Bedford Square - Anne Perry [51]
“I’ve got nothing except what I work for,” Tellman said, the anger edging his voice till it cut. “And my pa could teach you what that word means, or any man.”
The bootlace supplier backed away, frightened not by Tellman’s words but by the well of rage he had unwittingly tapped into. Tellman was mollified. The ache of memory was not healed. He could still see in his mind his father’s gaunt face, worried, cold, too tired to do anything but eat and sleep. There had been fourteen children, eight of whom lived. His mother cooked and washed, and sewed and swept, scrubbed and carried buckets of water, made soap out of lye and potash, sat up at night with sick children or sick neighbors. She laid out the dead, too many of them her own.
Most of the people he worked with now did not even imagine what exhaustion, hunger and poverty really meant; they only imagined they did. And those like General Brandon Balantyne, with his bought and paid for career, they lived in another world, as if they were more than human and Tellman and his like were less. They had more respect for their horses … come to think of it, a great deal more! And their horses had a far better life: a warm stable and good food, a kind word at the end of the day.
But alarmed as he was, the supplier could tell him nothing more about Albert Cole, except that he was absolutely honest in his dealings and worked as regularly as most men, only missing the odd few days through illness. That was until his disappearance, a day and a half before his body was found in Bedford Square. And no, he had no idea what Cole could have been doing there.
Tellman took the omnibus and rode back towards Red Lion Square. He started visiting the pawnshops and asking about Albert Cole. No one knew him by name, but the third one he visited seemed to recognize the description Tellman gave of him, particularly the break in his left eyebrow.
“ ’Ad a feller like that in ’ere fairly reg’lar,” he said with a gesture of resignation. “Always ’ad summink a bit tasty, like. Last time it were a gold ring.”
“A gold ring?” Tellman said quickly. “Where’d he get it?”
“Said ’e found it,” the pawnbroker replied, looking straight at Tellman without blinking. “Goes down the sewers sometimes. Comes up wi’ all sorts.” He scratched his ear irritably.
“Down the sewers?” Tellman said.
“Yeah.” The pawnbroker nodded. “Find gold, diamonds, all sorts down there.”
“I know that,” Tellman said. “That’s why it costs a fair penny to buy a stretch of sewer to patrol. And any tosher’ll knock your head in if you trespass.”
The pawnbroker looked uncomfortable. Apparently, he had not expected Tellman to be so familiar with the facts of scavenging.
“Well that’s wot ’e told me!” he said abruptly.
“And you believed it?” Tellman gave him a withering look.
“Yeah. Why not? ’ow was I ter know if ’e were tellin’ the truth?”
“Haven’t you got a nose on your face?”
“A … nose?” But the pawnbroker knew what he meant. The smell of a sewer scavenger was unmistakable, just like the smell of a mudlark, a man who sifted the river silt for lost treasures.
“A thief,” Tellman said scathingly. “But of course you wouldn’t know that. How often did he come here with stuff?”
The pawnbroker was now extremely uncomfortable. He scratched his ear again.
“Six or seven times, mebbe. I din’t know’e were a thief. ’e always ’ad a good tale. I thought ’e were a …”
“Yes, a tosher,” Tellman supplied for him. “You said. Always jewelry? Did he ever come with paintings, ornaments, or the like?”
“From down the sewers?” The pawnbroker’s voice rose an octave. “I may not be as clever as you are about toshers, but even I know as nobody loses paintings down the bath ’ole!”
Tellman smiled, showing his teeth. “And no pawnbroker buys gold rings from a tosher without knowing that either. No