“Yes sir?” A tired man with thinning hair looked up from a kettle he was mending. “What can I get yer?”
Tellman bought a spoon, more for goodwill than because he wanted it. “My sister’s thinking of getting a house around here,” he lied easily. “I said I’d look at the area for her first. What’s it like? Quiet, is it?”
The ironmonger thought about it for a moment, the metal patch in one hand, the kettle in the other.
Tellman waited.
The ironmonger sighed. “Used ter be,” he said sadly. “Got a bit odd five or six years ago. Got kids, ’as she, yer sister?”
“Yes,” Tellman said quickly.
“Better a couple o’ streets over.” He indicated where he meant with a nod of his head. “Try north a bit, or east. Keep away from the brewery an’ the Mile End Road. Too busy, that is.”
Tellman frowned. “She thought of Cleveland Street. The houses look about right for her. Right sort of price, I should think, and well enough kept. But it’s busy, is it?”
“Please yerself.” The ironmonger shrugged. “I wouldn’t live ’ere if I didn’t already.”
Tellman leaned forward and lowered his voice. “There are not houses of ill repute, are there?”
The ironmonger laughed. “Used ter be. Gorn now. Why?”
“Just wondered.” Tellman backed away. “What’s all the traffic, then? You said it was busy lately.”
“Dunno.” The ironmonger had obviously changed his mind about being so candid. “Just people visiting, I expect.”
“Carriages and the like?” Tellman tried to assume an air of innocence.
He must have failed, because the ironmonger was imparting nothing more. “Not more than most places.” He returned his attention to the kettle, avoiding Tellman’s eyes. “Quieter now. Just a bit busy a while back. Forget what I said. I in’t ’eard there was nothin’ for sale, but if the price is right, you go fer it.”
“Thank you,” Tellman said civilly. There was no point in making an enemy. Never knew when you might want to speak to him again. He left the shop and walked slowly down the street, looking from side to side, wondering what had taken Adinett’s attention, and why.
There were several houses, a few more shops, an artist’s studio, a small yard that sold barrels, a maker of clay pipes, and a cobbler. It could have been any of a thousand streets in the poorer parts of London. The smell of the brewery not far away was sweet and stale in the air.
He stopped and bought a sandwich from a peddler at the end of the road where it turned into Devonshire Street.
“Glad to find you,” he said conversationally. “Do much business here? I’ve hardly seen a soul.”
“Usually stop down the Mile End Road,” the peddler replied. “On me way ’ome now. Yer got the last one.” He smiled, showing chipped teeth.
“My luck’s changed,” Tellman said sourly. “Been here all evening on an errand for a friend of my boss’s who came here a few weeks back and dropped a watch fob. ‘Go and look for it,’ he tells me. ‘I must have left it behind.’ Wrote it down for me, and I lost the paper.”
“Name?” the peddler asked, staring at Tellman with wide blue eyes.
“Don’t know. Lost it before I read it.”
“Watch fob?”
“That’s right. Why? You know where it might be?”
The peddler shrugged, grinning again. “No idea. What’s your boss like, then?”
Tellman instantly described Adinett. “Tall, military-looking gentleman, very well dressed, small mustache. Walks with his head high, shoulders back.”
“I seen ’im.” The peddler looked pleased with himself. “Not in a few weeks, like,” he added.
“But he was here?” Tellman tried not to let his eagerness betray him, but he could not keep it out of his voice. “You saw him?”
“I jus’ said I did. Din’t yer say as ’e were yer guvner an’ ’e sent yer ter fetch ’is fob?”
“Yes. Yes, I know. But if you saw him, maybe you knew which house he went into.” Tellman lied to cover his mistake. “He’s a hard man. If I go back without a good explanation, he’ll say I took it!”
The peddler shook his head, sympathy in his face. “Times I’m glad I don’t work fer no one. Get good days an’ bad days, but nob’dy’s on me back, like.” He pointed down the road. “Were that one down there, on that side. Number six. Tobacconist and confectioner. Lots o’ folk comin’ an’ going there. That’s w’ere all the trouble were, four or five year back.”
“What trouble?” Tellman said casually, as if it were of no real interest.
“Carriages comin’ and goin’ at all hours, and that bit o’ a fight wot there were,” the peddler replied. “Not that much, I s’pose. Bin a lot worse since then, in Spitalfields and ’round there. But it seemed kind o’ nasty at the time. Lot o’ yellin’ an’ cursin’ an’ so on.” He screwed up his face. “Odd thing, though, they was all strangers! Not a one o’ them local, like.” He looked at Tellman narrowly. “Now w’y would a lot o’ strangers wanner come ’ere just ter fight each other? Then quick as yer like, they was all gorn again.”
Tellman could feel his heart beating in his chest.
“At the tobacconist’s?” His voice caught. It was ridiculous. It probably meant nothing.
“Reckon so.” The peddler nodded, still watching him. “That’s w’ere yer guv’ner went, any’ow. Asked me the same thing, ’e did, an’ then went orff like a dog wi’ two tails w’en I told ’im.”
“I see. Thank you very much. Here.” Tellman fished in his pocket and brought out a sixpence. His fingers were shaking. It was a bit extravagant, but he felt suddenly optimistic and grateful. “Have a pint on me. You’ve probably saved me a packet.”
“Ta.” The peddler took the sixpence and it disappeared instantly. “ ’Ere’s ter yer ’ealth.”
Tellman nodded and then walked quickly down to where the peddler had indicated. It looked much like any other shop on the outside, a small area for selling sweets and tobacco, with living quarters above. What on earth could be here that John Adinett had found exciting? He would have to come back when the shop was open. He would find a way of doing that tomorrow, when Wetron would not find out.
He walked back towards the Mile End Road with a spring in his step.
But when he managed to return to Cleveland Street in the middle of the next afternoon, after some considerable difficulty, and having stretched the truth to his inspector so far it bore little resemblance to the facts, the shop seemed exactly like a thousand others.
He bought threepence worth of mint humbugs and tried to start a conversation with the owner, but there was little to talk about except the weather. He was becoming desperate when he made a remark about heat and fevers, and poor Prince Albert ’s having died of typhoid.
“I suppose no one’s safe,” he said, feeling foolish.
“Why should they be?” the tobacconist said ruefully, chewing his lip. “Royals ain’t no better off than you nor me when it comes to some things. Eat better, I s’pose, an’ certainly wear better.” He fingered the thin cloth of his own jacket. “But get sick like we do, an’ die, poor sods.” There was a sharp note of pity in his voice which struck Tellman as extraordinary from a man in such an area, who obviously owned little and worked hard. This was the last place he would have expected compassion for those who seemed to have everything.
“You reckon they’ve got troubles like ours?” Tellman said, trying to keep all expression out of his voice.
“Yer free to come an’ go as yer please, aren’t yer?” the tobacconist asked, gazing at Tellman with surprisingly clear gray eyes. “Believe what yer want, Catholic, Protestant, Jew, or nothin’? God wi’ six arms, if that’s what takes yer fancy? An’ marry a woman wot believes anything, if she’s willing?”
Gracie’s sharp little face came instantly to Tellman’s mind with its bright eyes and determined chin. Then he was furious with himself for his weakness. It was ridiculous. They disagreed about everything. She would have felt with this tobacconist and his sympathies. She saw nothing wrong in being in service, whereas Tellman was outraged that anyone, man or woman, should be fetching and carrying and calling other people “sir” and “ma’am” and cleaning up after them.
“Of course I can!” he said far more tartly than he meant. “But I wouldn’t want to marry a woman who couldn’t believe the same things I do. More important than religion, about rights and wrongs on how people behave, what’s just and what isn’t.”
The tobacconist smiled and shook his head patiently.
“If yer fall in love, yer won’t think about w’ere she came from or what she believes, yer’ll just wanna be with ’er.” His voice was soft. “If yer sittin’ arguin’ over rights an’ wrongs o’ things, yer in’t in love. ’Ave ’er fer a friend,
