Free A Broken Vessel by Kate Ross Page A

kissed the cross?”
    “It’s true,” Florrie confirmed. “Peg’s got Mr. Harcourt’s ear more nor any of us, and she can go ’most anywhere she likes here, even his office. If we wants something—extra food or candles, or anything at all—it’s Peg can get it for us.”
    “You makes ’em fork out for it, I expect,” said Sally to Peg.
    “And why not?” Peg was unruffled. “Isn’t it meself that takes all the risks? I’m not a public charity, now, am I? If I do a favour for one of me friends, I expect a favour back. Off with you, now. Himself won’t like it if he finds you still here.”
    Sally went. She had a good deal to tell Mr. Kestrel and Dipper. And yet, it was simple enough when you came right down to it. She had found the writer of the letter—and found her too late.

    “And then Peg shooed me out, and I come back here,” Sally finished. “And that’s all about it.” She threw herself down on the sofa. “Now, you might give me some’ut to wet me whistle, seeing as how I’ve talked so long.”
    “Give her a drink,” said Julian, without looking around from the window where he stood.
    “Yes, sir.” Dipper poured her some ale.
    Julian gazed out at the street, unseeing. The rattle of carriage wheels and the clangour of hooves rang in his ears, but could not drown out the voice in his head—his own voice, speaking to Sally yesterday. I didn’t mean you should dash off to the refuge this instant. Wait till tomorrow, for God’s sake. A day can’t make any difference.
    He turned abruptly. “There’ll have to be an inquest. Dipper, go and find out when and where it is.”
    “Now, sir?”
    Julian’s brows shot up. Dipper ran for his hat, and was gone. Sally looked at Julian more closely. “What’s wrong? You disappointed we couldn’t ask Mary about the letter?”
    “Rather.”
    “Can’t be helped, I s’pose.”
    “No.”
    He went to the table, where his breakfast lay untouched. “Would you like some coffee?”
    “Catch me drinking that stuff!” She wrinkled her nose and took another swig of ale.
    He would have poured some coffee for himself, but she jumped up and did it for him. Then she studied him, her head on one side. All at once she asked, “Did Dip ever tell you how he come to be called Dipper?”
    He looked up in surprise.
    “It all started when we was kids. Our pa, he was a bricklayer’s labourer, but he took to drink, and kept missing work. And when he did go, he’d have the staggers, like as not, and finally he got the kick-out, and he couldn’t get honest work no more. So he took up with some burglars as taught him their trade, and George, our brother, as is older than Dip, went in with him.”
    Julian sat down opposite her, stretching out his legs. He already knew Dipper’s story, but he was willing to hear it again. It was better than listening to those words reverberate endlessly in his mind: A day won’t make any difference . What had he been thinking of? How could he have miscalculated so disastrously?
    She chattered on, “Our ma was a good soul, and straight as a pound of candles, but she couldn’t do nothing with Pa, and besides, she was sick of a consumption, so she was too weak to blow him up proper. Dip, he was little and limber, so Pa used to take him along on a job and hoist him through the window, so he could unlock the door and let in Pa and his pals. But later on Pa ’prenticed him to a pickpocket. Dip was tip-top at that lay. That’s why he was called Dipper—’coz he had such a knack for dipping his forks into other coves’ pockets.
    “ ’Course, he was never easy in his mind about being on the cross. He knew it grieved Ma—and the worst of it was, it was mostly on her account he had to do it. She was took so ill, and Pa never did nothing for her—all the blunt he got, he spent on gin and fancy women. And finally Ma died, and Pa got nabbed and kicked the clouds” —she made a gesture eloquent of hanging— “and George, he was