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Then suddenly at St. Mary’s Wynd she turned sharply left and he almost lost her. He ran forward and only just prevented himself from colliding with her as she stopped in front of a dark doorway, the parcel still in her hands.
She turned and looked at him, for an instant afraid, then as her eyes, used to the darkness, went beyond him she cried out.
“No!”
Monk swung around just in time to raise his stick and fend off the blow.
“No!” Eilish said again, her voice powerful with complete authority. “Robbie, put it down! There is no need….”
Reluctantly the man lowered the cudgel and stood waiting, still gripping it ready.
“You are very determined, Mr. Monk,” Eilish said quietly. “You had better come in.”
Monk hesitated. Out here in the street he had a fighting chance if he were attacked, inside he had no idea how many men
there might be. In an area like Cowgate he could be disposed of without trace or necessity for explanation. Grisly visions of Burke and Hare came back like nightmares yet again.
Eilish’s voice was full of laughter, although he could not see her face in the gloom.
“There is no need to be alarmed, Mr. Monk. It is not a den of thieves, it is simply a ragged school. I’m sorry you were struck when you followed me before. Some of my pupils are very jealous for my protection. They did not know who you were. Creeping along the Grassmarket behind me, you cut a very sinister figure.”
“A ragged school?” He was stunned.
She mistook his amazement for ignorance.
“There are a lot of people in Edinburgh who can neither read nor write, Mr. Monk. Actually this is not a ragged school in the legal sense. We don’t teach children. There are others doing that. We teach adults. Perhaps you didn’t realize what a handicap it is to a man not to be able to read his own language? To be able to read is the doorway into the rest of the world. If you can read, you can make the acquaintance of the best minds of the present, no matter where they live, and all the past as well!” Her voice rose with enthusiasm. “You can listen to the philosophy of Plato, or you can go on adventures with Sir Walter Scott, see the past unfold before you, explore India or Egypt, you can—” She stopped abruptly, then continued in a lower tone. “You can read the newspapers and know what the politicians are saying, and form some judgment for yourself whether it is true or not. You can read the signs in the streets and shop windows, and on labels and medicine bottles.”
“I understand, Mrs. Fyffe,” he said quietly, but with a sincerity that was totally new to him where she was concerned. “And I know what ragged schools are. It is simply an explanation which had not occurred to me.”
Then she laughed aloud. “How very candid of you. You thought I had some assignation? In Cowgate? Really, Mr. Monk! With whom, may I ask? Or you thought I was a master thief, perhaps, come to divide the spoils with my accomplices? A sort of female Deacon Brodie?”
“No….” It was a long time since a woman had embarrassed him in this way, but honesty compelled him to admit he deserved it.
“You had better come in, all the same.” She turned back to the door. “Unless that is all you wanted to know? Had you better not prove me truthful?” There was mockery in her voice, and underneath the amusement it was charged with emotion.
He agreed, and followed her into the narrow corridors of the tenement. She climbed up rickety stairs, along another corridor, the man Robbie a few steps behind, his cudgel at his side. They mounted more stairs and finally came into a large room overlooking the street. It was clean, especially for such a place, and by now he was used to the general smell of such a region. There was no furniture at all except one frequently repaired wooden table, and on it was a pile of books and papers, several inkwells and a dozen or so quills, a penknife for recutting the nibs, and several sheets of blotting paper. Her students were a collection of some thirteen or fourteen men of all ages and conditions, but everyone dressed in clean clothes, although ragged enough to have earned the school its epithet. Their faces lit with enthusiasm when they saw her, then closed in sudden, dark suspicion as Monk came in behind her.
“It’s all right,” she assured them quickly. “Mr. Monk is a friend. He has come to help tonight.”
Monk opened his mouth to protest that that was not so, then changed his mind and nodded agreement.
Soberly they all sat on the floor, mostly cross-legged, and balancing books on their knees, and papers on top of the books, with others on the floor between them, they slowly and painstakingly wrote their alphabets. Frequently they looked at Eilish for help and approval, and in total solemnity she gave it, offering a correction here, a word of praise there.
After two hours of writing, they moved to reading, their reward for labor. With many stumbles and a lot of encouragement, one by one, they lurched through a chapter of Ivanhoe. Their elation at the end of it, at twenty-five to four in the morning, as they thanked her, and Monk, was abundant reward for Monk’s own weariness. Then they filed out for an hour’s sleep before starting the long day’s work.
When the last of them had gone, Eilish turned to Monk wordlessly.
“The books?” he asked, although he knew the answer and did not care in the slightest if it robbed Farraline & Company of its entire profits.
“Yes of course they are from Farralines,” she said, looking directly into his eyes. “Baird gets them for me, but if you tell anyone, I shall deny it. I don’t think there is any proof. But you wouldn’t do that anyway. It has nothing to do with Mother’s death, and won’t either exonerate or condemn Miss Latterly.”
“I didn’t know Baird could get to the company accounts.” That would explain why he had been so nervous.
“He can’t,” she agreed with amusement. “I want books, not money. And I wouldn’t steal money, even if I did need it. Baird prints extra books, or declares the print runs short. It has nothing to do with accounting.”
That made sense.
“Your uncle Hector said someone had been falsifying the accounts.”
