The Sins of the Wolf - Anne Perry [101]
They passed South Bridge, and ahead of Eilish he saw a shadowy figure, body bent, a sack across its shoulders, hurry from a side alley and disappear into another, heading towards the Infirmary. With an involuntary shudder he remembered the grotesque crimes of Burke and Hare, as if he had seen a thirty-year ghost heading towards Surgeon’s Hall with a newly murdered corpse on his back to present to the huge, one-eyed anatomist Dr. Knox.
He glanced backwards nervously, but there was no one unwarrantably close.
They were level with Blackfriars’ Wynd and Cardinal Beaton’s house on one corner with its jutting overhang and crumbling stone. His information earlier that day had told him it had been built in the early fifteen hundreds by the then-archbishop of Glasgow and chancellor of Scotland during the regency and the monarchy of King James V, before England and Scotland were united.
Next was the Old Mint, a dilapidated building with a walled-up doorway with the inscription over it BE MERCIFUL UNTO ME, O GOD. He knew from the daytime that there was also an advertisement for Allison the chimney sweep, and a little picture of two sweeps running, but he could not see it now.
Eilish continued on her way, and Monk gripped his stick more tightly. He disliked carrying it. The feeling of it in his hand brought back sickening memories of violence, confusion and fear, and above all overwhelming guilt. But the prickling in the back of his neck was a primal fear even greater, and against his conscience his hand closed more tightly. He turned every now and again to look behind him, but he saw only indeterminate shadows.
Then suddenly at St. Mary’s Wynd she turned sharply left and he almost lost her. He ran forward and only just prevented himself from colliding with her as she stopped in front of a dark doorway, the parcel still in her hands.
She turned and looked at him, for an instant afraid, then as her eyes, used to the darkness, went beyond him she cried out.
“No!”
Monk swung around just in time to raise his stick and fend off the blow.
“No!” Eilish said again, her voice powerful with complete authority. “Robbie, put it down! There is no need….”
Reluctantly the man lowered the cudgel and stood waiting, still gripping it ready.
“You are very determined, Mr. Monk,” Eilish said quietly. “You had better come in.”
Monk hesitated. Out here in the street he had a fighting chance if he were attacked, inside he had no idea how many men there might be. In an area like Cowgate he could be disposed of without trace or necessity for explanation. Grisly visions of Burke and Hare came back like nightmares yet again.
Eilish’s voice was full of laughter, although he could not see her face in the gloom.
“There is no need to be alarmed, Mr. Monk. It is not a den of thieves, it is simply a ragged school. I’m sorry you were struck when you followed me before. Some of my pupils are very jealous for my protection. They did not know who you were. Creeping along the Grassmarket behind me, you cut a very sinister figure.”
“A ragged school?” He was stunned.
She mistook his amazement for ignorance.
“There are a lot of people in Edinburgh who can neither read nor write, Mr. Monk. Actually this is not a ragged school in the legal sense. We don’t teach children. There are others doing that. We teach adults. Perhaps you didn’t realize what a handicap it is to a man not to be able to read his own language? To be able to read is the doorway into the rest of the world. If you can read, you can make the acquaintance of the best minds of the present, no matter where they live, and all the past as well!” Her voice