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“Yes, I suppose so,” she said with genuine reluctance. “But what about you? You shouldn’t go alone either! Anything could happen to you, and we wouldn’t even know. Why don’t you—” She stopped.
Hester smiled. “Why don’t I what? You can’t think of a better idea any more than I can. I shall be very careful indeed, I promise you. I look pretty much like the women who live in the area, and they go around by themselves. There are police all over the streets just now. We know that as well as anyone. As long as I don’t look as if I am soliciting for trade, which I shall take care not to, I shall be as safe as anyone.” And without waiting for further argument from Margaret, Bessie, or a voice of caution inside her own head, she took an old shawl from the cupboard of spare clothes and went out into the street. The evening was fine now, and quite warm. Looking straight ahead of her, she walked quickly in the direction of Leather Lane.
She intended to begin with the place where Nolan Baltimore’s body had been found, but she must be careful. She did not wish to draw the attention of any police patrolling the streets and alleys, and particularly not of Constable Hart, who would recognize her in an instant, and probably have a very good idea of her purpose.
She slowed her step to something more like that of the middle-aged woman in front of her, keeping about twenty feet between them, and trying to appear to a casual eye to be much the same sort of person. She reached the angle where Bath Street becomes Lower Bath Street, then crosses the wide thoroughfare of Theobald’s Road and becomes Leather Lane.
There was a constable on the corner, looking tired and dispirited. How was she going to show anyone a picture without drawing his attention? It would have to be done under one of the few street lamps. One could hardly be expected to recognize anybody in the dusk and shadows closer to the walls, or in a doorway or alley.
The constable watched her without speaking and without apparent interest. Good. That meant he took her for an ordinary resident. That was not flattering, but it was what she needed at the moment. With a tight little smile to herself, she walked on down Leather Lane.
There was a girl standing close to the next lamppost. The light shone on her bare head, making a bright mass of her hair. She was probably well under twenty, not particularly pretty, but there was still a certain freshness to her. She was not someone Hester knew, and she found herself suddenly very nervous about asking a complete stranger the questions she needed to.
But the answers might be known only by strangers, and she was not going back to Coldbath to tell them that she had been too cowardly to try! That would be worse than anything this girl could say to her.
“Excuse me,” she began tentatively.
The girl looked at her, hostility already in her eyes. “Don’t stop ’ere, luv,” she said in a low, steady voice. “This is my patch, an’ me man’ll mark yer face if yer try it ’ere. Find yer own patch.” She regarded Hester with more care. “Yer looks are nothin’, but y
er walk with yer ’ead ’igh. There’s some as likes that. Try up that way.” She pointed back up toward the huge mass of the brewery on Portpool Lane.
Hester swallowed her temper with difficulty. The insult stung, which was ridiculous. She knew her own passion well enough, there were too many remembered nights not to, but she still did not like to be told her looks were nothing. But this was no time to give back as good as she received.
“I don’t want your patch,” she said levelly. Her better sense knew the girl was only fighting for survival. She probably had to fight for everything she got, and then fight again to keep it. “I just want to know if you have seen a particular man in the area.”
“Look, luv,” the girl answered pityingly, “if yer ol’ man comes ’ere fer ’is pleasures, just look the other way an’ ’ang on t’ yer ’ouse an’ yer kids. If yer got a roof over yer ’ead an’ food in yer belly, don’ go ’owlin’ fer the moon. Yer won’t get nothin’ but a sore froat—an’ if yer go upsettin’ other folk, a bucket o’ cold water thrown at yer, or worse.”
Hester hesitated. What story could she make up that this girl would believe and still give her the information she needed? The girl was turning away already. Perhaps the only answer was the truth.
“It’s the man who was murdered,” she said abruptly, feeling the heat run through her body, and then the cold as she committed herself irrevocably. “I want the police out of the area so everything can get back to normal.” She saw the look of disbelief on the girl’s face. There was nothing for it but to go on now. “They aren’t finding out who did it!” she said abruptly. “The only way to see the back of them is if somebody else does.” She fished in her pocket and brought out the picture of Nolan Baltimore.
The girl squinted at it. “Is that’im?” she said curiously. “I in’t never seen’im. Sorry.”
Hester studied the girl’s face, trying to judge whether to believe her or not.
The girl smiled mirthlessly. “I in’t. I know as ’e were found at Abel Smith’s place, but I in’t never seen’im ’ere.”
“Thank you.” She wondered whether to go on and ask this very self-possessed girl where the brothel was that might use women like herself, who walked with their heads high. That might be the one that belonged to the usurer. She drew in her breath.
The girl glared at her, the warning back in her eyes.
“Thank you,” Hester repeated, and put the picture back into her pocket and walked on, almost as far as High Holborn, asking people, showing them the drawing, then back up the Farringdon Road and across Hatton Wall back to Leather Lane again. She found no one who would admit to having seen Nolan Baltimore.
It was fully dark now, and definitely colder. There were very few people around. A man in a coat too big for him hurried along the footpath, dragging one foot a little, his shadow crooked on the stones as he passed under the street lamp.
A woman paraded along the opposite side casually, keeping her head high as if she were full of confidence. As she rounded the corner into Hatton Wall a hansom slowed. Hester did not see whether she was picked up or not.
A beggar reached an arched doorway and subsided into the brief shelter of it, as if for the night.
Hester had accomplished nothing. She was not even sure if people were lying out of fear or perversity, or if indeed no one had seen Baltimore.
If the latter, did that mean he had not been here? Or simply that he had been extremely careful? Would a man like Nolan Baltimore not automatically be careful not to be recognized? What had he come here for? A secret business meeting to do with land fraud? Or, far more likely, to indulge a taste for a bit of rough pleasure, and practices he could not indulge in at home.
At least she knew where Abel Smith’s establishment was, and she decided as a last resort to go there and confront him. She retraced her steps along Leather Lane and finally went into a short alley off the street and up a rickety stair. All around her she could hear the faint drip of moisture, the creak of wood, and now and then the scurry of clawed feet. That last noise reminded her of the rats in the hospital at Scutari, and she clenched her teeth and moved a little faster.
The door opened as she reached it, startling her, and a bald man with a smiling face stood looking at her. The light behind him made a halo out of the few white hairs on his scalp.
“Are yer lost, then?” he asked, his voice sibilant as if he had a broken tooth. It was only when she reached the top step that she realized he was several inches shorter than she was.
