Chapter 6
Iwas not so foolish as to think that entering a tavern might not be a dangerous situation. I pulled the folded knife from my pocket as I entered the Halfway House—halfway up the Close.
It was not my first time in such a place. When I lived and worked at The Church years before, I was often sent out to purchase ale that I carried back in a pail. I was given a coin by Madame if I returned without spilling any of the ale intended for ‘customers.’
The smell of the tavern might have been the one that I had frequented nightly—ale and other spirits, perhaps whisky, smoke from cigarettes or a pipe, and the smell of bodies pressed together under a cloud of smoke.
Requests for more ale shouted to the man who filled mugs and efficiently swept up payment with a large paw of a hand.
I was aware of the curious glances from more than one bleary-eyed customer as I made my way to the tavern bar. The tavernkeeper among them, who stared at me with open curiosity.
“Lost are ye, missy? A bit far from the New Town?”
He was a burly fellow with a dark beard on thick jowls and twin hams for forearms that suggested little tolerance for skirmishes in his tavern.
“I would like information.”
He grunted. “I don’t hand out information, missy. It would make my customers uneasy.”
“I will pay for information,” I replied. “Regarding a woman who worked here. Her name was Dory Brown.”
He continued his routine of filling mugs and wiping the bar as he moved behind it, exchanged a crude comment with a customer, then returned. He watched me with narrow-eyed speculation.
“Don’t know anyone by that name.”
I wasn’t surprised. If word had spread about Dory’s murder, and it most likely had, then those who knew her would be reluctant to share any information.
“I know she worked here.”
He continued to watch me with suspicion.
“Do ye now?”
In for a penny, in for a pound. I had encountered people like the man behind the bar. I was not naive that my appearance caused suspicion.
“As I said, I will pay for information that might help find the person who killed her,” I bluntly replied.
The tavernkeeper’s eyes widened slightly. “Yer a bold one, I’ll give ye that. Taking the risk to come here. Wot might be yer interest in wot happened?”
“She was my friend,” I informed him and laid a half crown on the bar.
His eyes gleamed at the sight of the coin. “Yer friend? Ye expect me to believe that?”
I didn’t reply but returned his stare measure for measure.
I was not surprised when he reached a paw of a hand with the obvious intention of retrieving the coin from the bar.
I refused to be dismissed or taken for a fool. I pulled the folding knife from my pocket, flipped it open and drove the tip of the blade into the top of the bar within inches of that meaty paw.
“The information first, then you may have the coin.”
There was surprise, then a slow grudging acknowledgement.
“Aye. I knew Dory. She worked here from time to time. I heard wot happened, saw the police here the other night. No surprise that.”
“What do you mean by that? Did you see her with someone that night?”
“She was usually with someone, if ye get my meanin’. It’s a way for a woman to earn extra coin.”
“A short man perhaps, left-handed,” I told him what Munro had suggested about the killer. “Who might have followed her back to her room?”
He shook his head. “She left here early, said she had to meet someone. Trudy handled the rest of the night for her. Then we heard about the stramash at the tenement.”
“Did she say if that was a man?”
He shook his head. “She said she’d been trying to meet with the woman and she might have some information for her.”
A woman, not a man.
“Did you notice anyone here that night that looked like the man I’ve described? Or afterward, someone who might have followed her?”
He shook his head. “Trudy might have had a word on that. They spoke. She wasna pleased about being the only other one here on a busy night. But that will cost ye extra.”
“If I can speak with her, I will pay her as well.”
“Yer a mighty fine one we don’t see around the Close. But ye’ve got a sharp way about ye.”
I did wonder if he was aware of the irony of his choice of words.
“Ye can speak with her when she makes her way back to the bar to fill her tray.”
I retrieved the knife. He swept the coin into his pocket.
Trudy eventually made her way back to the bar.
“This one wants to ask ye questions about Dory.”
There was no sympathy for what had happened to my friend.
“Got wot she deserved to my way of thinkin’, leavin’ me short shrift with the place full of customers. She said she had to meet someone.”
I then asked if she had noticed anyone that night who fit the description I had given the tavernkeeper.
She was thoughtful, even more so as I laid a coin on the bar. In a place where she very likely worked a week or longer before receiving pay that matched it, there was sudden interest.
“I might have seen a man like that.”
Might have?
She nodded “A right tight arse with one round of ale that he never finished, as if he mighta been waitin’ for someone. He left right after Dory took herself off.”
She was thoughtful even as shouts went out for more ale from customers.
“There was something odd about him tho’. He was a smallish sort, not the kind ye might think would risk pushin’ his weight around, nor the sort that a woman would like.”
“Have you seen him here since that night? What did he look like? What was he wearing?”
She was thoughtful. “He wore a long coat with some sort of fancy trim that reached to the toes of them boots. Expensive they were too, by the looks of ’em. He wore his hat low and didn’t take it off. Like them that keep a watch for someone but don’t want to be seen.
“Gave me the look, if ye know wot I mean. As if I’d take up with just any man. Made me skin crawl the way he just stared and had me looking over me shoulder when I left for the night.” She shrugged.
“I ain’t seen him since, and good riddance to the wee bugger, I say. Is that worth another coin?”
It was helpful. I paid the additional coin and thanked her.
As I turned to leave, I searched among the customers for someone who might fit that description, even though Trudy said that she hadn’t seen him since that night. I suddenly found my way blocked.
“Wot is a pretty piece like ye, doin’ here?”
“I am leaving,” I informed the man who stood over me with his foul breath and a hand on my arm.
“Ye might want to stay.”
“Let go of my arm.”
“Now, is that any way to speak to ole Tom when I could be persuaded to purchase drink for ye?”
“Let go,” I repeated.
The tavern was suddenly quiet. The tavernkeeper moved from behind the bar.
“Ye might want to do as the lady asks. I’ve no need for blood in me place.”
Tom laughed. “A wee thing like this? Are yer claws sharp then, missy? I might like that.”
“I doubt that,” I replied as I brought the blade up and thrust it against the paunch above the belt of his pants.
“A spirited little thing!” he hooted with a look around at those who watched. “Do ye think to frighten me?”
His hand tightened on my arm.
I shifted as I’d learned from my instructor at the Gymnasium in London where I’d taken lessons, and created just enough space between us that I slashed the blade lower.
“If ye value yer manhood, let go! If not, ye will find yerself on the floor bleeding out, and ye will let go then.”
He paled and through the haze of too much ale that had made him bold, or perhaps it was the point of the blade that sliced through the coarse wool of his trousers with my solemn threat, he decided to release me.
I did not wait to hear his curses or the laughter of others in the tavern, but pushed my way past and out onto the cobbled stones of the Close.
“I ain’t never seen nothin’ like that!”
Kip stood wide-eyed just beyond the entrance.
The bloody little imp had apparently taken it upon himself to watch after I entered the tavern. He was quite impressed, while I was determined to leave as quickly as possible. He followed, with a string of questions.
Where did I learn that? “Would ye have cut off his...?”
I stopped as we reached the bottom of the Close.
“Enough!” I told him.
“I ain’t never seen nothin’...” The lad’s eyes suddenly widened as he stared at something behind me.
Or someone.
“Bloody hell, Lily! Wot the devil do ye think yer doin’ here?!”
Considering other recent exchanges, the choice of words, and the sound of that voice, I was fairly certain who the curses in both English then Gaelic belonged to.
“Mr. Munro,” I greeted him. “A not-pleasant surprise.”
I was treading in very shallow water here, and I knew it. Still...
“Wot the devil are ye doin’ here?”
He was not having any of it.
“Have ye no sense? A young woman comin’ here unescorted? Alone?”
He was beginning to repeat himself. It was a conversation we’d already had.
“And who is the wee beggar?”
The ‘wee beggar’ in question stood wide-eyed at the entrance to the Close and would have fled if Munro hadn’t grabbed him by the scruff of the neck. Obviously, having had similar experiences, Kip fought back, arms flailing amid a string of equally colourful curses.
“I didn’t do nothin’! The lady takes care of herself!”
He eventually managed to free himself, or possibly Munro simply let him go. He raced off down the street, hurling a last curse over his shoulder as he disappeared.
I took advantage of the distraction as Munro stared after him, and quickly set off for Market Street. My intention was to find a driver. I was not surprised when one pulled to the curb just ahead, as Munro caught up with me afoot. If a man could snarl...
“Get into the coach!” he ordered.
I stopped and slowly turned around.
“I’ve learned something that could be important about the man you described after we left the morgue, and there is more...”
The anger disappeared, replaced by something else, something that darkened that intense blue gaze.
“Aye, there is more,” he unexpectedly acknowledged. “Now please, get into the coach, Lily.”
Not a curse or an order, but a polite request. I would have preferred a curse.