The rough, calloused hands of Mr Sikes shoved Miss Nightingale forward, sending her tripping on her skirts and stumbling through a doorway. The heavy oak slammed shut behind her with a resounding boom, followed immediately by the sharp, metallic snap of the lock mechanism engaging.
Inside the room, the air hung still and slightly stale. A jade lantern cast a flickering shadow across the gold silk-covered walls. In one corner sat a low bed, draped in scarlet sheets embroidered with a fine golden thread woven into intricate shapes of exotic creatures. Her eyes traced their coiled, sinuous, almost serpentine forms, recognising them as the same oriental dragons that adorned the Royal Pavilion in Brighton.
A carpet of gaudy red, thick and plush underfoot, covered the floor. It was woven with scenes of the same creatures as the covers, writhing and coiling themselves around buildings and trees. The forms seemed to twist and squirm in the trembling light. The dragons appeared almost alive, their bodies slithering left and right, their claws grabbing and jaws snapping in the dancing shadows.
It was all obviously just a trick of the light, or perhaps the lingering opium smoke was starting to dull her senses.
Miss Nightingale cast her eyes over the room, trying not to allow herself to imagine its usual, sordid purpose.
There were no windows in the walls. Crossing to the door, she firmly rattled the cold brass handle. As expected, it was most certainly locked.
Settling herself on a dark lacquered stool, her eyes catching for a moment on the cold, cast-iron emptiness of the fireplace. A fleeting, warm rush of hope rose in her chest, only to be quickly banished. She had heard far too many heartbreaking accounts of poor children from destitute families being sent to climb narrow chimneys to sweep them, only to become stuck in that soot-choked darkness and perish. If a small child could get wedged so easily, what hope did a grown woman have of ever squeezing through to freedom?
“I tells ya, Mr Crackit. This ain’t right,” Mr Sikes said as his heavy boots hardly made a sound on the soft carpet. “We should be out there smackin’ skulls. Not playing wet nurse to a couple of toffs.”
“We just do what the boss tells us, Mr Sikes,” Mr Crackit said, his hand absently fiddling with the frayed gold rope at the shoulder of his jacket. Mr Crackit was very proud of his jacket, a trophy Mr Sikes had gifted him after they had bumped off some old naval captain in Chatham. “When this is all done, and he hands over the shiners, we’ll sort ourselves out a proper job. Something that really suits our finesse.”
“Yeah, Mr Crackit, something that suits our finesse,” Mr Sikes grumbled, cracking his knuckles loudly. “So long as I get to gut some nobs, I’ll be happy enough.”
Mr Sikes was right; such trivial work was far beneath such a pair of fine gentlemen with their unique skills. But the boss had offered up some serious brass. Besides, when someone like that knocks on your door and gives you a job, you can’t exactly refuse. Not unless you want your head served up on a silver platter, and Mr Crackit was rather fond of his head.
The iron key clicked sharply in the lock as Mr Crackit turned it.
“Just give ‘er the grub so we can get out of here,” he said, turning his single eye on his companion.
Mr Sikes threw open the door and, holding a bowl of what Mr Crackit could only describe as gooey sting, stepped into the room.
“Mr Crackit, she’s gone!” came the booming cry.
“Gone, Mr Sikes?” Mr Crackit spat, rushing past him and into the room. “How in blazes can she be gone?”
But sure enough, she was gone. The two men’s eyes darted frantically around the room, but it was as empty as that dead captain’s pockets.
Mr Crackit tore away the silk sheets while Mr Sikes upended the heavy bedframe and tossed it against the wall with a splintering crash, but there was no sign of the wretched girl. Cursing, Mr Sikes seized the dark lacquered stool and slammed it against the floor, shattering its legs like kindling. Next, he lunged for the fine silk wall hangings, ripping them from their tacks to reveal nothing but bare, crumbling plaster beneath.
Together they heaved up the thick red carpet, but all they found there were stained floorboards.
As impossible as it seemed, the room was completely bare.
Baffled and enraged, the two men stalked out of the room, their angry curses echoing down the corridor.
Miss Nightingale pressed the cool, camphor-soaked handkerchief firmly against her nose. The rough brickwork dug into her back while her boots scraped against the opposite wall of the flue, finding just enough purchase to wedge her in place.
The acrid sting of the soot tickled her nostrils, but she dared not make a sound, not until she was sure that the two men were gone, not until their profanity-laden voices had faded into nothing. Not until the only sound left was that of her own heart beating in her ears.
Every muscle in her legs screamed from the agonising effort of holding her weight suspended in the smoke box above the large fireplace. The chimney might be too narrow for her to climb, but this opening, just above the fire and out of view of the rampaging thugs, was just large enough to accommodate her.
Only when she was sure that they had gone, did she let herself slide back down the narrow throat of the chimney, her boots finally finding the cold hearth with a dull thud.
The room was in tatters. The wall silks were torn and scattered across the floor, crinkling softly under her boots while the bed and the stool were little more than firewood littering the floorboards. But Miss Nightingale barely spared them a second glance, nor did she take much notice of the thick soot that blackened her hands and covered her dress. She knew she had to find Mr Dickens; the Good Lord alone knew what sort of desperate predicament the foolish man had stumbled into this time.
She quickly made her way to the door, a door which creaked on its one remaining hinge.
Suddenly, Miss Nightingale froze, her chest tightening in an icy grip, her breath hitching in her throat.
A sound in the passage outside the door, the whisper of movement. Her ears strained, wondering if perhaps she had imagined it. But no, there it was again. The unmistakable, soft pat of footsteps growing steadily closer. Her eyes desperately searched the ruined room, sliding over the bare brick and crumbling plaster. There was no way out, and no time to retreat back into the fireplace.
Her fists clenched, her nails dug into her palms painfully, while her eyes were set firm on the doorway. A single bead of cold sweat traced a slow path between her shoulder blades.
A dark shadow crossed the threshold, long and twisting in the flickering light, stretching into the room.
Stumbling backwards, she held her breath as a figure materialised in the doorway, hunched over and wrapped in the deep crimson of a silk robe.