India Black Read Online Free PDF

unison and resumed their slumbers.
    I waited breathlessly for a moment, my eyes searching futilely through the inky blackness. Trying to dispose of a dead body and trawling through one of London’s most dangerous neighborhoods at midnight had made me a trifle jumpy. But there was nothing to see and nothing more to be heard, and so I turned to resume my slow journey through the passage.
    A hand encircled my wrist, and a foul, gin-scented breath gusted around my face. “This ain’t no place for a lady to be at this time o’ night.” A soft laugh echoed off the glistening walls. “’Course, you bein’ no lady, you got no cause for concern.”
    “Vincent, you little blighter,” I hissed, extracting my wrist from his grasp.
    “What brings you out on a night like this, India?”
    “I’ve a job for you. Is there somewhere we can talk privately?”
    Vincent took possession of my wrist again and drew me along in his wake, stepping with caution among the sleeping figures until we reached the end of the alley and saw the dark bulk of St. Margaret’s looming before us.
    “This way,” said Vincent, leading me past the entrance to the church and around the side to a set of stairs that disappeared into the gloom below street level. “Wait here,” my guide instructed me, and I heard him descend as cautiously as a cat, feeling his way down the steps. After a few moments, a sullen yellow glow filled the landing at the bottom of the stairs, and Vincent appeared with a bull’s-eye lantern in his hand, beckoning me to join him. He cracked open the door that led into the cellar of the church, and I followed him into a dank, airless passage that Vincent had adopted as his own. The light from the lantern revealed a roll of damp blankets, the end of a loaf of bread, a dried scrap of cheese, and a half-empty bottle of gin.
    “Very cozy,” I said.
    “It’ll do when my reg’lar lodgings at the Ritz ain’t available.”
    Vincent set the bull’s-eye on the floor and sank gracefully to a sitting position on the bedroll. “’Ave a seat, m’ dear,” he offered, like a gentleman, nudging the blanket beside him, “and tell me why you’ve walked out on such a night.”
    The floor was streaked with grime, and the passage smelled of must and mildew. I’d no intention of getting my taffeta anywhere near the floor, nor the blanket, either, which was likely home to a colony of fleas. “Thank you, no. I’ll only be a minute.”
    Vincent shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He picked up a piece of wood and a knife, and began slowly planing its surface, affecting a cool disinterest in the purpose of my journey. In the lamplight, he looked all of ten years old, which he might well have been, though I believed him to be fourteen, at least, if not older; the lack of fresh air and decent food, sleeping rough and fighting to survive the streets of London tended to stunt the growth of most street urchins. The do-gooders were forever trying to whip up sympathy for the poor, rescuing some innocent with the face of an angel from the streets, washing his face, dressing him in a set of stiff new clothes, teaching him how to say the Lord’s Prayer and showing him off as the very model of an enlightened attitude toward the poverty-stricken. But the do-gooders would have taken one look at Vincent, averted their eyes and scuttled past.
    He wasn’t cherubic, or handsome, sweet, kind or humble. He was toad-faced, quarrelsome and cunning, with the heart of a mercenary. His voice could crack windows, and he could drink a navvy under the table. There wasn’t a dirtier boy in London, and that’s saying something, that is. In summer, he attracted more flies than a Cairo camel market, and in winter you could just tolerate being in the same room with him provided the fire was low and the window cracked open. He was an incorrigible little snoop, as skilled as any of Her Majesty’s spies at ferreting out useful bits of information, and not at all reluctant to