peculiar way of villains, it had also given her confidence in him. You knew where you stood. She'd fully expected to pay sixty per cent of the full price of the watches, but she'd also set aside fifty gold sovereigns as the down payment.
'Sure, I understand,' she said. 'Gimme a mo', I'll fetch it fer ya.'
'Mind, I can't take no chances,' Marley said. 'It may take a while to get to them yacks.' This was said almost as an aside.
Hannah turned at the door. 'Not too long, Bob. Ikey 'as great expectations.'
Marley frowned and shook his head slowly. 'If I 'as to take chances, make indiscreet enquiries like, that's no good fer me 'ealth! Pigs is everywhere, the Lane's tight as a duck's arse!' He looked over to where Hannah was standing and sighed. '
'Fraid that kind o' haste is gunna cost you forty sovs extra on the down.'
Hannah smiled inwardly, her mind put at rest. She was dealing with the same dead cunning Bob Marley. She was anxious to get the watches and so impress Ikey with her diligence and continuing goodwill towards him. She was not foolish enough to imagine that he would send her his half of the combination after only one such consignment, but her heart had lifted at the opportunity his letter presented. She had high hopes that Ikey must eventually send her the combination to the safe when she pleaded impecuniosity, his debts incurred by his orders having become too large for her to carry any further on her own. Whereupon she would be rid of him forever.
But Hannah had completely underestimated Bob Marley. She'd quickly come to see his attack on her as a show, a token effort to assert his male pride, give her a fright, as he had well succeeded in doing. She didn't think for a moment he would have used the razor. Marley, Hannah felt certain, could always be bought with gold.
She was wrong, however. Marley would have used the razor on her as lightly as he would have smiled. Hannah was unable to see the proud man who despised his fellow villains and thought himself quite different. She did not comprehend that, in his own eyes (and no others counted), she had damaged his reputation and done him irreparable harm. When she'd shifted the blame for betraying Ikey to the police onto him, she had delivered a blow to his pride which could entertain no possible forgiveness. Marley did business only for solid gold, for that is how he saw his reputation. And he always delivered. Hannah had compromised him, and because he always delivered, she would be no exception. The wolf would tear her flesh as well as any other.
Bob Marley made no attempt to locate the whereabouts of the watches stolen from Cheapside, this being much too dangerous. Instead he made directly for a jeweller of his acquaintance in the Haymarket, a Polish Jew by the name of Isaac Isaacson whom Ikey had used regularly when Marley had been his snakesman as a child. It was Isaacson who had moulded and created Marley's two gold teeth and so it came as somewhat of a surprise when his visitor bid him find one hundred mixed watches of brand new quality and all righteously purchased. They haggled at great length to finally reach an agreement of a thirty per cent reduction off the retail price of the proposed consignment.
Bob Marley was about to leave the premises reasonably well satisfied with the negotiations when Isaac Isaacson beckoned him to come closer. He explained in an urgent whisper that he was long owed a certain sum of money for a gold and diamond bracelet sold to a Miss Myrtle Manners, the governess of a well-known brothel in the Strand known appropriately enough as 'Girls with good Manners'. This 'Governess o' whores', he claimed, had flatly refused to pay him the final two instalments, a sum of three hundred pounds, claiming he had overcharged her and pointing out, with the least amount of subtlety, that she enjoyed the special patronage and protection of a senior police officer in the Haymarket watchhouse.
'You can cut, maybe a little, this person, ja?' Isaacson enquired of Bob Marley.
'Most certainly!' Marley replied. 'It'd be me pleasure to be o' service, Mr Isaacson.' He paused and scratched his eyebrow with the tip of his forefinger. 'Though it'll cost ya anuvver ten percent orf the cost o' the yacks. O' course, if ya wants a really nasty acid job, right down a cheekbone, and includin' a little turn o' the blade to slice away the corner o' the gob so it don't fit proper no more, it could be a little extra.'
Isaac Isaacson grew suddenly pale and threw his hands up in alarm. 'No, no! Ten per cent, no more, please, I beg you! A small violence only, if you please!'
Bob Marley grinned. 'Fer ten percent I can do ya a nice little job, Mr Isaacson. Gimme two days. Reckon you'll 'ave the yacks ready by then?'
The jeweller nodded, hunched his shoulders and spread his hands. 'A little cut, no more!' he begged again.
Bob Marley left the Haymarket and made his way to the Hare and Hounds in Rosemary Lane almost directly opposite the Methodist Academy of Light Fingers. He had not long to wait before he observed a boy leave the Academy in an old coat that fell to beyond his knees, the sleeves rolled up to fit his scrawny arms, bare feet showing below ragged trousers. The brat crossed the street to enter the tavern and Marley observed him to be snotnosed, dirty and small, with the pinched, rodent-like features of a street urchin. He appeared to be about ten years old as he placed two pennies down on the counter and ordered a daffy of gin.
'Make that a shant, m'dear!' Marley called to the barmaid.
The barmaid and the urchin both looked up at Marley. 'Suit yerself,' she said, picking up a bigger glass.
'And a double o' yer best brandy, love. I'll pay fer the lad's.'
The boy looked up at Bob Marley. 'You a turd burglar, mister?' he asked, swiftly taking up the two pennies on the counter and dropping them into the pocket of his coat.
Bob Marley enquired if the urchin knew Sparrer Fart.
'Maybe I does and then maybe I doesn't,' the boy replied cheekily.
'Tell 'im I wants to see 'im, two o' the clock termorra, in 'ere. Tell 'im no 'ard feelin's, I wants a job done, Bob Marley wants a job done. Got it?'
The boy nodded.
Marley lifted his head and called to the barmaid. 'Another gin fer the lad, love!' Then he placed a shilling on the counter and without a further glance at the boy he left the tavern.
Sparrer Fart was waiting for Marley when he entered the Hare and Hounds the following day. He was wearing a slightly battered top hat, coat and breeches all of which fitted him surprisingly well, though his entire outfit, including his shirt, neckerchief and scuffed boots, bore the signs of having been placed upon his tiny body some months previously and not having since been removed for the purposes of laundering. His face seemed also to have missed this opportunity to wash. Sparrer looked somewhat apprehensive as Bob Marley approached, backing into the safety of a group of men standing at the bar and glancing quickly over his shoulder to ascertain the shortest escape route should he have to make a sudden dash for it.
Bob Marley pushed into the group and extended his hand, smiling. 'I oughta beat the livin' shit out of ya, Sparrer!' Sparrer Fart backed away, ready to make a run for it. The barmaid looked at Marley questioningly. 'Brandy, love, the best o' the 'ouse!' Marley turned back to Sparrer, who now stood alone. 'What's your poison, gin is it?' The urchin nodded.
'C'mere, I'm not gunna 'arm ya,' Marley said, walking over to where Sparrer stood. The barmaid brought their drinks over. '
'Ow's the fingers?' Marley enquired. 'Not drinkin' too much is ya? 'Aven't lost yer touch, I most sincerely 'opes?'
Sparrer Fart took the gin the barmaid placed in front of him, then he looked up at Bob Marley, his eyes large, his expression most contrite. 'I'm sorry what I done, Mr Marley,' he said tentatively.
Bob Marley lifted his drink and held it up. 'Cheers! Never say you is sorry, boy! Sorry be the sign o' a weak man!' He up-ended the glass and swallowed its contents in one gulp. 'Ahh! Same again, love!' he shouted to the barmaid.
'I wouldn't 'ave! I swear I didn't know she was gunna shop Ikey!' Sparrer said.
'Course ya didn't! 'Ow much she give ya?'
'Four quid,' Sparrer lied.
'Ya was robbed! Sovs or what?'
Sparrer shook his head. 'Soft. It were good paper though, not fake.'
