CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Polidori’s sleep had been restless. The heat in his room had been stifling. He needed to get out of the townhouse. Out into the streets to make sense of his thoughts.
The evening came quickly.
He stepped from his carriage onto the sidewalk at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden. The night air was chilled, the cobbles shining from the early evening rain. Several dozen cabriolets and phaetons, their hoods up, stood in wait for the show to end. Valets and groomsmen attended their horses and ponies, the fresh, sweet scent of horse manure not unpleasant. Beggars and pickpockets lurked in alleyway shadows, hoping for a shiny penny or pocket watch from the well-to-do patrons, Polidori surmised. He kept a wary eye as he pulled a cigar from his pocket and lit it.
The monumental
