“When were you last on the Toby, Lightning?” Kate lay on the bed with a bottle of gin in one hand and a glass in the other. “Our blunt is nearly gone.” She clicked her lucky brass button against the bottle and smiled across at him.
“It must be nearly a month now,” Bowlt said. “His Lordship will be pressing me to pay my lodgings soon.”
“So will I!” Kate scolded him. “Is anything happening down below?”
Bowlt rolled back the length of painted canvas that acted as a rug, lay prone and pressed his eye to the hole he had bored in the floorboards. “I can see about twenty people in the taproom, mostly of no account.”
“Mostly?” Kate repeated.
“Only one man looks interesting,” Bowlt reported. “Maybe country gentry or a lawyer. Somebody with a heavy purse, anyway.”
“Let me see.” Kate nudged Bow
