Infernal Devices - KW Jeter [27]
Outside, in the public house's yard, a small dog gave a welcoming yip when the cabby emerged with me in tow. "Shut up, you," growled the cabby. The dog, a mongrel resembling a ratting terrier more than anything else, nevertheless danced around the man's boots, only favouring the limp in one of its hind legs.
"Come along, then." The cabby motioned for me to follow as he weaved, somewhat unsteadily, between the hansoms. "There's a much friendlier jerry-shop down the way – my usual bin."
The cellar he led me to was scarcely better lit than the alley on to which its gap-planked door opened. A horse, its ribs showing beneath the harness of a singularly shabby cab, stood outside – the property of my guide, I assumed.
The cabby spread his black-nailed hands across a table so rickety that every touch sent the flame of the guttering candle in its middle wavering. "Arduous work, it'd be," he said, winking again, thin leather sliding over the blood-specked eye. "All the way to Wetwick – a long trip, that; very long, and parching, if you understand me."
I did indeed; an aproned figure stood next to the table. I handed over another coin, and the person shuffled away to the cellar's far side. While I awaited the bringing of drink, I gazed about the space, my eyes having adjusted to the gloom. Only a few men ringed the walls, either hunched over the half-empty jars in front of them or sprawled back in their chairs, boot heels slid into the puddles dripping off the table on to the dirt floor. One of the latter was young, a gentleman of position far above mine, as evidenced by the fineness of his coat; his youthful cheek, stretched in open-mouthed slumber, was already hollowed by the habits of dissipation into which he had fallen. In stale beer shops such as these he had hastened his destiny, pennyworth by pennyworth. A cadaverous woman in one of the room's corners slumped forward, grey-streaked hair tangling over her face; at her feet, an infant lay silent in its basket, stricken as if by laudanum or its mother's tainted milk.
Two mugs were deposited on the table, slopping over and nearly drowning the candle. My guide pulled heartily at the frothless murk, rolling his eyes at me over the rim of the vessel. "Very tasty, that," he pronounced, setting it down, a quarter drained.
I left mine untouched. "Now, as to Wetwick–"
"Wetwick," he interrupted. "Yes, indeed; Wetwick; all in good time, sir, all in good time." The word that had raised such abhorrence in the public house, here brought no gaze around to examine the speaker, though the room was small enough for all to overhear us. The sodden drinkers went on staring into the dark spaces that held the residue of their thoughts. "Here, you; leave off that." The small dog had followed us into the cellar, and was now whining and scratching at the cabby's knee. "Leave off, I say, mange-bait; what's got into you?" He looked around to the door and saw a figure making its way down the damp stone steps, balancing an awkward weight across the shoulders. "So that's it, then?" he addressed the dog. "Hungry, are you? Well, well, a bite would not be amiss – for beast or master." He shot another of his slyly calculating glances at me.
The hawking butcher – for such a one it was that had entered – worked his circuit around the cellar, tilting his basket in front of each drinker to expose his bloody merchandise. He found scant trade among a crowd that had lost all appetite except for drink; each inebriate shook his head in turn or continued gazing dully before him. The cabby whistled and signalled the man over. The dog's whining became frenzied as the dark-stained basket approached. My own stomach clenched at the smell of the gone-high meat.
"Samuel, me lad–" the cabby and the butcher were evidently acquaintances of long standing. "What delicacies do you got tonight?" He poked through the uncut joints, sending aloft a few buzzing flies.