What Angels Fear: A Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery

door, he went inside.
    A heavy medley of smells washed over him, of ale and tobacco, of bitter coal smoke and hot grease and rank, stale sweat. The common room was dark, the guttering dips casting only a dim light that flickered over walls and low beamed ceilings blackened with age. Men in fustian and corduroy stood with elbows propped on the counter or lounged about scarred tables and benches. They looked up as Sebastian entered, the roar of their talk and laughter ebbing, their sunken eyes suspicious,watchful. He was a stranger here, and strangers in such places were never welcome.
    Pushing his way to the counter, he bought a tankard of ale and ordered dinner. The bread would be adulterated with chalk and alum, the beef rancid and gristly, but he would find little better in this district and he’d eaten nothing since the breakfast he’d shared that morning with Christopher at a public house not far from the Heath.
    There was a fire at one end of the room. Sebastian made his way toward it, his tankard in hand. The general swirl of noise had resumed, although he was aware of resentful eyes following him, of an air of tense wariness. Furtive shadows moved across the walls as two or three men sidled quietly from the room.
    Sebastian was halfway across the sawdust-covered floor, winding his way between packed, unwashed bodies, when a boy of perhaps eight or ten brushed against him.
    “A natty lad,” said Sebastian, his voice dangerously cheerful as he deftly retrieved his purse from the boy’s fist. The unexpected loss of his prize caused the young thief to hesitate so that, dropping the purse into an inner pocket, Sebastian managed to collar the lad and haul him back around, all without setting down the tankard or spilling a drop of ale. “But not a particularly skilled one, I’m afraid.”
    Every eye in the room was trained upon them and Sebastian knew it. Yet the atmosphere was more one of watchful expectation than of hostility. A market beadle from Covent Garden, a big, ponderous man with a stained waistcoat and three chins, stood up from a nearby table to wipe the back of one meaty hand across his wet lips. “Aye, he’s an anabaptist, that one.” A low ripple of laughter traveled around the room, for it was a name given to young pickpockets who’d been caught in the act and subjected to the rough-and-ready punishment of being dumped in the nearest pond. “Want we should rechristen him?”
    The lad kept his chin firm and his gaze steady, but Sebastian felt a shudder travel up the boy’s thin frame. For a homeless child, a dunking in a freezing pond on a night like this could mean death.
    “I’ve no doubt he could use the ablution,” said Sebastian, his words greeted by more laughter. “But the boy’s done no real harm.” Opening hisfist, Sebastian let the thin, ragged cloth of the urchin’s shirt slide through his fingers. “Go on,” he added, jerking his head toward the door when the boy hesitated. “Get out of here.”
    Instead of running, the boy stood his ground, his dark, unexpectedly bright eyes traveling over Sebastian in open, thoughtful assessment. “On the lam, are you?”
    Sebastian paused with his tankard halfway to his mouth. “I beg your pardon?”
    The boy was older than Sebastian had first taken him to be—probably more like ten or twelve—and obviously observant enough to notice that beneath the mud and blood, Sebastian’s greatcoat was exquisitely tailored, and of a fine cloth that had been new just hours ago. “What’d you do? Lose all your blunt and bolt afore they could shut you up in the Never-Wag? Or did you kill a man in a duel?” One small, bony hand reached out to finger the dark, telltale stain on Sebastian’s chest. “Me, I think you killed somebody.”
    Sebastian took a long, deep swallow of his ale. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
    “Ho. And why else would such a swell cove be stopping at a dive like the Black ’Art? You answer me that.”
    A prepubescent young girl with thin shoulders and a shank of straight, colorless hair appeared from the back rooms to dump the contents of her tray on the table in front of Sebastian. He stared at the small loaf of suspiciously white bread, the plate of unidentifiable meat awash in ladlefuls of congealing fat, and felt his appetite ebb.
    “You should tuck that purse of yers somewhere out o’ sight and out o’ reach,” said the urchin as Sebastian seated himself at the table. “You know that, don’t you? It’s