*
The interior of the inn was only slightly more salubrious than the hovels gathered around it and its clientele only a little more refined than the mob which had so harried us there.
Its windows boarded, the main room was illuminated only by several thick and lumpy candles squatting half-way up the grimy walls in what remained of the gas fittings. These candles guttered rather unconvincingly, flicking shadows and giving off as much nasty black smoke as light, as well as a noxious stink, which added not inconsiderably to the ambience of the place.
The inn’s guests, their features lost in the murkiness, sat, some hunched alone, some in small, secretive clusters, at benches arranged around the walls, or at the few tables occupying the centre of the room. A conspirational hubbub emanated from the huddled guests, too low for me to make out more than the odd word, but I could not help thinking that, even the slouching individuals who sat snoring or gulping greedily from mugs of liquor, each and every man here was up to no good at all. Yes, there was certainly something eternal about the London boozer!
While K went to speak with the landlord, an inquisitive little northerner named Prescut, who, I suppose, would pass as plump in this otherwise emaciated world, I found myself a perch on one of the less occupied benches and tried my best to appear inconspicuous.
No sooner had I settled on the bench, however, than the nearest incumbent began to shuffle haltingly along it towards where I sat, dragging something bulky along the floor with him. He leered at me from his crooked and scabby lips, thrusting his warty nose at me, and goggled me with his one popped eye, the other squeezed shut in a wrinkly squint.
“Smithfield steak!” He croaked in salutation. “Finest quality. Cheap.”
And he held up his filthy sack, heavy with its unmentionable contents.
Something dark and viscous dripped from its seam onto my shoes.
I shook my head politely, though unable to hide the disgust in the curl of my lips.
“I - I’m terribly sorry, sir,” I stammered timidly, “I – I’m sure it’s a very kind offer, but I am just awaiting the return of my mistress who has business with the innkeeper here.”
He seemed to accept my disinterest with a shrug and a throaty gurgle.
“Suit yerself, squire.’
And he scuttled back up the bench to continue scheming with his ne’er-do-well associates.
They guffawed amongst themselves and cast shadowy glances in my direction from time to time. And as I sat there alone with my thoughts I half convinced myself I had come to the madhouse, this all some illusion of my broken mind and these all my fellow lunatics.
“Made some friends, I see.”
I was roused from my gloomy discomfort by K’s happy return.
“Pay no attention to them, Mr Smith,” she reassured me. “They’re harmless. Really. Well, mostly. And besides, if you had displeased them they wouldn’t be laughing and you, well, you wouldn’t be here to hold my candle.”
She held before her one of those nasty candles melted like a glob of dripping onto a cracked and grimy saucer. With a wry smile, she passed the saucer eagerly to me. I accepted it slightly less eagerly.
“It seems a gyro-plane was seen flying low near here towards Holloway. American, perhaps. Texian, more likely. It could only be the one I was tracking this morning. Tomorrow you’ll stay here, while I pay a visit to Beau Riche. Now, follow me closely with the light, my dear. We have a room for the night. We’ll dine there and rest.”
The prospect of spending time alone in this uninviting place filled me with misgivings. I had faced death twice in the past day and, although not a superstitious man by nature, I could not help but feel a certain anxiety that my good luck was about to run out. Oh, what a naïve fool I was!
With that thought playing on my mind, we retired. And although we shared a room, I was relieved to find it divided in two by a patchy curtain, each side furnished with a hard wooden pallet to serve as a bed, saving my protectoress her dignity and myself, my honour.