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“Nothing at all?” I say.
Gray lowers his voice. “From what I have seen, the family is as impoverished as they seem, with no sign of sudden wealth, as we saw with the Burnses. There is a bottle of gin under a floorboard, which I presume belongs to Mr. Young. It suggests his wife knew he had a drinking problem and did not allow spirits in the house. I also found a pawn receipt in his belongings, for what seems to be jewelry. Women’s jewelry. He had it very well hidden, which suggests his wife did not realize he had pawned what I presume is hers. In addition, I found a pair of gold cuff links, quite old, perhaps belonging to his father or grandfather.”
“So he secretly pawned his wife’s treasures, but not his own. Nice.”
At a throat clearing behind us, I spin, thinking I spoke louder than I intended. It’s the daughter.
She looks at Gray. “I want to speak to her.”
“Miss Mitchell? Of course.” Gray waves her over and steps away.
“No, I want to speak to her outside.”
“Then you must ask her, not me.”
McCreadie must overhear, because he steps in our direction.
“Not you,” she says to McCreadie. “Only her.”
“Let’s go outside,” I say.
EIGHTEEN
Miss Young and I head out into the crowded and narrow street. She walks quickly, and for a moment I think she’s leaving me behind. Then she glances back with an impatient jerk of her chin, and I hurry to catch up.
“Nettie didn’t kill my father,” she says.
“Nettie?”
“My father’s wife.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize she wasn’t your mother.”
“She is two-and-twenty,” she says. “That would hardly be possible. My mother died when I was a child. My grandparents raised me until my father remarried. Before you ask, this is not some fairy tale with the wicked stepmother. I like Nettie far better than I liked my father. And she did not kill him. I’d have understood if she did. I’d have done it myself if I had the nerve.”
She walks a few more steps and then crosses her arms, as if against the cold, though the June sun beats down. “No, that is a lie. I could not have murdered him. He didn’t deserve such a fate. But she deserved better. Wealldeserved better.”
“Can you tell me a bit more about your family, so that I might fully understand the situation?”
“What is there to tell that you will not have heard a thousand times,from behind a thousand doors like these?” She meets my gaze, defiant. “Do not think such problems don’t exist in your side of the city, either.”
“Oh, they do. They’re just easier to hide in a big house, with thick walls and staff paid for their loyalty and their silence.”
She snorts a quarter laugh. “Yes. It is much easier to hide one’s problems when the walls aren’t little more than paper. My father lost himself to the bottle after my mother died. Or that is the story, though I do not know if it is true or a kindness my gran tells me so I will imagine some grand love between them. I knew little of him growing up. He only came to see us when he needed a place to sleep. He was handsome, though, and could usually find a woman to provide that. Then he got Nettie with child when she was younger than I am now. He married her, and she wanted us to live all together—her and my father, my grandparents and me.” She pauses. “I liked that. Nettie and I get on like sisters.”
I nod and continue walking, letting her story come in its own time.
“He never struck us,” she says. “Not me or the boys or Nettie. My grandparents wouldn’t have let him. Nor would Nettie or I. He wasn’t around enough to harm us in that way. He was gone for days on end, drinking in some whore’s bed.”
“He had mistresses?”
She snorts. “That’s a pretty word for it. He had women who would fill his glass and give him a bed. I do not know names, but I can tell you where to ask.”
“Thank you.”
“My father may never have lifted a hand to Nettie, but that does not mean he treated her well. She is very sweet. A gentle soul.” Miss Young makes a face. “That sounds odd to say about one’s stepmother, doesn’t it?”
“She is naïve?”
