it.
Inside, the house was bare and cold with the sort of poverty that teeters on the edge of starvation. Hester heard Rose draw in her breath, then very carefully let it out silently while she tried to compose her face as if she saw such things every day.
It was like the Collards again, only worse. This man was sickly pale, his eyes hollow and defeated. He had been crushed from the waist but his legs were still there, deformed and-from the way he lay and the pinching around his mouth-a constant agony.
Patiently and with trembling gentleness Rose tried to elicit facts from him, and he refused. No one was to blame. It was an accident. Could have happened to anyone. No, there was nothing wrong with the machines. What was the matter with them that they could not understand that? He had told the others the same.
Hester half listened as she started on the laundry with lye soap and water that was almost cold. The physical misery of it did nothing to assuage her sense of guilt. Even as she did it she knew that was ridiculous. Her hour or two of discomfort would be pointless. But the biting cold on her skin pleased her, and the drag on her shoulders when she heaved the wet sheets out and tried to wring them by hand. At the clinic at least they had a mangle.
It was the fourth house after that before they learned anything further. Mary Havilland had been there also.
'You are certain?' Hester said to the handsome, weary woman busy sewing shirts. All the time she was talking to them her fingers never stopped. She barely needed to look at what she was doing.
'Course I am. Don' forget summink like a young lady, an' she were a lady, comin' an' askin' about sewers an' drains an' water wot runs under the ground. Knowed about it, too, she did-engines, too. Knew one from another.'
Rose stiffened, glancing at Hester, then back at the woman.
'She knew about underground streams?' Hester asked, trying to keep the urgency out of her voice.
'Summink,' the woman replied. 'Queer, though.' She shook her head. 'She wanted ter know more. I said me pa'd bin a tosher, afore 'e got took, an' she wanted ter know if I still knew any toshers now. Or gangers. I tol' 'er me bruvver were a tosher, but I in't seen 'im in years. She asked me 'is name. Now wot'd a nice young lady like that wanna find a tosher fer?'
'To learn more about hidden streams?' Rose suggested.
The woman's eyes opened wide. 'Wot fer? Yer don' think one o' them's gonna break through, do yer?'
'Did she say that?'
'No! Course she din't! D'yer think I'd be sittin' 'ere wi' a needle in me 'and if she 'ad? Me sister's 'usband's down there diggin'.' She made no reference to her own husband, one-armed, who was out somewhere in the streets trying to earn a living running errands for people. 'Is this wot yer on about? Wot 'appened to 'er, anyway? Why are yer 'ere?'
Hester debated only for an instant. 'She fell off Westminster Bridge and drowned. We are concerned it may not have been an accident. We need to know what she learned.'
'Nothin' from 'ere that'd get her topped, I swear that on me muvver's grave!
They stayed another ten minutes, but the woman could add nothing.
Outside it was dark and the snow was beginning to accumulate, even though it was only shortly after six.
'Do you suppose she went looking for toshers?' Rose said unhappily. 'What for? To tell her where the underground streams were? Surely Argyll would have done all that. He can't want a disaster-it would ruin him most of all.'
'I don't know,' Hester admitted, beginning to walk towards the omnibus stop. Moving was better than standing still. 'It doesn't make any sense, and she must have known that. But she learned something. What could it be, other than that they are somehow using the machines dangerously, in order to be the fastest, and therefore get the best contracts? Are Argyll's machines different from other people's? We need to find out. Could they be more dangerous?'
Rose stopped, shuddering with cold. 'It seems they work faster-so maybe they are. What can we do? These men won't tell us anything-they daren't!' There was anguish in her cry.
'I don't know,' Hester answered. 'All we can do is find out what happened to Mary… maybe. If she found proof of some sort-I mean something that would have shut down the works until the machines were made safe, even if it were slower-whom would she have told?'
'Morgan,' Rose said straightaway. 'She didn't. She never came back.'
They started walking again, as it was too cold to stand.
'Perhaps she wasn't certain,' Hester suggested. 'If it was almost complete, perhaps lacking one point…?'
They reached the bus stop and stood side by side, moving their weight from one foot to the other to prevent themselves from freezing.
'Toby?' Hester pressed. 'She might have told him?'
Rose shook her head. 'She didn't trust him. He and Alan were very close.'
'Toby worked in the company?'
'Yes. She said he was very ambitious, and at least as clever as Alan, with engineering, at any rate. Perhaps not as good at handling men and as quick in business.'
Half an idea flashed into Hester's mind, but it dissolved before she grasped hold of it. 'So he would understand the machines?'
'Oh, yes. So others said.' Rose's eyes widened. 'You mean she might have been… been deliberately playing him… drawing information from him to get her final proof?'
'Mightn't she?' Hester asked. 'Would she have had the courage to do that?'
Rose did not hesitate. 'Yes-by heaven, she would! And he was playing her, to see how much she knew! But it was too much! He had to kill her, because in the end his loyalty was to his brother.'
'And to his own ambition,' Hester retorted. She saw lights along the road and prayed it was the omnibus at last. Her teeth were chattering with the cold.
'How will we ever know?' Rose said desperately. 'I absolutely refuse to let them get away with it, whatever it costs!'
The omnibus stopped and they climbed on, being obliged to stand jammed between tired workmen and women with bags of shopping followed by exhausted children with loud voices and sticky hands.
At the changeover to the second omnibus Rose gave a wry, blisteringly honest smile as she climbed onto the next platform and inside. 'I shall never be rude to a coachman again!' she whispered fiercely. 'I shall never insult the cook, outrage the maids, or argue with the butler. And above all, I shall never let the fire go out, even if I have to carry the coal in myself!'
Hester swallowed a laugh that was a little on the edge of hysteria.
'What are we going to do?' Rose demanded.
Hester's mind raced, struggling between the practical and the safe. Safety won, at least for Rose. 'You are going to see what chances there are of passing some kind of law to help the injured. Mary might have thought of that. It was probably why she approached Mr. Applegate in the first place. I'll attempt to locate the toshers Mary spoke to and see what they told her. If anyone knows where the old sunken rivers are, or if anything s changed course, it'll be them.'
'Be careful!' Rose warned.
'I will,' Hester assured her.
But she did not tell Monk anything other than that she had visited some of those injured in past cave-ins and other machine accidents. She certainly did not reveal her plans. And she lost no time in composing a brief letter to Sutton, telling him of her need to learn more from the toshers who knew the old system best. Only after she had sent it did she realize that she had no idea whether Sutton could read or not! He did all his business in cash. Perhaps even the best houses did not wish a bill or a receipt from a ratcatcher.
She waited all day for an answer, busying herself with chores, cleaning up after the plasterer.
Sutton came just after dark, at about half past four.
'Yer sure?' he asked carefully, studying her face in the kitchen gaslight. He sipped a steaming cup of tea, and had accepted a piece of fruitcake. He was scrupulous to give Snoot a tiny portion, just so he felt included. It probably amounted to no more than a couple of raisins. Snoot took them delicately and licked his chops, waiting
