Laura Swanson

Chapter 9: Flint and Finality

Newgate’s stones wept fog-condensation like the guilty sweat of condemned men, but Josiah Harlan did not sleep sound in his solitary cell—not tonight, with flint primed and finality whispering through the iron bars like a Salzgitter wind. Victorian London slumbered uneasy under gaslit watch, its spires piercing the snow-laced fog as Old Bailey’s mistrial chaos still roiled from Hargrove’s bribe exposure two days prior. Caldwell and Tessa remained chained in limbo, their verdict fogged thicker than Thames pea-souper, while Eleanor Vance’s blood crusted dry on Orpheum Persian rugs upstairs. Laura Swanson, 34 and forged in the unyielding Prussian winters of her Salzgitter youth, felt the anomaly sharpen to a razor’s edge—a prickle at her nape as phantom heat lingered in her flintlock’s barrel from the Vance shot. Blue Hour Holdings had cracked wide but proved resilient as cockroach shell, Harlan’s parting sneer through Newgate lattice (“S.C. heir pulls eternal”) knotting fresh patterns amid the relentless fog. Her chatelaine pouch hung heavy with powder horn, wadding, and spare flints, finality her shadowed constant since Mercer Street’s cyanide vial.

Rented rooms above the chophouse reeked of yesterday’s black coffee grounds, spilled coal soot from the grate, and the ever-present Thames fog clawing insistent through cracked casements like Harlan’s own bony fingers testing locks. No penny post boy’s pre-dawn rattle disturbed the hush at 5 a.m.—silence screamed louder than any Yard whistle. Laura dressed with deliberate calm in wool greatcoat and hobnailed half-boots, flintlock drawn for ritual check: pan scraped pristine and primed dry with fresh powder, frizzen honed keen as Black Forest steel, steel screw tightened firm from lessons beaten into her by Salzgitter gunsmith kin. Patterns demanded immediate action; Harlan’s tic of counterclockwise-filed sewer grates and his “collateral multiplies loose ends” jab from the cell bars pointed to one inevitable play—a preemptive strike before Old Bailey reconvened at noon under the new empanelled judge. Growler cab hailed through predawn murk to Newgate’s looming bulk, hooves muffled deep on fog-slick cobbles, her mind tracing the S.C. heir’s shadowy silhouette in the Old Bailey gallery boxes, signet ring glinting faint amid the Chartist jeers.

Bow Street Yard gates loomed black and unyielding; no chaos erupted yet, turnkeys dozing slack at their posts with pipe embers glowing faint like dying stars. Laura slipped a silver farthing and a hissed whisper to the bleariest-eyed: “Harlan’s solitary cell—quiet check, no bells.” Her half-boots fell silent on the damp stone corridors, lantern hooded low to shadows, reaching the wing unchallenged by the somnolent guard rotation. Harlan’s heavy cell door stood ajar a mere finger’s width—finality’s grim first cue, hinge greased fresh with whale oil. Inside, irons lay empty and twisted on the filthy flags, pins filed mirror-smooth by master hand, straw mattress undisturbed as virgin snow. The sewer grate in the corner yawned mockingly open, edges counterclockwise filed mere hours fresh, faint mud trail snaking toward the Thames spew-point. A ciphered scrap clung to the slate shelf: Caesar-three shift decoding crisp to “Flint ends patterns. S.C. heir fires first. Loose ends burn. J.H.“—the bastard had anticipated her lone-wolf move, patterns mirroring his own serpentine mind.

No time wasted summoning Bell’s blundering truncheons; Laura traced the hobnailed bootprints solo to Blackfriars mudflats, her greatcoat blending seamless into the fog as her cloak. Hobnailed scars—Harlan’s bespoke Afghan-leather soles, pocked from Khyber Pass rocks—led straight to a rowboat’s fresh drag-mark in the slime, oarlocks greased silent with tallow. Mudlark urchins stirred in their barrel hovels at her approach; a farthing and hard stare bought a piping rasp: “Greatcoat gent rowed to Limehouse lighter, miss—flintlock bulge heavy under arm, muttered ‘finality for the widow’s avenger’ like a curse.” False dawn broke over Limehouse by 6:30, its opium dens pulsing thick haze from poppy lamps, Chinese silk lanterns swaying pendulous like fresh-hanged nooses in the wind. Her Prussian ear, honed on Salzgitter Yiddish alleys, caught the mutter trail amid the babble: “Operator seeks warlord flint—S.C. gold buys the shot that ends her.”

Bell’s Black Friar penny post boy tailed unseen at distance—his one loyal shadow in this fraying truce. Laura primed her flintlock full en route: powder measure poured precise, .58 ball seated firm with mallet-tap, ramrod thrust home swift and sure. The target den’s back door splintered inward under her bootheel with a resonant c***k; Harlan whirled feral from a velvet divan strewn with spent poppy pipes, derringer half-drawn from embroidered sleeve, his gaunt face lit satanic by pipe-glow flicker, signet ring engraved deep “Flint & Finality.” Beside him lounged the S.C. heir—Senator Caldwell’s rakehell son, 22 and Mayfair-oiled slick, pearl-handled flintlock gleaming on their shared opium table, eyes glassy but predatory.

“Patterns end in flint, Swanson,” Harlan rasped through haze-thickened throat, derringer rising steady despite the gaunt shake. “S.C. heir pulls Blue Hour eternal—your noose swings at noon.”

Laura’s barrel spoke first—thunderous c***k split the choking haze, .58 ball punching clean through Harlan’s shoulder silk, exiting posterior in crimson spray that painted shattered poppy lamps vivid. He staggered back against the wall, derringer barking wild—a grazing ball singing past her ear to bury in lathe. S.C. heir fumbled his pearl grip in opium-sodden panic, eyes glazing wide: “Father’s ghost deeds are mine now—Blue Hour gold eternal!” His low shot splintered divan velvet; Laura sidestepped eel-smooth as Thames current, second shot primed mid-stride with thumb-flick: flash-pan roar, heir’s left knee shattered to ruin, pearl-handled flintlock clattering free across blood-slick boards. Harlan lunged clawing desperate, but her bootheel ground his derringer wrist to c***k, weapon skittering into shadows.

Bell burst through the splintered door truncheon-high at that instant, Bow Street runners flooding the den like ravens: “Post boy tipped true—flint finality in Limehouse!” Fresh irons clapped double—Harlan snarling blood-frothed curses, S.C. heir mewling piteous on the floorboards clutching his mangled knee. Laura pocketed Harlan’s signet ring—final cipher key etched “Blue Hour Eternal”—and the sewer-grate scrap, patterns now knotted full: Caldwell’s torn ledger page (“E.V. -> S.C.“) decoded complete under the ring’s glyphs.

Bow Street wagons ground through Limehouse muck to Newgate by noon sharp, Old Bailey resuming pristine under the new assizes judge as Hargrove rotted struck from bench. Harlan and heir dragged howling to dock beside Caldwell and Tessa—Blue Hour web knotted irrefutable. Laura testified from witness box crisp as Blackfriars frost: “Flint and finality: Harlan’s sewer flight counterclockwise filed, S.C. heir’s Blue Hour remnant ledgers, ciphered Afghan gold trail from Kabul graves to Mayfair shells.” Carver broke full under hot irons in adjacent cell: “Heir primed my cyanide vial personal—‘father’s collateral demands trim.’” Anna Holt unveiled the missing ledger page in court: “Ghost deeds notarised triple—senator, Harlan, heir all stamped by Hale.”

Gavel crashed vespers under flaring gaslights: guilty cascade absolute. Tessa Kline to Millbank’s penal servitude with slow cyanide drip her certain doom in stone jug solitude. Caldwell to Newgate’s dawn drop, parliamentary ghost swaying for rookery crows. Harlan consigned solitary eternal, shoulder ruin barring further sewer slips. S.C. heir freighted Botany Bay penal ships, leg sawn clean at surgeon’s table. Blue Hour shells hammered to worthless rag under magistrates’ relentless gavels, seized Afghan gold flowing Crown coffers.

Fog lifted grudging from Thames that eve. Laura and Bell toasted foaming Black Friar porter under warm gas mantles, her flintlock retired deep in chatelaine pouch at last. “Finality fired true as Prussian steel,” he grunted through damp whiskers, bullseye lantern dimmed idle.

“Patterns knot till flint snaps the last thread,” she allowed, sipping bitter slow, Harlan’s ring heavy trophy in her vest. Victory etched, but Salzgitter whispers hinted deeper operators lurking fog-veiled. London reset to its fog-indifferent rhythm; new ciphers brewed quiet in Thames mud whispers, waiting patient for her next powder measure.