Infernal Devices - KW Jeter [74]
"Unnatural blighters," muttered the other, wrinkling his nose in a show of distaste.
A tentative hypothesis began to form in my mind: perhaps the "green girls" were the young daughters of the Dampford villagers, that these employees of Mollie Maud – evidently a brothel-keeper of some import in the city had come to this rural district in order to enlist as prostitutes. Such practices as this, the seduction of the countryside's innocents into London's sordid netherworld, were common, by all informed reports. As to what qualities the Dampford girls could possess, that would make them particularly attractive to rakes no longer excited by normal female charms, I shuddered to hazard a guess.
"I expected you was fresh at this game, when Nigel–" The leader pointed his thumb at the third in the band, "he said he'd seen you through the window of them lot's scabby inn, a-trying to pass off a rum couter on 'em."
"Pardon?" I said, puzzled.
He stared at me as we continued walking. "You know a couter, a crown, that is. He saw you flashing one of them dicey coins, with the phiz of the fish-face pope on it."
"Fish-face… You mean, Saint Monkfish."
"Who else, indeed? It's no wonder they mobbed you like that. Hadn't ol' Mollie given you the skilamalink on that, then?"
I hazarded a small confession of ignorance: "No…"
"Well, then, me lad." He brought his beefy face, smiling with lubricious secrets, close to mine. "You see, we gives these silly country lasses, as what doesn't know any better, one of them bright shiny coins to come with us to London town., where they'll soon see a fair parcel more of 'em. It reassures 'em, like, to get such a precious bit with the bust of someone who looks just like 'em stamped on it. And a saint, too! Makes 'em think London must be a respectable sort of place – we tells 'em as much – where they'll come to no harm. What we don't let on is that all they'll see of this Saint Monkfish when they're working on their backs in Mollie Maud's cribs, is if some spiff gentleman drops the coin he uses to show that he's a member of the discerning clientele what appreciates a spot of green." The bully smirked, obviously self-satisfied with his inside knowledge. "Clever, eh?"
I nodded, feeling a general distaste welling in my throat. If not all, a few mysteries – such as the cabby's jocular remarks – were illuminated.
My informant pursed his thick lips in a pantomime of thoughtfulness. "It's grown a bit shiny with use, I personally think. Harder and harder to find one of these goggling bints who hasn't tumbled to it; and sure all their parents know what the Saint Monkfish coin means!" He laughed and slapped me on the back. "They'd got their clammy hands on a seducer of their fair virgins all right, when you waved that silver bit around – if Nigel there hadn't seen it, and come and fetched us, you'd have been in a deal of trouble. Mollie should've warned you to keep it on the hush."
"Yes…" I managed an abashed smile. "I rather suppose so."
"More 'n likely, she'll say it's your own bloody fault, for being such a gawp. But you can make your own complaint to her, if you care to. Here we be."
The path had slanted upward from the surrounding marshland to a rise of relatively dry ground. A team of horses grazed the coarse vegetation at the limit of their tether; the carriage to which they had been harnessed stood at one side, sheltering a simple fire. Near a dozen more brothel bullies roistered in a semi-circle around the blaze, passing bottles back and forth, laughing as they drank until the red liquor trickled from the corners of their mouths. They formed a sycophantic court around a woman of large stature, seated with her back towards me. A garish red wig was piled on top of her head, and laced with strands of pearls; more of them swaddled her thick neck. A bottle for her private enjoyment was grasped in a be-ringed, pudgy hand; the fluid sloshed and bubbled as she swung it about, joining in the rough badinage of her