'You can't, ma'am! 'E's dead!'
'I know he's dead, Constable,' Emily said patiently. 'He would be, having been strangled and dropped into the river. It is the corpse that I wish to see.'
'The corpse?' he repeated, stupefied.
'Exactly,' she said. 'If you will be so kind?'
'I can't! It's 'orrible, ma'am-quite 'orrible. You can't 'ave any idea, or you wouldn't ask. It's not for any lady at all to see, let alone the likes o' you!'
Emily opened her mouth to argue, but Charlotte could see that the whole initiative was going to slip away if she did not intervene.
'Of course it is,' she agreed, adding her own smile to Emily's. 'And we appreciate your sensitivity to our feelings. But we have both seen death before, Constable. And if we are to fight for reform, we must make people aware that it is not pleasant-indeed as long as they are permitted to deceive themselves that it is unimportant, so long will they fail to do anything about it. Do you not agree?'
'Well-well put like that, ma'am-but I can't let you go and look at something like that! 'E's dead, ma'am-very dead indeed!'
'Nonsense!' Emily said sharply. 'It's freezing cold! We have seen bodies before that were far worse than this one can possibly be. Mrs. Pitt once found one over a month old, half burned and full of maggots.'
That left the constable speechless. He stared at Charlotte as if 235
she had produced the article right there iff front of him by some abominable sleight of hand.
'So will you be good enough to take us to see poor Albie?' Emily said briskly. 'You did not send him back to Bluegate Fields, did you?'
'Oh, no, ma'am. We got a message as they didn't want 'im after all. Said as 'e'd bin took out o' the river 'ere, we 'ad as much right to 'im as anyone else.'
' 'Then let us go.'' Emily began to walk toward the only other door, and Charlotte followed her, hoping the constable would not block them.
'I ought to ask my sergeant!' the constable said helplessly. ' 'E's upstairs. Let me go an' ask 'im if n you can!' This was his chance to put the whole ridiculous thing into someone else's hands. He had been used to all manner of weird affairs coming in through the door, from drunks to terrified girls or practical jokers, but this was the worst of all. He knew they really were ladies; he may work in Deptford, but he knew quality when he saw it!
'I wouldn't dream of putting you to the trouble,' Emily said. 'Or your sergeant either. We shall only be a moment. Will you be kind enough to show us the way? We should dislike to find the wrong corpse.'
'Lord! We only got the one!' He dived through the doorway after her and trotted behind them exactly where Pitt had gone the day before, into the small, cold room with its sheet-covered table.
Emily strode in and whipped off the cover. She looked down at the stiff, bleached, puffed corpse, and fora moment she went as white as it was; then, with a supreme effort, she controlled herself long enough to allow Charlotte to look also, but she was unable to speak.
Charlotte saw an almost unrecognizable head and shoulders. Death and the water had robbed Albie of all the anger that had made him individual. Staring at him now, the emptiness lying on the table, she realized how much the will to fight had been part of him. What was left was like a house without furniture, after the inhabitants have taken away the things that marked their presence.
236
'Put it back,' she said to Emily quietly. They walked out past the constable, close to each other, arm in arm, avoiding his eyes so he would not see how much it had shocked them and taken all their confidence.
He was a tactful man, and whatever he saw or guessed he made no mention of.
'Thank you,' Emily said at the street door. 'You have been most courteous.'
'Yes, thank you,' Charlotte added, ding her best to smile at him; she did not succeed, but he took the intention for the deed.
