The four individuals finished unloading the covered wagon, getting its contents stacked haphazardly within the benight warehouse. It was a good score. Eight crates, a trunk, and a few sacks made it quickly onto the wagon before the individuals absconded into the night.

This close to the docks, there is always lots of activity, so anyone seeing wagons leaving would not have questioned it, even this time of night. Dilapidated, the warehouse had suffered damage from a fire not that long ago, and its fate was not yet decided. Currently, the owners were split on whether to sell, tear down to rebuild anew, or just get it back to some acceptable standard to keep the rain—and the roof—off everyone’s heads. The scrivener and skinflints would be arguing for months over its fate. ‘Til then, everything of value was moved out, and the darker aspects of civilized society had moved in.

Bud dropped his ass down on a crate and started rubbing his legs. Dressed in various greys, he wore a large jacket to keep London’s harbor chill at bay. He would have been a handsome man, if one could clean him up and get the soot and dirt off his face and smooth out his unkept hair. Ivy sidled up to him.

“How are your legs, my dear?” she asked softly.

“Tired, like the rest of me, but thank you for asking.”

Ivy was quiet and soft-spoken. She had taken a fancy to Bud a while ago, not that he seemed to take notice.

“Get off the goods,” said a man in a black coat. Unlike the company he kept, Archer was well put-together. A man of some education and unaccustomed to labor. He was the group’s face man and fence. Greasing palms and selling goods, he could insert himself into society and make the connections needed for jobs like this one.

Bonny clattered in from the alley door, pulled off her orange coat, and tossed it onto a barrel. Her cheeks were pink from the cold, eyes bright and too alive for the place. “Cart’s tucked away and no tails,” she said with a grin. “We’re ghosts tonight.”

Archer gave a satisfied nod as he paced before the stacked loot. “Good. Let’s take inventory and then get some rest. By morning, I’ll have half this nonsense promised to buyers in Soho.  Anything we can’t move in the next two days goes in the harbor.”

The group settled for a moment. Lantern light flickered against soot-streaked walls. This place smelled of sea rot and oil. Ivy sat beside Bud, who was rolling his shoulders to ease the ache.

After a stretch of silence, Bonny piped up, “Anyone else heard about that big rat again? The one in the hat?”

Archer gave a short laugh. “Not this again. You mean the so-called gentleman rat haunting the alleys of Limehouse?”

“That’s the one,” said Bonny. “Tommy at the Black Swan swears his friend saw it, vest and all. Said it was dragging off a silver pocket watch.”

Ivy leaned forward, eyes wide. “I’ve heard of it too. They say he trades things. Leaves behind coins or trinkets in place of whatever he takes. Sometimes the exchange’s fair, sometimes not.”

“Superstitious rot,” Archer muttered, pulling a handkerchief from his sleeve to wipe dust from his shoes. “There’s no rat in a vest, no magical tradesman in the sewers. Just thieves and drunks with tall tales.”

Bud shifted, gaze distant. “I seen him.”

That earned a few looks.

“What?” Archer snorted. “You’ve seen a rat wearing clothes?”

Bud nodded slowly. “Near the docks, maybe two months past. Was late. Fog thick as soup. Heard scratching behind a stack of crates, turned, and there he was. Big as a terrier, I swear it. Little bowler hat. Vest with buttons. Looked at me right in the eye, then ran off with a brass compass I’d just found.”

Bonny let out a low whistle. “And did he leave you a gift?”

Bud frowned, rubbing his neck. “A shilling. Bright as the moon, like it’d never been touched.”

For a moment, none of them spoke. The lantern hissed softly.

Archer finally chuckled, but it was thin. “Next, you’ll tell me he’s got a ledger and a savings account. A rat’s a rat, Bud. London’s full of ’em.”

“Maybe so,” Ivy murmured, “but not many wear hats.”

The group fell quiet again, each keeping half an ear on the distant sounds of the docks: the creak of ropes, the cry of gulls, the slow heartbeat of the city below the fog.

Then came the sound. It was a faint, uneven hum layered over the grind of metal on cobbles. A mechanical whir followed by a hiss of steam.

Bonny’s smile faltered. “That’s… that’s not one of ours, is it?”

Archer froze. He knew the sound. Everyone did.

The uni-wheeled Bobbies.

Outside, the narrow street filled with the clatter of truncheons and the bark of orders. “By authority of the Yard! In the name of the Queen, open up!”

Bud swore and moved for the back door, but before his hand even touched the latch, it burst open in a shower of splinters. A very large, unique looking gentlefolk rolled in—a polished brass monocycle beneath a blue-clad torso, the iron faceplate gleaming with the sigil of the Watch. Steam vented from its side as Sergeant Clark, shouted, “Hands where I can see ’em! You’re nicked, the lot of you!”

The rest of the Bobbies followed, pistons pumping as their mechanized bodies rolled through the doorway. The four thieves were surrounded before they could even think of running.

Bud’s fists clenched, but Ivy caught his sleeve. “Don’t,” she whispered. “Please, don’t.”

A few tense minutes later, they were marched outside, wrists bound. The fog swallowed them one by one as they were led to the paddy wagon that awaited them like a squat iron coffin.

As the officers began hauling the crates from the warehouse, something stirred in the shadows.

Next came  a faint rustle and the soft tap of tiny claws on stone.

From the darkness emerged Trevor the Rat, his whiskers twitching. He wore a worn bowler hat tipped low over his brow, and his vest was buttoned crookedly with one brass button missing. The enormous rat moved with the silent purpose of a master thief.

Trevor sniffed the air and then padded to the table stacked with the choicest plunder. He examined a jeweled goblet, dismissed it, and instead reached for a leather tube and a sealed vase marked with faded Egyptian script. With surprising delicacy, he hoisted them both under one arm.

Outside, the prisoners stood under guard. Bud caught movement inside the warehouse and squinted. “Oi, Archer, you see that?”

Archer turned just as Trevor stepped into the lantern light. The great rat paused, eyes on the four of them. For a moment, there was a connection made, an understanding between rogues.

Trevor gave them a small, solemn tip of his bowler hat, and the hint of a smirk.

Then, he slipped back into the night. Not a single Bobby noticed.

Bonny let out a low breath and a tiny smile curled at the corner of her mouth. “Well,” she whispered, “guess there’s always one that gets away.”

The fog swallowed the warehouse, the night closed in, and somewhere beneath the streets, in the twisting warren of tunnels and pipes, Trevor’s hoard grew by two more priceless treasures.