“They ain’t in th’ office, sir,” piped a shrill voice. “They don’t gen’rally open up ’fore noon.”

Charles turned to see a ragged boy of ten or eleven. The rain that had succeeded the earlier drizzle had ceased, but there was still a fine mist in the air, and the boy’s hair and clothing were thoroughly wet. He was pushing a muddy wooden barrow into which a twig cage, bound with leather thongs, had been haphazardly set. The cage contained three twittering ferrets pushing frantically against the bars.

Charles went back down the steps to the street, followed by Jack Murray. “You know Mr. Day, then?” Charles asked.

The boy nodded vigorously, set down his barrow with a thud, and pushed his wet hair off his forehead. “If y’er ’ere to place a bet, sir, yer might go round th’ back an’ ring. Sobersides ’as a room upstairs. If ’e’s in, ’e’ll take care o’ yer.”

Charles reached into his pocket for a coin. “Thank you,” he said. “Do you live nearby?”

“Back there, in a room, sir, wiv me mother an’ brothers, sir.” Pocketing the coin, the boy pointed down a dark passageway between two brick buildings across the street. At the end of the passageway was a dingy courtyard, and yet another building.

“I see,” Charles said. He looked down at the ferrets, which were scrambling over one another in their frantic efforts to escape. “I suppose you went out early this morning to tend your ferret traps, did you?” He paused. “I wonder if you saw anyone attempting to enter Mr. Day’s office.”

The boy gave this question some thought, seemed on the brink of speaking, then hesitated. Charles found another coin and proffered it. The boy took it eagerly.

“I wuz out at three, sir, ’fore the rain. Ferrets is ’ard t’ catch in the day. They sleeps then, down in their dens. So they ’as to be got before dawn.” He gestured toward the bookmaker’s establishment. “When I went out, there wuz two men comin’ round from th’ back, ’urryin’ like. Seemed odd t’me, sir, it bein’ the middle of the night, which is why I recollects it.”

Jack Murray, standing behind Charles, stepped forward. “What kind of men?” he asked. “Gentlemen?”

“Oh no, sir, not gentl’men, sir,” the boy said, “not from the way they talked. But ’twas too dark t’see ’oo they wuz.” He picked up the handles of his barrow. “If that’s all, sirs, I’ll be on me way. Mr. Thatcher ’as promised t’pay well fer th’ ferrets, fer th’ match tonight.”

Charles had never been to a ferret match, but he knew that the little creatures were set against rats, and wagers were laid as to how many they would kill. The caged animals were sleek and beautiful, and the thought that they would be used in bloody sport was utterly repugnant to him.

“How well does Mr. Thatcher pay you to fetch ferrets?” he asked.

“A crown apiece, sir!” the boy said proudly. “It’s a great deal more than ’e pays fer rats, which is wot I usu’lly sells ’im. When I kin, I sells ferrets, though they’re terr’ble ’ard to catch. Only thing that’ll get ’em into the traps is kippers.”

Charles squatted down beside the barrow, remembering that he had seen ferrets sold on the London streets for a pound each. Mr. Thatcher was not overgenerous with his ragged young ferret-finder.

“These are very fine ferrets,” he said. “Quite fat and amazingly strong-looking. I believe I fancy them myself. Would you take a guinea for the three of them?”

“A guinea!” The boy’s eyes grew large. “Oh, yes, sir! ’Deed I would, sir!”

Charles drew out his purse and fished through an assortment of copper, silver, and gold coins. He extracted a gold sovereign and a silver shilling and pressed them into the child’s hand. Then he picked up the wooden cage, set it on the street, and released the catch. The trio of ferrets pushed eagerly out, and were gone in an instant.

The boy’s face puckered and Charles thought he might cry. “But I thought yer wanted ’em, sir!” he cried, holding onto his fortune as if he feared it might be taken away from him. “An’ now they’re gone!”

“I wanted to see them run,” Charles said mildly, restoring the cage to the barrow. “They’re very fast, aren’t they?”

The boy looked down at the coins and quickly recovered himself. “Oh, ’deed they are, sir,” he said, “an’ fierce as kin be wiv rats.” Shaking his head at the inexplicable whims and whimsies of gentlemen, he pocketed the coins, picked up his barrow, and turned with alacrity into the passageway on the other side of the street.

“Well, then, Murray,” Charles said, dusting his hands, “suppose we go around to the back and see if this man Sobersides will answer our ring.”

Jack Murray said not a word about the vanished ferrets. Instead, he went ahead of Charles around the building, past a derelict row of dustbins, to a narrow wooden stoop at the back. A calico cat was sitting on the top step but as the men approached, it jumped down with an annoyed meow and disappeared into the straggly bushes that filled the narrow yard.

Murray climbed the steps. A bell hung beside the door, and he pulled a dirty string, ringing it loudly. After a moment, he rang it again, and then again. From the bushes, the calico cat renewed its complaint.

“It doesn’t seem, sir,” the investigator said, looking down at Charles, “that there’s anybody here.”

“Well, then,” Charles said reasonably, “I suggest that we try the door. If it’s locked-”

It was. But Murray, a man of many talents, took a ring of keys from his pocket and, on the third try, unlocked the door. The hinges creaked when he pushed it open and he hallooed loudly, waited a moment, listening, then hallooed again.

“Doesn’t seem to be anyone here, sir,” he said, and Charles followed him into the gloomy interior.

They had entered a dark, narrow hallway. There was a closed door on the right, with a sign that said Office, Private and another at the end of the hall, standing open. Charles stepped past Murray, through the open door and into a spacious room, quite elegantly furnished: the Newmarket headquarters of Alfred Day, Bookmaker.

Murray entered behind Charles. “Well,” he remarked, “this is a bit of all right, wouldn’t you say, sir? Badger’s done quite well for himself.”

On the way to St. James Street, Murray had told Charles what he had learned about Alfred Day, with whom the investigator had been slightly acquainted before he retired from the Yard. Badger had been variously employed before he transformed himself into a bookmaker, most of his business being conducted on the shady side of the law. Day’s father and brother had been Newmarket pawnbrokers, and Badger had started in that business, opening a pawnshop of his own in London. It wasn’t long before the enterprising young fellow had branched out into the fencing of stolen goods and occasionally into outright theft. But Badger was also clever, and although he was occasionally picked up for questioning, he managed to keep himself from prosecution. He was adept at gaming, too, and regularly frequented the Hotel Metropole, where the smart and sporting sets gathered in the casino and billiards room. He won and lost a great deal of money there, on the fringes of several substantial frauds.

But after a number of years in London, Badger seemed to have determined on a different course. He returned to Newmarket, married a draper’s widow with a bit of money of her own, and set himself up as a bookmaker, catering to the fashionable crowd while making himself available to all sorts. The competition was challenging, since there were already a great many established bookmakers in town, but he had immediately flourished, quickly expanding his business to include a variety of wagering activities. Within three years of leaving London, Alfred Day was accounted one of the three or four leading bookmakers in Newmarket.

When Charles expressed surprise at Mr. Day’s speedy success, Murray offered the opinion that it was partly due to his reputation for honesty-that is, he was not known to have welshed on a bet-and partly to his having taken on as his partner a certain Eddie Baggs, from Brighton. Baggs, who apparently knew a very great deal about horses, proved to have a genius for numbers and understood the mechanics of making book to show a profit. While Badger might have been somewhat less gifted than Baggs in the fine art of making book, he had proved to be an astute businessman, demonstrating a great skill in manipulating his competitors. The partnership had proved to be a success. Within the first year Badger and Baggs had bought up the businesses of several of their smaller competitors, adding that custom to their own. By the second year, they had established a second office in London -and neither were hole-in-the-corner affairs, either, where fugitive betting was carried out by weasel-faced clerks. These were fashionable offices, located in areas frequented by smart people, where the swells could gather, smoke their cigars, and exchange racing tips and tidbits.