Who Speaks for the Damned (Sebastian St. Cyr #15) - C. S. Harris Page 0,72

out when we turned sixteen. My parents were both dead, so that’s when I started playing on the street.”

Hero looked up from scribbling notes. “You’ve done this ever since?”

“Oh, yes. Forty-six years.” Alice Jones laughed at what she must have heard in Hero’s voice. “Can’t imagine it, can you?”

Hero ruefully shook her head, then remembered the woman couldn’t see her. “How much do you make a day?”

“Ten or maybe twelve pence, if I’m lucky. More if the weather’s good, less when it’s not.”

“Do you always play here in Clerkenwell?”

“Oh, no. You need to move around, you know. Some street musicians just go wherever the fancy takes them, but I’m not like that. Tuesdays for Leicester Square, Wednesdays for Clerkenwell, Thursdays are for Kensington, and so on. I’ve always been like that. Gives a certain sense of order and control to life, if you know what I mean?”

“Yes, I can see that.”

The woman tilted her head as if she were studying Hero, even though her eyes were sightless. “Why’d you say you’re writing this article?”

Hero didn’t think she had said why, only that she was writing it for the Morning Chronicle. “I believe it’s important for people to understand the life stories of those they see on the streets. Those who are less fortunate than they.”

The skin beside the woman’s empty eyes crinkled with her smile. “The wretchedly poor, you mean.”

“Well, yes,” said Hero, oddly uncomfortable to hear it spelled out so bluntly. The wind gusted up, and she had to tighten her grip on the parasol. It wasn’t easy juggling a notebook, a parasol, and a reticule that was heavier than usual, thanks to the little brass-mounted muff pistol she’d started carrying after her unsettling experience in Snow Hill. “I’m particularly interested in interviewing street performers who were born elsewhere. I understand there’s a Chinese boy on the streets, although I’m not sure if he performs. Do you know anything about him?”

The woman laughed. “All children look the same when you’re blind.”

“This child may play the flute.”

“Oh? And he’s Chinese, you say?”

“Perhaps only half-Chinese. A lad of eight or ten.”

Alice shook her head. “Sorry. I don’t believe I’ve heard of him.”

A shout brought Hero’s head around. A ragged boy was crossing the green, his clothes dirty and torn, his head bowed, his lips moving silently as if reciting a prayer. Then someone shouted, “That’s ’im! Grab ’im.”

The boy’s head came up, his gaze jerking toward the shout as he broke into a run. After nearly a week on the streets, he was dirty and disheveled, his coat torn at the shoulder, his dark, straight hair limp. But Hero recognized him instantly.

“Ji,” she cried as three men closed on him.

The boy was running toward Hero. He dodged a stall selling sweetmeats, a plump woman with a shopping basket, a juggler whose balls went tumbling in the boy’s wake. He was young and nimble and frightened, but the men’s legs were longer, and one of the men was particularly fast. Ji had almost reached Hero when the fastest man managed to reach out and catch the boy’s arm. Ji wiggled away. The man swore and was starting after him again when Hero stepped forward to thrust her parasol between the man’s legs.

He tripped and went sprawling. One of his friends swerved around him while the other leapt right over him. Hero was vaguely aware of the hurdy-gurdy woman whacking the first man on the head with her cane and pounding the second man across the shoulders. The downed man at Hero’s feet lay as if stunned, then rolled onto his back just in time to see her draw the muff pistol from her reticule and point the muzzle at his face.

“Move and you’re dead,” she said calmly, thumbing back the hammer.

He froze.

“Wise,” said Hero. “Now, tell me who hired you.”

The man looked to be somewhere in his thirties, his face unshaven, his hair badly cut, his coat, waistcoat, and breeches worn and greasy. He stared at her, his jaw sagging. “I cain’t tell ye that!”

“I see you need some persuasion.” She shifted the muzzle slightly to the right and down. “I suppose you might not bleed to death when I shoot you in the arm—if you’re lucky, that is. Of course, you’ll probably lose the arm, but—”

“You wouldn’t do that!”

“Oh, believe me,” said Hero, enunciating each word carefully, “I would.” She extended her right arm, her finger tightening.

“Wait! Don’t do it! Oh, God, don’t shoot me. I’ll tell ye. I’ll tell ye!