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He smiled at her. His face was charming, full of warmth.
“I am sure you shall, Miss Latterly. He is fortunate to have you with him. I shall continue to call every day, but do not hesitate to send for me more often if you should need me.” He turned to Sylvestra. “I believe Eglantyne will come tomorrow—if she may? May I tell her you will receive her?”
At last Sylvestra too relaxed a little, a faint smile touching her lips.
“Please do. Thank you, Corriden. I cannot imagine how we would have survived this without your kindness and your skill.”
He looked vaguely uncomfortable. “I wish … I wish it were not necessary. This is all … tragic … quite tragic.” He straightened up. “I shall call again tomorrow, my dear. Until then, have courage. We shall do all we can, Miss Latterly and I.”
3
Monk sat alone in the large chair in his rooms in Fitzroy Street. He was unaware of Evan’s case or of Hester’s involvement with one of the victims. He had not seen Hester for more than two weeks, and it was high to the front of his mind that he did not wish to see her in the immediate future. His participation in Rathbone’s slander case had taken him to the Continent, both to Venice and to the small German principality of Felzburg. It had given him a taste of an entirely different life of glamour, wealth and idleness, laughter and superficiality, which he had found highly seductive. There were also elements not unfamiliar to him. The experience had awoken memories of his distant past, before he had joined the police. He had struggled hard to catch them more firmly, and failed. Like all the rest of his past, it was lost but for a few glimpses now and then, sudden windows opening, showing only a little, and then closing again and leaving him more confused than before.
He had fallen in love with Evelyn von Seidlitz. At least he thought it was love. It was certainly delicious, exciting, filling his mind and very definitely quickening his pulse. He had been hurt, but not as profoundly surprised as he should have been, to discover she was shallow and, under the surface charm and wit, thoroughly selfish. By the end of the matter he had longed for Hester’s leaner, harder virtues, her honesty, her love of courage and truth. Even her morality and frequently self-righteous opinions had a kind of cleanness to them, like a sweet, cold wind after heat and a cloud of flies.
He leaned forward and picked up the poker to move the coals. He prodded at them viciously. He did not wish to think of Hester. She was arbitrary, arrogant and at times pompous, a fault he had hitherto thought entirely a masculine one. He could not afford to be vulnerable to such thoughts.
He had no case of interest at present, which added to his dark mood. There were petty thefts to deal with, usually either a servant who was tragically easy to apprehend or a housebreaker who was almost impossible, appearing as he did out of the massed tens of thousands in the slums and disappearing into them again within the space of an hour.
But such cases were better than no work at all. He could always go and see if there was any information Rathbone wanted, but that was a last resort, as a matter of pride. He liked Rathbone. They had shared many causes and dangers together. They had worked with every ounce of imagination, courage and intelligence for too many common purposes not to know a certain strength in each other which demanded admiration. And because they had shared both triumph and failure, they had a bond of friendship.
But there was also an irritation between them, a difference which rankled too often, pride and judgments which clashed rather than complemented. And there was always Hester. She both drew them together and kept them apart.
But he preferred not to think about Hester, especially in relation to Rathbone.
He was pleased when the doorbell rang and a minute later a woman came in. She was in early middle age, but handsome in a full-blown, obvious way. Her mouth was too large, but sensuously shaped, her eyes were magnificent, her bones rather too well padded with flesh. Her figure was definitely buxom. Her clothes were dark and plain, of indifferent quality, but there was an air about her which at once proclaimed a confidence, even a brashness. She was neither a lady nor one who associated with ladies.
“Are you William Monk?” she asked before he had time to speak. “Yes, I can see you are.” She looked him up and down very candidly. “Yer’ve changed. Can’t say what, exac’ly, but yer different. Point is … are yer still any good?”
“Yes, I am extremely good!” he replied warily. It seemed she knew him, but he had no idea who she was, except what he could deduce from her appearance.
She gave a sharp laugh. “Mebbe you ’aven’t changed that much! Still gives yerself airs.” The amusement died out of her face and it became hard and cautious. “I want ter ’ire yer. I can pay.”
It was not likely to be work he would enjoy, but he was not in a position to refuse. He could at least listen to her. It was unlikely she would have domestic problems. That sort of thing she would be more than capable of dealing with herself.
“Me name’s Vida ’Opgood,” she said. “In case yer don’ remember.”
He did not remember, but it was plain she knew him from the past, before the accident. He was reminded of his vulnerability.
“What is your difficulty, Mrs. Hopgood?” He indicated the large chair on the far side of the fire, and when she had made herself comfortable, he sat down opposite her.
She glanced at the burning coals, then around at the very agreeable room with its landscape pictures, heavy curtains and old but good-quality furniture, all of it supplied by Monk’s patroness, Lady Callandra Daviot, from the surplus in her country house. But Vida Hopgood did not need to know that.
“Done well fer yerself,” she said ungrudgingly. “Yer din’t never marry good, or yer wouldn’t be grubbin’ around wi’ other folks’ troubles. Besides, yer wasn’t the marryin’ sort. Too cussed. Only ever wanted the kind o’ wives as’d never ’ave yer. So I guess yer in’t lorst none o’ yer cleverness. That’s why I come. This’ll take it all, and then maybe more. But we gotter know. We gotter put a stop ter it.”
“To what, Mrs. Hopgood?”
“Me ’usband, Tom, ’e runs a fact’ry, makin’ shirts and the like …”
Monk knew what the sweatshops of the East End were like, huge, airless places, suffocating in summer, bitterly cold in winter, where a hundred or more women might sit from before dawn until nearly midnight sewing shirts, gloves, handkerchiefs, petticoats, for barely enough to feed one of them, let alone the family which might depend on them. If someone had stolen from Tom Hopgood, Monk for one was not going to look for him.
She saw his expression.
“Wear nice shirts still, do yer?”
He looked at her sharply.
“ ’Course yer do!” She answered her own question with a surprising viciousness twisting her mouth. “And what do yer pay for ’em, eh? Wanner pay more? Wot d’yer think tailors and outfitters pay us for ’em, eh? If we put up our prices, we lose the business. An’ ’oo’ll that ’elp? Gents ’oo like smart shirts’ll buy ’em the cheapest they can get. Can’t pay more’n I can, can I?”
