C. Harris - Who Buries the Dead

“You should be scared. I mean what I say.”

Flynn’s mismatched eyes widened ever so slightly. Then he pushed away from the old stone wall and scuttled off, his head down, the tails of his tattered coat fluttering in the breeze.

“Who was that?” asked Tom, drawing the curricle up beside Sebastian.

“I’m not quite certain.”

“’E’s a real Cap’n Queernabs, he is,” said Tom.

“A what?”

“Don’t ye know? A Cap’n Queernabs is a cove what’s dressed real shabby-like.”

“He is that.” Sebastian leapt up into the curricle. “Hear anything of interest in the stables?”

“They’re all talkin’ about how somebody prigged one of the old kings’ heads.”

“So much for swearing all interested parties to secrecy,” said Sebastian, taking the reins. “Anyone have any idea who might be behind the theft?”

“Oh, they got all sorts of ideas. But ain’t no two alike.” The boy scrambled back to his perch. “What’d you say was the name of that cove?”

Sebastian gave his horses the office to start. “Flynn. Diggory Flynn. Why?”

“Calhoun was talkin’ ’bout somebody hangin’ around Brook Street the other day-somebody who sounded more’n a bit like yon Cap’n Queernabs.”

Sebastian reined in hard and turned to stare at his tiger. “When was this?”

“Dunno. Few days ago. Why?”

But Sebastian only shook his head, the wind cold on his face as he whipped the horses for home.

“The thing ye gots t’ understand,” said the costermonger, leaning against the side of a donkey cart piled high with whole, fresh fish still glistening and wet from the market, “is that not ev’rybody sellin’ on the streets is a coster.”

“Oh?” said Hero, intrigued by the costermongers’ determination to hold themselves apart from all other street sellers.

“Course not,” said the coster. He was a big man named Mica McDougal, with beefy arms and a wind-reddened face and dark hair covered by a small cap. “Why, the Dutch buy-a-broom girls, the Jew old-clothes men, the pea soup and bread ’n’ butter sellers, the wooden-spoon makers-ain’t none of ’em proper costermongers.”

“So what makes one a ‘proper’ costermonger?”

“Proper costermongers sell stock we buys at the fruit and vegetable and fish markets. Some of us ’as stalls or stands in the streets, and some of us makes rounds with a barrow or donkey cart. But you’ll never find a costermonger sellin’ tatted ’air nets or wooden clothes pins.” He wrinkled his nose in disdain.

“How far do you travel on your daily rounds?”

“Oh, usually nine or ten miles.”

“That’s quite a distance to walk every day.”

“Nah. Sometimes in the summer, Liz ’n’ me’ll go on country rounds for as much as twenty-five miles.”

“Liz?”

The coster grinned and shifted to lay an affectionate arm across his donkey’s withers. “Liz.”

The donkey peeled its lips away from its long teeth and let out a loud hee-haw .

“Do you live around here?” Hero asked.

“Ah, no; we lives off Fish Street Hill, m’lady. You’ll find most costermongers what deals in fish lives thereabouts, so’s we’re close t’ Billingsgate Market.”

“You have children?”

“I got three: two boys and a girl. ’Twere five, but two o’ the little ones died o’ fever afore Christmas.”

“I’m sorry.”

The costermonger twitched one shoulder and swallowed hard.

Hero said, “Do you think your children will grow up to be costermongers?”

He swiped a meaty hand down over his whisker-stubbled face. “Sure then, we’re already sendin’ them out to sell nuts and oranges and watercress. The streets teaches ’em what they needs to know. Why, they’re as sharp as terriers, little as they are. They ’as t’ be; they know better’n t’ come ’ome if they ain’t done well.”

Hero was careful to keep her instinctive reaction to his words from showing on her face. “How old are they?”

“The girl’s eight, and the boys is five and seven.”

“Your wife is a costermonger as well?”

“Aye. She works Fleet Street. This time o’ year she sells flowers all a-growin’. But come June she’ll switch t’ peas and beans, then cherries and strawberries in July.”

Remembering what Mattie Robinson had told her, Hero was tempted to ask if his “wife” actually was his wedded wife. Instead, she said, “Was your father a costermonger?”

“Oh, aye; and ’is father afore ’im. You’ll find most costermongers proper was born into the business. The ones I feel sorry for is the mechanics and laborers what’ve lost their jobs and try turnin’ their ’and t’ sellin’ in the streets. They think it looks easy, but it ain’t, and they almost never do well.”

“Why not?”

“Ain’t up t’ the dodges, ye see. The problem is, they go out into the streets with fear in ’ere-” He thumped one meaty fist against his chest. “They don’t know ’ow to bargain and they ain’t good salesmen. Poor buggers-beggin’ yer pardon, yer ladyship-I mean, poor fellows, they almost always end up losin’ everything.” He shook his head sadly. “For them, it’s just another way o’ starvin’.”

The donkey shifted its weight and shook its head, rattling the harness.

“I gots t’ move on, m’lady. Liz ’ere is gettin’ restless.”

“Thank you for your time,” said Hero, handing the costermonger his shillings.

The money disappeared into one of his coat’s deep, flapped pockets. “Ye really gonna write about the costers?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because no one ever has.”

But Mica McDougal simply shook his head, as if the ways of the Quality were beyond his comprehension.

Sebastian arrived back at Brook Street to find Hero still out on her interview and Claire Bisette preparing Simon for an outing in the park.

“Take one of the footmen with you,” Sebastian told her, his voice sounding more curt than he’d intended.

Claire stared at him. “A footman ?”

“Just. . humor me, Claire.”

“I’ll get Edward,” she said, still vaguely frowning as she turned away, the bundled-up child wide-eyed in her arms.

Sebastian walked into the library, poured himself a drink, and sent for Jules Calhoun.

“Tom says you saw some ‘Captain Queernabs’ near the house a few days ago,” he said when the valet appeared a few minutes later. “Tell me about him.”

Calhoun blinked but did not question the request. “Odd-looking fellow, he was-and I don’t mean just the way he was dressed. It was as if the two sides of his face didn’t belong together; one eye was even a different color than the other. But it was actually his boots that made me notice him at first. His clothes were those of a common workman, but he had a pair of fine new boots that would be the envy of many a Bond Street beau.”

“When was this?”

“Monday, my lord.”

“Monday?” Neither Sebastian nor Hero had seen Diggory Flynn before Tuesday. “You’re certain?”

“Yes, my lord. I noticed him as I was returning from Hobbs. I remember because I’d been telling him how pleased we were with your new beaver hat.” A pained expression shadowed the valet’s even features. “The same hat someone put a bullet hole through that very night.”

“What was the man doing when you saw him?”

“Simply leaning against the corner. But he looked so out of place that I paused to ask if there was something he needed.”

“And?”

“He said no. Then he pushed away from the wall and walked off. Whistling.”