A hoard of ivory chessmen discovered on the Isle of Lewis in 1831 still commands the attention of scholars and museum patrons in modern-day London, but the police are more concerned with the connection a newly discovered rook has with a body that just bobbed up in the Regents Canal.
Just when Ernie Bisquets, a reformed London pickpocket, was settling into his new life with the East London Adventurers Club, his daily routine is interrupted by the apparent suicide of an old school mate. What surprises him even more is the bequeath left to him by the deceased—an old nursery rhyme and one of the lost Lewis Chessmen. Intrigued over the connection, the group investigates the circumstances surrounding the death. They soon find it was murder, and that leads to the discovery of a lost hoard of these priceless artifacts hidden in a St. Ives bridge. What they don't realize is an unscrupulous antique dealer, who has been searching for this lost hoard for decades, is shadowing their every move.
Ernie Bisquets is a London pickpocket who was quite content with his
station in life, until he put his hand in a pocket and pulled out a murder. It
was this action that introduced him to the East London Adventurers Club. Murder
and villainy seem to tug at the coattails of this unusual group. It's an ugly
but acceptable byproduct of their business, but not something Ernie Bisquets
was accustomed to. He just stepped off the bus on Conduit Street, after a short
stay at Edmunds Hill Prison, and it was the last thing he imagined getting
involved with. What confused him even more was why this group of Mayfair swells
would require the services of a common pickpocket?
In Along Came A Fifer this question quickly leads Ernie Bisquets, Patterson Coats and the East London Adventurers Club on a dangerous adventure through the streets of London and Paris, exposing the darker side of the art world. Phynley Paine is the beautiful but treacherous antagonist in the story. With ruthless determination she manages to stay one step ahead of the Police in her efforts to locate her accomplice, a known London forger. He’s double-crossed her and Phynley Paine has made it very clear that she intends to locate him and retrieve her property at any cost. What she didn’t count on was the intervention of the East London Adventurers Club.
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