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The route was perfect, uphill all the way, but circuitous and secluded.
Kings Lane scurried between Riley and Thompson Streets. Honens’ Stairs was the final heft up from Kings Lane to Bourke Street, across this and through the narrowest part of the alley and you were hidden in behind the northern rampart of Darlinghurst Gaol. Dingy during the day, the rat runners diced with death with each evening sortie along Kings Lane. The ladies of the night were the least of their worries, they were all screech and too full of liquor to be a danger. No, it was the young ‘uns milling beside the high sandstone wall facing the grey hospital workings. Once they twigged to the illicit trade between the soldiers in the park barracks and the inmates at Darlinghurst, the young ‘uns wanted in.
However, the coppers from the Taylor Square nick, caught a whiff early on.
