Part 8 (2/2)
”I'll get my secretary to look up the records,” said the governor. ”Thank you, Barker, that will be all.”
Harry left and headed for Bermondsey and to the address the governor had given him. He changed his mind when he saw the attention his Rolls was getting from bunches of sinister-looking men on street corners. ”Turn around, Becket,” he ordered. ”We'll leave the car somewhere safe and take a hansom.”
They returned later, told the cabbie to wait, and stared up at a rat warren of a building.
They entered a narrow hallway, edging around broken prams and soggy boxes of detritus. There was no reply on the ground floor and so they mounted the rickety stairs. The smell was appalling. Harry knocked at a door on the first landing.
A slattern of a woman answered it.
”I wondered if there was anyone living here who remembers Reg Bolton?”
”Never 'eard o' 'im.” The door began to close.
Harry put his foot in it. ”Is there anyone who has been living here for some time?”
”Try old Phil at the top and get your bleedin' foot out o' my door.”
Holding his handkerchief to his nose, Harry, followed by Becket, went on up the stairs. He knocked on one door and there was no answer. He tried the other one. There came the sound of shuffling feet behind the door and then it opened.
An old man stood there, or perhaps, thought Harry with sudden compa.s.sion, he might not be that old but aged by poverty. Behind him was a bare room with an iron bedstead.
”Are you Phil?” asked Harry.
”Right, guv. I'd ask you inside but there ain't nowheres to sit down.”
Phil's face was marked by scabs and his clothes were ragged.
”Do you remember Reg Bolton?”
”That's over two years ago. Flash fellow, he were. Wouldn't spend the money to get his missus out of this rat hole. She said she was leaving him and he beat her to death. But he got loads o' villains to testify he was somewhere else at the time. Shame, it was.”
”Did he know any grand people?”
”Naw, only villains.”
”How old are you?” asked Harry.
”Fifty-five, come Tuesday.”
”And how did you come to land up here?”
”The wife went off and left me. I adored my Elsie. Went to pieces. Lost me trade as a joiner. Shut up in the asylum, and when I got out I was done for. Just existed here ever since.”
Harry could not bear to leave him. A voice in his head was screaming at him that he was surrounded by hundreds of other cases of dismal poverty and to leave Phil alone. But he found himself saying, ”Come with me. I think I can find work for you. Have you belongings you can pack?”
”Got nothing but what you see.”
”Come along.”
Phil meekly shuffled down the stairs after them. Becket opened his mouth to protest and then shut it again as he remembered how Harry had saved him from a life of poverty after Becket had collapsed from hunger while working as a porter in Covent Garden.
The driver of the hansom told him that he wasn't going to allow Phil in his cab until Harry promised to pay extra.
”What is your name?” asked Harry.
”Phil Marshall.”
”Well, Phil, first of all we need to get you cleaned up and get you some decent clothes.”
”What can he do?” asked Becket.
”That cleaning woman is finis.h.i.+ng work for us at the end of the week. Do you think you are fit enough to do some cleaning, Phil?”
”Reckon I could, guv. I feel a bit weak, mind.”
”When did you last eat?”
”Maybe Tuesday.”
”Dear me, and this is Friday. Becket, summon the doctor when we arrive. He'll need to treat those scabs.”
Phil began to feel as if he had died and gone to heaven. A warm bath was run for him and Becket laid out clean underwear and a suit for him.
After that, he was checked by the doctor, who said the scabs were caused by untreated bedbug bites and malnutrition and suggested a gentle diet of soup and light meals to begin with.
Phil was given a small room in the bas.e.m.e.nt and told to rest as much as possible.
He lay on the bed after Becket had gone, tears of grat.i.tude pouring down his cheeks. He swore that from that day on, he would die for the captain if necessary.
Harry called on Rose later that day. She listened in alarm as he described the body fished out of the Thames and how they feared that Reg had been a hired a.s.sa.s.sin.
”But I think you will be safe now,” he a.s.sured her. ”A story has gone into all the newspapers that you held nothing back from the police.”
”So I suppose you will feel free to go back to ignoring me.”
”On the contrary,” said Harry. ”I have been remiss and I do apologize. But you cannot have any social engagements in August. Everyone is away.”
<script>