Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Dorrit gives me everything she remembers about the man, and the others add in their recollections, but beyond the Stetson and bandanna, their memories differ.
He was about twenty. No, thirty. Twenty-five?
Dark hair. No, medium-brown. No, reddish-brown.
Average height? A little shorter than other men. Really tall.
I note it all and mark which observations come from Dorrit, who seems most likely to be correct. In the end, though, I suspect the hat and bandanna will get us further than anything else.
Gray arrives while we’re going over the details.
He removes the festering splinter, and cleans the wound, and commends the boy on his bravery, disregarding the tears shining in the child’s eyes at the pain.
Then he wraps the finger and gives him fresh bandages, but Dorrit takes those, saying she’ll keep them safe, and there’s something said about his mother, a vague comment that has me thinking if she found the bandages, she might try to sell them.
These aren’t orphans or street kids, then.
They have families, of a sort. My impression is that Dorrit has the best, but she lives alone with her mother, who works long hours.
There’s no father in the picture. Between the mention of her mother having been a governess—which suggests she came from a good family—and her mother’s warning about “fine gentlemen,” I can make some guesses about what led to her mother doing factory work in the Old Town and raising a child alone.
That is, horrifyingly, the fate of too many young women in service.
We make sure the kids get their sweets, though I’m sure Gray saved a few for himself. He also pays them for their help and asks whether we can contact them through Annie if we need more. They all readily agree. Then it’s time for us to go and find ourselves a cowboy.
“So, cowboys in Scotland,” I muse as we leave the kirkyard. “How common is that?”
Gray peers at me. “Is that, as you call it, a trick question?”
“Does it sound like one?”
He holds the gate open for me as I walk through. “There are certainly farmhands who work with highland cattle, but we do not refer to them as cowboys.” He nods. “Ah. You were asking whether they dress like American ones. They do not.”
“Actually, no. Good point, but I meant Americans in Edinburgh wearing traditional cowboy attire like Stetsons and bandannas.”
“With lariats over their shoulder? Spurs on their boots? A six-gun at their side?”
“Six guns. They come in pairs.” I pantomime drawing two guns. “Yer money or yer life.”
A passerby gives us a little more room, and Gray shakes his head.
“People do not walk about the city in costume,” he says. “Have you ever seen such a thing?”
“Hey, I did when Mrs. Wallace dressed me up for the goblin market.”
“You were dressed in an unusual manner. Not a costume.”
“A bandanna and Stetson are practical fashion choices. Not a costume.”
“Ah, yes, shielding one’s face from the sun and sopping up sweat on one’s neck.” He peers up at the overcast sky. “Very practical here. I really must try it.”
“I will pay you to wear a Stetson.”
“You could not pay me enough.”
“No? You’re wearing a top hat, Duncan.”
His brows shoot up. “Excuse me?”
“Yes, it’s the fashion, which is why you are wearing it, but in my day, it’s a costume. Usually worn by magicians.”
His eyes narrow. “You do not like my hat?”
“I never said that. It actually suits you. I just keep expecting you to pull a rabbit out of it.”
“And what would you like me to wear instead?”
“A Stetson?”
He catches my grin and returns the smile with a shake of his head.
“My point,” I say, “is that, in my time, you would almost certainly see people in non-Scottish fashion in Scotland. They wear what they are accustomed to wearing, so my question about the Stetson and bandanna wouldn’t be that odd.
I’ve seen them in Vancouver.” I tilt my head.
“Although, usually they’re more of an affectation.
Unless you’re in Alberta. Then they’re just fashion choices. I try not to judge.”
“Oh? Really?”
“I said I try, not that I don’t judge.”
A young man trips and brushes against me in his fall. I grab his hand as it slips into my pocket and say, “No,” the way I might to a misbehaving pup. He blinks at me and then blinks down at his hand, held in a vise grip. I give him a little push, say, “No,” again and keep walking.
Gray stops short, his gaze boring into the quickly retreating young man. “Did he try to pick your pocket?”
“Again, ‘try’ is the operative word. I handled it.” I tug Gray’s sleeve as he continues watching the young man as if ready to go after him. “Back to the cowboy. We have confirmed that men do not generally walk about dressed as cowboys.”
“Not unless they are in a performance.”
I slow, turning to look at him. “A performance . . .”
He waves a hand. “Play, entertainment, rodeo, whatever you would call it.”
“I slowed because that is the answer to this puzzle. While it wouldn’t be unheard of for an American to dress like that, the children didn’t mention an accent, which I think they would have if he had one.
Why would a Scot dress like that? If he’s advertising a performance.
” I smile at Gray. “I think we know where to start.”
We’ve retreated to the town house for lunch. The information we need can be found as easily over in the New Town, and while we’re both comfortable in the Old Town, it does require extra attention, as that would-be pickpocket proved.
The person we most hope to speak to is Isla.
She’s very fond of plays and entertainments.
She isn’t home, though—Jack says she’s at a charity luncheon.
I remind myself that I really should offer to go to those with her.
They’re a duty for a woman of her class and standing, but they aren’t much different from charity dinners in my day, when I’d rather just donate the money and skip the shindig.
Isla feels the same. Her “charity” is a very different sort.
But she pushes the boundaries in other ways, and so she’s careful to stay within them when she can.
I should probably start doing the same, as much as it rankles.
Unless having me along would only make things worse, with my strange in-between status and the rumors about me not really being Gray’s assistant.
Damn it. I need to fix this problem before it affects Isla and Gray.
I need to find respectability, and if it was just a matter of acting like a lady, I could do that.
I do that, in the right company. But then I hear the whispers and snickers about trained monkeys, how you can put them in little dresses and make them act like people, but they’ll always be trained monkeys.
We ask Jack about cowboys and entertainment.
She doesn’t know of anything in the city right now.
I remember that Wild West shows were popular entertainment in Victorian Britain, but I think I’m predating that.
I did see them advertised in a recent American newspaper, and they seemed to be new.
The only thing that has crossed the pond so far are tiny traveling troupes, nothing like the Buffalo Bill show to come.
But according to Jack, there are none of those traveling troupes in Edinburgh right now.
Next, we check with Simon, which also gives me a chance to see the dog.
I’d done that this morning before we left, and she had indeed glowed.
I don’t even want to think how much effort that took—the washing, the scrubbing, the brushing—but the result was a dog he could walk down Robert Street without anyone looking askance.
She’s an adorable little white terrier, now sporting red bows on her ears.
The perfect New Town lapdog, and she even acts the part, daintily taking meat from my hand, like a princess accepting her due.
As for cowboys, we hit another dead end.
“There, er, are men who dress like that,” Simon says, with great care, sneaking anxious looks Gray’s way. “For, er, private performances.”
“Parties and such. Yes, I can see that.”
He relaxes a little as I veer from his real meaning, my tone telling him I understand.
“Would they advertise by walking about the Old Town dressed that way?” I say.
“I have never seen it myself, and if it happened, it would be at night, and only in places where they felt safe.”
“Got it. So not Greyfriars Kirkyard in the middle of the day?”
A faint smile. “No.”
On to the next person on our list. Tommy, the newsboy.
We’d looked through the daily paper and hadn’t seen rodeos advertised, but Tommy will know more.
We find him hawking his wares on his usual corner.
His cart holds everything from copies of the daily paper to used copies of yesterday’s paper, plus pamphlets and chapbooks and even some broadsheets.
The Scots might be very literate, but print isn’t as cheap as it is in my day.
Also, when I say “literate,” I mean they’re able to read simple prose, not necessarily able to read a newspaper front to back.
So there are options for everyone. Can’t afford a new copy of the paper?
Buy a used one from yesterday. Does the paper include more topics than you care to read about?
Look to pamphlets and broadsheets for simpler—and more sensational—news stories.
One thing Tommy definitely has are our chronicles. Not that they sell like hotcakes. They’re still finding an audience—but since Gray is a longtime customer, there is one advantage Tommy has . . .
The moment Tommy sees us crossing the road, he sweeps papers from his stand and pulls out—with great reverence—a fountain pen, which he lays beside a new stack of Jack’s latest installment.
Above the stack, a sign reads: The World’s Only Purveyor of Signed Editions of The Mysterious Adventures of the Curious Undertaker.
Considering the books aren’t sold beyond Edinburgh, “world” is pushing it, but I actually suggested that, since it’s technically true.
I also suggested the signed copies. It’s a novelty that people seem to appreciate, allowing Tommy to charge double.
As I sign, I ask about cowboy entertainments.
“No, Miss Mallory, I’ve heard nothing about that. I read all the papers that come through, and there are no rodeos or the like. Haven’t been for . . .” He trails off, as if thinking back, and I’m about to say it doesn’t matter when he says. “But there is Roy.”
“Roy . . . ?”
Tommy shrugs. “Fellow who lives near me. He’s always doing something up by the castle, to get money from tourists.
He calls it ‘art’ but . . .” He shrugs. “Not any kind of art I’ve ever seen.
Sometimes, he plays a cowboy. Showed me the whole routine once.
Yeehawing and throwing a rope. Then he expected me to pay him for it.
Art?” He shakes his head and looks at least twice his thirteen years. “That’s not art.”
But it is performance art. And it gives us a place to go next.