At her lodgings, they protested when he went to depart by himself. “I go for information alone, not action,” he said. “I will return with the dawn.” He left them fallen together on the one bed as if slain.
He chose to swing slightly from the direct course, crossed the Fleet on Holborn Bridge, bore through the Churchyard of St. Bartholomew the Less rather than enter the City by the gate nearest Pitman’s address. For that entrance was Newgate, and it was part of the prison of the same name. He’d always avoid it if he could, ever since a gypsy had discovered on his palm that he would only see its outside thrice more before he saw it from within. So instead he took lanes and alleys that roughly paralleled the Wall until he reached the next entryway, Aldersgate, the extra distance costing him,
