Love, Charlotte
He pushed open the parlor door and felt for the knob of the gas lamp and turned it up. He saw the letter and tore it open, ripping out the paper and straightening it.
Dear Mr. Pitt,
I heard as you been asking around after the woman who wears a strange color of pink, and you are very desirous of finding her. I know where she is, and if you are willing to make it worth my trouble I will take you to her.
If you are interested come to the Triple Plea public house in Seven Dials tomorrow evening about six o’clock.
S. Smith
Pitt smiled and folded the letter carefully, putting it in his pocket. He tiptoed through to the kitchen.
The following evening he walked slowly through the fine ice-cold drizzle, woolen muffler high round his ears, along a gray alley in the district of Seven Dials. He knew why the man had chosen this part of the city; it was, as the flower girl had said, where the news sheets were printed and the natural headquarters of the running patterers. They made their living selling news or song sheets by the yard, constantly on the move crying the thrills and dramas within their pages. Most were based on the latest crime-the more gruesome, the better. Occasionally it was love letters of the utmost indiscretion. They might be of a famous person, an international beauty, or more tantalizingly an unnamed “lady of this neighborhood-to a gentleman not a hundred miles away!” If the truth were currently a little flavorless, then they had wit and imagination enough to retell some of the old favorites: wronged women who murdered either their faithless lovers, or the poor infants of the union, which well told, would bring tears to many a reader’s eye. Running patterers were usually men of some enterprise and a keen observation of human nature; it did not surprise Pitt that it should be one of these who had noticed and remembered Cerise. The man’s occupation was the retelling of tales of passion, murder, and beautiful women.
It was bitterly cold, and the narrow alleys made funnels for the wind. The dim figures Pitt passed were hunched forward, heads sunk into their shoulders, faces averted. In doorways sleepers piled together like sacks for the heat of each other’s bodies. The splinters of a broken gin bottle caught a gleam of light from a gas lamp.
Pitt found the Triple Plea after only one false turn. Pushing his way through the raucous drinkers in the public bar, he reached the counter. The landlord, in a beer-stained calico apron, shirt sleeves at half mast, looked at his unfamiliar face warily.
“Yeah?”
“Anyone asking for me?” Pitt asked quietly. “Name’s Pitt.”
“An’ why should I know that? I in’t a public service!”
“Oh, but you are.” Pitt forced a civil expression to his face. He fished in his pocket and brought out a sixpence. “And services should be paid for, when they’re worth it. When someone does ask, you tell me. Meantime I’ll have a cider.”
The man eyed the money ungraciously, pulled a draft cider into a tankard, and pushed it across. “There y’are. ’Is name’s Black Sam, an’ ’e’s over in the corner wiv a blue shirt and a brown coat-an’ the cider’ll be extra.”
“Naturally,” Pitt agreed, and added another tuppence. He took the glass and sipped from it gingerly. Actually it was rough and sweet, and surprisingly good. Taking a long drink, he made his way quite slowly over to the corner indicated, his eyes roaming to find the patterer. Several of the men here were probably of that occupation; they were not far from the printing houses, and they had the mobile faces, the quick eyes and lean figures of men who were constantly on the move.
He saw a man with an unusually dark complexion and a bright blue shirt sitting over a jar of ale. Almost immediately their eyes met, and Pitt knew it was S. Smith; there was an air of waiting in him, a restless scanning of faces. Pitt forced his way through and stopped in front of the cramped table.
“Mr. Smith?”
“That’s right.”
“Pitt. You said that for a consideration you could help me.”
“So I can. Drink yer cider; then when I leave, foller me out a minute or two be’ind. Don’t want ter give folks reason ter think, thinkin’ in’t good fer ’em. I’ll be outside on the street opposite. I ’ope yer’ve brought summink gen’rous wiv yer? I don’t give no credit. Noos is noos, an’ I makes me livin’ by it.”
“Sometimes it is,” Pitt said coolly. “Sometimes it’s lies. I’ve heard plenty of good cocks before.” A “cock” was a colorful melodrama invented when real news was slow; there were several famous ones making the rounds.
Black Sam smiled, showing crooked teeth that were surprisingly clean. “Sure. But they’re fer entertainin’ ladies as like a good cry an’ no ’arm done if the story is a bit-decorated like. That’s art.”
“Quite. Well, I’d like nature, or nothing.”
“Oh, you’ll get it, don’t fret.” And he stood up, tipped his mug back and drained it to the last drop, set it back on the bench, and pushed past Pitt without looking at him again. A moment later he had disappeared.
Pitt finished his cider without hurrying, then edged his way out into the night. The fine drizzle had stopped and it was beginning to freeze over. There were no stars because of the pall of smoke that hung over the city from the tens of thousands of chimneys. He could see the dim outline of Black Sam on the far curb. He crossed over and approached him.
“How much?” Sam said pleasantly without moving.
“If I find the woman in the pink dress and she’s the right one, half a crown.”
“An’ wot’s ter stop yer sayin’ it in’t the right one?”
Pitt had already thought of that. “My reputation. If I fiddle you out of what’s rightly yours for services rendered, no one’ll give the information in the future, and then I can’t do my job.”
Sam thought it over for a moment, but he was not long in his decision. Word spread fast among people who lived on the edge between survival and despair, and he made his own way by judging people. “Yer on,” he agreed. “Follow me.” And at last he straightened up and began to walk with a gait that was a deceptively rapid kind of lope. Pitt was hard pressed to keep up with him; although he was used to being on his feet all day it was with a measured tread, even back when he had been a constable. Now he was accustomed to riding, and the patterer’s speed left him breathless.
Fifteen minutes later they were almost at the far side of Seven Dials and in a more salubrious neighborhood, but still the streets were narrow and a practiced eye could recognize cheap lodging houses, and several that were almost certainly used as brothels. If Cerise were here then she had indeed fallen on hard times since the days of the Lyceum and the hotel where the doorkeeper had remembered her.
The patterer stopped and stood still on the grimy pavement.
“Up them stairs,” Black Sam said smoothly. He might have been on an evening’s stroll for any difference the run had made to him. “Knock on the door at the top an’ ask ter see Fred. ’E’ll tell yer where yer party is. I’ll wait ’ere, and if ’e does, I’ll trust yer ter come back down an’ give the the ’alf crown. Can’t say fairer than that. If ’e don’t, then we’ve ’ad a nice walk fer nuffin.”
Pitt hesitated, but it was hardly worth the haggling. Wordlessly he went across to the steps indicated and climbed them slowly, making as little noise as possible. The door at the top was heavy and closed. He knocked hard, hurting his knuckles. After a moment it opened and a thin youth with a knife scar across his cheek looked at him without interest.
“I want to see Fred,” Pitt said, standing well back.
“Wot fer? I in’t seen you afore!”
“Business,” Pitt replied. “Get him.”
“Fred! Geezer ’ere for yer-says it’s business!” the youth shouted.
Pitt waited for several minutes in silence before Fred appeared. He was rotund, red-faced and surprisingly agreeable. He smiled toothlessly. “Yeah?”
“I’m looking for a woman in a pink dress, very vivid dark pink. Black Sam said you know where I can find her.”
“Yeah, that’s right. She rents a room orf me.”
“Now?”
“Yeah o’ course now! Wot’s the matter wiv yer? Think I’m daft?”
“Is she there now, in this room of yours?”
“Yeah. But I don’t let just anybody in. Mebbe she’ll see yer, an’ mebbe she won’t. She might already ’ave
