The Hangman's Child (16 page)

'No you won't!' she said with another little flare of anger. "Course you won't! Don't you think you will! There's people out there'd be proud of you, if they knew. Thousands of 'em. And they'd help you, if they could. And they will. Not nasty Mr Inspector Croaker but people that's brave and true. You'll see.'

Verity stared at the door to the stable, where Stringfellow was whistling his unmelodious tune to the horse. He wondered if Bella might be right. Later they lay in the ancient bed to which Julius Stringfellow had brought his bride, the late Mrs Stringfellow of a cholera epidemic, quarter of a century before. The London sky was starlit beyond the window with its curtains drawn back in the summer warmth. At the foot of the bed, two cradles were occupied by Billy and Vicky, each showing the round red face and black hair of Verity himself.

Above them, in the attic, he heard Stringfellow's fruity chuckle and a few muttered words. He sat up in bed.

'Your old father got someone up there with him!'

'No,' said Bella innocently,
‘I
asked about that. Pa says he seems to have took to talk in his sleep of a night. That's all.'

The chuckle was repeated and the attic bedsprings shifted. Before Verity could ask the next question, Bella's foot touched his and she turned towards him.

'Oh, William Clarence Verity,' she said happily, 'even if we hadn't food on the table, nor clothes to our backs, I'd still be no end proud of you .
..
.'

15

Verity stood at ease by the red oval of an iron pillar-box, the morning sunlight still cool. In tall hat, frock coat and dark trousers, he was dressed for duty. The first point on his beat was outside a cream-painted portico and steps leading to the double-door of Lord Tregarva's town-house in Portman Square.

A morning stillness in the pale sky cast its silence over the cypress and beech trees of the central lawn. Against dark London brick, Lord Tregarva's area railings and his iron-canopied veranda lined by urns of gilly-flowers shone with a gloss of fresh black paint. Oblong bas-reliefs on blank upper walls, cream swags on a ground of pale Wedgwood blue, marked Portman Square. Its elegant terraces seemed as secure from criminal conspiracies as anywhere in England. Verity's fault was to think otherwise. If Baptist Babb read Orator Hawkins' lips correctly, Lord Tregarva's house and three of the five others visited by Soapy Samuel last summer were near neighbours.

A clock towards Marylebone began to strike ten, entitling the officer on duty to stretch his legs. He drew the regulation tin watch from his fob-pocket, checked it, and paced slowly along the balconied houses. Crossing old Tyburn Road, he studied the facades of Park Street. Lady Lisle's villa stood apart from the others. He frowned and wondered how that entry had been

planned. The chestnut trees of Park Lane ahead of him, he passed the fine gilt-t
ipped railings of Sir Isaac Thorn
e's mansion in Upper Brook Street. Once again, it stood detached from its neighbours. Portman Square was Rann's preferred territory with its stretches of connected roofs.

He turned and walked back. At the first corner of Portman Square, several passers-by were looking in horror at a pathetic human sight. A blubberish young man of twenty-five or thirty, hatless and dishevelled, sat against a house wall. A tin bowl with a few coppers lay before him. His sleeves were pulled up, trousers hoisted above his knees. The exposed limbs were ulcerated, festering to a point where amputation of all four seemed the kindest remedy. Pus ran down his forearms and shins. The little group of benefactors stared with revulsion and pity. His voice was a thin, yet penetrating wail.

'Good and kind Christians! Help a poor sailor scalded in the engine-room of HMS
Ulysses
on the bursting of a boiler. Help a poor unfortunate what served his country ten years but has no pillow at night save the 'ard stones of the pavey! A poor Jack Tar of the China War what hasn't a crumb in his mouth the last four days. Help a fellow being, reduced to eat the very scraps of bread thrown in the street to feed the sparrows

From time to time he flexed a pus-laden limb, causing the women to draw back their skirts, the men to avert their gaze. Verity stepped softly to the front of the little group. He went up to the injured man and aimed a sharp kick, intended as a sideways blow to the seat of the ragged trousers.

'Get up, Infant!' he said sternly. 'Get up, you miserable, idle, thieving little tyke!'

There was a gasp from the group of witnesses. An elderly woman said reprovingly, 'My good man!'

Verity turned to them, "s all right,' he said confidently, 'there's nothing wrong with him. He's Infant. Otherwise known as The Scaldrum Dodge.' He kicked the cripple with a little more energy.

'Get up, you worthless young cadger!'

'Infant' put his hands on the wall behind him and appeared to pull himself up with great difficulty. His eyes turned in mute appeal to the onlookers as his protectors. He hung a moment against the stonework. Then, for fear that the crowd might scatter, he began to utter wordless howls of despair.

'That's right,' said Verity with patient scorn, looking confidentially at the bystanders, 'you cry away, my lad. You'll find as how it exercises the lungs, cleanses the features, rinses the eyes, and softens the temper.'

Infant looked up dry-eyed.

'Fucking jack!' he said bitterly. His sympathizers caught their breaths and went abruptly on their way.

Verity took the offender by the lobe of an ear, leading him back towards Lord Tregarva's residence. At the approach of another pedestrian, Infant would howl like a broken spirit, the rest of the time he came quietly. At the area railings by the little gate that led down to the kitchens, a middle-aged woman in a white apron and cap watched their approach.

'You never come down for your tea, Mr Verity,' she said anxiously. 'Oh, my lord, look at him!'

'Don't pay any notice to him, Mrs Baker. He's Infant. Lives off the scaldrum dodge. Likewise cadging and scavenging.'

'But his poor legs! And his arms!' She covered her mouth with her hands in a pantomime of dismay.

'With them same legs, Mrs Baker, he done a runner a dozen times from Mr Samson and me. And we almost never caught him. We find he understands reason best when his ear's hurting.'

He led his prisoner down the area steps. At the bottom, Mrs Baker turned with hands under her apron as though she might weep into it on Infant's behalf.

'But the poor, poor soul! He looks hurt so awful, Mr Verity!'

'Yes, he do, don't he? You got the scullery pump handy a minute, Mrs B?'

She led the way to the scullery with its iron-handled pump on a long suction-shaft and a stone water-trough under the spout.

'Right, Infant,' said Verity, 'get them arms under that spout. Sharp's the word, an' quick's the motion!'

There was a clang of the iron handle, the suction of a piston, and a gush of water over Infant's reluctantly extended arms.

'Why,' said Mrs Baker softly, 'it's washing off!'

"Course it is.' Verity directed Infant's right leg under the spout with his boot. 'Soap and vinegar. Soap the arm, spot the vinegar on top, leave it a minute and the lather comes up like running sores. Infant never done an honest day's work in the 'ole of his miserable life. Brave Jack Tar scalded when a boiler burst! Nearest he's ever been to sea is the tap-room of Paddy's Goose down Limehouse docks.'

'Why's he Infant at his age?' she asked cautiously. 'Hasn't he got a proper name?'

'If he has, he never said. Foundling orphan, sent down Mrs Rouncewell's, Elephant and Castle, among them fallen creatures and their out-of-wedlocks. Whenever anyone called him, him having no name that he knew, he was naturally called Infant. He been Infant ever since.'

He let the pump-handle drop and turned to the offender.

'Right, my son. The only reason you ain't down Bridewell already waiting for the birch to soak is you might be of use.'

‘I
ain't useful,' sobbed the fat young man defensively.

'Shut that noise!' Verity glowered at him. 'I'll decide what you'll be.' He led Infant back to the kitchen among stoves and hot closets, scrubbed pine tables and rows of copper pans. The housekeeper set an extra chair for the young man. Then she went to the oak corner-cupboard, returning with a dark bottle of wine cordial, three glasses, a jug of hot water and sugar lumps in a blue china bowl.

Verity looked at the wine cordial and the sugar.

'It's a consideration he don't deserve, Mrs B.'

He took a first sip of sugared wine-and-water, savouring it.

'Right, Infant. You got one chance: I find you're playing me up, and it's justices' sessions for you. Charges of impersonation, obstruction, threatening behaviour to ladies. That's six months of eating slum-gullion down the House of Correction. And the birch for threatening. See if you ain't got something to sing about then!'

Infant looked at him helplessly, like a fat child.

'I never threatened! Never!'

'I was there, my son. At this moment I got a distinct recollection of threatening. If I was to lose that, it'd only be from the shock of you telling the truth. See?'

The prisoner mumbled an ungracious surrender.

'Right, then. I get the truth or you'll have more grief than a month o' funerals.'

Infant sipped hungrily at his sugared cordial.

'What you want, Mr Verity?'

Verity looked at him, the round moustached face flushed with resolve.

‘I’ll
tell you what, you idle monkey. You spent your life being unfortunate at street corners and poking down drains for coins. You ever been down Clerkenwell?'

'Sometimes,' said the young man cautiously.

'Oh dear, oh dear, Infant! You got a taste for slum-gullion and birch, ain't yer? 'Course you been down there! You been twice before the Clerkenwell bench, prosecuted by the society that suppresses mendacity. Don't play me up!'

'I said, didn't I?' Infant wailed. 'I been there sometimes.'

'Right. You ever find anything by poking about? With your head down a drain?'

'Sometimes.'

'Don't go on saying sometimes! Have you or haven't you?' 'Yes.'

'That's better,' said Verity encouragingly. 'Now. You ever found anything down the drains off Saffron Hill? Had the gratings off when no one was about?'

‘I
n a manner o' speaking.'

'So you got a fair idea how those drains lie? Which way they run? You'd know where's the best place to look for coins that fell down them from the street?'

"Course!' Infant's pride was hurt by the suggestion that he might not know something so simple.

'And when you was lucky, you might toast your luck in a taproom like the Golden Anchor up the hill in Hatton Wall?'

'More 'n likely.'

'Just suppose,' Verity suggested gently, 'you was unfortunate enough to drop a coin - or a silver spoon - down the grating by the Golden Anchor tap-room. You know where I mean?'

‘I
suppose I might,' Infant said, his eyes evasive.

'How long before it might fetch up at the grating down the slope in Saffron Hill?'

Infant stared with a half-smile, suspecting a trick, yet relieved that the question was no worse.

'It wouldn't,' he said at last. Verity felt his heart quicken for the first time since his humiliation by Lambeth Sue.

'How d'you know it wouldn't? It's downhill, ain't it?'

‘I
live off drains, when there's nothing better,' Infant said hopefully, 'so I pay attention to 'em, don't I? You got no cause to. Nor people that lives like toffs. But not a week go by I don't find something, if only a linen snotter what fell down a grating when someone did his nose. But I don't fish where I won't catch. Nothing comes to Saffron Hill from the Golden Anchor. It can't.'

Verity's dark eyes narrowed in suspicion.

'Why can't it? It's down the hill, ain't it? It's where anything'd be washed down in time from above?'

'That's what you'd think,' said Infant contemptuously. 'What anyone'd think that don't live by finding. But nothing comes down to Saffron Hill from Hatton Wall. It goes the other way, through to Hatton Garden - not down Saffron Hill. Golden Anchor and Saffron Hill are separate drains. They both run separate into a main drain that connects with Farringdon Road. They don't run into each other.'

Verity clenched his fists under the table.