Bedford Square - Anne Perry [52]
The pawnbroker glared at him. “Well, I dunno w’ere ’e got ’is things, do I? If ’e were a thief it weren’t nuthin’ ter do wif me. Now, if yer in’t got nuffink else ter ask me, will yer get out o’ me shop. Yer puttin’ orff me proper custom.”
Tellman left feeling angry and puzzled. This was a very different picture of Albert Cole from the one he had gained previously.
He went back and had a late luncheon at the Bull and Gate public house in High Holborn. It was only a few yards from the corner where Cole had had his position selling bootlaces. Perhaps on a cold day he had come in here, even if only for a mug of ale and a slice of bread.
He ordered ale for himself and a good, thick sandwich of roast beef and horseradish sauce. He sat where he hoped to fall into conversation easily with some regular of the place. He began to eat. He was hungry. He had been walking all morning and was glad to sit down. He had not cared a great deal about clothes until lately. He had bought one or two things in the last couple of months, a new coat in good dark blue, and two new shirts. A man should have some self-respect. But boots that fitted were his greatest expense, and had not been skimped on since his very first wage.
He bit into the bread, and thought of Gracie’s cake. There was something about home cooking, eaten at the kitchen table, which sat better in the stomach than the best meat eaten in some anonymous place, and paid for. Gracie was a funny mixture of a person. At times she sounded so independent, even bossy. And yet she worked for Pitt and lived in his house, without any place that was really her own. She was at his beck and call all hours, not only day but night too.
He pictured her as he sat chewing on the beef sandwich. She was very little, nothing really but skin and bone, not the sort of woman to attract most men. Nothing to put your arms around. He thought of other women he had found pleasing at one time or another. There was Ethel, all fair hair and soft skin, plenty of curves there, and nice-natured too, agreeable. She had married Billy Tomkinson. At the time that had hurt. He was surprised that he could think of it so easily now, even with a smile.
What would Gracie have made of Ethel? His smile widened. He could hear her voice in his mind. “Great useless article!” she’d have said. He could imagine the tolerant scorn on her face with its wide eyes and thin, strong features. She was strong. She had all the courage and determination in the world. She’d never let you down, never run away from anything. Like a little terrier, face anyone. And she knew right from wrong. Conscience like iron. No, maybe more like steel, sharp … and bright. Funny how much that sort ofthing could matter when you really thought about it.
Not that Gracie wasn’t pretty, in her own way. She had a beautiful neck, very smooth, and the daintiest ears he had ever seen. And nice fingernails, oval-shaped and always pink and clean.
This was ridiculous. He should stop daydreaming and get on with his job. He needed to find out a great deal more about Albert Cole. He bought another pint of ale and struck up a conversation with a large man standing at the bar.
He left an hour later, having heard nothing but good of Cole. In the opinion of the barman and other regulars he had spoken to, Cole was a decent, cheerful, hardworking man as honest as the day, careful with his money but always ready to stand a friend a drink when it was his turn.
And occasionally, on a wet evening when the weather was too harsh to expect anyone to buy bootlaces, he would take three or four pints and make them last several hours, and then he would tell tales of his military career. Sometimes there were past war stories of Europe, sometimes heroic deeds of his regiment, which had been the Duke of Wellington’s own and had fought brilliantly against the French in the Napoleonic Wars. And sometimes, if thoroughly pressed—and it needed that because he was a modest man, even shy when it came to his own deeds—he would talk of the Abyssinian