A Matter of Magic Read Online Free PDF Page B

forward, but the man was too strong. She was dragged quickly and quietly into a filthy alley beside the public house.
    She kicked backward, hard, and connected. The man made no sound, but his grip loosened, and Kim wrenched one arm free. She bit down on the hand covering her mouth and felt her captor jerk. Then she heard a whisper almost directly in her ear. “Kim! Stop it! It’s Mairelon.”
    Without thinking, Kim struck at the voice with her free hand. Then the words penetrated, and she hesitated. She couldn’t imagine what Mairelon might be doing in this part of town, but magicians were a queer lot, and she’d already decided that Mairelon was one of the queerest of them all. And who else would expect that name to have any weight with her?
    “It really is me, unlikely as it seems,” the whisper said. “If I let go, you won’t make a sound until you’re sure, will you? Nod if you agree.”
    Kim nodded, and the hands released their hold. She turned and found herself confronting the drunk who had caused so much trouble a few minutes before. He no longer seemed drunk in the least, though he still looked and smelled thoroughly unpleasant.
    Kim took a step backward. The man raised a warning hand and she stopped, peering at him. He was the right height for Mairelon, but he had no mustache and his face was half hidden by a layer of greasy dirt. Then he grinned, and Kim’s doubts vanished. Impossible as it seemed, this
was
Mairelon.
    She smiled back and he doffed his grimy cap and bowed with a stage magician’s flourish. She opened her mouth to ask what he was doing, and at once he held up a warning finger. She stepped closer, wondering even more what was behind his strange behavior.
    The creak of the public house door swinging open filtered into the alley. Mairelon flattened himself into a niche along one wall and motioned to Kim to do the same. She complied, still puzzled. Then she heard the skinny toff’s unmistakable whine.
    “—don’t expect such treatment! You haven’t heard the end of this!”
    “Mebbe,” the gravelly voice of the publican said. “And mebbe not. Evenin’.”
    Kim heard the door shut, then the toff muttering curses under his breath. A moment later came the incongruous sound of a small silver bell ringing.
    A large shadow passed the mouth of the alley. “There you are, Stuggs!” the toff said pettishly. “Did you catch the boy?”
    “I ain’t seen ’im,” said a deep, slow voice.
    “Not seen him? But he left just a few minutes ago.”
    “I ain’t seen ’im,” the second voice reiterated patiently.
    “You fool! He must have gone the other way.”
    “Couldn’t ’ave. Street’s blocked.”
    “Then he slipped by you in the dark. Idiot! Nothing has gone right tonight, simply nothing! We’ve spent five days tracing the wrong man, my clothes are ruined, and on top of everything else you let the boy escape!”
    “I never seen ’im. If I’d seen ’im, I’d a catched ’im.”
    “Oh, well. Under the circumstances, it hardly matters. But if it
had
been Merrill’s wagon, we would have needed the boy. You’re lucky.”
    Something in the man’s voice made Kim shrink back against the wall of the building, trying to become one with the bricks and half-timbering. Why were they so interested in her? Surely five pounds wasn’t worth such trouble to a swell!
    “You want I should look for ’im?” Stuggs’s deep voice said and Kim held her breath.
    “Weren’t you listening? There’s no need; he didn’t find anything. And I’m not going to stand here smelling like a brewery while you blunder about. Come on.”
    Footsteps clicked against the cobblestones, passing the end of the alley. Gradually they died away, but Kim did not move until she heard the distant rattle of carriage wheels. Then she looked across at Mairelon.
    The magician motioned to her and started off, but instead of heading back out to the lane, he went farther into the alley. Kim followed with some trepidation.