Clinch ignored this piece of rhetoric. ‘Joseph Pritchard,’ he said. ‘He’d feed it to her if he could, like a babe at suck; he’d do that. You agree with me, Mr. Gascoigne.’
‘Ah—you know me!’ said Gascoigne, in a tone of relief, and then, ‘I do?’
‘Your sermon in yesterday’s Times. A d—n fine sentiment, by the bye; a d—n fine piece,’ said Clinch. (Paying a compliment appeared to soothe him—but then his features darkened again.) ‘He might have done well to read it. Do you know where he gets it from? That filthy muck? The resin? Do you know? Francis Carver, that’s who!’
Gascoigne shrugged; the name meant nothing to him.
‘Francis bloody Carver, who kicked her—kicked her, beat her—and it was his baby! His baby in her belly! Killed his own spawn!’
Clinch was almost shouting—and Gascoigne was suddenly very interested. ‘What’s that you’re saying?’ he said, stepping forward. Anna had confided to him that her unborn baby had been killed by its own father—and now it appeared that this same man was connected to the opium by which she herself had nearly perished!
But Clinch had rounded on his valet. ‘You,’ he said. ‘If Pritchard comes by again, and I’m not here, it’s you I’m counting on to turn him back. Do you hear me?’
He was very upset.
‘Who is Francis Carver?’ said Gascoigne.
Clinch hawked and spat on the floor. ‘Piece of filth,’ he said. ‘Piece of murderous filth. Jo Pritchard—he’s just a reprobate. Carver—he’s the devil himself; he’s the one.’
‘They are friends?’
‘Not friends,’ said Clinch. ‘Not friends.’ He jabbed his finger at the valet. ‘Did you hear me? If Jo Pritchard sets foot on that staircase—the bottom stair—you’re out on your own!’
Evidently the hotelier no longer regarded Gascoigne as a threat—for he moved from the doorway, snatching his hat from his head; Gascoigne was now free to exit, as he pleased. He did not move, however; instead he waited for the hotelier to elaborate, which, after slicking his hair back with the palm of his hand, and hanging his hat upon the hatstand, he did.
‘Francis Carver’s a trafficker,’ he said. ‘Godspeed—that’s his ship; you might have seen her at anchor. A barque—three-masted.’
‘What’s his connexion to Pritchard?’
‘Opium, of course!’ said Edgar Clinch, with impatience. He evidently did not take well to being questioned; he frowned anew at Gascoigne, and it seemed that a new wave of suspicion came over him. ‘What were you doing in Anna’s room?’
Gascoigne said, in a tone of polite surprise, ‘I was not aware that Anna Wetherell is in your employ, Mr. Clinch.’
‘She’s in my care,’ said Clinch. He slicked back his hair a second time. ‘She lodges here—it’s part of the arrangement—and I have a right to know her business, if it happens on my province, and there are pistols involved. You can go: you’ve got ten minutes’—this last to the valet, who scuttled off to the dining room, to take his lunch.
Gascoigne took hold of his lapels. ‘I suppose you think she’s lucky, living here, with you to watch over her,’ he said.
‘You’re wrong,’ said Clinch. ‘I don’t think that.’
Gascoigne paused, surprised. Then he said, delicately, ‘Do you care for many girls like her?’
‘Only three right now,’ Clinch said. ‘Dick—he’s got an eye for them. Only the class acts—and he doesn’t drop his standard; he holds to it. You want a shilling whore, you go down to Clap Alley, and see what you catch. There’s no spending your loose change with him. It’s pounds or nothing. Dick, he put you on to Anna?’
This must be Dick Mannering, Anna Wetherell’s employer. Gascoigne made a vague murmur instead of answering. He did not care to narrate the story of how he and Anna had come to meet.
‘Well, you ought to go to him, if you want a poke at one of the others,’ Clinch went on. ‘Kate, the plump one; Sal, with the curly hair; Lizzie, with the freckles. It’s no use asking me. I don’t do all of that—the bookings and whatnot. They just sleep here.’ He saw that his choice of verb had provoked some disbelief in the other, and so he added, ‘Sleep is what I mean, you know: I wasn’t mincing. I can’t have night-callers. I’d lose my licence. You want the whole night, you take it on your own head—in your own room.’
‘This is a fine establishment,’ said Gascoigne politely, with a sweep of his hand.
‘It isn’t mine,’ said Clinch, with a scornful look. ‘I’m renting. Up and down the street—from Weld to Stafford, it’s all rented. This place belongs to a fellow named Staines.’
Gascoigne was surprised. ‘Emery Staines?’
‘Odd,’ Clinch said. ‘Odd to be renting from a man who’s half my age. But that’s the modern way: all of us upended, each man for his own.’
It seemed to Gascoigne that there was a forced quality to the way that Clinch spoke: his phrases seemed borrowed, and he uttered them unnaturally. He was guarded in his tone, even anxious, and seemed to be protecting himself against Gascoigne’s poor opinion, impossible project though that was. He does not trust me, Gascoigne thought, and then, well, I do not trust him, either.
‘What will happen to this place if Mr. Staines doesn’t return, I wonder?’ he said aloud.
‘I’ll stay on,’ said Clinch. ‘I’ll buy it, maybe.’ He fumbled a moment with a drawer beneath the desk, and then said, ‘Listen: you’ll think me a bore for asking again—but what were you doing in Anna’s room?’
He looked almost pleading.
‘We exchanged some words about money,’ Gascoigne said. ‘She is out of pocket. But I believe you know that already.’
‘Out of pocket!’ Clinch scoffed. ‘There’s a word! She has pockets enough, believe me.’
Was this a cryptic reference to the gold that had been sewn into Anna’s dress? Or simply a crass allusion to the girl’s profession? Gascoigne felt suddenly alert. ‘Why should I believe you—above Anna?’ he said. ‘By her account, she hasn’t a penny to her name—and yet you think it right, to demand six pounds of her, paid up at once!’
Clinch’s eyes widened. So Anna had confided in Gascoigne about the rent she owed. So she had complained about him—and bitterly, judging by the Frenchman’s hostile tone. The thought was hurtful. Clinch did not like the thought of Anna speaking about him to other men. Quietly he said, ‘That isn’t your business.’
‘On the contrary,’ Gascoigne said. ‘Anna brought the matter to my attention. She begged me.’
‘Why?’ said Clinch. ‘Why, though?’
‘I imagine because she trusts me,’ Gascoigne said, with a touch of cruelty.
‘I meant, what’s the use in begging you?’
‘So that I might help her,’ Gascoigne said.
‘But why you, though?’ Clinch said again.
‘What do you mean, why me?’
Clinch was almost shouting. ‘What’s Anna doing asking you?’
Gascoigne’s eyes flashed. ‘I suppose you are asking me to define the precise state of relations between us.’
‘I don’t need to ask that,’ said Clinch, with a hoarse laugh. ‘I know the answer to that!’
Gascoigne felt a swell of fury. ‘You are impertinent, Mr. Clinch,’ he said.
‘Impertinent!’ said Clinch. ‘Who’s impertinent? The whore’s in mourning—that’s all—and you can’t deny it!’