Chapter 17
The patch of battle fog, as Patrick Woolford called it, was a block where a narrow street led off Pall Mall and then became little more than a crooked alley that connected to St. James’s Street with a sharp turn. For the past three days Franklin had played his part well, emerging from Craven Street to climb into the same hired coach, then instructing the driver to take him on his prescribed “touring circuit” to Whitehall, a circular route that took him up to Piccadilly on St. James’s Street, then back through Green Park, where he called on the driver to pause while he admired a particular bird or tree. Once he even got out to retrieve, with exaggerated exclamations, a huge plane tree leaf. The watchers in black boots, some wearing cloaks, some in workman’s clothes, had no troub
