by Evelyn James
“Wait, Bob, which fellow?”
“The thief,” Bob elaborated, looking surprised that Clara had not already guessed that. “He came into the pub for a drink. It’s the Devil’s armpit, that pub. Full of the worst sorts who all gather together to drink, fight and maybe arrange a bit of work.”
“The criminal sort of work?”
“Exactly.”
Clara mulled this over a while. Bob had certainly been busy, listening to the rumour train and talking with his friends, but Bob could not possibly know to ask all the questions that Clara had in her mind. After considering her options, Clara concluded that she would have to go to this ‘Devil’s armpit’ of a place herself and find out as much as she could. Her weariness left her as she flicked her eyes back to meet Bob’s.
“Take me to The Black Sheep,” she said.
“Now?” Bob asked, starting to look worried. “It isn’t a respectable place.”
“That doesn’t concern me,” Clara shrugged. “I need to speak with those people who met the thief. I need to ask them questions.”
“I’m not sure if I should take you,” Bob dropped his head and concentrated heavily on his big hands, giving the impression of a schoolboy being asked to do something he disliked.
“I can always go by myself,” Clara stated.
Bob’s eyes flashed back up.
“You mustn’t do that!” he almost cried out at her. “Bad people go there and the women are all… floozies.”
“You know me, Bob, when I get a bee in my bonnet…”
Bob gave a miserable sigh. He shook his head like a big dog trying to shake a flea from its ear.
“I’ll take you then, but the first sign of trouble we are leaving,” Bob told her this very firmly and Clara guessed he would drag her out kicking and screaming if needs be.
Clara promised him, on her honour, that as soon as he said the word they would both leave. Then she went to fetch her coat and hat and apologise to Annie for having to nip out again. Annie gave her a scowl, her best ‘what-are-you-up-to-now’ scowl. Clara promised she would be back home before nine o’clock and would eat her dinner late, then she grabbed the reluctant Bob’s arm and sauntered out into the night.
The Black Sheep was in Brighton’s working class quarter. Brighton did not quite have the slums like London or other large cities did, but there were areas that came close. The Black Sheep was situated among such a collection of rundown houses and backstreets, where the commonest sounds were hacking coughs and curse words. The streets were narrow and the sky was barely visible above their heads. The pavements were largely non-existent, people making do with the hard packed ground instead. After the dry summer the dirt spooled into clouds of dust at the slightest step, hitting the back of the throat and making the eyes water. Clara tried to imagine what it must be like to wake up and go to bed in this same dusty, dirty world, with the rubbish piled just outside the doors and the pervasive smell of overflowing latrines drifting across the air.
The door to The Black Sheep was tucked down a side alley. This was not a pub with ornate front windows to advertise ale and stout, this place was secret, almost hidden away. The only window, fixed into the side of the building as it looked onto the street, was broken and boarded over. Looking at the grime gathered over the wooden boards, it seemed the glass had been smashed for a very long time. Bob turned them into the alley that ran alongside a pawnbroker’s shop. Above them stretched a ceiling of brick, the original builders seeing no reason to not use the space above for extra accommodation. The result, on a rapidly darkening late summer’s evening, was to walk into a gloomy tunnel with no knowing who was about in the shadows. Clara was glad she had Bob with her, she was sensible enough to know that coming here alone would not have been wise. She had just mentioned the possibility to encourage her escort. Now she looked into the dark, dim tunnel that hid the entrance to The Black Sheep and wondered how anyone could live in such a world. Of course, her mind provided the answer swiftly enough; this was not a place you lived by choice. A person lived here out of necessity.
Bob pushed open a warped wooden door set into the wall. It creaked on its hinges, but the second it opened there was a gush of light and sound. Clara followed Bob into a large, long room packed with rough wooden tables and stools. Opposite the door ran a bar, behind which were rows and rows of bottles, mainly beer and gin. The Black Sheep’s landlord stood behind the bar, staring meanly at his customers as though he hated them all. The room was well lit by a combination of oil lamps and candles, making the pub one of the brightest places in this world of dark despair. The place was packed with drinkers, overwhelmingly male, though the odd woman sat among them. Several of the women were gaudily painted and had the appearance of prostitutes. Clara cast her eyes over this strange place, a complete novelty to her, and while she saw its many vices, and its many dangers, she also saw that this was the one ray of happiness in an otherwise bleak existence for many of the folks here.
“Over there is Charlie,” Bob whispered to Clara, though it was quite a loud whisper because the noise in the room was overpowering. “He was the one telling me all about it.”
Bob ushered Clara over to the aforementioned Charlie, who was sitting at a table with two other gentlemen. Charlie was a young fellow with sharp features and darting eyes. He had a tendency to open his mouth to reveal an overbite when he stared at people. The way he narrowed his ferrety eyes made Clara imagine he was in need of a good pair of glasses.
“Charlie, this is Miss Fitzgerald. She would like to speak with you,” Bob said.
“Oho, Charlie!” the man on Charlie’s right laughed. “You have a lady wanting to speak to you!”
“Shut up, Stan,” Bob barked, his usually placid voice suddenly angry. It was when he spoke like that that people began to take note of his size and muscular build. It was enough to make anyone think twice, it certainly made Stan hesitate. “Show some respect!”
Stan fell silent, his amusement all gone. The drinker next to him, the third man at the table, made a point of keeping his eyes fixed on his pint mug.
“What do you want?” Charlie asked Clara, his voice openly hostile.
“I want to know about the man who robbed the Jacobs’ house,” Clara said calmly, trying to pretend she was not unnerved by her environment.
“What about him?”
“You tell me. I hear he was not local.”
Charlie glanced at his drinking buddies. They did not attempt to help him.
“He was a Londoner.”
“Are you sure?” Clara asked.
“I know a Cockney accent when I hear it,” Charlie snapped. “I hear enough of that when those bastards come down in the summer to steal our work.”
Clara was amused that Charlie would refer to his criminal activities as ‘work’, but said nothing.
“Does this man have a name?” she asked instead.
“None he gave us,” Charlie snorted. “You should ask Tanner, the landlord. He spoke with him, not me.”
At this, Charlie clammed up and refused to say anything else. Clara glanced at Bob, then nodded with her head to indicate they should speak to Tanner.
The landlord was cleaning a glass with an old rag, the habitual work that all keepers of bars seem to be unable to resist. He scowled at Bob and Clara, but then he seemed to scowl at everyone. Bob ordered a pint, Clara declined his offer to buy her a drink. She had seen the state of the rag the landlord was using to clean his glasses.
“I hear a Londoner swanned in here causing trouble recently,” Clara mentioned casually as the pint was produced for Bob. “They are getting quite saucy. Bold as brass, these days.”
The landlord grunted.
“Mind you, perhaps the fellow employing him could not find a local that suited his needs,” Clara prodded him.
The landlord, as she suspected, was defensive about his clientele – loyalty comes in many forms.
“There was no call bringing in an outsider for that job,” he snapped
. “There are plenty of fellows here who could have done the work.”
“How did you know the Londoner was here on a job?” Clara asked.
“Said as much,” Tanner snorted. “Came up to my bar and leaned on it right where you are sat. Everyone knows everyone in here, so I knew he were a stranger. He asked for a pint, grinning all the time. Then the fellow asked if I knew the Jacobs’ house.”
“What did you say?” Clara asked as the landlord fell silent.
“I said I might,” Tanner shrugged. “I didn’t actually know the place, mind. But you don’t say things like that to outsiders. And I am only saying them to you because you are with him.”
The landlord pointed a grubby, grey finger first at Clara, then at Bob.
“Bob’s a good lad,” he said, mellowing a fraction. “Fixed up some of my tables after that brawl we had in here. And mended the rotten floorboards upstairs.”
Bob grinned at the landlord, delighted to be praised.
“I respect him. One honest fellow among a bunch of rogues,” the landlord spat violently onto the top of the bar, narrowly missing Clara’s hand. “That’s why I’ll talk to his friends too.”
“Thank you,” Clara said. “I appreciate you speaking to me. I am trying to trace the thief, this cocky Londoner. Did he mention his name?”
“No,” Tanner answered, the glass and the rag working round and round in his hand. “He didn’t.”
Clara was foiled. She paused a moment, trying to think.
“Is there anyone who might know who he was?”
“Why are you interested?” Tanner asked, “What is he to you?”
He was suspicious. Clara imagined that was rather a natural emotion for Tanner to feel, keeping the company he did.
“He stole something belonging to her,” Bob interrupted before Clara could formulate her own answer. “When he was in the Jacobs’ house.”
“Go to the police,” Tanner grumbled at Clara. “That’s what your sort do.”
Clara did not ask him to clarify what he meant by ‘her sort’, she could guess.
“And what good are the police?” Bob persisted. “They can’t catch a professional thief, and we both know that. So I am helping her to find the thief for herself.”
Bob lowered his tone and his eyes flashed darkly.
“Maybe I am also doing it to make a statement for Brighton. It’s about time we stood up for ourselves.”
The landlord became sympathetic again. Bob’s words had struck a chord.
“Now you be careful, Bob. No call you getting yourself into trouble,” he said. “But if you really want to track this fellow, well, I would talk to old Ezra next door. He knows more names of thieves than anyone else. Makes it his business to.”
Bob smiled.
“Thanks Tanner, I shall ask him.”
“I don’t want to see you ending up in a prison cell,” Tanner said before they could both leave. “Don’t go making your poor late mother sad in her grave.”
“I won’t,” Bob promised Tanner easily.
Then he escorted Clara out of the pub and across the road to the pawnbroker’s.
Chapter Twelve
The sign above the door was almost falling off its metal hooks. It consisted of three gold painted balls, the standard sign of the pawnbroker, said to variously represent bags of gold or weights for a scale. The windows were filthy, so yellow with grime that it was almost impossible to see through them, though that had not stopped Ezra from putting items on display in his window. There was a full tray of rings, most looking like fairground prizes, and a tin bath next to a woman’s dress hanging from a rail and looking like a particularly shabby ghost. There was no sign to indicate whether the premises were open or not for trade, but Bob did not hesitate to try the door. Old Ezra ran the sort of business that received a lot of trade after dark.
The shop was gloomy. A single oil lamp hung from the ceiling and barely touched the shadows. Clara felt, rather than saw, that she was surrounded by assorted belongings on shelves and stacked in heaps. Most would never be sold. They would sit in the shop for a few days, or perhaps a week, until their original owner returned with the money to claim them. Then, in a few more days, they would once again be pawned when the person ran out of money. In some ways, Ezra was a sort of lending library for household wares, only with money involved.
“Ezra?” Bob called out into the dark.
Clara could not see anybody about, but there was a dark set of shadows at the back of the room which suggested a doorway. Clara thought she saw movement there.
“Ezra Creek?” Bob called again.
“All right, all right,” an old man emerged from the doorway Clara had glimpsed. “I was eating my supper!”
The man was grimy, like his shop. He gave the impression that he was filmed in grease, certainly his fingers and beard were stained by nicotine that gave them a yellow hue. He wore a smoking jacket or housecoat, a long threadbare thing that had once been a deep red, but which now looked more grey. It was very shiny at the elbows and cuffs, indicating years of use. Clara had the feeling that Ezra was only wearing trousers beneath it, not a shirt. There was a hint of bare flesh as he moved and the coat briefly opened for a second or two. She tried not to cringe at the thought of the unclean old man’s white flesh being flashed before her eyes.
Ezra bore a full set of sideburns to accompany his long white hair. His locks were just as greasy as the rest of him and fell to his shoulders. He was not very tall, shorter than Clara, and had a very lined face with a bulbous, pockmarked nose that dominated his features. He scowled at the pair of them through a pair of tiny round glasses that constantly slipped from behind his ears. He was still carrying a boiled egg in his hand which apparently formed part of his supper.
“Well? What do you want to pawn?” he demanded.
“Nothing,” Bob started to say, instantly rousing the man’s anger.
“Then why are you bothering me?” he croaked. “Leave me alone!”
He stormed back towards the doorway.
“Wait!” Clara called out. “I have some questions about a recent burglary, and I think you might be able to answer them!”
“Are you the police?” Ezra snorted. “Only the police get to waste my time asking questions.”
“I’ll buy something,” Clara quickly added. “If you will talk to me.”
Ezra stopped just inside the doorway. Clara had calculated right when she imagined the man was dominated by money and the making of it. Any opportunity to line his pockets enticed him.
“What sort of thing will you buy?” he asked.
Clara quickly glanced around the shop. Most of the items were worthless, she would pay pennies for them if that. Then she spied something tucked behind an old trunk and a pile of clothes; it was an old-fashioned jardinière. The sort of thing people years ago kept goldfish in, and which the Victorians liked to use for plants. Bob helped Clara pull it out from among the clutter. It was very pretty and Clara guessed quite old. She took one look at it and knew it would suit Captain O’Harris’ house perfectly.
“This. I’ll buy this.”
Ezra looked delighted. There was a price tag of five shillings on the ceramic pot. Clara gave him six to make him amenable to chatting.
“Now, about the man who burgled the Jacobs house?”
Ezra cocked his head on one side. He was a canny old bird and now his curiosity was piqued. He folded the coins into his hot palm.
“You are interested in that?”
“I am,” Clara said. “I was told you could provide me with some information on the subject?”
“Yes I can,” Ezra grinned. “The fellow who burgled that place came to see me. Stood in this shop and yarned with me.”
“Why did he do that?” Bob asked, suspicion in his eyes.
“He had time to waste,” Ezra shrugged. “He was waiting for dark, and the pub had proved a little too hostile for his liking. They don’t take kindly to strangers there.”
“And what did you talk about?” Clara asked.
“All sorts,” Ezra gestured with his hands that this statement included a vast number of topics. “He was a chatty sort.”
“What was his name?” Clara insisted.
Ezra now frowned.
“He did not give it. Not many of my customers do. But later some other fellows came in here, locals who do a little extra work on the side,” Ezra drew a smile with his lips that showed small, brown teeth. “They were moaning about the fellow and trying to guess who he was. I heard them mention a few names, but they never settled on one for him.”
“Which names?” Clara pulled out her notebook ready to write them down.
Ezra glanced at the pad of paper. Clara was suspicious he was stringing her and Bob along, but she remained silent and waited.
“There were three possible names. One of the fellows had followed this thief all the way to the Jacobs house. He was describing him to his companions and they were suggesting names of thieves they had heard of that matched the description,” Ezra was being very accommodating now he had money in his hand. “I believe the names were, Stumpy Pete, John Knacker and Ugly Dickson.”
Clara took down these names, disappointed that two appeared to be aliases. Tracing them would be tricky.
“How would you describe the man who came in here?” she asked.
Ezra considered this for a while. He had forgotten the boiled egg in his hand and it was slowly disintegrating under the pressure of his fingers.
“Not so tall. Not tall at all. Barely above five foot, if I had to guess,” Ezra’s eyes wandered to the ceiling as he trawled through his memory. “He would have been in his thirties. Not bad looking, despite being short. Dark hair, dark eyes. A lop-sided smile. But what struck me the most was his slender build. He was so thin it almost beggared belief. He was like a moving skeleton, yet he did not look to be starved or anything of the sort. He was just extremely lean.”
“Did he mention anything about why he was in Brighton?” Clara asked as she made notes.
