Symphony of Lilacs

20. Selling Secrets ain't a Crime

When I stepped out of the hospital, I had two things in mind: the East End and Oliver Trevor.
And that thought keeps following my steps, just like the silver feathered crow does to my person.

But with those two things, the notion of not wanting to seem like a prowler to someone with a peacock blue cloak also visits with a sledgehammer.

Pray that she's at work at the moment...

And only because of that damned thought, my feet lead me to a narrow but familiar street with a stack on apartments on one side.

Even if I knock... what should I say?

The curtains of Mathilda's home are closed, while they are open on the Trevors' dwelling in the upper floor. This faint partition shows me the outline of an elderly lady sitting, almost like a corpse.

Before I can do anything else, my feet pivot to another corner of the street, away from the apartments.

The raven caws loudly, sending a shrill throughout. A shirll that pierces through the crowded streets like steel through flesh. I take a turn opposite to the raven, changing my direction again.
Another caw cackles, but I pay no heed to it.

"Get ter the side!" A coach driver shouts as his carriage whistles by, making several people jostle to the ends of the street.

Sighing, my back leans against an unattended stall, arms folding across my chest.

A few horse drawn carriages stand on the other side of the street. Some coach drivers have stopped to feed their horses.
My eyes keep roaming through those rows, searching for a ghost.

This isn't helping...

"You looking for someone, Matthew Knightley?" a voice says at my side.

I turn and stop my brows from ascending to my forehead. A man stands at my side, one who has a long gash stretching across his jaw.
"How do you know my name?"

"Isaac Crimley, he was the one who laughed the loudest. Some scum who makes decent folk's lives miserable."

"News travels fast and I hear there's a Doctor Knightley visiting."
Crimley looks at me from the corner of his leaden eye, leaning against an empty stall.
"Percival Knightley has two sons. I know for a fact that the one who doesn't look like him is called Matthew."

If I had a shilling for every time someone said that, I'd have enough money to buy Knightley Industries from my own father.

Two more men quip in when they hear the conversation.

Crimley rolls his eyes and sends them off with a nod.
Reluctantly, they leave the both of us.

What the actual hell...

Crimley shrugs at my narrowed eyes.
"Just thought I'd make conversation with the boy I saw more than ten years ago."

"I have to go somewhere today, lad. I can't take you with me." A man ruffles his son's hair.

"But you can't leave me here..." the five year old boy whines.
"I don't even like the peon uncle here."

After a while, the man rubs his temples and says,
"All right, I'll take you with me.
But you have to promise to not tell anything about this at home."

The corner of my eyes point to him, while also searching for any sign of a silver feathered crow.

Crimley's fingers click at his cigarette's ashen end, the waste falling down in specks.
"Imagine my surprise after your father, Percival Knightley, said he never wanted to see my face again. And lo, here is his son, the one he once brought with him."