The rough-clad women watching them so narrowly were clearly trying to judge whether or not to risk openly approaching him with their business propositions. Had Malcolm been quite alone, he suspected he would have been propositioned no fewer than a dozen times within fifty paces. And had he been quite alone, Malcolm's hand would never have left the pocket concealing his pistol. A man dressed as Malcolm was, venturing unaccompanied into the deep, semi-criminal poverty of Holywell, would be considered fair game by any footpad who saw him. There was more safety in numbers, but even so, Malcolm's hand never strayed far from the entrance to his pocket.
When Malcolm spotted a woman lounging by herself against a bookshop wall, standing directly beneath a large, projecting clock that stuck out perpendicularly from the building, Malcolm paused, carefully gesturing the ladies on ahead with Mr. Stoddard. A gas street lamp nearby shed enough light to see her worn dress, work-roughened hands, and tired face beneath a bedraggled bonnet.
"Good evening, ma'am."
She stood up straighter, calculation jumping into her eyes. "Evenin', luv. Whatcher' wantin', then?"
"I was wondering if you might have seen someone pass this way earlier this evening? A gentleman dressed much the same way I am? My cousin's gone missing, you see," he added at the sharp look of distrust in her face. "I'm quite concerned over my cousin's safety and his fiancée, there, is in deep distress over it." He gestured toward Margo, who was clinging to Shahdi Feroz and biting her lip, eyes red and swollen. He must remember to ask her how she managed to conjure tears on command.
"Yer cousin, eh? Well, that's diff'rent, innit?" She shrugged. "Right about when might ‘e ‘ave gone by, luv?"
"Half-eight or shortly thereafter."
"I weren't ‘ere at ‘alf-eight, tonight nor any other. I got a job at the Black Eagle Brewery, I ‘ave, what I gets up at six o'clock of a morning for, t' earn shilling an' sixpence a week, an' I don't leave brewery ‘ouse til nigh on ‘alf-nine of a night. Weren't ‘ere at ‘alf-eight, luv."
A shilling and sixpence. Eighteen cents a week, for a job that started at six A.M. and ran fifteen hours or more a shift. It was little wonder she was out here on the street after dark, trying to earn a few extra pence however she could. He sighed, then met her narrow-eyed gaze. "I see, madame. Well, thank you, anyway." He held up a shining silver florin. "If you could think of anyone who might have been hereabouts at that hour?"
She snatched the coin—nearly two weeks' wages—from his fingers. "G'wan down to Davy's, ask round there. Pub's open til all hours, anybody could've seen ‘im. Ain't like we see gents every night o' th' week, these parts."
"Indeed? Thank you, ma'am, and good evening."
He was aware of her stare as he rejoined the ladies and followed the straining Alfie at the end of his leash. By dawn, the story of the missing gent and his grieving fiancée would be news from one end of the district to the other. With any luck, word of Benny Catlin might yet shake loose—particularly in the hopes of a cash "donation" for information given. Meanwhile, Alfie was whining and straining in the direction of Davy's Pub at the end of Holywell Street where it rejoined the Strand once more. Music and laughter reached up the narrow lane as they approached the busy public house, brightly lit by a multitude of gas lamps. Its windows and placard-plastered walls advertised Scotch and Irish Whiskeys... Wainey, Comb, and Reid fine ales... favorite brands of stout... and, of course, Walker's.
Malcolm wasn't dressed for mingling in such a crowd, but Auley Shannon was. He nodded slightly at Malcolm, then disappeared into the packed pub. Malcolm waited patiently with Margo and Shahdi Feroz and the others, noting the location of another pub, The Rising Sun, across the road where Wych Street emerged just the other side of Davy's. Beyond, in the wide avenue that lay beyond the conjunction of the two narrow, old streets, lay the ancient facade of St. Clement Danes Church, another island church built in the center of the Strand. Its high steeple was topped with what appeared to be a miniature, columned Greek temple, barely visible now between drizzle-laden clouds and streaks of jagged lightning.
And in another of London's abrupt transitions, where glittering wealth shared a line of fenceposts with criminal poverty, where the narrow Wych and Holywell Streets intersected the Strand, a sharp line of demarcation divided the dark poverty-stricken regions behind them, separating it from the expensive, well-to-do houses and shops right in front of Malcolm, shops and houses that stood in a stately double row to either side of the street, lining the Strand, itself. Such abrupt changes from deepest poverty to startling wealth, within half-a-block of one another, placed destitute men and women with no hope at all side-by-side with socially ambitious businessmen and their ladies, ensconced in fine houses, with servants and carriages and luxuries their neighbors could never aspire to owning through any means except thievery.
And thievery was exactly how many a denizen of SoHo obtained such items.
Studying the intersection and judging the lay of the land and the inhabitants of the various buildings within view, Malcolm realized they'd need to field a good-sized search party through this area just to question all the potential witnesses. Five minutes later, Shannon emerged from Davy's, looking hopeful. "Blokes are suspicious o' strangers," he said quietly, "an' rightly so, what wiv coppers lookin' t'nick ‘alf the blokes in there, I'd reckon, but I pointed out Miss Smith, ‘ere, give ‘em the bare bones of what's ‘appened. Got a few of ‘em t'thaw a bit, seein' the lady cryin' and all. Must be ‘alf a dozen blokes said they saw a bloke wot might've been ‘im." He paused, with a glance toward Margo, then cleared his throat. "Wot they saw was a woman walk past, Mr. Moore, carryin' a wounded gentleman. Walkin' quick-like, as if to find a surgeon. Blokes remembered, on account of that poor streetwalker, Martha Tabram, ‘oo got ‘erself stabbed to death August Bank ‘oliday, an' on account of it were so queer, seein' a woman in a patched dress and ragged bonnet, carryin' a gentleman in a fine suit wiv a shabby old coat wrapped round ‘is head."
Malcolm paled, even as Margo blanched and clutched at Shahdi Feroz. "Odd," Malcolm muttered, "How deuced odd."
"You've the right o' that, sir."
"It's unlikely a woman would have attacked Mr. Catlin. Perhaps she found him lying on the street, injured, and was, indeed, carrying him to safety with a surgeon. Mr. Catlin was a slightly built young man, after all, and wouldn't have proved difficult to lift and carry, for a stout woman." Margo nodded, wiping tears from her face with the back of one gloved hand. "Mr. Shannon, Miss Shannon, lead on, please. Let's see how much farther this trail will take us."
As it happened, that was not much farther at all. Alfie crossed the Strand right along the front of the old Danish church, where the street curved around to the south. Tailors' establishments and boot sellers' shops advertised their wares to wealthy families able to afford their trade. But where Millford Lane cut off to the south near the rear corner of St. Clement Danes, the skies cut loose with a stinging downpour of rain and Alfie lost the trail. The dog hesitated, cast about the wet pavement in confusion and ever-widening circles, and finally sat back on its haunches, whining unhappily while runoff poured, ankle deep, past their feet in the gutters. Maeve pulled her coat collar up around her neck, then bent and patted the dog's shoulder and ruffled its wet, clamped back ears, speaking gently to it.
Malcolm noted the presence of a few hansom cabs along the Strand, waiting hopefully for customers from amongst the wealthier gentlemen Malcolm could see here and there along the street, some of them escorting well-dressed ladies out to carriages under cover of taut umbrellas, and said, "Well, perhaps Mr. Catlin's benefactress hired a cab?"