Free Avery & Blake 02 - The Infidel Stain by M. J. Carter Page B

He’s always up and down here and the courts with his Bible, trying to turn us from sin. I say, I would if I could afford it. He’s from one of them missions on the Strand. Them societies for this and that.’
    ‘Exeter Hall?’
    ‘That’s it. Where all them evangelicals come from. Nat used to call them the Society for Telling Off the Poor. I never thought Thomas meant any harm: Pen goes to the ragged school when I can get him to. But I could have landed him one that day.’
    ‘Was there a doctor to look at the body?’
    She shook her head.
    ‘After Thomas said Nat was a bad ’un, all the other printers went quiet. Coroner asked if anyone had any notion of who might have wished him ill. No one spoke up. He said, was it possible that Nat had done hisself in, or could he have had an accident on the press? I couldn’t believe he could even say that. The jurors were sent to another room to decide what happened. They took a long while and when they came back they said they couldn’t agree. Six said it was “unlawful killing”. Five said it was “accidental death”. Made no sense to me. They buried Nat in St George’s Gardens the next day.Connie said Nat would rather have been buried at a crossroads with a stake through his heart than put in a churchyard. But there wasn’t nothing she could do. And I never heard nothing more about looking for who done it till today.’
    ‘Does the back door lead on to an alley?’
    ‘Yeah. The fat man would come in that way.’
    ‘Show me how the press works,’ he said.
    ‘Think I doan know?’
    He shrugged. She described to him the frame, the metal type, the bed, the power of the thick, screw-like vice to press the paper down on the type and ink.
    Then at last she said, ‘I’ve had enough now. Doan want to be in here any more.’
    Blake shrugged and we crawled out into the darkening afternoon.
    ‘What did people on the street say after?’
    ‘To start with, booksellers like Dugdale and Wenham, they was all looking over their shoulders. All kept their shops closed. Thought they might be next. But they couldn’t stay closed for ever. Nothing happened, and people stopped talking about it, like it was bad luck.’
    ‘What about gossip?’
    ‘Some said Nat must have owed money. Some said it was that evil duke what killed his servant and that girl. What’s his name?’
    ‘Cumberland,’ said Blake briskly. ‘It can’t be him. He’s King of Hanover in Germany now.’
    ‘They say his footmen used to come and get girls from round here.’ Then she said in a low voice, ‘Some of the girls up the road. They say maybe it was an apparition or, you know, Spring-Heeled Jack.’
    ‘Spring-Heeled Jack?’ I said.
    ‘Everyone knows who he is,’ she said, frowning.
    ‘I was in India for five years.’
    ‘A story to frighten children,’ said Blake scornfully. ‘A creature in a black cloak who leaps ten feet at a time and wanders the streets, attacking women.’
    ‘And he has great claws and red eyes and breathes fire,’ protested Matty.
    ‘Believe me,’ said Blake firmly, ‘it wasn’t him. But it seems strange to me that no one seems to know about it beyond the street. You’d have thought that a patterer at least would have made up a ballad or a song.’
    She grimaced. ‘Carn really explain it. Maybe because the blue bastards never came back – but that’s no surprise, they never come down here.’
    ‘Surely they must by law. It’s part of their beat,’ I said.
    She gave me an old look. ‘They should, but they doan. And all that with the coroner’s verdict. And Nat keeping hisself a bit apart. And people down here not liking anyone poking their noses into their business. Dugdale – he likes to throw about his weight – told everyone to keep quiet. It’d be bad for business.’
    ‘We are done for today,’ said Blake abruptly.
    ‘I’d like my money now,’ she said stoutly.
    He counted out two shillings and dropped the coins into her hand.
    ‘Heard of a