But for now she must occupy herself, and do something about the women who owed money to the usurer and were being beaten because they could not pay. She was almost certain that Squeaky Robinson was the culprit. But until she had spoken to him again and probed a good deal deeper, her suspicions were not enough. He was afraid of something. It would be very helpful to know what it was.

It was a warm day outside. She barely needed a shawl, let alone a coat, and the streets were crowded as far as the Tottenham Court Road, where she looked for a hansom.

She thought of buying a peppermint water from a peddler-it looked inviting-but then she thought better of spending the money. She passed a newsboy and her eye caught an article on the war in America. Guiltily she hesitated in her step long enough to read at least the beginning, remembering with vivid horror being caught up in that war’s first fearful battle. It seemed that the Union forces had been profoundly embarrassed that many of the guns bristling out of miles of Confederate fortifications were actually only painted logs of wood. The cannoneers had retired south some considerable time before.

She smiled at the irony of it and hurried on, finding a hansom at the next corner.

She went into the house in Coldbath Square, really only to tell Bessie where she intended to be, so that if she was needed she could be sent for, and also so that someone would know where she had gone. It was the nearest she could come to any kind of security. Not that she thought Squeaky Robinson was any threat to her. He had no reason to wish her harm-they were ostensibly on the same side, at least he thought they were. Still, it was a kind of precaution.

Bessie was highly dubious about it. She stood with her arms folded, her lips pursed. “Well, all I can say is if yer in’t back ’ere safe an’ sound in two hours-an’ I can tell the time-then I’m goin’ fer Constable ’Art! An’ I’ll not mince me words! I’ll let’im know w’ere yer are an’ wot’s goin’ on. I swear! An’ ’e’ll come right arter yer! Likes yer, ’e does!” She said that fiercely, as if it were a threat in itself. But that Bessie would speak willingly to a policeman at all, let alone confide in him and ask his help, was eloquent witness to the gravity with which she viewed Hester’s undertaking.

Satisfied that she had made her point, Hester thanked her, and wrapped her shawl over her head in spite of the sun, and set out for Portpool Lane.

Squeaky received her stiffly, sitting upright in his chair behind the desk. A tray of tea sat in the only space clear of papers. He had spectacles perched on the end of his long nose, and there were ink stains on his fingers. He seemed profoundly unhappy. His hair stood on end as if he had been continually running his fingers through it.

“What do you want?” he said abruptly. “I haven’t got anything to tell you. I haven’t seen Jessop.”

“I have,” Hester said quickly, sitting down on the chair opposite him and arranging her skirts more elegantly, as if she meant to stay for some time. “He is still greedy for more money… which we don’t have.”

“Nobody has money!” Squeaky said resentfully. “I certainly don’t, so there’s no use looking to me. Times are hard. You of all people ought to know that.”

“Why me?” Hester asked innocently.

“ ’Cos you know there’s hardly a soul on the streets!” he said savagely. “Toffs are starting to go other places for their pleasure. We’re all going to end up in the workhouse, an’ that’s a fact!” It was an exaggeration. He would steal long before he allowed such a disaster to happen, but there was an underlying note of panic in his voice which was real.

“I know it’s serious,” she said gravely. “Political pressure is still keeping the police all over the place, although no one expects them to find out now who killed Baltimore.”

A curious expression flickered over his face, a kind of suppressed fury. Why? If he knew who it was, why did he not inform, secretly of course, and get the whole thing over with? Then he and everyone else could get back to normality.

There was only one possible answer to that-because it implicated him in some way, or at least his house. Did he protect his women, even at the cost of business? She found that very hard to believe. He used women until they were of no value anymore, then discarded them, as all pimps did. They were property.

But his were particularly valuable property, not easily replaced. He could not go out and get them; they had to walk into this trap.

“They won’t find out,” he sneered, but there was rising tension underneath it, and he watched her every bit as closely as she did him. “If they’d had any idea at all they’d have sewn it up by now,” he went on. “They’re here to please some bleedin’ toff’s feelings of outrage ’cos a tart dared to hit back.” There was hatred in his eyes, but for whom she could not tell.

What had happened to the woman who had killed Baltimore, if it was a woman? Or had she simply struck him, and perhaps screamed, and someone like the would-be butler at the door had actually killed him? Perhaps even unintentionally, in a fight at the top of the stairs, Baltimore had lost his balance and fallen.

“Somebody must be sheltering her,” she said aloud, then stopped, seeing the instant denial in his face. “You think not?”

He wiped his expression blank. “How’d I know? Mebbe.”

“You’d make it your business to know,” she replied, her eyes never leaving his. “Do you wish to be thought incompetent-stupid?” she added for clarity in case he misunderstood.

He flushed with anger-or possibly a kind of embarrassment?

“You’ve a reputation to keep up,” she continued.

“What do you want?” he snapped, his voice high with barely controlled tension. “I can’t stop Jessop, I told you that. If you want someone to go an’ beat a little consideration into’im, it’ll cost you. I don’t care whether you’ve got money or not, you’ll get nothin’ for nothin’.”

It was not just greed driving him, it was fear as well; she could see it and hear it, almost feel it in the room. Fear of what? Not the police; they were nowhere near any kind of solution. She knew that from Constable Hart. Fear of the silent man who loaned money to young women and then blackmailed them into prostitution? A man who would do that must be a cruel and possibly dangerous partner. Was he threatening Squeaky if he did not produce the usual income in spite of the circumstances?

She smiled slowly. The idea of the would-be butler’s giving Jessop a couple of black eyes and a thoroughly good fright was very appealing. She could be tempted.

Squeaky was watching her as a cat does a mouse.

“Five pounds,” he said.

It was, relatively speaking, a modest enough sum. Margaret would be able to come by it. Why was Squeaky offering to do such a thing for only five pounds? Was the partner really so demanding? He was a usurer. Money was his stock-in-trade. Was Squeaky down to so little that five pounds made a difference?

“For you, in your position?” she asked.

“Me!” he snapped. “He’s…” Then the derision vanished from his face and he conceded everything. “Me,” he repeated.

It was a second or two before she realized what he was saying, then it came in a flood of understanding-he was alone. For some reason the partner was no longer there. That was his panic-the fact that he did not know how to run the business by himself.

The wild idea gained at Marielle Courtney’s house hardened into close to a certainty. Nolan Baltimore had been Squeaky’s partner, and his death, murder or accident, had left Squeaky without anyone to run the usury side of the business.

He needed a new partner, someone with access to the sort of young women who might get into debt, the polished manner to earn their confidence, and the business acumen to loan them money and insist on its repayment in this way.