crawling snail-like away. The mists had done nothing to cleanse the air of its miasma of soot and greasy cooking fires; the smells of squalid habitation pressed upon me as I stepped into the small courtyard. The end building's door swung away, unhindered by lock or bolt, when I raised my hand against the bare wood. I craned my neck to peer up a ramshackle staircase, fancying that I could see some trace of the candlelight that had been visible in the upstairs window.
'Hall-oo,' I called into the darkness above. 'Is there anybody there?'
No answer – at least not in words. I thought I heard a faint scraping noise, of feet or a chair-leg, on a floorboard overhead. The banister swayed in my grip as I mounted the creaking steps.
I ascended two floors and now could see the fragment of candlelight sliding from underneath a door a little way from the landing. The planks, eaten away by mould, muffled my knock. 'Mr Fexton?' I bent my head close to hear my reply.
'What? What?' A startled croak from the room on the other side. To my ear came a sound as if various papers were being rapidly shuffled, perhaps to hide them from unwanted scrutiny. 'Who's there?'
'I'm looking for a certain Fexton,' I shouted. 'I greatly desire to ask him a few questions.'
'Questions? Questions?' The voice of the unseen person went up in pitch to a rasping shriek. The paper noises increased to a veritable storm flurry, punctuated by the sharp clatter of metal instruments. 'What kind of questions?'
It was of course likely that one who made his living in such a fashion would be suspicious of any callers. But then, as is often the case in any walk of life, greed could be made to overpower caution. 'It's in regard to, ah, a business proposition. Which would be of some profit to this Fexton, if I could locate him.' No great lie there; I was prepared to pay a few shillings for whatever I could discover.
For a few seconds there was silence, which I took to signal cogitation on the other's part, broken by the scraping creak of the door's hinge. A bespectacled eye, squinting behind the curved glass, inspected me through a narrow gap. The man appeared to be extremely small in stature, the gaze being at a level quite beneath my own. A sharp-pointed nose, and a chin stubbled with grey, protruded in the manner of some sea-creature squeezing through a submerged crevice. 'Business?' demanded the scowling face. 'What kind of business?'
I held up the Saint Monkfish sovereign in answer.
The man's eye widened at the sight of the coin, then darted up to my face. 'Where did you get that? Eh?'
Back into my pocket it went. 'I wish to speak to Mr Fexton,' I said with cold civility. 'If you can summon him here, or direct me to where he may be found, I would greatly appreciate it.'
The door opened wider to reveal the man's face in full. A few strands of greasy hair were plastered forward over an otherwise barren scalp; his face was unpleasantly rough, but not as though from youthful pustules or a later pox, which are by nature eruptions below; rather it seemed as if the skin had been corroded and etched from the outside, as cliffs carved by the ceaseless action of the ocean upon them. The impression of diminished height I had previously gained was due to the curvature of his spine, a deformity that left him hunched rabbit-like over his discoloured hands.
'I'm Fexton,' he announced. (I had of course suspected as much.) He scrabbled back into his chambers to allow me entrance. 'Who're you, then? What's this here business you talk about?'
I saw that there was another occupant of the room: a terrier, identical to the ones I had seen on the street, bounced from spot to spot as those breeds will, one moment laying its front paws on the window sill and the next sniffing at my trousers cuff.
'Get down, you cur!' shouted Fexton at the dog, aiming a blow at it with the stick by which he supported his misshapen frame, and nearly toppling himself with the violence of his swing. The dog cowered abjectly, just out of his reach. 'Come, come-' He was addressing me again, as he tottered about the room. 'I haven't time no, no, not at all – no time, y'see – what's your concern with me? Eh? Speak out, man.' A deal table, rickety as its owner, trembled as he pawed through the disorder upon its surface: a zinc basin, various mottled flasks, and a series of lead moulds were the visible evidence of his occupation.
My eye was drawn involuntarily across the rest of the room's clutter. A mound of crumpled, grease-spotted wrappings in one corner indicated the site of his furtive dinners; a bed, no more than a thin pallet on the sagging floor, was covered with grey clothing and a thick coat acting as blankets. A crude shelf nailed to one wall supported a row of books: the titles I deciphered were all of the order of Sub-Umbra; or, Sport Amongst the She Noodles and The Spreeish Spouter; or, Flash Cove's Slap Up Reciter, and similar cheap lechery (not that I recognised them other than by reputation). The general impression of the man's quarters was of sad, solitary degeneration.
His rasping voice broke into my musing inspection: 'Speak up! There's no time!'
'I'm searching for a maker of coins-' I began.
'Coins? Coins?' His tortoise-like neck stretched its tendons to the breaking point as he glared at me. 'I don't know anything about any bloody coins – nothing, I tell you. Soldiers is what I make; very fine, very coveted they are – in the collections of the finest gentlemen!' His denials mounted to a shrill peak. 'No, no coins – I don't know anything! You won't get me that easy!'
It was easy to surmise that past investigations into his activities had resulted in unpleasant consequences for him. 'I assure you,' I said in as soothing a manner as I could manage, 'I make no reference to forgeries – my interest is rather in harmless curiosities, such as the one I just showed you at the door.'
His eyes narrowed in suspicion. He drew the stopper from one of the flasks on the table, and tilted it to his lips; the juniper scent of cheap gin mixed with the sharper chemical odours tainting the air.
I pressed on: 'The coin… bearing Saint Monkfish's profile…?'
Fexton drew the back of his hand across his lips. 'Eh? What about it, then?'
'Are you the manufacturer of that item?'
'What if I am? Eh? What business is it of yours?'
His snarling manner irritated me; it was only with some effort of self-mastery that I refrained from sharper words. 'I have made it my business, sir; I find the article… intriguing, shall we say. I would like to know more of its significance-'
'Huh!' Fexton's mottled skin flushed with the effect of his liquor. 'As if you didn't already know enough of that! You and your kind – filthy buggers; filthy, filthy…' His voice ebbed into a mutter, drowned at last by another swig from his flask.
As with the cabbyman, he had assumed some degree of knowledge on my part that was in fact completely lacking. 'I assure you,' I said, 'my questions are sincerely put-'
'Oh, yah!' mocked the coiner. 'Sincerely – that's good! Very droll, that is!' The gin dribbled from the point of his chin.
'And of course I'd be willing to pay…'
That brought back a measure of sobriety. His eyes grew calculatingly narrow behind his spectacles. 'Pay? How much?'
I shrugged my shoulders. 'It would depend; upon the value of the information-'
A furious volley of barking interrupted me. The terrier skittered to the window, placed its paws upon the sill, and yapped at some event in the night's darkness invisible to us. It turned and barked at its master, as if describing the signal that had roused it.
'Damn you! Cursed hound!' The noise drove him to a fury, saliva dappling his lip. He raised his stick and brought it with a sickening crack against the dog's spine; the wretched animal crouched beneath the blow, waiting for the next. 'I'll teach you-'
I caught Fexton's wrist, holding the stick aloft. The animal's misery, compounded of pain and suffering loyalty to its cruel master, angered me. 'Stop that,' I ordered. 'Have you no decency? Abusing a poor beast in such a manner.'
'Yes, yes; of course…' He cringed disgustingly, as if expecting me to turn the stick on his bowed back. 'But you don't know; you don't know-' His eyes turned towards the dog as it whined in suppressed excitement, eager attention turned back to the window.
'I came here with a few simple questions, hoping to find equally, simple answers.' By now I was sick of the cramped, foul-smelling room and its noxious occupant. 'If you can assist me, and wish to receive the appropriate recompense, then say so; if not-'
'But there's no time! Not now!' He scrabbled about in a corner, drawing a ragged coat over his trembling
