Just enough time to find the man Bowles.
The cellar darkness hid their expressions. Pity, that. He rather enjoyed the looks that crossed their faces when he sat before them on his keg and made sport of their idiocy.
Tall Postle stepped closer into the flickering candlelight. “Next time, sir, we’ll be gettin’ the girl ’fore she gets away.”
“You will, eh?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Is that a promise?”
“He hain’t got the right to give no promises.” Breage, shorter and dumpier than his partner, uttered a mild oath. “We could ’ave gotten free of that place, clean free, if Tall Postle ’ere would ’ave shut up the bleedin’ mouth of that hollerin’ woman.”
“Then your temporary confinement in Weltworth might have been avoided?”
Breage started to answer, then blew air out of his cheeks.
Tall Postle hung his head.
“This is grave news indeed. I greatly despise hearing of unwise decisions in moments of great importance.” Bowles hopped from his keg. “Well, Tall Postle? What have you to say for yourself?”
“I didn’t see wot good there be in killin’ the old woman.”
“How very touching. Anything else?”
The man’s giant forehead crinkled. He breathed heavily.
“You seem as if something else is on your mind. Pray, do tell. Breage and I are very interested, I dare to say.”
“I want out.”
“Out?”
The man raised his face, met Bowles’ eyes, and set his jaw firm. “I be done with the killin’. I be done with the opium. I be done with all of it.”
“You are a brave man, my friend.”
Veins bulged in his neck, and the large, calloused hands shook as they waited. As they waited for David Bowles. As they waited for punishment or mercy from the only one who could forgive his sins or cleanse him from them.
Bowles grinned. “Your courage amuses me. For what it is worth now, your wife amused me too.”
The man blanched.
“Until I, let us say, introduced her to the gypsy when I was finished.”
Now every vein protruded, until the man’s filthy skin turned red beneath the dirt and grime. His chin shook, his arms quivered, but he only said in steely words, “I be free to go?”
“Oh yes, do not let me detain you. You are quite free indeed.” He nodded to Breage. “Do bid him goodbye.”
The shorter man clasped Tall Postle’s hand, grim faced, and turned away.
Then Tall Postle went for the door. He moved slowly, awkwardly, each step making a scratching music against the stone floor.
Bowles reached into his boot, pulled out the knife, and flipped his wrist.
A cry hit the air. The man’s back arched, but he stumbled through the door and must have made it halfway up the stairs when his mercy ran out. His body thumped back to the floor.
“Now get rid of the body and tell Swabian if Eliza is not eliminated soon I shall spill his blood along with Tall Postle’s.”
