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onk.” He had risen also, and came around the desk to open the door for her.
She escaped with a pounding heart, and an acute sense of guilt, but she had the drawing.
She spent a useless morning and early afternoon around the area of Allardyce’s studio, and came to the conclusion that in this type of detective work she lacked a skill. By the middle of the afternoon she had decided to follow Allardyce’s friends more directly, and if she took the carriage south of the river Southwark she would find some of them at least already in the Bull and Half Moon. The light was fading, and no one would be able to paint by it at four o’clock or later.
It was nearly dark and the lamps were lit by the time she went through the tavern door. The warm, smoky, ale-smelling interior was already filled with the babble of conversation. The yellow light of a dozen lamps shone on all manner of faces, but entirely masculine. It was too early for street women to be seeking custom, and more respectable women had work to do: dinners to cook, laundry to iron, children to care for. She took a deep breath and went in anyway.
One or two bawdy remarks, which she ignored, were hurled at her. She was too eager to find anyone who might be a friend or associate of Allardyce to have time for offense. Then she saw a man with an arm amputated above the elbow and a scar on one lean cheek. Her spirits leapt at the thought that he might be a soldier. If he were, that would be at least one person whom she could talk to, perhaps find an ally.
There was no time for delicacy. She smiled at him, coolly, not an invitation. “Where did you serve?” she asked, hoping she was right.
Something in the tone of her voice, an expectation of friendship, even equality, startled any misunderstanding he might have had. He glanced momentarily at his empty sleeve, then up at her. “Alma,” he answered, a slight curiosity in his voice. He was waiting to see if the name of that dreadful battle had any meaning for her.
“You were lucky,” she said quietly. “Many fared a lot worse.”
Something lit in his eyes. “How do you know that, Miss? You lose somebody?”
“A lot of friends,” she replied. “I was in Sebastopol and Scutari.”
“Widow?” He raised his eyebrows, pity in his face.
She smiled. “No, nurse.”
“Let me buy you a drink,” he offered. “Anything you want. I’d get you French champagne if I could.”
“Cider will do fine,” she accepted, sitting down opposite him. She knew better than to say she would get it herself, and rob him of his generosity, or the feeling that he was in control and did not need anyone else to fetch or carry for him.
“What you doing here?” he asked after they were settled and she was sipping her drink. “You’ve not been here before.”
She had already decided that candor was the only way. She told him that she was looking for information to help a friend in serious trouble, accused of a crime of which she believed him innocent, if not in fact, then at least under mitigating circumstances. She wanted more knowledge of someone who had been here on the night of the crime, and showed him the picture she had taken from Runcorn’s office.
He screwed up his eyes as he looked at it, one face after another. “What night was that, then?” he said at last.
She told him the date.
“That’s a while back.” He pursed his lips.
“Yes, I know,” she admitted. “I should have come sooner. There have been several reasons. We were looking in a different direction. Will anyone remember? It was the night there was a big spill of raw sugar in Drury Lane, if that’s any help?”
“Wouldn’t know.” He shook his head. “Don’t have any reason to go up that way.” He concentrated on the picture again. “Know that artist fellow.” He pointed to one of the men. “And that one.” He indicated Allardyce. “He lives up that way, but he comes here every now and then.” He stared at the picture of half a dozen men around a table, ale mugs in their hands, the surroundings roughly sketched in, suggesting the tavern, the parallel walls, a couple of hanging tankards and a poster advertising a juggling act at a nearby music hall.
Hester waited with a sinking feeling of disappointment growing inside her.
The soldier still frowned. “There’s something wrong,” he said with a shake of his head. “Don’t know what.”
Hester stared around the room, looking for the place where they had been sitting. Perhaps it was not this tavern? It was too slim a thought to offer hope. Almost before it had taken form in her mind she recognized the tables and the chairs, the angles of the paneling on the wall behind them.
Then it struck her. The poster was different. The one on the wall now was for a singer in a red shirt. She hardly dared put words to it. Her heart was hammering inside her chest.
“When did they change the poster?” she asked.
The soldier’s eyes widened. “That’s it!” he said with a long sigh. “You’ve got it. That one was up the night you’re talking about-not the juggler they’ve got here. You can check at the music hall, check with anyone, they’ll tell you. This wasn’t made that night!” He poked his finger at the drawing. “He was here, all right, but not then.”
His face shone with triumph. “That help you?”
“Yes!” she said, smiling at him so widely it was a grin. “Yes, it does! Thank you very much. Now, let me get you a cider, and maybe something to eat. I could certainly do with a pie. Then I’ll go and make sure the music hall will swear to it, if necessary.”
“Thank you,” he accepted graciously. “I’ll have a mutton pie with mine, if you please. You’d like that, too. Real tasty, they are. Fill you up.”
