William Monk 15 - Dark Assassin

“I’ll be ready,” she said firmly. “What time shall we begin?”
    “I’ll come ’ere,” he said, still uncertain of himself. “At breakfast. We’ll start early. Not as it makes much difference under the…ground.”
    She knew he had been going to say
river
but stopped himself at the last moment, in case the thought should be too much for her, especially since they had been talking of cave-ins, floods, and gas.
    “I’ll be here,” she said with a smile, catching his eye and seeing the answering humor in it, and a flicker of admiration that pleased her quite unreasonably.
    He nodded and rose to his feet.
     
    By the next morning the clothes that Sutton provided had been laundered. They were still shabby and badly patched; however, Hester found them more comfortable than she had expected. It was an oddly naked feeling to have no skirts. Even on the battlefield she had been used to the nuisance of skirts around her legs, making striding difficult, especially in wind or rain. Trousers were marvelous, even if she did feel indecent.
    Scraping her hair back into a knot and clipping it tight so it appeared short was not difficult, but it was certainly unflattering. But there was no help for it. A flat cap on her head covered most of it anyway, even down over her ears. Sutton had been thoughtful enough to provide a thick woollen muffler that made her feel considerably warmer. The coat, which came almost to her knees, was the last item, apart from a pair of weather-beaten and awkwardly fitting men’s boots.
    She left the room where she had changed and walked self-consciously along the passage towards the staircase.
    “Yer done wonders,” Sutton said approvingly. “Come on, Snoot! We got business.”
    She explained to him as they walked what she and Rose had learned about Mary Havilland.
    “That’s funny,” he said, considering it carefully. “Were she lookin’ fer streams an’ the like, or trying ter find out wot ’er pa knew, if ’e knew summink ter kill ’im for? But why fer? Streams in’t no secret, leastways if they cross one an’ it makes a cave-in, the ’ole world’s gonna know!”
    “It doesn’t make any sense,” she agreed, walking quickly in order to keep up with him. “There’s something major in this that we don’t know. Either that, or somebody is very stupid.”
    They traveled by omnibus again, until they reached the northern entrance at Wapping. Hester was startled to see that the building in which it was situated was large and very handsome, so much so that she felt as if she were entering the hall of some concert chamber. She glanced sideways at Sutton, who bent and picked up Snoot, then solemnly carried him down the long, circular steps to the level below, where the tunnel itself opened onto something rather like a hallway. With a dawning of amazement she realized that no vehicle could get out into the open air. The only way up or down was the great stair.
    Sutton put Snoot down and the little dog trotted obediently at his heels across the paved floor to the tunnel entrance. Because of the many windows there was plenty of light in this part, but Hester realized that as soon as they were any distance inside, there would be only such light as was afforded by gas jets.
    “Stay close to me,” Sutton warned. “There’s lots o’ folk down ’ere, an’ most is ’armless enough, but the livin’ is ’ard an’ people fight for a scrap o’ food or a yard o’ space, so don’t do nothin’ but look.”
    She kept pace with him obediently. The light became dimmer as they progressed. The air took on a hazy quality, and she was acutely aware of the damp on her skin and the changed smell. The ceiling was far higher than she had expected and after a few yards it was lost from sight, giving a sensation of being closed in that was felt rather than seen. She knew that only a little farther on above it was the teeming, filthy water of the Thames. She refused to dwell on how the arch resisted the weight of earth and then the river itself, not to mention the currents and the tides.
    The air smelled stale and was bitterly cold. But then one would hardly heat the tunnel with fires. There was no possible ventilation here. To create any sort of outlet to the open air would undermine the safety of the tunnel. If it fell in, they would be entombed here forever!
    Hester chided herself for the ridiculous thought. If you were dead, they buried you anyway, so what difference would it make? Or