Printer's Devil (9780316167826) (22 page)

Blinking back tears, I clung to Lash’s neck and whispered my thoughts aloud to him. After every few words he turned his head
and licked the salt from below my eyes.

“The man from Calcutta’s got them,” I told him. “He’s got all the papers, Lash, and all the names of who’s in the plot!”

The more I thought about the list of names, the more important it seemed. I’d brought the papers away in the full knowledge
that they contained vital information; but in all the excitement I simply hadn’t had time to sit down and look through them.
I’d supposed there’d be plenty of opportunity. Now, it seemed, it was too late.

“And he’s got my mother’s
bangle
,” I said, remembering; and now I really did burst into tears of frustration. The last thing I knew, before I fell asleep
from
sheer exhaustion, was the sensation of Lash trying to lick my face as I nestled my forehead into the wiry hair of his neck,
and sobbed.

The next morning, in the printing shop, I felt dazed. Dawn had seemed to come almost as soon as I’d laid down to sleep, and
I’d probably only managed a couple of hours before I’d been woken by the sound of Cramplock letting himself in downstairs.
My dreams had been vivid again, and the faces in the fog of the dream more anguished than ever. For the second time in just
a few short nights my mother had appeared, and she’d been holding her arm up and pointing to her wrist. “I’ve lost it, Ma!”
I’d sobbed back at her, as she circled her wristbone with the fingers of the other hand to signify the bangle. “I’ve lost
it! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!” And her lips repeatedly mouthed silent words which looked like “Find it,” or “Find him,” her
face agonized and imploring, drifting away from me.

Now, even though I was awake, everything still seemed a bit unreal. Cautiously, at the beginning of the day, I’d asked Cramplock
about the biscuit tin. He’d denied all knowledge of it, as I feared he would; but I didn’t dare say any more in case he started
asking awkward questions about what was in it, and why it mattered. I kept my lips tight shut and got on with my tasks.

I was waiting for Mr. Glibstaff to come back for his murder announcements, fifty of them stacked neatly on the counter. If
I could get away with it, I was hoping to worm some information out of him about the murder investigation. At around half
past ten he came in, strutting officiously, leaning on a knobbly and misshapen stick which he carried everywhere and used
to wave in people’s faces by way of a threat. It was a hot day again and his horrible, bristly little black mustache, which
looked like the kind of brush you use for cleaning mud out of the nooks and crannies of boots, was shining with sweat. It
was a struggle to be polite to him.

“Hello, Mr. Glibstaff,” I said, as brightly as I could, “here are your posters, sir.” I glanced back into the workshop, where
Cramplock was now busy with a noisy press. I leaned forward over the counter. “Fascinating case this, innit, sir?” I said,
putting on my enthusiastic-little-boy voice. “I been readin’ about it in the newspapers, sir. No injuries! Curious, innit?”

Glibstaff was looking at me askance.

“Do they know what the gentleman died of, sir?” I asked.

“Yes, as it happens, they do,” he said, closing his eyes and lifting his chin as though to stop me looking inside his head
for information.

“Poison, I shouldn’t wonder,” I rabbited, watching his expression. “Strange business, innit? We get all kinds of murders round
‘ere, Mr. Glibstaff sir, you wouldn’t believe it. Why, only last weekend a murderer escaped from the New Prison! Don’t know
if they’ve caughtim yet, but
what
a villain ‘e looked!”

My tactics were working. Glibstaff just couldn’t resist letting people know he knew more than they did. It made him feel important.
“That case and this are connected,” he said, pompously. “It’s believed the deceased in this case was well known to the escaped
jailbird.”

I feigned astonishment. “Is that so?” I said, wide-eyed.

“So if you see anything suspicious,” he continued, “we’d be grateful for the information.”

Oh, the number of suspicious things I could tell him! I had so many pieces of information in my head I felt as though I were
beginning to burst. It occurred to me that I could have some fun by feeding him some misleading morsel — but I looked down
at his heavy stick and thought better of it. The first thing he’d want to know would be how I had found out, and that would
be very hard to explain. I’d probably end up in deeper trouble than anyone else.

Just to reinforce his self-importance he leaned forward and lowered his voice, his little mustache twitching
close to my ear. “Nothing you can tell me, is there? Nothing you’re —
concealing
, boy, is there?”

“I only know what I’ve read, sir,” I said innocently. “Have they caught the jailbird yet, then, sir?” I persisted.

“No they haven’t,” he replied. “Still at large. Hiding out somewhere, no doubt … but we’ll get him. Bow Street are vigilant,
and he’ll not be able to leave London, by road or by sea.”

“I should think not,” I said, handing him the stack of posters. Just as he was leaving, I added, “Oh — so was it poison, then?”

“Beg pardon?” he said, stopping in the doorway.

“Was it poison, sir? What the gentleman in the hackney carriage died of?”

“In a manner of speaking it was,” Glibstaff said. “If you must know, they have cause to believe it was a snakebite. Good day
to you.”

I think I must have whistled, because after Glibstaff had gone Cramplock peeped through the door and said, “Something wrong?”

“No,” I said, “he liked them.”

My blood was buzzing in my veins with the thrill and horror of what I’d just learned. Suddenly I felt extremely wide awake.
I was bursting to tell someone about the snakebite. Specifically, of course, I was bursting to tell Nick, and I knew telling
Cramplock just
wouldn’t have the same impact. But I simply couldn’t keep it inside.

“He, er — he had an interesting story about the murder,” I said, brightly.

“Oh yes,” he grunted, squinting distractedly at his type and barely seeming to care whether I told him the story or not.

“The murdered man,” I gabbled, “the one in the carriage, you know, Mr. Cramplock, the one described in the murder notice,
well, according to Glibstaff, it sounds incredible, but he said —”

“Mog, I need to concentrate for a few minutes,” Cramplock said, not unkindly, looking up briefly before returning to his type.
He didn’t need to say any more. I knew enough to shut up and get on with my work. My eagerness to talk was going to have to
wait.

But the events of yesterday and this new piece of information were going round and round in my head all morning. With Coben
and Jiggs’s list of names now in the hands of the man from Calcutta, I reflected, it was probably only a matter of days before
the whole criminal underworld of London was bitten to death. As Cramplock finished his typesetting job and relaxed a little,
I remembered there was something else I had been plucking up the courage to ask him, and hadn’t yet had the chance.

“Mr. Cramplock,” I said, “do you know about watermarks?”

“What about watermarks?”

“Well,” I said carefully, “I saw a — an interesting watermark the other day. I’ve, um — lost the piece of paper I saw it on.
But I can sort of remember it. It was like a dog asleep.”

“Like a what?” said Cramplock sharply. “A
what
, did you say?”

“A dog,” I said, “like this.” Taking a pencil, I roughly sketched for him the little watermark I’d seen on the document that
had gone missing from my tin. Cramplock eyed the little drawing through his half-glasses, and then eyed me with what looked
like suspicion.

“Only one papermaker I know,” he said gruffly, “man called Fellman.”

“Do you buy paper off him?” I asked.

I seemed to have annoyed him. “Who’s been filling your head with questions all of a sudden?” he asked, irritably.

“Nobody,” I said, “I’m just interested, that’s all.” He picked up a huge book, slammed it sharply down on the table in front
of him, and opened it, pretending to read. There was silence. My questions had plainly sent him into one of his moods, and
I had no doubt that it had something to do with the piece of
paper I’d found in the storeroom, with the strange message on it — which of course I’d put in the biscuit tin, and had lost
along with everything else. “
I don’t appreciate deceit
,” it had begun, the sinister air of a threat lurking behind the polite language. He
was
hiding something. I trod softly around him for a few minutes, doing little inconsequential tidying jobs; and he ignored me,
continuing to pore over the huge ledger which I knew very well he wasn’t really interested in.

After a while I had another go.

“Have we
got
any of that watermarked paper?” I asked, trying to sound innocent. “From Fellman?”

He sighed. “You don’t give up, Mog, do you,” he said, resignedly. “I don’t buy paper from him anymore, though I used to. I
had a bit of a—a
disagreement
with the man, if you must know. Bad temper, he’s got. Put a lot of people off his business a few years ago, when his name
got linked with, ah — with criminal types.”

This was exactly what I wanted to hear.

“But he hasn’t stopped making it, has he? I mean, I’ve seen —” I bit my lip. Perhaps I shouldn’t say too much. “Who buys his
paper now, then?”

“Oh, I don’t think he finds much business anymore. A few of the poorer printing shops, and a newssheet or two, I suppose.”

“But not — official things?” I asked. “Not — the Customs House, or anyone like that?”

“Certainly not,” Cramplock said, “they only use His Majesty’s Stationer, and a royal watermark reserved for official documents.”
He saw me looking at him intently. “So are you going to tell me what all this is about?”

“Oh — nothing special, Mr. Cramplock,” I said.

I was more worried than ever about Nick. If the bosun was in so much danger, then Nick was too — and now the man from Calcutta
really
had
killed somebody.

I’d arranged to meet him after work at the fountain, but very late in the afternoon Cramplock insisted that we clean a whole
lot of type particularly thoroughly and, after messing about with spirit and cloths and waste paper, I was at least an hour
later in getting away than I’d intended. My cuffs stank of spirit, and I couldn’t get rid of the oily sensation on my hands,
no matter how much I rubbed them, or how much Lash licked them. I kept having to stop him because I was sure it wouldn’t do
him any good.

When we arrived, a clock was already chiming eight. It was still hot, but the shadows were growing long and the number of
people was diminishing. I lurked on the street corner, watching, trying to catch a
glimpse of Nick and yet stay out of sight until I could be sure there was nobody with him.

But there was no sign of him. Maybe he’d gotten tired of waiting, and gone home. Or maybe he hadn’t turned up at all. I waited
for a while, and then decided to ask someone. There was an old woman sitting by the fountain, surrounded by black skirts,
with a shock of red hair billowing up from her head which made her look rather like a volcano. She was selling flowers, and
I’d watched her sitting chatting to passersby, and smelling her flowers when there was no one to talk to.

“Excuse me,” I said, “have you seen a young lad who looks a bit like me? In the last hour or so?”

“I see all sorts,” she told me, “from sittin’ ‘ere. Soldiers, I seen. Cattle, I seen. Men with pitchforks, men with bottles,
men with carts. Boys I seen too.” She reached down for a flower and put it to her nose. I waited for her to speak again; but
she seemed so engrossed in the flower, I eventually decided she wasn’t going to, without prompting.

“So?” I said, “did you see a lad or not? A bit taller than me, sort of skinny, with a big bruise up here.”

She was smiling at me from behind her flower. “Boys,” she said, “all shapes and sizes, some little, some fat, some blond,
some black. Warious,” she mused, “as warious as flars. A man I seen with no legs today,
swingin’ himself about on his fists. A grand man I seen with a wig as long as a horse tail. A man I seen with a big basket.
A man I seen kickin’ a child, today,” she said, tailing off sadly and putting her nose back into the flower.