Everything became very blurry after that, and when Nellie woke in the gray light of an early morning, she had a savage headache, her mouth was as dry as a desert, and her body ached as if it had been assaulted-as, to tell truth, it had. She lay for a moment, not quite remembering what had happened, and then sat up in bed, clutching the rumpled sheets around her nakedness.

Jack was gone, but there was a pencilled note on the dresser, in a sprawling, careless script. “Dear Nell,” it said. “Thanks for the evening. Remember, if you happen to see Miss Conway, let her know I’d give anything to talk to her. Yrs, JL”

Pressing her lips together to keep them from trembling, Nellie, still naked, stood for a very long time with the note in her hand. Then she took it to the fireplace, where she knelt down and put a match to it, watching as it flared into an orange flame, then fell into a heap of black ash. By the time the last spark had died, there was a hard ache in her throat and her eyes were swimming with tears. She had the feeling that something very precious had been taken from her, and she had received nothing in return.

CHAPTER TEN

Adam Gould sat on a wooden chair in a dark cage in a small room in the depths of Holloway Prison. Across from him, on another wooden chair on the other side of the wire barricade, sat Mr. Morley, of Masters, Morley, and Dunderston, the solicitor sent to him by the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants. Morley was thin as a broom-straw, stiff-necked and nearly bald, and with a dour and depressed demeanor. He felt-no, he knew, and gloomily asserted as much-that nothing short of a miracle could save Adam from the retributive power of the law.

“If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a hundred times,” he added in a sour whisper, as if he did not wish to be overheard by the guard, who stood not ten paces away. “Anarchists are trouble. And, sir, you have asked for it. Hanging about the offices of the Clarion, consorting with known Anarchists. Nothing good can come from the Anarchist principle, I say, and that’s the short and the long of it.” He sniffed contemptuously. “Nothing, to put it in the fewest possible words.”

Adam sighed, for Morley had never been a man to put anything into the fewest possible words, and his political persuasions were already very well known. Like most of those involved with the trade unions, he felt that the Anarchists were nothing but inept bunglers, and dangerous in their ineptitude. “What I want to know,” Adam said patiently, “is whether you’ve heard anything from Miss Conway.”

“No, and not likely to, either,” Morley rejoined, in a low, dispirited tone, as if oppressed and deadened by the burden of his gloom. He took out a large white handkerchief and blew his nose with a loud honk. “Infernal places, prisons,” he muttered. “Dank and musty. Not good for the lungs, nor for the heart, nor for the spirit. In short, not good at all. In fact, I do truly believe that each time I am forced to come here, I-”

“I hope that Miss Conway will attempt to contact me,” Adam said crisply, attempting to stem the flow of words, “if only to let me know that she is safe. You will give me her message, I trust.”

“Safe!” harrumphed Morley with an ill grace, pocketing his handkerchief and straightening his cuffs. “Took to her heels like a common vagabond, did she not? Disappeared into the crowd without a thought for anyone’s safety and welfare but her own, as I heard the tale. Anarchists!” he hissed. “Nothing but trouble from them, especially the women. And that’s what got you into this difficulty in the first place, isn’t it, Gould? Hanging about with that Anarchist woman? You might have had better sense.”

Adam sighed. He had worked with Morley on the Taff-Vale matter, and knew that the man was a solicitor, not a barrister, and thus could not represent him in court. Instead, Morley would consult a barrister, present his instructions for the handling of Adam’s case, and pay the barrister’s fee, which would be charged, along with his own, to the ASRS. He straightened his shoulders and took a different, more professional tack. “Well, then, Morley, p’rhaps we should get down to business. Have you learnt the charge? What do they say I’ve done?”

“Have I learnt the charge, he asks. Have I learnt the charge?” Mr. Morley rolled his eyes heavenward in mute appeal to a higher power, then pulled his brows into a stern frown and focused his gaze upon Adam. “Very well, sir,” he growled. “The charge against you, sir, is made under the Explosive Substances Act of 1883. You are accused of the possession of explosives with intent to endanger life. If you are convicted, you are likely to be sentenced to fifteen to twenty years of penal servitude.” He waggled his finger at Adam. “Little good you will do the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants if you should be found guilty. Precious little good you are doing them now.”

Possession of explosives? Adam felt a great surge of relief at this news. He had expected to be charged, if at all, with something vague and difficult to refute-conspiracy or consorting with known criminals or some such. But this? He chuckled.

“Possession of explosives,” he said carelessly. “Well, that’s easy, Morley. I’ve never possessed an explosive of any sort in my entire life.”

“Not at all ‘easy,’ sir,” Morley said with a darkly sarcastic emphasis, “when they have the evidence. The evidence, sir, which I have seen with my own eyes.” He looked down, pursuing something on his sleeve, a flea, probably. “Ah!” he cried, catching it. He held up his fingers, pinching hard. “Ah-ha!” he cried again, triumphantly. “Got you, you little fiend!”

“Evidence?” Adam asked, frowning. “They can have no evidence, unless-” He stopped. The police could have no evidence unless they had themselves manufactured and planted it, something to which they had been known to resort, although they were rarely called to account for the deception. His heart sank down into his boots. “What is this evidence, Morley?”

Morley paused, fixing him with a long and penetrating stare. Into the silence intruded the sound of a woman’s heartbroken weeping-a visitor, she must be, since women were confined in another part of the prison. Somewhere a chain clanked, and a rusty hinge squeaked. To Adam, they seemed the sounds of doom.

Morley cleared his throat and, giving each word a sternly judicial weight, said, “The evidence, sir, as you know very well, is the ginger-beer bottle containing nitric acid-according to the chemist’s report-which was found in your rooms, and which I myself have seen.”

“Know very well!” Adam exclaimed angrily, half-rising from his seat. “Know very well, you say? I know nothing of the kind. An explosive bottle may have been found in my rooms, but I did not put it there!”

Morley pulled his mouth down. “Nothing short of a miracle,” he said in a funereal voice. “That, sir, is what it will take to gain you your freedom. Therefore, I counsel you to pray for a-”

“It was put there by the police, I tell you!” Adam cried hoarsely. “And I depend on you, Morley, to find me a barrister who will prove that I am innocent of this trumped-up charge.”

“Depend on me, sir?” Morley’s expression became even more ominously funereal, and he once more dropped his voice to a whisper. “I will certainly do my utmost on your behalf, since the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants has employed my firm to assist in your case. But you must not expect miracles, not at all. In fact, I should say that the chances for your acquittal, under the present circumstances, are virtually-”