Page 90 of An Artful Dodge
I gave her a grateful look as I entered.
A sturdy Irishwoman stood in the kitchen, pouring tea.
God only knows what she thought of us, drenched and stinking of the river, with James bleeding all over his face and ready to drop.
But she only said, “Why, Artie.” Her eyes were wary, watchful, questioning, and it seemed she and Art understood each other.
“He needs a doctor,” Art said. “Can I bring ’im here?”
The woman set the kettle down, caught up her apron, and dried her hands. “No names.”
For everyone’s protection.
“You’re drenched,” said the beautiful girl to me. “I’ve a dress you can borrow.” She led me into a bedroom with two narrow beds and a squat black stove whose open door revealed coals, red and ashy. The door shut behind us and my limbs began to jerk like a street show marionette. In the sudden warmth, I couldn’t manage them. She fetched a towel and threw it onto a chair nearby. “Jaysus, Mary, and Joseph,” she murmured. “Let’s get you out of these clothes.”
I managed the buttons on the front of my coat, but the ones on my shirt were too small for my numb fingertips. I dropped my hands to my sides and let her unbutton me and peel the sopping, muddy shirt and the chemise off my skin, too cold and too tired to worry about modesty. She handed me a towel. I wiped my face, hands, and hair and then wrapped it around me.
“Sit,” she said, and pulled off my boots and socks. My feet looked like a shorn sheep’s skin, white and shriveled by the water. She tugged at my trousers, leaving the bottom half of me naked. She handed me a dressing gown, which I drew around me. Soft and warm. She studied my face. “That’ll be a nasty bruise,” she said.
I put my fingers to my cheek and could feel the swelling compared to the rest of my face. I ran my tongue over my teeth; they were still all in place. I must have struck my face on something. I didn’t recall it.
Everything stank of the river, and to her credit, she didn’t gag as she took up the clothes. “Sooner we get rid of these, the better. All the washing in the world won’t take out that smell.”
She began bundling them into a sack.
“Wait!” I cried. “I need the trousers.”
It is a testament to how our bodies crave warmth and safety that I had forgotten the diamonds, however briefly.
A dubious look crossed her face, but she offered them, the waist pinched gingerly between thumb and forefinger. I undid the buttons that held the pocket closed and slid my hand inside. I had a moment of panic when I couldn’t feel the pouch. The pocket had crumpled into a misshapen wad around it. But the sharp edges of the stones inside the cloth gave them away.
Father Thames hadn’t nicked them.
I could feel her curiosity, but she tamed it, turning away to let me slip the drawstring pouch into the pocket of the dressing gown. It was an act of true generosity. I’m not sure I could have managed it myself.
She departed, and I remained in the chair. I thought she’d left me for good to the heat of that lovely stove, but she returned with a cup of hot tea, a blanket, and a dress that was slightly too large but warm and dry. There were no pockets at the seams, but I transferred the gems from the dressing gown into the bodice of the dress. The tea was hot and burned my insides. I gulped it anyway.
I began to drowse until I heard the outer door open, and a man’s voice sounded. The doctor? He called out, “Art, my boy,” in an accent as Cockney as Art’s own.
His father? Or just someone he knew?
But God help me, I was so bone-tired that my curiosity wasn’t enough to rouse me out of the chair.
After the icy coldness of the river, the warmth drove me hard to sleep.
I woke an hour or so later, my neck stiff. I turned my head, and the movement brought my nose near my hair.
I gagged.
Stiffly, I shifted the blanket off of me, pushed myself out of the chair, crossed the room, and opened the door. Every muscle hurt. Through the window above the sink, I saw the sky was just starting to lighten. Art and James were gone; the doctor—had I imagined him? No, I remembered his voice. The ashes were cold on the hearth, the kitchen orderly, with no sign of Art’s bag or the pistol I’d set on the table. The beautiful girl and her mother were no doubt still in bed.
One of yesterday’s newspapers lay on the table. TheFalcon. I scrounged for a bit of pencil in a drawer and scribbled along the top. “Thank you.” And after a moment, “Bless you.”
No names. There were three dark cloaks by the door, and I hoped they wouldn’t mind me borrowing. As I lifted one from its hook, a woman’s voice came from behind me.
“I thought I heard you awake.”
I turned. It wasn’t the beautiful girl, but her mother. Short but sturdy, with shrewd blue eyes.
