Free A Very Unusual Pursuit by Catherine Jinks Page B

them rags, then it’s living in the rubbish heap where they was found. Either that, or someone moved ’em there. For no bogle would shift clothes from place to place.’
    ‘Mmmph.’ Sarah nodded in a meditative fashion. ‘This feller as found ’em – he’s one o’ them coves they call “skippers”. He sleeps in sheds and privies and the like. So one night he climbed over a locked gate and saw them rags piled up against the privy wall.’ After studying Alfred for a moment, Sarah said evenly, ‘Seems to me, if they was moved, they must have come from inside the house.’
    ‘Or inside the privy,’ Birdie piped up. Bogles were like rats; they favoured old privies and earth closets. Birdie had helped to kill at least three privy-bogles during her career as a bogler’s girl. ‘Mebbe that’s where it lives.’
    ‘But the skipper said as how he slept all night in that privy, and weren’t troubled, save by rats,’ Elijah unexpectedly volunteered.
    Alfred frowned. ‘Is he a child, this moocher?’
    ‘No,’ said the old man.
    ‘Then he’d be safe from most bogles. It’s kids they like.’
    Sarah pondered this for a moment, as Elijah began to push the garments, one by one, back into his bag. Birdie watched Alfred, wondering what he was going to do next. She had to admit that it all sounded very odd. On the one hand, she and Alfred had never before encountered anything that resembled bogle leavings. On the other hand, killing bogles often did involve a lot of slime and stench – even though these traces tended to vanish pretty quickly, once the creature had died.
    Birdie tried to imagine a bogle coughing up the silk vest and striped shirt, but her blood turned cold at the thought of it. So she decided to concentrate on what Sarah was saying, instead.
    ‘I told you how Nolly were snatched by someone as looked like police,’ Sarah reminded Alfred. ‘Now his coat turns up in someone’s garden. Could it be the same someone, I ask meself?’
    ‘Perhaps,’ Alfred agreed cautiously.
    ‘And could that someone be feeding a pet bogle?’
    Birdie gasped. Elijah grunted. Alfred sniffed and said, ‘No.’
    ‘Why not?’ asked Sarah.
    ‘Because bogles ain’t canaries,’ Alfred rejoined. ‘I’d sooner keep a bear.’
    ‘Bears can be taught to dance,’ Sarah pointed out.
    ‘Aye. That’s why I’d sooner keep one.’ Alfred shook his head wearily. ‘I couldn’t catch a bogle, Sal. Not without killing it. No one could.’
    ‘We’ll see.’ She stood up. ‘If I was to have that house watched, now, what would the boys be looking for? Aside from a lurker dressed like police.’
    Alfred shrugged.
    ‘Smoke? Smells? Green lights?’ she pressed.
    ‘I don’t know, Sal.’
    ‘Salt, mebbe,’ Birdie suggested, before she could stop herself. She then cringed as Sarah’s flinty gaze swivelled towards her.
    ‘Salt?’ Sarah echoed.
    ‘By the barrel.’
    Sarah nodded, as if well-satisfied with this contribution. To Alfred she said, ‘I’ll not rest till I’ve an answer, and I know you feel the same. If I was to ask for more help, you’d not be charging me for it, would you, Fred?’
    Alfred heaved a sigh. ‘No, Sal,’ he muttered. ‘I wouldn’t take no chink from you.’ Though he didn’t say as much, Birdie knew that he wouldn’t dare.
    A smile cracked across Sarah’s face. ‘You’re a fine feller, m’dear, and straight as they come,’ she declared. ‘Rest assured, one day I’ll return the favour.’
    Then she blew a kiss at Birdie, tucked her arm through Elijah’s, and shuffled out the door.
    After she’d gone, Birdie said ‘Mebbe them boys did get lagged. Mebbe they was caught thieving, and put in a lock-up, and it’s a lock-up with a bogle inside.’
    ‘That don’t explain the clothes,’ Alfred replied brusquely.
    ‘Unless someone working at the lock-up lives in that house.’ Birdie was thinking hard. ‘A trap or a jack or a beak—’
    ‘Stow it, Birdie.’ Alfred swung around on