The William Monk Mysteries_ The First Three Novels - Anne Perry [108]
“A proper downy geezer, vat one. I like it!” He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and laughed again. “It’d be a sin ter shop a feller wiv vat kind o’ class.”
Monk took a gold half sovereign out of his pocket and put it on the table. The man’s eyes fastened onto it as if it mesmerized him.
“I want the screever who made those fakements for them,” Monk repeated. He put out his hand and took the gold coin back again. He put it into his inside pocket. The man’s eyes followed it. “And no sly faking,” Monk warned. “I’ll feel your hands in my pockets, and you remember that, unless you fancy picking oakum for a while. Not do your sensitive fingers any good, picking oakum!” He winced inwardly as a flash of memory returned of men’s fingers bleeding from the endless unraveling of rope ends, day in, day out, while years of their lives slid by.
The man flinched. “Now vat ain’t nice, Mr. Monk. I never took nuffink from yer in me life.” He crossed himself hastily and Monk was not sure whether it was a surety of truth or a penance for the lie. “I s’pose yer tried all ve jollyshops?” the man continued, screwing up his face. “Couldn’t christen that jade lady.”
Evan looked vaguely confused, although Monk was not sure by what.
“Pawnshops,” he translated for him. “Naturally thieves remove any identification from most articles, but nothing much you can do to jade without spoiling its value.” He took five shillings out of his pocket and gave them to the man. “Come back in two days, and if you’ve got anything, you’ll have earned the half sovereign.”
“Right, guv, but not ’ere; vere’s a slap bang called ve Purple Duck dahn on Plumber’s Row—orf ve Whitechapel Road. Yer go vere.” He looked Monk up and down with distaste. “An’ come out o’ twig, eh; not all square rigged like a prater! And bring the gold, ’cos I’ll ’ave suffink. Yer ’ealf, guv, an’ yers.” He glanced sideways at Evan, then slid off the seat and disappeared into the crowd. Monk felt elated, suddenly singing inside. Even the fast-cooling plum duff was bearable. He smiled broadly across at Evan.
“Come in disguise,” he explained. “Not soberly dressed like a fake preacher.”
“Oh.” Evan relaxed and began to enjoy himself also. “I see.” He stared around at the throng of faces, seeing mystery behind the dirt, his imagination painting them with nameless color.
Two days later Monk obediently dressed himself in suitable secondhand clothes; “translators” the informer would have called them. He wished he could remember the man’s name, but for all his efforts it remained completely beyond recall, hidden like almost everything else after the age of about seventeen. He had had glimpses of the years up to then, even including his first year or two in London, but although he lay awake, staring into the darkness, letting his mind wander, going over and over all he knew in the hope his brain would jerk into life again and continue forward, nothing more returned.
Now he and Evan were sitting in the saloon in the Purple Duck, Evan’s delicate face registering both his distaste and his efforts to conceal it. Looking at him, Monk wondered how often he himself must have been here to be so unoffended by it. It must have become habit, the noise, the smell, the uninhibited closeness, things his subconscious remembered even if his mind did not.
They had to wait nearly an hour before the informer turned up, but he was grinning again, and slid into the seat beside Monk without a word.
Monk was not going to jeopardize the price by seeming too eager.
“Drink?” he offered.
“Nah, just ve guinea,” the man replied. “Don’ want ter draw attention to meself drinkin’ wiv ve likes o’ you, if yer’ll pardon me. But potmen ’as sharp mem’ries an’ loose tongues.”
“Quite,” Monk agreed. “But you’ll earn the guinea before you get it.”
“Aw, nah Mr. Monk.” He pulled a face of deep offense. “’Ave I ever shorted yer? Now ’ave I?”
Monk had no idea.
“Did you find my screever?” he asked instead.
“I carsn’t find yer jade, nor fer sure, like.”
“Did you find the screever?”
“You know Tommy, the shofulman?”