Shanghai Sparrow Read Online Free Page B

housekeeper had remained chilly and disinclined to be charmed, but one of the maids, sufficiently bribed, had managed to procure him a picture of the family: the mother, father, daughter and a wrapped bundle of lace that was presumably the younger child. It was faded, but the features were sufficiently clear. They had run away, and London was the nearest place they might have reached, other than small villages in which they would immediately have been spotted.
    Acquiring the machines had been comparatively simple. The things were not regarded as of particular value. Money in the right hands, a suggestion that Her Majesty’s Government would be grateful for cooperation in the matter, and the mechanisms were his. The rest of the estate would no doubt be tied up in probate for months or years while the search for a relative – any relative – went on.
    Then it had been a matter of time, money and persistence. He had a sufficiency of the first two, and an exceptional amount of the last. Honour among thieves there might be, but Holmforth found that the right combination of money and threat could make it evaporate like morning dew.
    The girl’s background had been respectable. If she had not fallen too far into degeneracy, she might still be useful to the Empire. But if she had no Etheric talent, she would be of no use to him. His hands clenched.
     
     
    E VVIE DAWDLED AWAY from the park, walking as though she’d not a care in the world, until a steam hansom came chuffing and rumbling along behind her. A quick glance told her it had cut her off from the sight of Grey-Coat – she grabbed the wheel-arch and lifted her feet, holding on grimly. Her hands were the strongest part of her. Luckily for her, the driver was sloppy with keeping his vehicle up – the arch had been a while between polishings, and the grime helped her grip. The driver, humming to himself, didn’t notice her; and the cab was empty of any passengers who might have raised a fuss. She briefly considered trying to slide inside, but though the driver might not notice her clinging like a monkey to the outside of his cab, he’d be pretty sure to notice the door opening. Instead she waited until they passed an alleyway and dropped to the ground, landing at a run, ducking into the smelly, narrow space and pelting like a hare for the other end. She made swift, not entirely random jigs and turns, nipped into a pub and out the back, through another four or five turns, keeping up the pace until she felt safe enough to glance behind her.
    No sign of Grey-Coat. She wiped her hands on the rag she’d lifted from the pub kitchen, smoothed her hair, raised her chin, and sashayed, grinning, along the back alleys towards Limehouse, Ma Pether’s, and home.
     
     
    “ N IHAO , E VVIE !” A young man in the green and gold uniform of the Brighart Steam Transport Company waved at Eveline as he balanced easily on top of a pile of crates. “How are you today?” Behind him one of the ships gave a great blaring whoop and a blurt of steam. Chains and crates clashed and creaked and groaned.
    “ Nihao , Liu!” Eveline dropped a brief curtsey. Liu had been hanging around for the last month, as his ship underwent apparently endless repairs. The first time he had called out to her, she had ignored him. The third, she had sighed and made a rude gesture. The fifth time he had not called out at all, but had dropped a little parcel in front of her, of bamboo wrapped in a green silk ribbon. She had picked it up suspiciously. It turned out to contain a small figurine of a grinning fox carved in pale green stone, nestled in silk padding.
    She had turned around and glared at him. “I’m not in that game,” she said. “So you can take this back.” She thrust the figurine at him, not without regret. It was a very pretty thing. Automatically, she wondered what its value was; she had seen something like it in a fancy shop off Regent Street, but didn’t know if it was of the same