'Clothes?' Faro was a little taken aback by this astute observation.
Godwin laughed. 'Surely, Jeremy, you saw at once that the dead woman was no vagrant. Such hair and hands never went with a beggar's gown. They belonged with silks and satins, with jewels and fine clothes.'
'So you think they might have been removed?'
Leslie nodded eagerly. 'Undoubtedly the case. And the lad Sandy might have been scared to rob a corpse himself but he would have soon seen the possibilities of making some profit out of those who don't share such a sense of delicacy. It was probably all taken care of, long before he was sent to summon the police.'
'You could be right,' said Faro.
'Of course I'm right.' Leslie continued: 'From my slight acquaintance with the Grassmarket, I see plenty of booths selling clothes for pennies. Mostly rags.'
Pausing, he studied Faro thoughtfully. 'But what we might dismiss as rags might keep a poor family in food for a week.'
Faro smiled wryly. Obviously he wasn't the only member of his family who had inherited the ability to observe and deduce.
'A splendid idea, Leslie. Well worth following. But not what I came for - Shall we have dinner one night? Say, the Cafe Royal? Saturday evening at seven?'
Accompanying him to the door, Godwin said: 'Look, I'd like to help. Seeing that I was in at the very beginning, there with you, so to speak, when the woman was found. If I see the lad Sandy again, I'll try and buy some information for you. A few pence might work wonders at loosening his tongue. Really - I mean it.'
He put a hand on Faro's arm. 'I want to help you solve your beggar-woman mystery. Not only for the news value either.' He grinned. 'Just because I enjoy a challenge.'
Faro left him and walked down the stone stairs, suddenly happy and confident. Having his cousin's assistance was exactly what he needed to solve this baffling case.
Chapter 8
Faro's route to the West Bow took him past the entrance to Bowheads Wynd, where he decided to call on young Sandy. A couple of shillings thrust into his hand, with the promise of more to come, should be ample to loosen the lad's tongue about his gruesome discovery and the events which took place before he summoned Constable Reid to the scene.
Faro had to knock on several doors before he received even a scowling oath in response to his enquiry. Whereas his cousin's lodgings were merely shabby and poor, Bowheads Wynd was depressingly lacking in hope as well as cleanliness of any kind.
From each opened door, his nose was overwhelmed by the stench of crowded humanity within. He remembered that these tall 'lands' had once been the pride of Edinburgh, town residences to the nobility, lived in by one family only - along with their many servants. Now each room on all six floors was occupied by perhaps twelve people - a man and a woman, their swarm of children and maybe a couple of elderly relatives or hangers-on.
He had almost given up hope of finding Sandy when at last a woman, with several small children clinging to her skirts, answered to the name of Mrs Dunnock. Her clothes were clean, shabby but neat, and when she spoke she nervously pushed a gold bracelet back from her wrist.
'I'm his ma. What d'ye want wi' him? What's he done this time?' she said wearily, her manner that of a parent used to receiving constant complaints about her unruly offspring.
'Nothing. Just tell him Inspector Faro came by.'
'Inspector Faro?'
Mention of his name panicked her. She stepped backwards, glancing over her shoulder as if someone else might be listening.
'You're a polis!' she said accusingly, as if he had wheedled his way to her door under false pretences.
'I'm a detective, Mrs Dunnock.'
She took a great gulp of air, her hands clutched her wrists and she pointed to his tweed cape and hat. 'Proper policemen wear uniforms.'
'Detectives don't.'
'And that gives you the right to come poking your nose into what don't concern you? We ain't done nothing wrong,' she added in a pathetic whine.
'Neither has Sandy - at least not that we know about,' he said. 'Just tell him there's a couple of shillings for him to put to good use.'
The woman's eyes glittered at the mention of money, almost as if he had given her a glimpse into paradise. Her defensive manner softened so rapidly, he guessed that this was obviously not what she had been fearing as the outcome of his unexpected visit.
She managed a smile. 'He's no' at home, but I'll tell him, mister. Where d'ye bide?'
'He knows that too,' said Faro, and lifted his hat politely as he walked away down the steps.
An adept at shallow breathing, he was glad to fully extend his lungs again, for even the reek of smoking chimneys in the High Street was ambrosia compared to the vile stench in the fetid house he had just left, with its dreadful odour of rotting meat. God only knew what cheap cuts the poor got from the flesher's disease-ridden stocks, and why many more did not succumb to food poisoning. And as always his final thought when faced with direct poverty was: But for the grace of God, there go I. For such he was fully aware might have been the squalid circumstances of his own life, but for an accident of fate that had made him a policeman's son with a widowed mother prepared to make material sacrifices for his education.
Even in broad daylight, with a thin sun turning the Castle into the setting for one of Sir Walter Scott's romances, Faro approached the wizard Major's abode with reluctance. Its chilling atmosphere and sinister emanations had remained untouched by passing years and changing seasons. Facing north-east, its windows were untroubled by sunshine, but it was not aspect alone which
