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Authors: Bruce Alexander
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as carrying about an unloaded gun.”
“But you ain’t never kilt nobody, have you?”
“No, nor would I want to.” Then, after thinking about that and in the interest of truth telling, I did add: “I once shot and wounded one, however.”
“Truly so? A young fella like you?”
“Yes, truly. He died, though not of the wound.”
With that he fell silent for a long spell. Still, as we turned down Half-Moon Passage from Bedford, he roused himself and played the rustic clown once again.
“This house wherein I dwells, it was built as an inn a hundred years ago or more, perhaps a thousand from the way it’s decayed and ramshackled, like. I don’t wonder a good wind will blow it down someday soon. Well, I did not live there long till I began to notice strange comings and goings and hear shouts and ugly laughing at night when a workingman such as myself needs to get his sleep. Well, I keep my ears open and my eyes open, and I asks around a bit, and I come to find this place I’m livin’ in is known as a great house for whores. Come summer, I’d go home at night, havin’ had my bub and grub, and I’d go down the hall, and here’s my women neighbors standin’ about in their doorways in their shifts and their altogethers, some of them, bubs hangin’ out, just advertisin’ what they got to sell. Oh, I tell you it was a sight. And even now, in the winter, I catches sight of them in the hall, visitin’ back and forth just so, without a care.”
And then did he raise his arms and strut on the street in a female manner and say in mimicking falsetto: “Oh, Moll, may I wear your brown frock? My blue one got all muddy, and I ain’t had time to wash it.”
I laughed quite in spite of myself, yet hung back, embarrassed, as he attracted gawking attention from the passersby with his foolish parade. Yet he returned to walk beside me. There could be no doubt that he was my companion.
“I have seen them so, nekkid in the hall, or next thing to it. Ain’t that enough to give a man care? You can see why I must move to Southwark — or where was that other place?”
“Clerkenwell,” said I.
“Ah, so it was — Clerkenwell. Must remember that,” said he solemnly. Then did he brighten: “But here we are. It won’t take but a minute for me to get my tools. Then we’ll be off to Bloomsbury.”
The place was as he had described it, certainly no better. I had passed it many times before but had thought it in no wise remarkable. There was a modest entrance, such as might once have accommodated horses and coach. It led into an interior court, whereon all manner of refuse and rubbish had been tossed. From it came an evil stench. Around the courtyard on three sides were two tiers of rooms, top and bottom. It was quite like the court in which poor old Moll Caulfield had lived that later blew down. And it seemed nearer two hundred years old than a hundred. In only one significant way did this court building differ from that one and most others: the surrounding tiers were walled over, so that the hall that Roundtree had described was interior and dark with only a small window to cut the gloom every twenty feet, or approximately so.
We climbed a short flight of stairs to the level of the first tier, and he led the way down the hall.
“Watch out now one of those nekkid women don’t reach out and pull you into her room. They can be mightily insistent.” He laughed a silly, cackling laugh at that. ‘“Twouldn’t do for a young fellow like you to get caught like that.”
More laughter until at last we came to a door about halfway down the hall, and he reached down deep into his coat pocket and pulled out a key. He held it up to me as if it were a sort of talisman or some popish holy relic.
“I keeps the door always locked. Whores is notorious thieves, and my tools and other b’longings are worth something.”
In the dim light I could tell the key, though large, was old and rusty. If the lock to which it fitted was as
“But you ain’t never kilt nobody, have you?”
“No, nor would I want to.” Then, after thinking about that and in the interest of truth telling, I did add: “I once shot and wounded one, however.”
“Truly so? A young fella like you?”
“Yes, truly. He died, though not of the wound.”
With that he fell silent for a long spell. Still, as we turned down Half-Moon Passage from Bedford, he roused himself and played the rustic clown once again.
“This house wherein I dwells, it was built as an inn a hundred years ago or more, perhaps a thousand from the way it’s decayed and ramshackled, like. I don’t wonder a good wind will blow it down someday soon. Well, I did not live there long till I began to notice strange comings and goings and hear shouts and ugly laughing at night when a workingman such as myself needs to get his sleep. Well, I keep my ears open and my eyes open, and I asks around a bit, and I come to find this place I’m livin’ in is known as a great house for whores. Come summer, I’d go home at night, havin’ had my bub and grub, and I’d go down the hall, and here’s my women neighbors standin’ about in their doorways in their shifts and their altogethers, some of them, bubs hangin’ out, just advertisin’ what they got to sell. Oh, I tell you it was a sight. And even now, in the winter, I catches sight of them in the hall, visitin’ back and forth just so, without a care.”
And then did he raise his arms and strut on the street in a female manner and say in mimicking falsetto: “Oh, Moll, may I wear your brown frock? My blue one got all muddy, and I ain’t had time to wash it.”
I laughed quite in spite of myself, yet hung back, embarrassed, as he attracted gawking attention from the passersby with his foolish parade. Yet he returned to walk beside me. There could be no doubt that he was my companion.
“I have seen them so, nekkid in the hall, or next thing to it. Ain’t that enough to give a man care? You can see why I must move to Southwark — or where was that other place?”
“Clerkenwell,” said I.
“Ah, so it was — Clerkenwell. Must remember that,” said he solemnly. Then did he brighten: “But here we are. It won’t take but a minute for me to get my tools. Then we’ll be off to Bloomsbury.”
The place was as he had described it, certainly no better. I had passed it many times before but had thought it in no wise remarkable. There was a modest entrance, such as might once have accommodated horses and coach. It led into an interior court, whereon all manner of refuse and rubbish had been tossed. From it came an evil stench. Around the courtyard on three sides were two tiers of rooms, top and bottom. It was quite like the court in which poor old Moll Caulfield had lived that later blew down. And it seemed nearer two hundred years old than a hundred. In only one significant way did this court building differ from that one and most others: the surrounding tiers were walled over, so that the hall that Roundtree had described was interior and dark with only a small window to cut the gloom every twenty feet, or approximately so.
We climbed a short flight of stairs to the level of the first tier, and he led the way down the hall.
“Watch out now one of those nekkid women don’t reach out and pull you into her room. They can be mightily insistent.” He laughed a silly, cackling laugh at that. ‘“Twouldn’t do for a young fellow like you to get caught like that.”
More laughter until at last we came to a door about halfway down the hall, and he reached down deep into his coat pocket and pulled out a key. He held it up to me as if it were a sort of talisman or some popish holy relic.
“I keeps the door always locked. Whores is notorious thieves, and my tools and other b’longings are worth something.”
In the dim light I could tell the key, though large, was old and rusty. If the lock to which it fitted was as
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