Sometimes men were employed in wars to kill important people on the enemy’s side. Had that been what Inspector McGregor had meant? Or had Monaghan killed people in general, ones he thought needed to be taken down?
I shivered. If he thought Daniel needed taking down—or Inspector McGregor, or me—who would stop him?
I forced myself to push these disturbing thoughts asideand bury myself in preparing the meal and then making a start on tomorrow’s chores.
I was reminded of my dilemma not long after we’d sent up the supper when the young lad Hannah used to communicate with me appeared at the scullery door. He thrust a paper at me and held out his hand for payment.
“A moment,” I told him. I opened the note which stated, in Hannah’s plain writing:Pub. Leicester Square.
15
The paper contained no further information. I turned it over, but the back was blank.
“It is a place,” I informed the boy. “But not a time.”
He sent me an aggrieved look. “She said Thursday, soon as it opens.”
I held out a bright copper coin but let it hover over his waiting palm. “What’s your name, lad?”
He hesitated a beat too long. “Adam.”
If he had to think about it, then he made up the name. “Would you like a cruller?” I asked him.
“No.” Adam all but snatched the coin from me and disappeared up the stairs and into the darkness.
I shook my head as I closed the door. Hannah trusted the lad, which meant I should, but I worried about him.
“Wait, missus.” A voice called to me from the outer stairs, a different one, belonging to another boy.
I swung the door open again to find Albie, his countenance far more cheerful than young Adam’s.
“I come for another fivepence,” he announced.
“Have you now?” I studied him sternly.
“I have. Been watching that bloke you told me to—Lord Pelsham—for a time.” Lord Pelsham was the friend of Lord Peyton’s that Hannah mentioned visited often. “His grooms are not so nice as the Lofthouses’, and he’s just returned from Ireland.”
“Has he?” My severity lessened. “That is interesting.”
“He didn’t have the best time of it, from what I could tell,” Albie went on. “Railing about how dreadful it all was. How his tenants there were sullen and nasty, and how he couldn’t get shot of the place quick enough. Then Lord Pelsham climbs into his coach and rolls off to Belgrave Square, probably to complain about it more to his mate there.”
Very observant of the lad. “You have done well, Albie. Your fivepence and, if you’ll wait a moment, a cruller.”
Albie took the coins I handed him, instantly dropped them into his pocket, and touched his hat. “Won’t say no to that.”
I went through the kitchen to the larder and the plate of fresh crullers I’d left for the staff. I wrapped one in an old but clean cloth and returned to Albie, who lounged against the doorframe. He grinned as he took the pastry, said good-bye around me to Elsie in the scullery, and dashed upstairs. The cloth fluttered back down to me as the cruller went straight into the lad’s mouth.
As I retrieved the rag and carried it to the laundry, I mused over the difference between the two boys, who were of an age. Adam—or whatever his name might be—clearly hungry and dirty, who wouldn’t take my food, and Albie, already an able earner of coins, happily devouring whatever I offered.
I’d have to tempt Adam next time I saw him. He didn’t need to be so thin and bleak.
* * *
The next morning, Tuesday, Tess returned from her sojourn to the market, her face pinched. She said nothing as she sorted the produce, but she worked with bangs and slams.
“Please do not bruise that cabbage,” I said sternly. “We’ll have to throw half of it away.”
“Sorry, Mrs.H.” Tess dropped the dusty carrots from her hands and sat down hard on a chair. “I have much on me mind.”
