Magnificent Devices 01 - Lady of Devices

gang for a year.”
    “But someone must own it.”
    “Ain’t never seen ’em then. Them walls is gonna be trouble.”
    “What makes you say so?”
    “’Ow you gonna loft them vials inside? I can only see one window what’s broke. Mopsies!” The girls materialized next to them out of the dark. “Do a fast reconnoiter. We need ’oles in the walls, broken windows, and such like to pitch the vials through.”
    Without a sound, the girls vanished as though they had done this kind of thing before. Claire had done no more than spare a thought for how chilly the night was becoming when they reappeared. “There’s a broken window next to the back door,” Lizzie reported in a whisper. “Shingles ripped out of the roof on the river side, and a loose board on the other side. Front’s tight and they set a watch.”
    Snouts swore at this intelligence. “Jake. You do for the watch. Not a sound.”
    Claire clutched at Jake’s arm. “What does that mean? You won’t kill that person, will you?”
    He gave her an incredulous look. “What d’you take me for? Not unless he gives me a fight.”
    “Not under any circumstances! I won’t have my friends connected with murder.”
    “Lady—”
    Claire’s skin had gone cold with more than just the dewfall. “I will not have it, do you hear? We are to succeed through the exercise of intellect, not brute force.”
    “We’ll succeed through t’exercise of my good right arm, Lady,” Jake told her with flat scorn before he vanished into the night.
    “I shall have words with him if any harm comes to the watch,” she said with grim promise.
    “Jake’s a dab hand,” Tigg assured her. “Watch won’t feel a thing.”
    This did not have the comforting effect he obviously intended. However, there was nothing to be done except the job she had come to do. She gritted her teeth as Snouts directed their strategy. “Tigg, you’re our best at the scramble, so you take the roof. I’ll take the back door. Mopsies, you take Jake his vial and set our own watch. Lady, you’d best stay here.”
    “I shan’t,” Claire objected with no little warmth.
    “You’ve done yer bit with the chemicals. You’ll only be in the way.”
    “In the—? And who, might I ask, brought down your entire house at this very time last night with no assistance whatever?”
    “Billy Crumwell’s killed four men,” Snouts’s tone was as blunt as a bludgeon and just as effective. “We make one mistake and he’ll do for us wi’out a thought. First sign of trouble, you take to your heels.”
    “I am not leaving without my landau—or any of you.”
    “Better you leave wi’ yer life.”
    “But I—”
    A bird whistled near the graveyard wall, and Snouts held up a hand. “Trouble.” Inch by cautious inch, they peered around the flying angel monument behind which they were concealed, to see a lantern bob across the squat’s yard. Three or four young men only a little older than Claire herself accompanied a person dressed in what appeared to be a velvet frock coat and a slightly crushed top hat adorned with a pair of driving goggles. His waistcoat was leather, and at his side he carried a rifle with a curiously bulbous and long barrel. Snouts drew a long breath.
    “What? Who is that?” Claire whispered. “Is that Billy Crumwell?”
    “Nah. Billy’s the git in the long coat wi’ the chains over ’is shoulder.” Claire peered at the group more closely. She hadn’t even noticed him. “That flash cove ... Lady, this is trouble. I’m callin’ Jake and Maggie in.”
    “Why?”
    Before he could answer, Billy Crumwell spoke to his companion. “I tell ye, Luke, ye won’t be sorry. She’s a beauty, not a scratch on ’er. A bargain at a hunnert pounds. Ye can go drivin’ about and no one’ll know you ent a lord.”
    Claire gripped the granite plinth. They were too late. That filthy criminal! “We have to follow them. They’re about to sell my landau to that Luke person.”
    Snouts gave a very credible imitation of a sparrow, and within seconds Maggie had joined them. Not a moment too soon, either, because Luke and his four escorts hopped the wall where she had been posted and made their way through the graveyard not twenty feet away. They filed into the narrow alley between the church and the dilapidated tavern next to it. Claire rose and settled the satchel with its lethal contents on her back.
    Snouts jerked her back down. “Lady, you can’t. That’s Lightning Luke