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rightly pointed out, Thornton was a man who told lies as a matter of habit. Hartley had certainly never voiced any doubt as to Thornton’s guilt. Jasper snorted. Then again, Hartley had been busy with a new wife, Lady Emeline Gordon—Jasper’s first fiancée.

    Jasper looked up and realized that he’d come to Skinner Street, which led directly into Newgate Street. The imposing ornamental gate of the prison arched over the road. The prison had been rebuilt after the Great Fire and was suitably decorated with statues representing such fine sentiments as peace and mercy. But the closer one drew to the prison, the more ominous the stench became. The air seemed heavy, laden with the foul odors of human excrement, disease, rot, and despair.

    One leg of the arch terminated in the keeper’s lodge. Jasper dismounted in the courtyard outside.

    A guard lounging beside the door straightened. “Back are ye, milord?”

    “Like a bad penny, McGinnis.”

    McGinnis was a fellow veteran of His Majesty’s army and had lost an eye in some foreign place. A rag was wrapped about his head to hide the hole, but it’d slipped to reveal red scarring.

    The man nodded and yelled into the lodge. “Oy, Bill! Lord Vale ’as come again.” He turned back to Jasper. “Bill’ll be ’ere in two ticks, milord.”

    Jasper nodded and gave the guard a half crown, insurance that the mare would still be in the yard when he returned. He’d quickly figured out on his first visit to this dismal place that extravagantly bribing the guards made the entire experience much simpler.

    Bill, a runty little man with a thick shock of iron-gray hair, soon came out of the lodge. He held the badge of his trade in his right hand: a large iron ring of keys. The little man hunched a shoulder at Jasper and crossed the yard to the prison’s main entrance. Here, a huge overhanging doorway was decorated with carved manacles and the biblical quote VENIO SICUT FUR — I come as a thief . Bill hunched his shoulder at the guards who stood about by the portal and led the way inside.

    The smell was worse here, the air stale and unmoving. Bill trotted ahead of Jasper, through a long corridor and outside again. They crossed a large courtyard with prisoners milling around or huddled in clumps like refuse washed upon a particularly dismal shore. They passed through another, smaller building, and then Bill led the way to the stairs that emptied into the Condemned Hold. It was belowground, as if to give the prisoners a taste of the hell they would soon spend eternity in. The stairs were damp, the stone worn smooth by many despairing feet.

    The subterranean corridor was dim—the prisoners paid for their own candles here, and the prices were inflated. A man was singing, a low, sweet dirge that every now and again rose on a high note. Someone coughed and low voices quarreled, but the place was mostly quiet. Bill stopped before a cell that held four occupants. One lay on a pallet in the corner, most likely asleep. Two men played cards by the light of a single flickering candle.

    The fourth man leaned against the wall near the bars but straightened when he saw them.

    “A lovely afternoon, isn’t it, Dick?” Jasper called out as he neared.

    Dick Thornton cocked his head. “I wouldn’t know, would I?”

    Jasper tsked softly. “Sorry, old man. Forgot you can’t see the sun much from in here, can you?”

    “What do you want?”

    Jasper regarded the man behind the bars. Thornton was an ordinary man of middling height with a pleasant, if forgettable, face. The only thing that made him stand out in the least was his flaming red hair. Thornton knew damn well what he wanted—Jasper had asked often enough in the past. “Want? Why, nothing. I’m merely passing the time, seeing the sweet sights of Newgate.”

    Thornton grinned and winked, the facial expression like a strange tic he couldn’t control. “You must think me a fool.”

    “Not at all.” Jasper eyed the