The rain had almost emptied the alley. He watched an old woman, a pure-finder, her head covered by a shawl, her black skirt dragging on the ground where amid the slime, she sought dog turds to fill the sack she bore. Two urchins ran past her, throwing a ball playfully between them, apparently oblivious of the rain. Drinkwater was not deceived; he had observed the ruse many times in the past week. He could see their victim now, a plainly dressed man with obvious pretensions to gentility, picking his way with the delicacy of the unfamiliar, and searching the signs that jutted out from the adjacent walls. He might be something to do with the shipping lying in the Thames, Drinkwater mused, for his like did not patronize the establishment next door until after dark. He was certainly not the man for whom Drinkwater was waiting.

'You'll recognize him well enough,' Lord Dungarth had said, 'he has the look of a pugilist, a tall man, dark and well set up, though his larboard lug is a trifle curled.'

There had been some odd coves in the alley below, but no one to answer that description.

Drinkwater watched the two boys jostle the stranger from opposite sides, saw one pocket the ball and thumb his nose, saw the stranger raise his cane, and watched as the second boy drew out the man's handkerchief with consummate skill, so that the white flutter of its purloining was so sudden and so swift that it had vanished almost before the senses had registered the act. The two petty felons, their snot-hauling successful, capered away with a gleeful dido, the proceeds of their robbery sufficient to buy them a beef pie or a jigger of gin. The stranger stared after them, tapped his wallet and looked relieved. As the man cast a glance back at the trade signs, Drinkwater withdrew his face. A moment later the bell on the ship's chandler's door jangled and the stranger was lost to view. In the narrow ginnel a vicious squall lashed the scavenging pure-finder, finally driving her into shelter.