Gracie moved close enough to overhear. He seemed so absorbed in what he was asking she hoped he would not be aware of her. She stood sideways, staring across the street as if waiting for someone.
“Excuse me …” Remus began.
“Yeah?” The woman was civil but no more.
“Do you live around here?” he asked.
“White’s Row,” she answered, pointing a few yards to the east, where apparently the street changed its name. It was only a short distance before it finished in the cross street, facing the Pavilion Theater.
“Then perhaps you can help me,” Remus said urgently. “Were you here four or five years ago?”
“O’ course. Why?” She frowned, narrowing her gaze. Her body stiffened very slightly, balancing the laundry awkwardly.
“Do you see many coaches around here, big ones, carriages, not hansoms?” Remus asked.
Her expression was full of scorn. “Does it look ter yer like we keep carriages ’round ’ere?” she demanded. “Yer’ll be lucky if yer can find an ’ansom cab. Yer’d be best orff ter use yer legs, like the rest of us.”
“I don’t want one now!” He caught hold of her arm. “I want someone who saw one four years ago, around these streets.”
Her eyes widened. “I dunno, an’ I don’t wanner know. You get the ’ell out of ’ere an’ leave us alone! Gorn! Get out!” She yanked her arm away from him and hurried away.
Remus looked disappointed, his sharp face surprisingly young in the morning light. Gracie wondered what he was like at home relaxed—what he read, what he cared about, if he had friends. Why did he pursue this with such fervor? Was it love or hate, greed, the hunger for fame? Or just curiosity?
He crossed the road past the theater and turned left into Hanbury Street. He stopped several people, asking the same questions about carriages, large closed-in ones such as might have been cruising to pick up prostitutes.
Gracie stayed well behind him as he went the length of the street right up to the Free Methodist Church. Once he found someone who gave him an answer he seemed delighted with. His head jerked up, his shoulders straightened and his hands moved with surprising eloquence.
Gracie was too far away to hear what had been said.
But even if there had been such a carriage, what did that tell her? Nothing. Some man with more money than sense had come to this area looking for a cheap woman. So he had coarse tastes. Perhaps he found a kind of thrill in the danger of it. She had heard there were people like that. If it had been Martin Fetters, what of it? If it were made public, would it matter so much, except to his wife?
Was Remus really chasing after the reason for Fetters’s murder anyway? Perhaps she was wasting her time here, or to be more honest, Charlotte’s time.
She made a decision.
She came out of the doorway, squared her shoulders, and strode towards Remus, trying to look as if she belonged here and knew exactly what she was doing and where she was going. She was nearly past him when at last he spoke.
“Excuse me!”
She stopped. “Yeah?” Her heart was pounding and her breath was so tight in her throat her voice was a squeak.
“I beg your pardon,” he apologized. “But have you lived here for some time? I am looking for someone with some particular knowledge, you see.”
She decided to modify her reply a bit, so as not to be caught out by recent events—or the geography of the area, of which she knew very little.
“I bin away.” She gulped. “I lived ’ere a few years back.”
“How about four years ago?” he said quickly, his face eager, a little flushed.
“Yeah,” she said carefully, meeting his sharp, hazel eyes. “I were ’ere then. Wot is it yer after?”
“Do you remember seeing any carriages around? I mean really good quality carriages, not cabs.”
She screwed up her face in an effort of concentration. “Yer mean like private ones?”
“Yes! Yes, exactly,” he said urgently “Do you?”
She looked steadily at his face, the suppressed excitement, the energy inside him. Whatever he was looking for, he believed it was intensely important.
“Four year ago?” she repeated.
“Yes!” He was on the verge of adding more to prompt her, and only just stopped himself.
She concentrated on the lie. She must tell him what he expected to hear.
“Yeah, I ’member a big, fine-lookin’ carriage around ’ere. Couldn’t tell about it except, like, as it were dark, but I reckon as it were about then.” She sounded innocent. “Someone yer know, was it?”
He was staring at her as if mesmerized. “I’m not sure,” His breath caught in his throat. “Perhaps. Did you see anyone?”
She did not know what to answer because this time she was not sure what he was looking for. That was what she was here to find out. She settled for bland; that could mean anything.
“It were a big, black coach, quiet like,” she replied. “Driver up on the box, o’ course.”
“Good-looking man, with a beard?” His voice cracked with excitement.
