"Gentlemen," I said brazenly. "I'm looking for a Mr. Thomas Clagger. The price of a drink all around if you can direct me to him."
"Clagger? Clagger?" muttered one of the rag-tag band. "Don't know of no damn Clagger." His blacknailed hand strayed toward his pocket.
The others whispered among themselves until suddenly the face of one brightened. "Oh, you mean Rich Tom!" he called out. "Whyn't you say so?" His companions' faces took on less menacing expressions, as they now regarded me with some measure of respect. Clearly the name Clagger was one that carried a little weight in this district.
"Yes, that's the one," I said, hoping it really was. "Do you know him?"
" Everyone knows old Rich Tom. Why, he loaned me a crown when me wife was last confined and the nurses wouldn't give us the baby 'til we had paid a bit on the bill. Of course I know Rich Tom."
I signalled for Tafe and Arthur to come across the street and join me. "Can you take us to him?" I said, turning back to my newfound informant.
"I should think so," said he. "You're nowt but a few paces from his door where you're standing."
"Splendid." I distributed coins to the other men, who touched their caps and mumbled thanks, then stepped into the ale shop to test their value. "Can we hurry along? We've got some important business with Mr. Clagger."
"I'm on to you. Lord, I had no idea old Tom had such spiffy friends, but it makes as much sense as him having pots of money in the first place."
He escorted us to the opening of a courtyard that we had passed by several times earlier. "You probably missed it," said our guide, "cause the lane takes a little jog in right here. See? There's 'nother building around the corner." We followed him under the low arch. "That's his door right there."
In truth, we would have never found the well-hidden lodgings without the man's aid. I bestowed a coin of gratitude upon him and received a cheerful thanks.
Arthur looked about the cramped, crumbling courtyard with distaste as I rapped upon the door. The old king was most likely filled with bitter reflections about the degradation of his land. On the other side of the door I could hear shuffling footsteps. "Coming!" cried a man's voice from inside.
The door opened and a man's face peered out. He was not quite so old as Arthur, but well up in years, with a fringe of grey hair around the shining pink dome of his head. "Yes?" he inquired politely. "What is it?"
"Mr. Clagger?" I asked. "Tom Clagger?"
"That's right." He nodded happily, apparently quite pleased with being recognised.
"We're friends of Dr. Ambrose-"
"Ambrose!" he cried. "Well then, come in. Don't stand out there in that mucky courtyard." He ushered us into a small, well-lit parlour. The room was surprisingly clean and tidy in a fussy bachelor's manner, in contrast to the decaying neighbourhood surrounding it. It was comfortably, if not expensively furnished, with a few framed sporting prints on the walls above the time-worn chairs. An astonishing number of books lay about on the tables and tops of cupboards, and arranged in rows upon several sets of bookshelves. Most of them showed the marks of having been acquired at bargain pricescracked or mismatched bindings, water stains and the like. There were no cheap novels among them, but were all an impressively weighty collection of philosophy, history and similar topics. One that lay open on the arm of a chair bore in the margins the pencil marks of studious perusal.
"And how is Dr. Ambrose?" said our host, gesturing for us to seat ourselves. His voice bore just a trace of the uncultured accent of the people in the nearby streets.
"I'm afraid he may be in some danger." I sat down and studied the old man's expression. "There is, unfortunately, nothing we can do to aid him at this time."
Clagger nodded thoughtfully. "Yes, I imagine such could very well be the case. Dr. Ambrose is a man of powerful great learning, but- something more than that, too, as you might well know." His bright eyes peered sharply at me. "Mister… ahh…"
"Hocker," said I. "Edwin Hocker. And this is, ah, Mr. Tafe, and Brigadier-General Morsmere."
"Tut, tut," said Clagger reprovingly. "I'm at least a little ways into Ambrose's confidences. I'm honoured to have you in my home, my lord Arthur." He gravely inclined his head toward the king.
Arthur lifted his hand. "Please. No formalities. I hold a man of learning such as you as my equal"
"Yes, well, I'm not exactly what you'd call schooled, but as you can see I read a fair bit." Clagger waved a hand at his scattered library. "Quite famous for it in these parts, you know. Mr. Mayhew was the one who put me on to it."
"Mayhew?" said I. "Not Henry Mayhew, I take it?"
"Yes," said Clagger with obvious pride. "I've got a signed first edition of his London Labour and the London Poor somewhere around here. I was one of the people he interviewed in his research. Let's see – Lord, that was back in '49 or '50, I believe. How my heart broke when he died a few years back, for he'd become a true friend to me, and done me all the good in the world." He sniffed in sad remembrance of the great chronicler of London society.
My eye darted to an object I had seen when we had first entered the room, and had caused me a little wonder. Suspended on hooks over the fireplace was a pole some eight or nine feet in length with a curved hook on one end. His mention of Mayhew's book, which, like most educated Londoners, I knew to some degree, sparked my recognition of the singular object's function. "Why, you're a tosher!" I said. "A river-man, a sewer-hunter."
"Retired," he corrected. "Though I miss me old trade like anything on a clear morning, when the sun's just tinting the river's water by the outlet grates, and that stew of smells comes wafting out of the sewers at low tide isn't that fine, though." He pointed to the long object over the fireplace. "You see I've kept me old probing pole – many's the time it's served to save me very life, I tell you! – and I've got me old lanterns and leather aprons tucked about somewhere as well. Ah, what a grand life has a sewer-hunter, there's no doubt about that."
"I had no idea the calling enabled one to live as well as this," I said, gesturing about at his cozy residence.
"Ah, well, there's the kindness Mr. Mayhew did me. The calling does pay well, for all manner of valuable objects is lost into the sewers for the finding by those that know the ways. But most toshers spend their earnings on drinks and suchlike sprees as fast as they can get it. Mr. Mayhew, bless his memory, was the one who pointed out to me the folly of such rude practices, and how fast a little put by from one's findings would soon amount to a tidy sum. I followed his advice, though Lord! I got thirsty at times, and now the people in this district hereabouts call me 'Rich Tom,' though I'm prouder yet of the learning I've done meself in these years since I left the toshing trade. For it's that what prompted our mutual friend Dr. Ambrose to seek me out and enlist me in his projects."
My eyebrows raised in unbidden scepticism. "What exactly is it Ambrose consults you about?"
Our host lifted his chin with a measure of disdain. "Dr. Ambrose is a man of great knowledge, as you might expect, knowing who he really is, and he knows more about the London sewers than many of the toshers mucking about down there. But he doesn't know as much as I do."
"How much is there to know?" said I. "About sewers?"
"Sir, you reveal your ignorance. There's marvels beneath the street that would fair scatter the wits of the average fellow walking about on the pavement all unaware of what's below his feet. Places and ways deeper and older than you can imagine, my dear Mr. Hocker. And things, too – certain valuable things, if you catch me drift."