One or two bawdy remarks, which she ignored, were hurled at her. She was too eager to find anyone who might be a friend or associate of Allardyce to have time for offense. Then she saw a man with an arm amputated above the elbow and a scar on one lean cheek. Her spirits leapt at the thought that he might be a soldier. If he were, that would be at least one person whom she could talk to, perhaps find an ally.
There was no time for delicacy. She smiled at him, coolly, not an invitation. “Where did you serve?” she asked, hoping she was right.
Something in the tone of her voice, an expectation of friendship, even equality, startled any misunderstanding he might have had. He glanced momentarily at his empty sleeve, then up at her. “Alma,” he answered, a slight curiosity in his voice. He was waiting to see if the name of that dreadful battle had any meaning for her.
“You were lucky,” she said quietly. “Many fared a lot worse.”
Something lit in his eyes. “How do you know that, Miss? You lose somebody?”
“A lot of friends,” she replied. “I was in Sebastopol and Scutari.”
“Widow?” He raised his eyebrows, pity in his face.
She smiled. “No, nurse.”
“Let me buy you a drink,” he offered. “Anything you want. I’d get you French champagne if I could.”
“Cider will do fine,” she accepted, sitting down opposite him. She knew better than to say she would get it herself, and rob him of his generosity, or the feeling that he was in control and did not need anyone else to fetch or carry for him.
“What you doing here?” he asked after they were settled and she was sipping her drink. “You’ve not been here before.”
She had already decided that candor was the only way. She told him that she was looking for information to help a friend in serious trouble, accused of a crime of which she believed him innocent, if not in fact, then at least under mitigating circumstances. She wanted more knowledge of someone who had been here on the night of the crime, and showed him the picture she had taken from Runcorn’s office.
He screwed up his eyes as he looked at it, one face after another. “What night was that, then?” he said at last.
She told him the date.
“That’s a while back.” He pursed his lips.
“Yes, I know,” she admitted. “I should have come sooner. There have been several reasons. We were looking in a different direction. Will anyone remember? It was the night there was a big spill of raw sugar in Drury Lane, if that’s any help?”
“Wouldn’t know.” He shook his head. “Don’t have any reason to go up that way.” He concentrated on the picture again. “Know that artist fellow.” He pointed to one of the men. “And that one.” He indicated Allardyce. “He lives up that way, but he comes here every now and then.” He stared at the picture of half a dozen men around a table, ale mugs in their hands, the surroundings roughly sketched in, suggesting the tavern, the parallel walls, a couple of hanging tankards and a poster advertising a juggling act at a nearby music hall.
Hester waited with a sinking feeling of disappointment growing inside her.
The soldier still frowned. “There’s something wrong,” he said with a shake of his head. “Don’t know what.”
Hester stared around the room, looking for the place where they had been sitting. Perhaps it was not this tavern? It was too slim a thought to offer hope. Almost before it had taken form in her mind she recognized the tables and the chairs, the angles of the paneling on the wall behind them.
Then it struck her. The poster was different. The one on the wall now was for a singer in a red shirt. She hardly dared put words to it. Her heart was hammering inside her chest.
“When did they change the poster?” she asked.
The soldier’s eyes widened. “That’s it!” he said with a long sigh. “You’ve got it. That one was up the night you’re talking about—not the juggler they’ve got here. You can check at the music hall, check with anyone, they’ll tell you. This wasn’t made that night!” He poked his finger at the drawing. “He was here, all right, but not then.”
His face shone with triumph. “That help you?”
“Yes!” she said, smiling at him so widely it was a grin. “Yes, it does! Thank you very much. Now, let me get you a cider, and maybe something to eat. I could certainly do with a pie. Then I’ll go and make sure the music hall will swear to it, if necessary.”
“Thank you,” he accepted graciously. “I’ll have a mutton pie with mine, if you please. You’d like that, too. Real tasty, they are. Fill you up.”
She left the Bull and Half Moon and was startled as she stepped out into the street to see how the fog had surrounded everything with a dark shroud so thick she could barely see five or six yards in front of her. She had intended to go to the music hall and check to be absolutely certain about the dates of the juggler and the singer, and that they had actually changed the bill, but in this murk that had blown up from the river it would be almost impossible. She could not even see the other side of the street. Where was the carriage? It was not where she had left it, but the driver would not have been able to wait there. No doubt he was in the next side street.
She started to walk, and was aware of footsteps behind her, or was it an echo of her own? Fog distorted sound. But it muffled rather than magnified.
She whirled around, and saw a figure darkening the white vapor that islanded her in every direction. She stepped back, but he came forward. She went back again until she was under the street lamp and the light filtered down pale and patchy as the mist moved, and she saw Argo Allardyce’s ashen face and black hair. Her breath caught in her throat, and for a moment she choked with blind terror. There was no point whatever in trying to deny what she had been doing. He must have followed her from the Bull and Half Moon, though she hadn’t seen him there. She still had the picture with her. Where was the carriage? How far away? Could she turn and run? Was she even going in the right direction?
