Bella’s face pinched with anger. “He behaved pretty rotten at times. My ma’d have taken a slipper to me if I’d thrown tantrums the way he does, kicking and shouting and-”

“Bella!” Mrs. Culpepper said warningly, her voice sharp.

“Well, goes on like a three-year-old, he does sometimes!” Bella protested, her cheeks flushed. “And poor Martin put up with it without a word of complaint. Cleaning up behind him, listening to him weeping and wailing about everything you could name, or just sitting there like the misery of the whole world was on his plate. You’d-”

“Yer’d best keep a still tongue in yer ’ead, my girl, or yer’ll ’ave the misery o’ the world on your plate, an’ all!” Mrs. Culpepper warned her. “Yer might be an ’andsome piece, as speaks like a lady, but yer’ll be out in the street in ’alf a trice, wi’ yer bags in yer ’and an’ no character if the master catches yer talkin’ about Mr. Stephen ter strangers, an’ that’s a fact!” There was a note of urgency in her voice, and her black eyes were sharp. Gracie was sure it was not anger or dislike but affection which prompted her.

Bella sat down on the other kitchen chair, her skirts swirling around her, her white lace apron clean and starched stiff. “It’s not fair!” she said fiercely. “What that man put up with is more than a soul should take. And if they’ve put him out…”

“ ’Course they haven’t put him out, yer daft a’p’orth!” a young footman said as he came in. His hair grew up in a quiff on his forehead; his breeches were still a fraction too large for him. Gracie guessed that he had only just graduated from bootboy within the last few weeks.

Bella rounded on him. “And how come you know so much, Clarence Smith?”

“ ’Cos I see things what you don’t!” he retorted. “There’s nobody but Martin can do anything with him when he gets one of his black miseries. And nobody else even tries, when he flies into one of his rages. I wouldn’t try for all the tea in China. Even Mr. Lyman’s scared of him… and Mrs. Somerton. And I didn’t think as Mrs. Somerton was scared of nothing. I’d have put a shilling on her against the dragon, never mind St. George, an’ all.”

“You get about your business, Clarence, afore I report you ter Mr. Lyman fer lip!” Mrs. Culpepper said tartly. “Yer’ll be eatin’ yer supper out in the scullery, an’ lucky ter get bread and drippin’, if ’e catches yer.”

“It’s true!” Clarence said indignantly.

“True in’t got nothin’ ter do with it, yer stupid article!” she retorted. “Sometimes I think yer in’t got the wits yer was born with. Get on and carry them coals through fer Bella. On with yer.”

“Yes, Mrs. Culpepper,” he said obediently, perhaps recognizing in her voice anxiety rather than criticism.

Gracie thought for a moment that perhaps it would be fun to work in a large house, just for a week or two. But of course it was not nearly as important as what she was doing. She watched as Clarence went out to perform his task. She picked up her tea and finished it.

“Sorry, luv, but we can’t ’elp yer,” Mrs. Culpepper said to her, shaking her head and pouring out the batter into the tin at last. “Gotta get on wit the cakes fer tea. Ne’er know ’oo’ll be callin’. Dottie! Dottie… come an’ see ter ’em vegetables.”

Gracie stood up to leave, carrying her empty cup over to the board beside the sink. “Thank yer,” she said sincerely. “I’ll just ’ave ter keep tryin’, although I dunno where else ter go.”

Dottie came back from the scullery, wiping her hands on the corner of her apron. “Well ’e were visitin’ a Mr. Sandeman someplace down the east end,” she said hopefully. “Mebbe ’e’d know summink?”

Gracie put the cup down carefully, feeling it wobble as her hands shook. “Sandeman?” she repeated. “ ’Oo’s ’e? D’yer know?”

Dottie looked crestfallen. “Sorry, I in’t got no idea.”

Gracie swallowed her disappointment. “Never mind, mebbe somebody will. Thank yer, Mrs. Culpepper.”

Mrs. Culpepper shook her head. “I’m real sorry. Poor thing. Mebbe she’ll get better, yer ne’er know.”

“Yeah,” Gracie agreed, not feeling she was lying because her thoughts were with Martin, not Tilda. “Keep ’opin’, eh!”

Dottie took her to the back door, and a moment later Gracie was out on the pavement hurrying as fast as her feet could carry her towards Keppel Street.

OF COURSE SHE TOLD Charlotte all that she had learned as soon as she was back at Keppel Street, but to repeat it to Tellman was much more difficult. To begin with she had to find him, and there was nowhere to begin except the Bow Street police station, or the lodging house where he lived. It was always possible that he would go straight from whatever task he was on back to his rooms for the night, and that could be at any hour. Added to which, she had no wish to embarrass him by being seen in Bow Street, where they would know who she was, even if she did not actually ask for him at the desk. More important, they might remember that she was Pitt’s maid and assume that that was why she was there to see Tellman, which could make things very awkward for him with his new superintendent.

So she ended up standing on the pavement outside his lodging house in the early evening, staring up at the windows of his room on the second floor and seeing only darkness where, were he at home, there would be slits of light between the curtains.

She stood uncertainly for several minutes, then realized that he could be an hour or more yet, or if he was on a serious case, even longer. She knew there was a pleasant tearoom only a few hundred yards away; she could spend a little time there, and return later to see if he was home yet.

She had walked fifty yards when she thought how easy it would be to return half a dozen times before she found him, or on the other hand, wait far too long. She turned and walked back, knocked on the door, and when the landlady came told her very politely that she had important information for Inspector Tellman and she would be waiting for him in the tearoom, if he could come and find her there.

The landlady looked a trifle dubious, but she agreed, and Gracie left feeling satisfied with the arrangement.

Tellman came in tired and cold almost an hour after that. He had had a long and tedious day, and he was more than ready to eat a brief supper and go to bed early. She knew as soon as she saw his face and the stiffness of his body that he remembered their quarrel and was not at all sure how to speak to her now. The fact that she had come to start the whole subject again was only going to make it worse, but she felt no choice at all. Martin Garvie’s life might be at stake, and what was anyone’s love or comfort worth if, when faced with unpleasantness or difference of opinion, it crumbled and fell away?

“Samuel,” she began as soon as he was seated opposite her and had given his order to the waitress.

“Yes?” he said guardedly. He seemed about to add something, then bit it off.

There was nothing to it but to plunge in. The longer she sat there with either silence between them or stilted conversation, saying one thing and thinking and caring about another, the worse it would get. “I bin ter the Garrick ’ouse,” she said, looking across the table at him. She saw him stiffen even more, his fingers white where his hands were clenched on the table. “I just went ter the kitchen,” she hurried on. “I asked the cook an’ the scullery maid, on account o’ Tilda bein’ ill an’ Martin was the only family she got.”

“Is she ill?” he said quickly.

“Only wit worry,” she answered honestly. “But I said as she ’ad a bad fever.” Now she was embarrassed. He would not approve of lying, and she wished she did not have to tell him that she had done so. But not to would mean lying to him, and that was something she was not prepared to do. She went on quickly to cover it. “I jus’ asked where Martin were, so’s I could tell ’im. They dunno, Samuel, I mean really dunno! They’re worried too.” She leaned forward, closer to him. “They said as Mr. Stephen drinks far too much an’ ’as terrible tempers, and black moods o’ misery wot are summink awful. No one can ’elp ’im, ’cept Martin, an’ ’e’d never put Martin out, ’cos o’ that.” She stared at him, seeing the worry and the disbelief struggling in his eyes.