Read Online The Bishop's Pawn by Don Gutteridge - Free Book Online

being
sore and hung over. He regretted now the impulse that had taken
him, with four shillings in his pocket, to the bootlegger’s in
Irishtown. The cheap, sweet wine had tasted good going down, but
had made him forget, for a fatal moment, the ingrained caution that
had kept him whole and productive as Constable Horatio Cobb’s
principal snitch and the premier scrounger among the city’s
lowlife. He must have joined the dicers – his memory of the night’s
events was still hazy – for he had ended up penniless, coming home
to his own vomit with the second-last tooth in his lower jaw
hanging by its dead nerve. The moon had been down when he had
crawled into his hovel on Brock Street behind the hatchery.
    Usually, whenever he had no money for food
and drink, he got up before sunrise in order to be first on the
scene in those service lanes where the garbage – especially from
the weekend – was likely to be tasty and abundant. It was amazing
what people tossed out, particularly the shopkeepers who lived on
or above their premises. A perfectly wearable bowler hat, for
example, with a bit of reblocking and dusting, had fetched him the
four shillings he had just squandered. Unfortunately, he had had no
information about criminal activity to sell to Cobb for over a
week. Crime had either taken a holiday or become more
close-mouthed.
    Nestor hurried past the jeweller’s – he was
notorious miser – and stopped at the narrow alley between that shop
and the grocer’s next to it. Old Southey usually cleaned house
after the Saturday surge of business, ignoring the Sabbath and
putting two drums of edible refuse out next to his side door – to
be picked up by one of several garbage wagons that plied their
trade hereabouts (most ordinary folk burned or buried their trash).
Yes, the drums were there, and from their position, they appeared
to be untouched by greedier hands.
    The alley itself was in shadow, and Nestor
could see his breath as he slipped soundlessly towards his prize.
But something else caught his eye, a few yards beyond the drums and
almost at a spot where the alley met King Street. It appeared to be
a large, lumpy bundle, covered by a wool blanket or tarpaulin. Ever
curious and opportunistic, Nestor scuttled past Southey’s garbage
and headed for the more intriguing cache. As he came up to it, he
stopped abruptly. In the half-light now he could see that whatever
it was had been covered with a gentleman’s cloak, one that, if
salvaged, would bring a year’s food and a warm place to eat it. But
what lay under it? And who would be foolish enough to leave it here
unattended?
    Caution now overtook curiosity. He checked
the alley behind him and the tiny window high in the jeweller’s
wall. Nothing stirred. No sound, human or otherwise, came from the
street three yards away. Nestor knelt down and slowly lifted up one
edge of the huge cloak. He spotted a boot. Christ! There was
somebody under the cloak! Somebody very large. It was then that a
beam of sunlight struck the west wall of the jeweller’s house and
refracted into the alley, allowing Nestor to see the pool of blood
still oozing from somewhere beneath the cloak. He felt himself
trembling all over. He had to force himself to keep his eyes open,
for something terrible had happened here, and he must decide
whether he ought to run or stay. This bloodied creature could be
alive, the victim of a vicious thief. The police would be
clamouring for information, information they might pay for.
    But he couldn’t stop shaking. He was hungry
and cold and afraid. He forced himself to stand up and examine the
body more carefully in the quickly expanding light. My God! the
cloak was full of jagged slits, bloody and gaping where a dagger
had been plunged again and again. And Jesus, Jesus, the thing was
still there, rammed to the hilt. And pinned to the cloak by its
blade was a sheet of white paper, torn across the bottom. Nestor
was no great reader, but the single word