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Margaret stood in the middle of the room and looked around at the tidy cupboards, the scrubbed tabletops and the floor.
Hester shrugged. “I suppose we should be glad there’s nobody else hurt,” she said with an attempt at a smile. “Do you want to go home? There really isn’t anything to do, and Bessie’ll be in later, if anything should happen.”
Margaret grimaced. “And trail around behind Mama, calling on nice ladies who look at me with kindly despair and wonder why I haven’t accepted a reasonable offer of marriage?” she said wryly. “Then they’ll assume that there is something terribly wrong with me… too indiscreet to mention, and they will think I have lost my virtue!” She gave a little grunt of frustration. “Why is it that young women are presumed to have only two possible virtues-chastity and obedience?” she demanded with sudden fierceness. “What about courage, or honesty of opinion, not just a matter of not taking what does not belong to you?”
“Because they make people uncomfortable,” Hester replied without hesitation, but giving Margaret a crooked, sympathetic smile.
“Can you imagine anything lonelier than being married to someone who always says what he thinks you want to hear, regardless of whatever it is that he thinks?” Margaret asked, her brows puckered in a frown. “It would be like living in a room full of mirrors, where every other face you saw was simply a reflection of your own.”
“I think it would be a very particular kind of hell,” Hester answered with a rush of wonder and pity that anyone could imagine they desired such a thing, and yet she knew many who thought they did. “You have a gift to put it into such vivid words,” she added with admiration. “Perhaps you should try to convey it visually sometime?”
“That would be something really worth drawing,” Margaret responded. “I am so bored with doing the predictable, just reproducing what I see in front of me, with no greater meaning.”
“I can barely draw a straight line,” Hester admitted.
Margaret flashed her a sudden smile. “There are no straight lines in art-except perhaps the horizons at sea. Would you like me to go out and see if I can find us some hot pies for luncheon? There is a good peddler on the corner of Mount Pleasant and Warner Street.”
“What an excellent idea,” Hester said enthusiastically. “One with flaky pastry-and lots of onions… please?”
In the late afternoon Bessie came in carrying a basket with herbs, tea, a bottle of brandy, and a loaf of bread. She set it down on the table and looked around the room before taking off her hat and cape.
“Nobody!” she said with disgust, hanging the cape and bo
“I know!” Hester replied tartly. “The pressure is still on them to find whoever killed Nolan Baltimore.”
“Some pimp ’e crossed up!” Bessie retorted. “What else? Der they think as someone’s goin’ ter tell ’em that if they asks often enough? Don’t s’pose nob’dy knows, ’ceptin’’im wot done it. An’ ’e in’t go
Margaret stopped riddling the stove and moved the kettle over onto the hob.
“Nob’dy’s workin’!” Bessie went on relentlessly. “Them as brings the money in are frit o’ bein’ done by the rozzers… all this ’keep the streets decent’ thing. An’ them as if livin’ ’ere in’t got no trade ’cos no one’s got no money! It’s wicked-that’s wot it is.”
There was no answer to make. There was not even any purpose in either Hester’s or Margaret’s remaining for the rest of the afternoon. Hester said as much, and Bessie agreed with her.
“Yer get orff.” She nodded. “There’s nothin’ much go
“Bessie!” Hester warned.
“Wot?” She opened her eyes wide. “If it don’t agree wif’im, I know ’ow ter give summink ter make’im sick it up! I won’ let the bastard die, I gi’ me word.” She spat and made an elaborate gesture of crossing her heart.
Hester glanced at Margaret, and they both half hid smiles.
But all the way home and for the rest of the evening until Monk returned late and tired, Hester thought about the women, the police around the Farringdon Road and the Coldbath area. It was no moral answer to the evil to get the police presence removed, but it was a practical answer to the lack of trade which was crippling everyone and turning tempers so ugly.
She had tried to avoid coming to the conclusion, but it was inevitable: the only thing that would make them leave would be to solve the murder of Nolan Baltimore. If the police were going to succeed, they would almost certainly have done so by now. The community had closed against them, which was to be expected. No one would tell them anything of meaning in case it would implicate himself, in prostitution if nothing else. And most of the inhabitants of the Leather Lane area were involved, at least peripherally, in fencing stolen goods, a little forgery, of documents if not of money, in pickpocketing, burglary, cardsharping and a dozen other illegal pursuits.
She could ask Monk, at least for advice, if not practical help. He knew and understood murder and its investigation. And perhaps it was in the interest of his own case to learn everything he could of the man who, until a week or two ago, had been the head of Baltimore and Sons. If there had been fraud, he might have known of it; he might even have been the man who perpetrated it. Surely it was reasonable to suppose his death was co
In fact, the jarringly ugly thought was irrefutable that Michael Dalgarno could have followed him to Leather Lane and killed him, precisely because he knew of the fraud and would have exposed it.
Why had Monk not thought of that?
Because he was so caught up in investigating the exact nature of the fraud, and whether it could provoke a disaster, that he had ignored Nolan Baltimore’s murder.
She waited for him, barely thinking of what else she was doing. She found herself listening for the sound of horses in the street from six o’clock onwards, for the opening and closing of the door and his footsteps. When they finally came at nearly quarter to eight she was caught by surprise, and almost ran into the hall.
He saw her face, the expectation in it, and gave her a quick smile and then looked away. The weariness and anxiety in him were so easy to read she hesitated for a moment, uncertain whether to say anything more than a few words of welcome. Should she ask him if he were hungry or had eaten, or make some enquiry after his success that could be answered on the surface-or honestly, as he chose? She could not let it slide by. If he were not going to break the barrier, then she must.
“Did you find anything more about the fraud?” she asked, not casually, but as if she were waiting for and required an answer.
“Nothing helpful,” he replied, taking his jacket off and hanging it up on the hook. “There’s dubious profit in land sales, but nothing more than I imagine most companies make. There are some losses as well.”