Page 58 of By Marsh and By Moor
“You’ll be working nights for the first two weeks at least.”
“Very good, sir.”
“Well, go on, then.Clear off out of my office.I have work to do, unlike some people around here.”
Back outside in the yard, Solomon threw Wallace a smile.“You remember where everything is, I don’t doubt?”
Wallace’s answering smile was half-hearted.He rubbed a hand over his face.“Christ, it’s strange to be here.It feels like when I last worked here, it was in another life.”
“It does?”Solomon wasn’t sure what to make of that.“What have you been about in the meantime?”
“Nothing much.Only… I’ve been living in a fog for I don’t know how long.And now my mind has finally cleared.”
Solomon looked him up and down.“You don’t have any of your things with you, I see.Do you want to borrow some blankets and a clean shirt?”
Wallace winced.“It pains me to be such a burden.”
“You’re nothing of the sort.En’t you helped me out as often as I’ve helped you?”Solomon gave him a friendly punch in the shoulder.“Come with me.I’m working overnight tonight too, and I must get something warm in my belly first.”
Even after dark, travellers could arrive at the Crown at any hour, and there were always at least two ostlers and a stable boy on duty overnight.That night, Solomon and Wallace were accompanied by a scrap of a boy called Timmy.They were kept busy until midnight, but then there came a lull between travellers, and they stepped into the tack room to shelter from the bitter cold.They were alone; Timmy had crept away to sleep until he should be called.
Wallace sat on a barrel, his head bent.Solomon watched him out of the corner of his eye, not liking to press him with questions.
Finally, Wallace said, “Thank Heaven Sykes was willing to take me back on.I haven’t tuppence in my pocket.”
“What have you been doing for work?Have you been working as a waiter?”
“Yes, and… other things.”He fell silent, but after a moment he went on again, “Hugo has an arrangement with a Camberwell moneylender.He haunts any gentlemen’s club he can get into, and befriends naive young men who’ve been living beyond their means and might need a loan to tide them over.Young gentlemen as are in London for the first time and don’t have over many friends in town—you see the sort I mean.He sends them to his Camberwell friend and gets a commission on every loan.”
Solomon winced.“At a monstrous rate of interest, I take it.”
“Mmm.Yes.And the moneylender, as you may imagine, en’t fussy about how he persuades his debtors to pay up when they start to fall behind.”
“Never thought I’d feel sorry for rich young men.”
“As a general thing, they en’t even all that rich.Younger sons of obscure country squires and that kind of thing.”
Solomon said, slowly, “I would never have imagined Hugo Vaughan being mixed up in such dealings.”
“No.I know.He has… more sides to his person than you see at first.”He had been studying his hands while he spoke, but now he glanced up at Solomon, half-ashamed, half-challenging.“You en’t asked me what my role in all this was.”
“Do you want to tell me?”
“I went down to Camberwell once a week to see the moneylender and collect the money Hugo was owed.But that weren’t the worst of it.The worst was at the club where he’d got me employment.While serving drinks I was meant to keep an eye out for likely targets.Point them out to Hugo.”He hunched into himself, picking at a splinter of wood in the barrel he sat on.“He taught me to pick out what he called the ‘most likely young cubs.’He weren’t too fussy about his victims.The younger and more friendless the better.”
There wasn’t anything Solomon could say in reply to that.
In the stable next door, a horse whinnied softly.A lone carriage rumbled along in the street outside.
Wallace said, “If Hugo comes looking for me, don’t tell him I’m here?Please?”
“All right,” Solomon said slowly.“But—”
“Please.I—I need to make a clean break from him.It will be easier if I don’t see him.Promise me?I know he’s your friend—”
The rumble of wheels on cobblestones told them that the carriage had turned into the inn’s yard.Wallace broke off.
“Hey!”a voice shouted.“Don’t anyone work here?”
