William Monk 15 - Dark Assassin

excused herself and they were left alone. Much against her own better judgment, Claudine had given Snoot porridge and milk as well, and he was now happily asleep in front of the hearth.
    “She’ll spoil ’im rotten, that woman,” Sutton said as Claudine closed the door. “Wot good’ll ’e be fer rattin’ if ’e’s ’anded ’is breakfast on a plate?”
    Hester did not bother to answer. It was part of the slow retreat by which Claudine was going to allow Sutton to understand that she granted him a reluctant respect. She was a lady, and he caught rats. She would not bring herself to treat him as an equal, which would have made both of them uncomfortable, but she would be more than civil to the dog. That was different, and they both understood it perfectly.
    “What is it?” Hester asked, before they should be interrupted again by some business of the day.
    He did not prevaricate. They had come to know each other well during the crisis of the autumn. He looked at her earnestly, his brow furrowed. “I dunno as there’s anythin’ yer can do, but I gotta try all I can. We all knows about the Great Stink an ’ow the river smells summink evil, an’ they’re doin’ summink about it, at last. An’ that’s all as it should be.” He shook his head. “But most folks ’oo live aboveground in’t got no idea wot goes on underneath.”
    “No,” she agreed with only a faint gnawing of concern. “Should we?”
    “If yer gonna go diggin’ around in it wi’ picks an’ shovels an’ great machines, then yeah, yer should.” There was a sudden passion in his voice, and a fear she had not heard before. He had been so strong in the autumn. This was something new, something over which he felt he had no control.
    “What sort of thing is there?” she asked. “You mean graveyards and plague pits—that sort of thing?”
    “There are, but wot I were thinkin’ of is rivers. There’s springs and streams all over the place. London’s mostly on clay, yer see.” His face was tense, eyes keen. “I learned ’em from me pa. ’E were a tosher. One o’ the best. Knew every river under the city from Battersea ter Greenwich, ’e did, an’ most o’ the wells too. Yer any idea ’ow many wells there is, Miss ’Ester?”
    “There must be…” She tried to think and realized she had no idea. “Hundreds, I suppose.”
    “I don’t mean where we get water up,” he explained. “I mean them wot’s closed over and goes away secret like.”
    “Are there?” She did not know why it troubled him, still less why he should have come to her about it.
    He understood and grimaced at his own foolishness. “Thing is, Miss ’Ester, there’s ’undreds o’ navvies workin’ on all this diggin’. ’As bin for years, wot with one tunnel an’ another for sewers, roads, trains, an’ the like. It’s ’ard work an’ it’s dangerous, an’ there’s always bin accidents. Part o’ life. But it’s got worse since all this new diggin’s bin goin’ on. Everyone’s after a bit o’ the profit, an’ it’s all in a terrible ’urry ’cos o’ the typhoid an’ the Big Stink an’ all, an’ Mr. Bazalgette’s new drawings. But it’s gettin’ more dangerous. People are usin’ bigger and bigger machines, an’ goin’ faster all the time ’cos o’ the ’urry, an’ they in’t takin’ the time ter learn proper where all ’em streams an’ springs is.” His face was tight with fear. “Get it wrong an’ clay slips somethin’ ’orrible. We’ve ’ad one or two cave-ins, but I reckon as there’ll be a lot more, an’ worse, if folks don’t take a bit more care, an’ a bit more time.”
    She looked at his drawn, tired face and knew that there was more behind his words than he was able to tell her.
    “What is it you think I could do, Mr. Sutton?” she asked. “I don’t know how to help injured workmen. I don’t have the skill. And I certainly don’t have the ear of any person with the influence to make the construction companies take more care.”
    His shoulders slumped a little, looking narrower under his plain, dark jacket. She judged him to be in his fifties, but hard work—much of it dangerous and unpleasant, plus many years of poverty—might have taken more of a toll on his strength than she had allowed. He might be younger than that. She remembered how he had helped all of them at the clinic, but most especially her, tenderly and fearlessly. “What would you like me to do?” she asked.
    He