Broken Vessel by Ross Kate

Author:Ross, Kate
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781937384333
Publisher: Felony & Mayhem Press

By Thursday, Dipper was sick of the sight of umbrellas. He had listened to some twenty descriptions of them and their owners in the past few days, and he was no closer to finding Blinkers. At least his task was easier now: the responses to the advertisement were dwindling. Today there were only three, and two of them did not fit the timing of Blinkers’s encounter with Sally.

The third was from a little shop on the south side of the river, off the High Street. Dipper went there and spoke with the owner, a round, bright-eyed old man named Mr. Tuttle. He described how a young man had brought a black umbrella with a ram’s head handle in to be repaired last Tuesday. It was a good one, strong and sturdy. Tuttle was sure it had been used in a fight—no mere rainstorm could inflict that kind of damage.

“I can’t tell you much about the owner,” he said, scratching his head. “Very ordinary, he was—you’d never look at him twice. But my delivery boy, Ned, as took the umbrella back to him when it was mended, says he remembers him well. Ned! Here, Ned! Where is the lad?”

A boy of about fourteen swaggered into the shop. He clearly aspired to cut a figure as a gent. He wore a tailcoat much too long for him, soiled white gloves, and a beaver hat that looked as if it had been kicked around the neighbourhood. “You wants me, old shaver?”

“You be civil, now. This here is the man as sent us that broadsheet—the one with the ten-pound reward for information about the umbrella.”

The boy pushed his top-hat back on his head and looked Dipper up and down. “Now, that’s a queer start, that is. Who’d give ten quid to know about somebody’s broken umbrella?”

“Me master would,” said Dipper imperturbably.

Ned tried to stare him out of countenance. Dipper returned the stare with interest. At last Ned acknowledged defeat and told his story. He had delivered the mended umbrella last Wednesday to the address the owner had left. It was an office above a tobacconist’s, in a little court a few streets away. There was a glass plate in the office door, with “Smith and Co., Dealers and Importers” printed on it.

“I remember the cove as answered, ’coz he didn’t give me nothing for me trouble, the pinch-fist! Just opened the umbrella and looked it over careful-like, as if he’d have been glad to find the work done wrong, then paid for the repairs and sent me about me business. He was quiet, but very toploftical in his ways—like he was Captain Grand, and everybody else was dog’s meat.”

“What did he look like?” Dipper asked.

“He was thin, and not above five-and-twenty, and he wore gold rimmed specs. I don’t know what his name was. I didn’t see nobody else there, so maybe he was Smith, like the sign.”

“Did he have a mouse on his dial?”

“He did, now you mentions it! Just here.” Ned pointed to his forehead, above his left eye.

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