He was awakened three hours later by the sound of giggling accompanied by several sharp prods in the region of his chest and stomach. 'Wake up! We be in (hic!) Brummagen soon.' The widow was jabbing at him with the stick and giggling, her fat head wobbly with her mirth and she drooled like a well-fed infant. 'Wakey-wakey!'

Ikey sat up quickly, dazed from insufficient sleep. It was by no means the first time in his life that he'd been prodded awake with the point of a stick, and he immediately imagined himself to be in a prison cell, for the smell was much the same and the ride had become unaccountably smooth, so much so that, to his blunted senses, the coach appeared not to be moving at all.

In fact, the coach was completing the last mile into the centre of Birmingham by way of the new road composed of a material known as macadam. This was a tar-like substance as used for caulking vessels. It was heated until it was treacle-like and ran easily, whereupon it was poured upon a bed of small stones (the men who mixed it might use no stone larger than one they could roll on their tongue and still repeat: 'God save the King!'). The substance was soaked into the stony surface and while steaming was compressed with a large steamroller and allowed to dry smooth and hard. The result was a surface impervious to the most inclement weather and upon which any manner of wagon or coach wheel could travel. All was made without the need for skilled labour and at a fraction of the cost of the quarrying, shaping and laying of cobblestones.

Ikey's mind was not tuned to dullness and he was soon aware of his surroundings. The widow, satisfied that she'd done her Christian duty and wakened him, did the same for Tweedle. He sat up groaning and holding his head in both hands, eyes bloodshot and his hair standing up in untidy tufts. 'Oh my Gawd!' he moaned.

Ikey stared out of the coach window at the houses, some with chimneys already smoking in the early light, growing more and more numerous and close-built as they approached the city centre and the coach terminus. Staging posts, particularly at the terminus from one great metropolis to another, were much inhabited by the watchful eyes of the law as well as those of informers hoping to earn a few shillings for spotting a known villain. Ikey's fondest hope was that he would be allowed to skulk unnoticed from the scene into the nearest darkened lane, and thereafter to a nearby rookery where he would be free from the ever curious attentions of any members of the law or the underworld.

He now became concerned with the presence of Tweedle. His earlier anxiety returned and Ikey imagined him to be a law man who would elicit the aid of a waiting law officer from the Birmingham constabulary to arrest him, his task while on the coach simply being to keep a watchful eye on him lest he take his departure before reaching the city.

Ikey was tired and his senses somewhat blunted. He told himself one moment that he was imagining the danger, and the next that he should have reasoned it out long before this and left the coach when they'd stopped to change horses at a village during the night. Caution, with its partner suspicion, being his more natural instinct, Ikey decided he would make a dash for it the moment the coach drew to a complete standstill.

Ikey carried no personal baggage. In fact, Ikey's taking a chance that a highwayman might waylay the coach during the night journey was not as courageous as it might have outwardly seemed. Highwaymen seldom shoot their victims and Ikey had no fear of robbery, for he'd carried in his purse coin sufficient only to purchase the coach ticket and to eat frugally and pay for his accommodation for a day or two upon his arrival, with a little left over for miscellaneous expenses. A secret pocket under the armpit of his coat contained fifty pounds, though a highwayman would need to remove the coat and most carefully dissect its lining to find this. To be robbed of what he superficially possessed would have been no serious matter. He carried only a cheap watch and chain and a small cut-throat razor and the deeds to the house in Bell Alley, a paper which would make no sense to a common robber. Also resting in a pocket was the key to his home in Whitechapel.

It being so close to Christmas, this absence of serious cash on Ikey would have been somewhat surprising. Anyone who knew him was aware that he would often carry a thousand pounds on his person, for the season's pickings would be exceedingly good and ready cash was what was needed to make the most of the many opportunities certain to come his way. But, this time in Birmingham, Ikey was playing for much bigger stakes than the fencing of a few bright baubles taken in the Christmas crowds.

The coach drew at last to a standstill, the coachman laying aside his horn and shouting, 'Whooa! Whooa!' to the wild-eyed beasts in the time-honoured way. The horses thus brought to a stop shook their heads in a jingle of brasses, champed at the bit and stamped their feet on the hard surface of the road. Their coats were lathered with sweat from their final gallop and their nostrils snorted smoky air.

The coach official opened the door on the widow's side. 'Oh me Gawd!' he exclaimed fanning his nose. He immediately turned to the waiting crowd. 'Anyone come for a show freak?' he yelled. 'If 'e is, she be blind, 'opeless drunk! Need ter fetch cart and oxen, or special sprung carriage. She'll not be walkin', I can tell 'e that for sure and absolute certain!'

The widow reached out and took the unfortunate official by the collar of his coat and pulled the top half of him backwards into the coach so that his head lay upon her lap.'

'Ullo, dearie, fancy a kiss?' she said, then burped loudly into the man's astonished face.

Ikey glanced quickly at Tweedle, who sat frozen upright looking directly out of the window, trying to ignore the bizarre antics of the drunken woman and the wildly struggling and whimpering official.

Taking advantage of the confusion, Ikey quietly unlatched the coach door on his side, leaving it ajar. Then he rose and lifted the still surprisingly heavy hamper and placed it down upon an astonished Tweedle's lap, quite preventing him from rising in pursuit should he take it in his mind to do so, whereupon he pushed the door open and stepped through it. But alas, his coat caught on the sharp corner of the small door and pulled him back. Ikey pulled desperately at the coat and a six-inch tear appeared in the thick wool as he wrenched it free, and then dashed into the dark shadow cast by the terminus building. In a few moments he had escaped up a narrow alleyway which ran between the stage coach terminal and the building beside it.

Ikey's immediate destination in Birmingham was not, as might normally have been the case, one of the more notorious flash-houses nor thieves' kitchens where he might be expected to take up temporary residence, but to a stabling property on the outskirts of the city.

This large, unprepossessing building of rough-hewn stone had all the appearances of a farmhouse. It was set on the road to the village of Coleshill, with stables on the ground level for several horses and above it two additional storeys, which a visitor might naturally suppose was the owner's residence. However, in this instance, the large building was much, much more than a simple farmhouse and might even have been called a kind of factory, a paper and ink factory to give this most improper and anonymous business a proper name.

The property belonged to Silas Browne Esq., outwardly a respected horse dealer but to those in the know, one of the greatest forgers of soft in the land. He was a man of great ingenuity and reputation known to all who dealt in a serious manner in good forged banknotes throughout England and continental Europe.