William Monk 02 - A Dangerous Mourning

regular customer had his own mug. Evan returned to where Tom was waiting hopefully and passed him his cider, and when Tom had drunk half of it, with a huge thirst, Evan began his unobtrusive inquiry.
    “Seen Willie?” he said again.
    “Not tonight, sir.” Tom added the “sir” by way of acknowledging the pint. He still could not think of a name. “Wot was yer wantin’ ’im fer? Mebbe I can ’elp?”
    “Want to warn him,” Evan lied, not watching Tom’s face but looking down into his mug.
    “Wot abaht?”
    “Bad business up west,” Evan answered. “Got to find somebody for it, and I know Willie.” He looked up suddenly and smiled, a lovely dazzling gesture, full of innocence and good humor. “I don’t want him put away—I’d miss him.”
    Tom gurgled his appreciation. He was not absolutely sure, but he rather thought this agreeable young fellow might be either a rozzer or someone who fed the rozzers judicious bits of information. He would not be above doing that himself, if he had any—for a reasonable consideration, of course. Nothing about ordinary thievery, which was a way of life, but about strangers on the patch, or nasty things that were likely to bring a lot of unwelcome police attention, like murders, or arson, or major forgery, which always upset important gents up in the City. It made things hard for the small business of local burglary, street robbery, petty forgery of money and legal letters or papers. It was difficult to fence stolen goods with too many police about, or sell illegal liquors. Small-time smuggling up the river suffered—and gambling, card sharping, petty fraud and confidence tricks connected with sport, bare knuckle pugilism, and of course prostitution. Had Evan asked aboutany of these Tom would have been affronted and told him so. The underworld conducted these types of business all the time, and no one expected to root them out.
    But there were things one did not do. It was foolish, and very inconsiderate to those who had their living to make with as little disturbance as possible.
    “Wot bad business is that, sir?”
    “Murder,” Evan replied seriously. “Very important man’s daughter, stabbed in her own bedroom, by a burglar. Stupid—”
    “I never ’eard.” Tom was indignant. “W’en was that, then? Nobody said!”
    “Last night,” Evan answered, drinking more of his cider. Somewhere over to their left there was a roar of laughter and someone shouted the odds against a certain horse winning a race.
    “I never ’eard,” Tom repeated dolefully. “Wot ’e want ter go an’ do that fer? Stupid, I calls it. W’y kill a lady? Knock ’er one, if yer ’ave ter, like if she wakes up and starts ter ’oller. But it’s a daft geezer wot makes enough row ter wake people anyway.”
    “And stabbing.” Evan shook his head. “Why couldn’t he hit her, as you said. Needn’t have killed her. Now half the top police in the West End will be all over the place!” A total exaggeration, at least so far, but it served his purpose. “More cider?”
    Again Tom indicated his reply by shoving his mug over wordlessly, and Evan rose to oblige.
    “Willie wouldn’t do anything like that,” Tom said when Evan returned. “ ’e in’t stupid.”
    “If I thought he had I wouldn’t want to warn him,” Evan answered. “I’d let him swing.”
    “Yeah,” Tom agreed gloomily. “But w’en, eh? Not before the crushers ’as bin all over the place, an’ everybody’s bin upset and business ruined for all sorts!”
    “Exactly.” Evan hid his face in his mug. “So where’s Willie?”
    This time Tom did not equivocate. “Mincing Lane,” he said dourly. “If’n yer wait there an hour or so ’e’ll come by the pie stand there some time ternight. An’ I daresay if’n yer tells ’im abaht this ’e’ll be grateful, like.” He knew Evan,whoever he was, would want something in return. That was the way of life.
    “Thank you.” Evan left his mug half empty; Tom would be only too pleased to finish it for him. “I daresay I’ll try that. G’night.”
    “G’night.” Tom appropriated the half mug before any over-zealous barman could remove it.
    Evan went out into the rapidly chilling evening and walked briskly, collar turned up, looking neither to right nor left, until he turned into Mincing Lane and past the groups of idlers huddled in doorways. He found the eel pie seller with his barrow, a thin man with a stovepipe hat askew on his head, an apron