CHAPTER TEN
A TIMID KNOCK PRECEDED the door cracking open. A blond girl—she was far too young to be called a woman—peeked around the edge. “You wanted to speak to me?”
She was a pretty thing, with large eyes and a pointy little chin. Dainty in a way that set Henry’s teeth on edge, because she’d never be that slender even if she starved herself.
Barnabas changed as if someone had thrown a lever. He stood and became the affable, nonjudgmental detective. “Doris Meyer?”
“Yes.” She stepped into the room, her eyes darting left and right as if a bogeyman might spring out from a corner.
Henry would never have that fragile china doll look that made men want to take care of her. Not that Henry wanted men taking care of her.
“Have a seat, please,” Barnabas said.
“Oh, no, I couldn’t.”
“Please do, or he’ll be forced to stand the entire time,” said Henry. At least she’d gotten that much out of the interview with Lady Avondale. One of those unwritten nob rules no one understood, she guessed.
Doris looked puzzled, then alarmed. The girl’s eyes darted between them.
Maybe Doris could tell that Barnabas was seething under his cool mask. But Henry hadn’t asked a question.
She gave the girl what she hoped was an encouraging smile.
“I assure you, you aren’t in any trouble,” Barnabas placated her. “I just have a few questions for you.”
Doris chewed her pink lip. Barnabas pulled out the chair the innkeeper had vacated.
With a pretty blush that made Henry hate her more, Doris seated herself. “I’m sure I don’t know anything useful.”
Barnabas didn’t push in the chair as he had with her, so the girl was a foot from the table.
“Let me be the judge of that.” He retook his seat and angled it more towards the chair where Doris sat.
He began with his usual boring questions, how long she’d been in Bedford? Since April last. What did she do? Worked in the kitchen. “And Doris Meyer is your name?”
She blanched a little. “I’ve been going by the name of Doris Davidson.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Meyer is my husband’s name. If he finds out where I am...”
Her eyes filled with tears and she looked away.
“I can’t see any reason he would find out,” Barnabas said softly, coaxingly. “I certainly have no reason to tell him.”
“But if you found me, he could find me.” Her voice crested. “And I like it here.”
All right, so Henry’s dislike lifted a little. But she wished the girl would grow a spine.
“Ma’am, I am an inspector with the police. It is my job to learn things that others can’t or won’t. Would you tell me what you know of Lord Coleraine?”
Doris shook her head. “I don’t really know him well, but I can’t believe what is being said about him.”
“Did you stay with him?” asked Henry.
Barnabas shot her a stern look.
She could probably get away with questions until he grabbed her knee under the table again.
“Just for a few days. At his house in Southwark, not his residence. I didn’t...I wasn’t his mistress.” She blushed prettily with her lashes spiky from tears. “Although, I would have...if he asked me to.”
“Let’s go back,” Barnabas said in that gentle tone. “When did you meet the earl?”
She shook her head. Her fingers balled into fists in her lap.
“No one here is sitting in judgment,” said Barnabas. “I’ve heard more shocking tales than you can imagine. I just want to know what happened. As you must know Lord Coleraine is extremely reluctant to speak about these things, but I have required him to be entirely honest with me. It is important for me to know if he is lying.”
The young woman’s gaze jerked to Barnabas’s face.
So the inspector wasn’t above using the girl’s loyalty against her, thought Henry. It was an interesting tactic.
In a tiny halting voice Doris relayed that her husband had been hurt, lost his job, and then turned to the bottle. Then telling her she must do her part to feed their five children—his children, ages three to eight from a first marriage, she pointed out as if that were important.
Her pretty blushes turned splotchy and she cried in earnest as she spilled out how he’d forced her to sell her body or they’d be out on the street. “He wasn’t like that when I married him. He loved his children and didn’t want to put them in the workhouse. He married me so they wouldn’t be motherless. He wasn’t cruel.”
“Of course not,” Barnabas soothed as he held out a handkerchief.
“I wasn’t any good at walking the streets,” she said.
“It isn’t the sort of thing one wants to be good at, is it?” said Henry, adopting Barnabas’s soothing tones. Maybe he did know a trick or two about questioning people. Maybe he wasn’t a horrible interviewer.
Barnabas closed his eyes for a second, but then didn’t grab her knee or anything. Which was almost a disappointment.
“I was afraid to go home with empty pockets. Again.” Doris scrubbed at her eyes. “The night before, Thomas—my husband—had struck me for coming home with nothing. He said it was my fault he had to sell his youngest to a chimney sweep.” Her pansy eyes begged them not to blame her for a little child being sent into work that would eventually kill him. “My fault for not earning money.”
Henry swallowed hard against the lump that formed in her throat. Life could be cruel to the poorest, especially the children.
“The night before you met Lord Coleraine?” prodded Barnabas.
She nodded. “It was late. Hardly anyone was about. Then this tall gentleman walked by and I stepped in front of him to try and get him to...” She waved her hand. “I was desperate. I begged him to...buy my services.”
She twisted the handkerchief between her fingers. “He said it wasn’t anything to do with me, but he didn’t make use of whores.”
Henry had to swallow her snort. Doris seemed oblivious to her derision, not of her, but of Coleraine.
Barnabas flashed her another stern look.
“I started crying and he told me to stop. Then he saw the bruise.” Her hand went to her left cheek as if remembering the blow. “He gave me some money and walked away. But then he turned around and came back. I thought, well, he’d paid for congress so I’d best let him have it.” She pressed shaking fingers to her lips. “But he asked if I’d rather have honest employment.”
“The next thing I knew, I was telling him everything.” Her voice dropped to barely a whisper. “I told his lordship about my baby, who went to the angels. Thomas said it was for the best because we couldn’t feed another mouth.” Her voice shook, but her nostrils flared in the first sign of outrage. “How could he say that?”
She wiped her nose, while Barnabas made soothing noises.
“His lordship gave me the direction of his house and told me I could go there if I wanted to start over in a new place. He said he would find me work, but I would have to leave my husband.”
“What of your stepchildren?” Henry asked.
Barnabas betrayed his frustration with a heavy exhale.
Doris sat up primly. “If I accepted his offer, his lordship said he would find places for them, apprenticeships for the ones old enough and a place in an orphanage for the youngest.”
“For all this he expected nothing of you?” Henry asked.
Doris’s eyes widened. She looked back and forth between Barnabas and Henry.
Barnabas pinched the bridge of his nose. “You needn’t answer.”
“I had to give up my husband,” Doris said.
Henry leaned forward. “But what did—”
Barnabas grabbed her wrist. “Write it down.”
She glared at him, but wrote, What did Coleraine get out of helping her? Then after a second added, Is Davidson her maiden name?
Barnabas asked a few more questions about her time in the Southwark house, but she’d apparently seen little of the earl. Then some man who worked for the earl had brought an envelope with money for a train ticket and instructions for her. But since she didn’t read so well, she’d had to have him help her buy the ticket, find the train, and tell her what to do when she reached Bedford.
Does she still have the letter? Henry shoved the notebook toward Barnabas.
He cast a glance at it and frowned. He asked a few more questions about her background and finally asked about her birth name, which was Davidson. Lord Coleraine had suggested she take a new name, but she’d merely gone back to her maiden name.
Henry barely kept from rolling her eyes.
She hadn’t kept the letter, either. Barnabas thanked the girl and told her they were done. She took three steps toward the door and then tried to return his handkerchief.
“Keep it.” Barnabas waved her off. “I have plenty.”
“I don’t think he killed her,” she said. “It was probably the man his lordship was helping her get away from.”
“I’m sure I’ll find the guilty party.” Barnabas reached to open the door for Doris.
Her husband sounded like a grand cad, and had perhaps intended to put her on the stroll from the beginning. On the other hand, Doris made Coleraine sound like a saint. Or perhaps he had intended to kill Doris, but decided it had all the challenge of netting fish in a fountain.
*~*~*
When they were done at the inn, Barnabas had hurried her to the train station as if he wanted nothing more than to get her back to London and wash his hands of her. Which was probably for the best. He was bound to find out what she was soon. She just wished it didn’t leave her chest feeling hollow.
The next train to London wouldn’t leave for almost two hours. Another express train would leave later if they missed the first one. She was here in Bedford and needed to investigate every missing woman associated with Coleraine. She hadn’t learned all that much that was useful in the day with Barnabas—not for her future articles, or for proving Coleraine guilty.
“Come on, Henry.” Barnabas reached for her arm as she headed for the door of the train station. “We don’t need to question prostitutes.”
“I want to know what they know.” She shied away from his grasp. She was tired of him steering her around and having her pleas to investigate the other women ignored. Plus his touch did things to her, things that it shouldn’t. “We have plenty of time.”
“I’m not chasing rabbits down holes.” Barnabas moved between her and the door. “The chances of any of them knowing anything about Jane Redding’s murder are nil.”
“I want to know anything they know about the earl. Even if they don’t know what happened to Jane, they could know what happened to Kathy.” Her voice turned husky. “Or my sister. If they can be found.”
“They probably can’t,” he muttered.
“So he could have killed Marigold and Liza, too.” She put her hands on her hips.
“Those kind of people are transient.” He folded his arms. “How many of them telling you he helped them do you have to hear?”
She ignored that. Women who’d ended up back on the streets might not be as generous with their opinions as Doris was. “You don’t have to come with me. I will be fine on my own.” She patted the front of her skirt. Her pistol was tucked in her secret pocket. “Or will you arrest me for perverting the course of justice by talking to people you have no intention of questioning?” She threw him a challenging glare. Surely he wouldn’t go that far.
“I won’t arrest you.” His eyebrows flattened.
“Oh, good, then. Do move aside, so I can get this done and be back in time for the train.”
Henry was determined to prove to him that the women had disappeared off the face of the earth. She couldn’t exactly prove Coleraine had murdered them, but the sheer numbers of missing women should figure more prominently in Barnabas’s mind. And if not his, she’d make bloody well certain the public knew of them. “The molls will be coming out soon. If anyone will know if Marigold Hampton is still around, it will be one of them.”
Her heart thundering, she pushed past him, opened the door of the station, and walked out to the street. She half feared he’d physically restrain her.
She didn’t bother to look back. Really what could happen anyway? She’d been in horrid slums in the East End. Doubtful that Bedford offered anything so awful. She was careful. Watched around her. Nothing bad had ever happened, although she had her gun just in case.
The porter she’d questioned had told her it was only five or six blocks from the station. It was too close to not go.
She heard Barnabas’s footsteps before he drew up alongside her.
He let out a frustrated breath. “I can’t let you go alone. It’ll be dark soon.”
She rolled her eyes. “It isn’t like I would expect you to follow every lead until it is exhausted.”
“Now you are just being difficult,” he protested.
Difficult as in making difficulties? As in she was trying to make them miss their train so they’d have to stay overnight? She came to a full stop. “No. I’m not. It won’t take that long to find out if Marigold is still around, and maybe even learn something about Liza Rummings, although I suspect she may have been one of the whores who lived in the house before the current earl inherited.”
Henry didn’t know all the names of the prostitutes who’d squatted in the house before the present earl rousted them.
Barnabas moved his hand to the small of her back. Her insides went soft and creamy like she were a stuffed pastry.
“Not that I have any objection to booking a room for us,” he added.
“Don’t be silly. We have plenty of time before the last train leaves.” She forced herself to step away on legs that felt like pudding. “And I would have to have my own room.”
Her face heated. That made it sound like she wanted to stay.
The corner of his mouth turned up. “Of course, but that doesn’t mean you’d have to sleep in it.”
His smile and ribald suggestion made her pudding inside. She clamped her lips shut afraid of betraying her curiosity about what it would be like if she slept with him—not that she had any intention of finding out. Or saying something else that would encourage him to think she wanted to. She planned to talk only about finding the women from now until they made it on the train.
St. Agnes’s church was a small stone structure that had seen better days. Ivy had grown on the stones and chinks of mortar were missing, not to mention the cross had lost a portion of its crossbeam, making it look more like a scaffold than a crucifix. The neighboring houses were squat and mean, like drunkards leaning against each other as if they couldn’t stand on their own.
Henry approached the first woman who appeared and asked if she knew a Marigold Hampton. The woman shook her head and moved on. The second and third women answered negatively, too.
“We should go,” said Barnabas.
“They might not have been prostitutes. They could just be women on their way home from work—or something.” But even she didn’t believe that. “We still have plenty of time.”
He frowned at her and folded his arms.
Really she should try to strike up a conversation with the molls. This was a case where they might be more willing to talk to her if she told them she was a reporter, but she couldn’t say that with Barnabas glowering beside her.
When his narrowed eyes weren’t focused on her, he was looking around them in every direction. As the darkness hardened, more people appeared on the streets. Time was slipping away, but most people avoided them.
“You’re probably scaring them,” she said in a low voice. “Where is your kind, encouraging, interview face?”
He startled, but then his mouth twitched as if he fought a smile. “I just don’t want anyone to think you’re available.”
“So frown at the men, not the women.” But somehow that he wanted to protect her made her warm inside. “Could you stay back a little when I talk to the women?”
He leaned against a wall. Fifteen feet away were two painted women with their skirts hiked up to show colorful petticoats and a bit of stocking. She crossed the space to them. Barnabas stayed against the wall, although she could feel him watching. Even though he wasn’t happy with her, it was better to have him along. Nice even. She wasn’t as tense as she would normally be alone after dark in a seedy neighborhood.
She greeted the two women and reassured them she wasn’t there to take their customers. She glanced back at Barnabas, but he seemed too close to risk telling the truth. When she asked about Marigold, they denied knowledge. But one of them looked at Barnabas, and the other rubbed her nose and stared off into a dark alley. Henry tensed. Were they lying? Why would they lie? She had no way of knowing if they were truthful or not.
“I just need to find her,” Henry said.
“Good luck, love,” said one of the whores and she tugged on the other’s arm. They crossed the street and disappeared into the darkness.
With a deep sigh, she crossed back to Barnabas. “I think they know her, but they didn’t want to say so.” Were they afraid Barnabas was looking for her? Could they tell by looking at him, he was a police officer? She scrutinized him for a second. She couldn’t tell, but maybe those who often ran afoul of the law had those kind of instincts. “I should give them a reason I want to find her, but I’m not certain they’d tell me anything if they knew you were an inspector.”
“Probably not,” Barnabas agreed.
She thought about suggesting she tell the women they were reporters, but she couldn’t force it out. She feared Barnabas would figure out that she was telling the truth. He had questioned the innkeeper and Doris more thoroughly than she’d expected. They hadn’t given the answers she wanted or that would help her articles, but for what he wanted to know, she had to admit he’d been spot on.
They stood for a few minutes, but no new women appeared. They would have to go back to catch the train soon. “We should try on down that street where most of them are headed.”
He leaned down to whisper in her ear. “I don’t trust the denizens of this place.”
“I doubt they’ll bother us.” Although at the moment the area was mostly deserted.
He stopped her. “You see that man over there by the signpost? He has been watching us for some time.”
S he studied the man through the murky gaslight. His clothes were ill-fitting. Secondhand, but not a laborer’s garb. “We are strangers in his town. He may wonder what we’re doing. Let us go talk to him.”
“I don’t like the look of him,” said Barnabas.
The man just looked poor to her. Down on his luck and trying very hard to look successful. “He might know if Marigold was ever here.”
“I’m sure she was once, but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t gone back to London or somewhere else.”
“Or that Lord Coleraine killed her,” she pointed out.
Barnabas breathed out, his nostrils flaring. “All right. Just don’t stand close enough to him he could grab you.”
She could feel his tension in his hand at her back, but as she surveyed his face, she couldn’t see anything in his bland expression. But his eyes did a slow sweep of their surroundings as if he wanted to be certain there weren’t others lying in wait. They walked toward the man.
She heeded the warning and tucked her hand through the side slit in her skirt to grasp the Colt. Drawing to a stop a good four feet from the man, she pasted on a smile. “Hello there. Could you help us? We are trying to locate a Marigold Hampton.”
The man’s eyes met hers and held a second too long. They were flat and assessing. Then he looked lower, as if she were no more than a bit of refuse being considered for use. A cold wind swept through her.
She resisted the urge to step back. But then her inexplicable nervousness was more likely Barnabas’s fault.
The man’s assessment went to Barnabas, but he hadn’t moved from leaning against the wall. He said in a low growl, “Don’t know no Mary Gold.”
But he’d said the name like it was two words. Then he spit on the ground near Barnabas’s feet.
“Not Mary, but Marigold, like the flower,” said Henry. “We’ve been told that she is often around here.”
Something flicked in the man’s eyes. Maybe he thought Marigold was in trouble and was trying to protect her.
She couldn’t see both of the man’s hands. One was in the shadows. The man rolled toward the wall, hiding his lower arm, as if he’d caught her looking at it. Maybe it was deformed or something.
Henry tried to sound chirpy. Sometimes that worked to allay people’s suspicions of why she was asking questions. “We just wanted to ask her—”
“To sign some paperwork,” Barnabas interrupted. “So she can claim an inheritance from a cousin who won a lottery.”
Henry tried hard to keep the surprise from her face, but the man was watching Barnabas. The man’s eyes took on a speculative gleam and came back to rest on Henry.
Barnabas continued smoothly. “We work for a solicitor charged with finding her.”
“So if you know her,” Henry added, “or know someone who might know of her, we’d appreciate your help.”
“Any kind of reward, gov, if I finds her?”
Barnabas gave a snort. “You’d have to talk to Miss Hampton.”
The man stepped closer. “I think there should be a bit for my time.”
“Can’t help you there,” Barnabas said lightly, but he pulled on Henry’s shoulder. “Not as if we brought the money with us. She’ll have to see the solicitor to collect it.”
Henry resisted and stepped onto the walkway. If he hadn’t lied, they might have learned more from the man. When she said she needed an excuse for finding the woman, she hadn’t meant that Barnabas should make up something.
“I’ll just take this plump little pigeon then.” The man moved like a lightning strike. His hand an iron band on her arm, he jerked her towards him.
A blade flashed in the space towards her neck. She tried to twist away. Her heart jumped into her throat and the grip of her revolver slid out of her hand.
“Looks like a tasty morsel,” the man growled near her ear.
He yanked. She stumbled back against him. The taste of pennies filled her mouth. Clawing at his arm, she struggled to no avail. He dragged her backwards. Metal bit under her chin. Bloody hell, she was going to die.