Kill-Devil and Water Read Online Free PDF

knocked but no one answered. Thrale took out some keys and tried them, one by one, until the lock turned. He let Pyke go ahead of him with the lantern. The room was empty.
     
    After Pyke had given it a thorough search, and found nothing of interest, he joined Thrale in the kitchen.
     
    ‘I’m thinking they would both have come here with luggage,’ Pyke said, not posing it as a question.
     
    ‘I expect so.’
     
    ‘You must have seen whether they did or not when they first arrived.’
     
    ‘Yes, they both had cases.’
     
    ‘But you didn’t see them leave with their cases?’
     
    ‘That’s right.’
     
    Pyke considered this. ‘Sobers stayed here for about three weeks, you said. During that time, he must have talked to some of your guests.’
     
    ‘Like I said earlier, they both kept themselves to themselves.’
     
    ‘But when they cooked their food, for example?’
     
    ‘No one wanted much to do with a blackbird, to be honest.’ Thrale rubbed his eyes and hesitated. ‘Actually, come to think of it, Sobers did have a visitor, or should I say a gang of visitors, about a week ago. Almost got nasty, so I heard.’
     
    ‘Tell me about it.’
     
    ‘What’s to tell? A couple of free-booters turns up looking for Sobers and the woman. Someone points them in the direction of the room. They bangs on the door, barges in. There’s some shouting. They leave. I don’t even think she was there at the time. Sobers handled them on his own.’
     
    ‘You know what they talked about?’
     
    Thrale gave him a look. ‘Ain’t you listened to a word I said? I respect me guests’ privacy.’ But a peculiar smile spread across his lips as though he knew more than he’d let on.
     
    ‘How many visitors were there?’
     
    ‘Three.’
     
    ‘Did you recognise any of them?’
     
    Thrale shrugged. ‘Not the ones who confronted Sobers.’
     
    ‘But there was someone else?’
     
    ‘Aye.’
     
    Pyke waited. ‘A name?’
     
    ‘Ain’t you going to allow me to wet me beak?’
     
    Taking out his purse, Pyke selected a half-crown coin and thrust it into the older man’s outstretched hand.
     
    ‘That it?’ Thrale said, looking down at the coin.
     
    Pyke doubled it. That seemed to improve Thrale’s mood. ‘Jemmy Crane,’ he said after a while.
     
    Pyke thought the name sounded familiar. ‘Crane?’
     
    ‘You know, the pornographer.’ Thrale’s face glistened with excitement. ‘I used to know him a bit. He’d come and watch me fight, back in the old days.’
     
    ‘Do you think he recognised you?’
     
    Thrale thought about it. ‘I stepped out into the court and he was waiting there. We looked at one another. He might have nodded at me.’
     
    ‘And you’re sure he was there with the men who’d come to see Sobers?’
     
    ‘I watched ’em all leave in a group.’
     
    Pyke waited for a moment, trying to gather his thoughts. ‘Weren’t you just a little bit curious to know what they wanted with Sobers and Mary Edgar?’
     
    ‘Maybe.’ Thrale shifted from one foot to the other. ‘Afterwards I asked the culls who shared the room next to them if they’d heard anything.’
     
    ‘And?’
     
    ‘One fellow reckoned they was threatening Sobers but he didn’t hear nothing more than that.’
     
    ‘Could I speak to him?’
     
    Thrale seemed put out. ‘He’s at work. You could come back a while later but he’ll tell you the same thing.’
     
    Pyke looked at the older man’s weathered face. ‘Why didn’t you mention this yesterday when you identified the body in the Green Dragon?’
     
    Thrale met his stare and held it. ‘What does it matter?’ The skin wrinkled at the corners of his eyes. ‘I am mentioning it now, ain’t I?’
     
     
That afternoon, Pyke accompanied the gravediggers and the body to a grassy field in Limehouse. The sky was leaden and the air cloying and humid. He watched as the two men dug the hole, their coats resting on the coffin and their sleeves rolled