Sutton put Snoot down and the little dog trotted obediently at his heels across the paved floor to the tunnel entrance. Because of the many windows there was plenty of light in this part, but Hester realized that as soon as they were any distance inside, there would be only such light as was afforded by gas jets.

"Stay close to me," Sutton warned. "There's lots o' folk down 'ere, an' most is 'armless enough, but the livin' is 'ard an' people fight for a scrap o' food or a yard o' space, so don't do nothin' but look."

She kept pace with him obediently. The light became dimmer as they progressed. The air took on a hazy quality, and she was acutely aware of the damp on her skin and the changed smell. The ceiling was far higher than she had expected and after a few yards it was lost from sight, giving a sensation of being closed in that was felt rather than seen. She knew that only a little farther on above it was the teeming, filthy water of the Thames. She refused to dwell on how the arch resisted the weight of earth and then the river itself, not to mention the currents and the tides.

The air smelled stale and was bitterly cold. But then one would hardly heat the tunnel with fires. There was no possible ventilation here. To create any sort of outlet to the open air would undermine the safety of the tunnel. If it fell in, they would be entombed here forever!

Hester chided herself for the ridiculous thought. If you were dead, they buried you anyway, so what difference would it make? Or perhaps Dante was right: death was not a ceasing to exist, but an endless journey through hell-a pit like this, full of strange, half-heard noises, whispers without words, not human anymore.

All senses were distorted. Damp clung in the nose and on the skin. There were gas jets on the walls, and in the dusklike light she could see people moving like shadows, most of them women. They seemed to be buying and selling, by touch as much as by sight in the flickering gloom, as if it were one nightmare arcade of stalls, a sort of hell's market. Sound was heavy and unnatural, a susurration of feet and skirts and snatches of voices.

"Don't stare!" Sutton warned her under his breath. "Yer 'ere ter catch rats, not sightseein', Miss 'Ester."

"I'm sorry," she apologized. "Who are they all? Do they come down here every day?"

"Most of 'em don't never go up," he answered. "We might 'ave 'alf a mile ter go."

"Whom are we looking for?"

They were keeping to the middle of the way, but as her eyes became accustomed to the gloom she was more aware of alcoves to the side. Those hollows must be where people might eat and sleep and-from the rank odor that now filled the air-conduct other aspects of their lives. It was a whole subterranean world, always damp and yet without natural water. She tried to ignore the scurrying of inhuman feet, the rattle of claws, or the pinpoint of red eyes in the shadows.

"People 'oo live in one tunnel often know things about other tunnels," Sutton said in answer to her question. "Everythin' 'ere 'as to be fetched from somewhere else. I'll find yer a tosher 'oo knows the 'idden rivers as well as the ones on the maps, an' mebbe someone 'oo knows a navvy or two 'oo's bin 'urt an' in't so quick to defend 'is old bosses. Jus' leave the askin' ter me, right?"

"Right." She said only the single word, keeping her voice low, as if the shadows could remember her. They continued deeper under the river, where the silence was broken only by voices so low that they seemed wordless amid the scraping and the hiss of the gas jets. Every now and then there was the clang of metal on metal or the duller thud of wood as someone worked. It was an eerie world where daylight was unknown.

Sutton pressed on, stopping now and then to greet someone by name, ask a question, make a wry, bitter joke. Hester hated it. There was no wind, no plants, no animals except rats and the occasional dog. Snoot trembled with excitement at the scent of so much prey, looking up at Sutton and waiting for the word that never came.

They had already spoken to five people and were nearly half a mile under the river when Sutton found the man he most wanted. In the yellow glare of the gas his face looked cast of metal. It was scarred down one side, his ear torn and his hair tufted where the scalp had been ripped away. He was lean, and his hands were gnarled and huge-knuckled with rheumatism.

" 'Alio, Sutton!" he said with surprise. "Not enough rats fer yer in the Palace, then?" He grinned, showing strong teeth.

" 'Alio, Blackie," Sutton replied. "I done such a good job they're all gorn. 'Ow are yer?"

"Stiff," Blackie replied with a shrug. "Can't get arter 'em fast enough no more. Got 'elp, 'ave yer?" He looked at Hester curiously.

"Not much use yet," Sutton told him. "But 'e'll do. In't built fer navvyin'."

Blackie looked at Hester thoughtfully, and she stared back at him, refusing to lower her eyes. Blackie laughed. It was a wheezy, cheerful sound. " 'Ope 'e's clever, then. 'E in't good fer much else, eh?"

Hester wanted to respond, but she remembered just in time that she could not mimic the accent she would have if she were really learning to be a ratcatcher. Nor could her voice sound like that of a boy of the height she was.

"Navvyin in't so clever." Sutton shook his head. "Too chancy these days. Railways are one thing, tunnels is 'nother."

"Yer damn right!" Blackie agreed.

Sutton looked at him closely. "Yer reckon one of 'em's goin' ter cave in, Blackie?"

"That's wot they're sayin'." Blackie curled his lip, making his lopsided face look less than human in the yellow light. "Word is 'em stupid sods is gonna keep on cuttin' till they cross a river an' drown 'alf the poor devils wot are diggin' there like a lot o' bleedin' moles."

Hester drew in her breath to ask him to be more specific, then gasped as Sutton kicked her sharply. She shut her mouth and bit her lip with pain to stop crying out.

" 'Oose works?" Sutton asked casually. "I don't wanna get caught in it."

"Go down, do yer?" Blackie squinted at him.

"Bin known ter," Sutton acknowledged. "Think it'll be Bracknell and 'is lot?"

"Mebbe. More like Paterson 's."

"Argyll?"

Blackie gave him a keen look. "You 'eard summink, 'ave yer?"

"Whispers. They true?"

"They move faster'n most, but Sixsmith's a canny bastard. Very careful, 'e is. But the engines wot 'e uses are big, an' stronger than most. I reckon they done summink ter 'em, made ' em better. Could slice through an old sewer wall an' bring a cave-in quick as spit."

Hester was aching to ask for details, but her leg was still smarting from where Sutton had kicked her.

"So I 'eard," Sutton agreed. "But I thought it were just daft talk o' some girl. 'Er pa were scared o' the dark or summink. Lost 'is nerve an' shot 'isself, they said. Mind, she never believed it. Said someone else done 'im in."

Blackie's eyes narrowed and he leaned forward sharply. "I'd keep yer face shut about that if I was you, Sutton," he said very quietly. "Stick ter rattin', eh? It's nice an' safe, an' yer know wot yer doin'. Don't go down no 'oles in the ground, an' don' go askin' no questions. O' course they 'ave safety rules, an' o' course they don' use 'em. Fastest one through gets the next contract, easy as that. Better buried alive fer maybe than starved or froze fer sure." He dropped his voice still further. "I owe yer, Sutton, an' I owed yer pa, so I'll tell yer for nothin'. Stick ter rattin'. It's clean an' yer don' upset no one but the rats. There's things about tunnels as yer don' want ter know, an' people in 'em sure as 'ell's burnin' yer don' want as should know you! One feller special, so keep yer nose ter yerself. Got it?"

Sutton nodded. "Mebbe yer right," he conceded. "Don't you go down no 'oles in the ground neither, Blackie. If they bump inter a river accidental, it in't gonna care that yer a tosher an' 'ave worked these ways all yer life. It'll come down there like a train, faster than a man can run, an' pushin' everythin' in front o' it."