“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.
“That depends on whether this is Abel Smith’s house or not,” she replied, glad she was not out of breath as well as reasons. “If it is, then I am where I mean to be.”
He shook his head. “I’m willin’ ter try most things, luv, but yer in’t right fer ’ere.” He looked her up and down. “If yer desperate, I’ll give yer a bed for the night, but find yerself somew’ere else fer tomorrer. Yer in’t my trade.”
“No, I’m not,” she agreed. “But I know a few girls who are. I have the house in Coldbath that takes care of some of your sick and injured.”
His eyes narrowed, and he whistled his breath out between the gaps in his teeth. “I in’t got no one sick ’ere, an’ I din’t ask fer no ’ouse calls!”
“I’m not here about illness,” she replied. Now she decided to stretch the truth a little. “I’m here about getting the police to move out of the area so we can all get back to business as usual.”
“Oh, yeah? An’ ’ow d’yer reckon on doin’ that, then?” He eyed her slim, straight body and direct eyes with heavy skepticism. “They’re sayin’ as that toff wot got done was ’ere in me ’ouse… which ’e never were, ’ceptin’ w’en ’e were dead!” He sniffed. “I never topped a customer in me life! Bloody stupid thing ter do, all ways ’round. But d’yer think them stupid sods believe me?”
“Where is the staircase he is supposed to have fallen down?” she asked.
“W’y? Wot diff’rence does it make ter you?” he demanded.
“Why do you want to hide it?” she countered.
“Go on! Git outa ’ere!” He flapped his hands at her. “Yer jus’ trouble. Go on!”
Somewhere behind her a rat overbalanced an empty crate and it fell with a damp thud.
She stood still. “I’m trying to help, you fool!” she said fiercely. “If he didn’t die here, then he died somewhere else! It didn’t have anything to do with women at all, and if I can prove that, then the police will stop harassing us and we can all get back to the way it used to be! Do you want that, or not?”
His eyes were little more than slits in his pink face. “W’y?” he said carefully. “I thought as yer was just a do- gooder wot tries ter save souls o’ fallen women. Yer got summink else goin’ on-in’t yer?” He nodded several times. “Wot is it, then? Wot yer doin’ in that ’ouse up Coldbath?”
“That is none of your business!” she snapped, seizing the chance. “Do we have to do this standing on the steps for anyone to hear?”
Reluctantly, he moved back and swung the door open for her to follow. She went in after him and found herself on a narrow landing with half a dozen doors leading off it. He walked ahead of her with a curious, rolling gait, as if he had been long at sea. He stopped at the fourth door along, opened it and led the way in. She went after him and found herself in a sitting room whose furnishings had once been green and red but were now faded and soiled to shades of brown, like old leaves. A desk against the back wall was covered with papers. There was a soft chair ahead of her, and a very small fireplace, presently filled with dead ash. The odor of stale air was oppressive. Warmth would only have made it worse.
“I would like to speak to some of your girls,” she asked.
“They don’t know nothin’,” he said flatly.
“I don’t care about your miserable trade!” She knew her voice was rising but she could not help it. “They may have seen this man in the street. Somebody brought him here. You say he didn’t walk in… then who brought him? Haven’t you even wondered who did this to you?”
“Yer bleedin’ right I ’ave!” he spat, his face suddenly losing its pink, innocent look and burning instead like that of a malevolent baby, curiously evil because it was so ludicrous. He suddenly raised his voice. “Ada!” he yelled with startling volume.
There was a slight sound downstairs, but no one appeared.
“Ada!” he screamed.
The door flew open and a fat woman almost his own height burst into the room, her black ringlets clustered around her red face, her eyes blazing with indignation. She looked at him, then at Hester.
“No good,” she said without being asked. “Too thin. Wot yer call me fer, yer daft a’porth? Don’t yer know nothin’? Sorry for ’er, are yer?” She jabbed a short, fat finger toward Hester. “Well, not in this ’ouse, yer great soft ’eap o’…” She stopped, sensing his lack of self-justification. She realized her error and swung around to face Hester. “Well, wot are yer ’ere fer then? Cat got yer tongue?”
Hester pulled out the drawing of Nolan Baltimore and showed it to her.
Ada barely glanced at it. “ ’E’s dead,” she said flatly. “Some ’eap o’ dung left ’ere on our floor, but ’e in’t nuffin’ ter do wi’ us. Never see’d’im afore, an’ no one can prove we ’ave!”
“It’s your word against theirs,” Hester said reasonably.
Ada was hugely practical. She was too much of a survivor to quarrel for the sake of it. “So wot der yer want, then? W’y’d yer care ’oo put’im ’ere?”
“Because I wish to find out who killed him so the police will go away and leave us alone. And I wish to find out who is lending money to women and making them pay it back by going on the streets,” Hester replied. She took a wild chance, feeling her flesh prickle at the risk.
Ada’s black eyes opened even more widely. “Do yer, then? W’y?” Her question was shot out like a missile.
“Because as long as there are police all over the place there’s no trade,” Hester replied. “And people can’t pay their debts. Tempers are getting ugly and more and more women will get hurt.”
Ada was still suspicious. “And since when did women ’oo speak like you care if women like us got trade or not?” she said, her eyes narrow. “Thought you was all fired up ter clean the streets and put decency back inter life.” She said this last with sarcasm like an open razor.
“If you think putting constables on every corner is going to do that, you’re a fool!” Hester retorted. “There’s no ’like me’ and ’like you.’ All kinds of women can find themselves in debt and take to the streets to pay it. They might have to cater to specialist tastes, but they take what they can get. It’s better than being beaten half to death.”
“We don’t do that ter nob’dy,” Ada said indignantly, but beside the self-righteousness there was a ring of honesty in her voice as well, and Hester heard it.
“Do you cater to special tastes?” Hester asked.
“Not wi’ girls wot are ’ere ’cos o’ debts wot we know anythin’ abaht,” Ada replied. “They’re jus’ orn’ry girls wot
