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quality to his gaze that belied any trace of gaiety.
    Kent let his chin sink to his breast, his gaze furtively peeping between the rim of his ale mug and the brim of his lowered hat.  He seemed ready to slump, oblivious to his surroundings, yet he heard nearly everything and saw almost as much.
    “The Ghosts rise up from the ground, they do…”
    “Grab people…”
    “Drag them down to where beat the hearts of the dark machines…”
    “Infernal machine splashed in the Thames…”
    “The Vanishments…”
    “The Ghosts…”
    “Where one goes the other happens…”
    “Like the toff!”
    “Billy-boy was a swell, not a nose-liftin’ bloke…”
    “Poor, poor lad. taken by the flitten’ Ghosts…”
    “Aye, a Vanishment…”
    “Taken into the hungry black down under…”
    A fifth man had gravitated slowly toward the four, moving as aimlessly as Kent had in positioning himself.  He was skilled in his efforts, for he managed to attract no one’s attention, no one but Kent, who was wary of everything and everyone.
    The fifth man was  tall, thin, dark complexioned, obviously a Lascar, yet there was something odd about him as well, something not entirely belied by the masque of a simple Lascar, and a masque it might be, Kent thought.  He, too, seemed interested in the rumours and gossip uttered by the three tars for the benefit of the fourth man, about the mysterious events afflicting East London and a victim who could be none other than William Dunning.
    Despite the never-ending flow of ale, or perhaps because of it, the three old sailors eventually muttered their way into silence, and the man who had been so free with his coppers made to get up.  As he did, he was approached by the Lascar, who bent low and whispered into his ear.
    The man glanced sharply at the Lascar, then nodded.
    They headed for the stairs.
    Kent unslumped his body and started toward the stairs, thinking to creep after them and station himself where he could listen unobserved.  In the shadows of the stairs he could make out murmurs above, but nothing distinct.  As he started stealthily toward the upper regions of the tavern he felt great beefy hands grip his shoulders and spin him about like a moppet’s top.
    “Inspector Kent, you playin’ copper’s narc on yer own now, are you?” demanded a man nearly as wide as he was tall, heavily muscled with a face that looked as if it had come up on the poor side of a brawl.  The hands that had spun Kent about now gripped his lapels.  “You can’t hide a blue bottle behind a little spinach,  you damned rozzer!”
    It was Dinky Clabber, the nobbler Kent had sent to Dartmoor a few years back for breaking the legs and arms of  a dollyshopper who had refused to buy up some nicked merchandise from a gang of petty crib-breakers.  Had the victim been more worthy of the jury’s sympathy,  Clabber would still be sporting broad arrows and a convict’s cap rather than a mothy brown jacket and a battered bowler.
    “You’ll get yours for setting me in the dock!”
    All eyes were turned toward Kent and Clabber, and Kent knew any further pretence was useless.  Additionally there was some sort of commotion up the stairs demanding Kent’s attention.
    Kent slammed his nearly full mug into Clabber’s face.  He pushed away the hands from his lapels, kneed him hard in the dabbers, then delivered a brutal uppercut when he gasped and snapped forward.  Clabber hit the floor like a tipped bull, and everyone in the Neptune went back about his business.  A knock-down drag-out was not that unusual an occurrence in the Neptune’s common hall, the only aspect bringing it slightly above the usual was that such a bruiser could be despatched in such short order by a man who was, at least in comparison, such a little fellow.
    As Kent made his way up the stairs, he heard the breaking of a window and knew it was too late to seek any information from the man in black who had been so interested in the