down.

  “Pay attention, girl!” he snapped. He was furious with her, and with Worm, and most of all with himself. Of all of them, he was the one who should have known better. “Like this?” He got up and walked a dozen paces or so, turning his left foot in, weight more on his right, and leaning a little forward, as if he were in a hurry. “Well?” he said irritably.

  “It’s perfect,” she said with a little smile, and blinked several times. “You look just like him.”

  Squeaky intended to reply, but suddenly the right words escaped him. He did not want to impersonate a dead man whom this girl had loved, and who had been a thief, murdered for gold. He wanted to go home to Claudine’s warm kitchen and have a cup of tea and a piece of cake.

  “Well, come on, then!” he snapped. “We haven’t got all night! It’ll be Christmas soon enough.”

  * * *

  Squeaky had spent all of the day before laying the groundwork for this adventure. It had to go exactly as he planned it, or it would not work. People had been prepared and paid with a promise of a good Christmas dinner. There were going to be far more guests at Claudine’s table than she had imagined. But Squeaky had ordered an extra goose or two and ingredients from which to make more plum pudding. The money would have to be put back sometime, but he always kept one or two little pieces aside, just in case of emergencies. This was certainly one.

  He knew they would need more than a little assistance creating the confusion they wanted, so he had collected many debts, forgiven a few, on condition of help, and made a few more promises.

  Now he took a deep breath, and set out.

  Worm did the same, only he did not go alone. It was mid-afternoon, but already the light was beginning to fade as he walked with Eloise. Worm had a pretty good memory, a necessary thing if you were very uncertain about either reading or writing. Anyway, it was a bad time to find a piece of paper in your pocket and read what you were supposed to do.

  Eloise could read, but she also preferred to trust her memory. And she knew her way around these streets, to lead someone or mislead them.

  They were to begin as soon as they could find the two men, which was not difficult, since they had accepted the invitation of a drink with a street peddler who owed Squeaky a favor. By early evening they were there sitting on a bench just inside a pub called A Three-Legged Man.

  Worm stood on the doorstep, hesitating. He must do this right. They were about to begin, and each of them depended upon the other two, as well as all the people Squeaky had bribed or threatened.

  “Go on,” Eloise said behind him. “Just go in. Make sure they see you!”

  He caught his breath and almost choked himself, he swallowed so hard. He started through the door, letting in a blast of cold air and making a much louder noise than he had intended to. He almost tripped over Oldham’s feet. He had certainly made himself noticeable all right!

  “Look where you’re going, you stupid little…” Oldham said angrily.

  Worm stared at him, then remembered his part. He turned on his heel and ran headfirst into Eloise as she came in through the door.

  “You can’t come in here!” he shouted, waving his hands at her. “They’ll see you!”

  Eloise gave a cry of alarm, stared at Oldham as if she had seen a ghost, and then turned and blundered out, followed closely by Worm, who turned once just to make sure they were following. They were.

  Eloise and Worm came out and stepped to the side. Oldham ran straight into a thin, elderly man with white hair flying in the cold wind and one hand held up to his face.

  Oldham stopped instantly, gasping in astonishment, and Younger collided with him. “Fool!” he said furiously. “What’s the matter with you?”

  Oldham was peering at the old man with the white hair as if he couldn’t believe his eyes, then the man pulled his coat collar around his ears and turned his back. When he turned round again, his face was completely different, and his hair was dark and slick. He carried a white kerchief in his hand, and slipped it into his pocket. He bowed and smiled.

  “New to these parts?” he inquired pleasantly, although Oldham had nearly knocked him off his feet.

  “No!” Oldham said, angry at himself for what he had thought he’d seen. “I’ve lived here all my life!”

  The man peered at him. “Odd. I’ve never seen you.” And before he could be questioned any further, he sidestepped and was lost in the shadows.

  Worm giggled, and then in case Oldham hadn’t heard him, he did it again.

  “What are you laughing at, you cheeky little sod?” Oldham lunged toward him to box his ears. This was exactly what Squeaky and Eloise had told him would likely happen.

  Eloise put out her
foot, very neatly, and Oldham fell forward, carried by the impetus of his own weight.

  He went down on his hands and knees on the pavement. When he clambered up again, shaking with anger, Worm was out of sight, and Eloise was alone, staring at the two men, her eyes wide with amazement. She turned to Younger. “What did you do that for?” she asked in disbelief.

  Oldham shook himself. “Where’s the urchin?” he demanded.

  “What urchin?” She looked bewildered.

  “The one what came with you, you fool. He tripped me.” He stared around, but Worm had already disappeared round the corner, running as if for his life, leading Oldham and Younger on to the next unnerving scenario.

  Worm was standing beside a street entertainer, a quick-change artist, who looked like an old woman with a tray of bootlaces to sell. Worm knew the tray folded up and unfolded again as something else. He also knew that the street sign said something quite different from usual, at least two of the lamps had unaccountably not been lit, and it was getting darker by the minute.

  Just down the road the usual corner had been blocked by an overturned cart, and the pub sign there altered to read “The King and Sixpence” instead of “The Earl of Essex.”

  Eloise was stepping backward, slowly; she had to stay always just out of reach. Then, when she knew Oldham and Younger were following her, she turned and walked a short distance up the street to where Squeaky would be waiting for her.

  It was quiet. There was no horse-drawn traffic, no clop of hoofs. It was nearly dark now, and in the distance the lights burned yellow and orange. There was going to be a frost tonight. The cobbles were already slippery here and there.

  Suddenly the old woman with the tray of bootlaces was in front of the confused men. “Please, sir, Mr. Oldham, sir, something you could use? Surely you could use a—” She stopped suddenly. “I’m so sorry, sir, I thought you were someone what I knew! Could have sworn…at a distance, you look just like him. Sorry to trouble you, sir.” She stepped backward off the footpath onto the street, then stumbled up the step and all but ran away around the corner.