Bethlehem Road

' 'Yes you do. You would have heard Big Ben-think! You'd be waiting to catch the Members as they left the House.'

She screwed up her face. 'I 'eard ten-but that was afore I went down ter Jacko's.''

257

'Did you hear eleven? Where were you when Big Ben struck eleven?'

Someone else came past and bought a bunch of purple violets before she replied. 'I was talkm' ter Jacko. 'E said as it was a good night fer trade, and folk was still abaht, it bein' fine like. An' I said that was good, cos I'd gorn an' got an extra load o' flars, and they don't last.'

'And then you came back up here sometime before the House rose,' he prompted.

'No,' she said, deep in thought, her brow furrowed. 'That's wot I din' do! I got fed up wiv waitin' fer 'em, an I went up ter the Strand and the theaters. Sold all me flars there, I did.'

'You can't have,' Pitt argued. 'That must have been another night. You sold flowers to Sir Lockwood Hamilton. Primroses. He was wearing fresh flowers when he was killed, and he didn't have them when he left the House a few minutes before he crossed the bridge.'

'Primroses? I don't 'ave no primroses. Violets, me, this time o' year. All sorts later on, but violets now.'

'Never primroses?' Pitt said carefully, a strange and dreadfully sensible idea opening up in his mind. 'Would you swear to that?'

'Gor lumme! D'yer fink I sold flars all me life since I were six years old, and don' know the difference between a primrose nor a violet? Wot yer take me for?'

'Then who gave the primroses to Sir Lockwood Hamilton?'

'Someone wot poached my beat?' she said sourly. Then her face eased in innate feirness. 'Not as I didn't go up the Strand, wot in't stric'ly my place, but . . .' She shrugged. 'Sorry, ducky.'

'I suppose you didn't sell primroses to Mr. Etheridge, or Mr. Sheridan either?'

'I told yer, I never sold primroses to no one!'

Pitt thrust his hands deep into his pockets and pulled out 258

a sixpence. He gave it to her and took two more bunches of flowers.

'Well then, I wonder who did.'

'Cor!' She let out her breath in a moan of incredulity, which turned to horror. 'The Westminster Cutthroat! 'Esold 'em! Don' it fair make yer blood cold? It do mine!'

'Thank you!' Pitt turned on his heel and walked rapidly away, then started to run, shouting and waving his arms for a cab.

'A flower seller?' Micah Drummond repeated, his brow puckered in surprise. He turned the thought over in his mind, examining it and finding it more and more acceptable.

'It gives me something to look for,' Pitt said eagerly. 'In a way, flower sellers are invisible, as long as you don't know that is what you are looking for. But once you do, they are a very definite body. They have their own territories, like birds. You won't get two of the same sort in one street.'

'Birds?'

'The Parliament end of Westminster Bridge is usually Maisie Willis's patch; the night Hamilton was killed, as we know, she went up the Strand instead. But our cutthroat wouldn't know that in advance. He-or perhaps I should say she-seized the opportunity, and again when Etheridge and Sheridan were killed. She must have been waiting, watching for the opportunity. She might have been there several nights before the House rose when Maisie wasn't there, and she caught the man she wanted alone on the bridge. He probably stopped to buy flowers, not recognizing the seller in the half light, and naturally not expecting to see anyone he knew dressed in old clothes and with a tray of flowers!'