“But you said he was robbed,” she pointed out, thinking now of an attack by several men. “Was he set on by a gang?”

“That don’t ’appen ’round these streets.” Hart dismissed it. “That’s what pimps are for. They make their money out of willing trade. It’s in their interest to keep the customers safe.”

“So why is this one dead?” she said quietly, beginning to understand now why Hart had come there. “Why would one of the women kill him? And how, if he was beaten the way you describe?”

Hart bit his lip. “Actually, more like ’e fell,” he answered.

“Fell?” She did not immediately understand.

“From an ’eight,” he explained. “Like down stairs, mebbe.”

Suddenly it was much clearer. If a man had been caught off balance, not expecting it, a woman could easily have pushed him.

“But what about the cuts and gashes you spoke of?” she asked. “You don’t get those falling down stairs.”

“There was a lot o’ broken glass around,” he replied. “An’ blood-lots of it. Could ’ave smashed a glass, dropped it an’ then fallen on it, I suppose.” He looked miserable as he said it, almost as if it were a personal tragedy. He pushed his hand back through his hair again, a gesture of infinite weariness. “But Abel swears ’e was never at ’is place, an’ knowing the state of it, I believe’im. But ’e went somewhere often enough.”

“Why would one of Abel Smith’s women kill him?” she asked, pouring more tea for both of them. “Could it have been an accident? Could he have tripped and fallen down the stairs?”

“ ’E wasn’t found at the bottom, an’ they deny it.” He shook his head and picked up his mug of fresh tea. “ ’E was on the floor in one o’ the back bedrooms.”

“Where was the broken glass?” she asked.

“On the floor in the passage an’ at the bottom o’ the stairs.”

“Maybe they moved him before they realized he was beyond help?” she suggested. “Then they denied it out of fear. Sometimes people tell the stupidest lies when they panic.”

He stared at the distance, the potbellied stove halfway along the wall, his eyes unseeing, his voice still too quiet to carry beyond the table where they sat. “ ’E’d been in a fight. Scratch marks on ’is face that never came from any fall. Look like a woman’s fingernails. An’ he were dead after ’e hit the ground, all them broken bones an’ a bash on the head. Wouldn’t ’ave moved after that. An’ there’s blood on ’is ’ands, but they wasn’t injured. It weren’t no accident, Mrs. Monk. At least not entirely.”

“I see.”

He sighed. “It’s going to cause a terrible row. The family’s going to raise ’ell! They’ll ’ave us all out patrolling the streets and ’arassing any women we see. They’re going to ’ate it… an’ then customers is going to ’ate it even more. An’ the pimps’ll ’ate it worst of all. Everybody’ll be in a filthy temper until we find whoever did it, an’ probably ’ang the poor little cow.” He was too wretched to be aware of having used a disparaging term in front of her, or to think of apologizing.

“I can’t help you,” Hester said softly, remembering the women who had come to the house the previous night, all of them injured more or less. “Five women came, but they all went again and I have no idea where to. I don’t ask.”

“Their names?” he said without expectation.

“I don’t ask that either, only something to call them by.”

“That’ll do, for a start.” He put down his mug and fished in his pocket for his notebook and pencil.

“A Nell, a Lizzie and a Kitty,” she answered. “Later a Mariah and a Gertie.”

He thought for a moment, then put the pencil away again. “ ’Ardly worth it,” he said dismally. “Everybody’s a Mary, a Lizzie, or a Kate. God knows what they were christened-if they were, poor souls.”

She looked at him in the sharp morning light. There was a dark shadow of stubble on his cheeks and his eyes were pink-rimmed. He had far more pity for the women of the streets than he had for their clients. She thought he did not particularly want to catch whoever had pushed the man down the stairs. The murderer would no doubt be hanged for something which could have been at least in part an accident. The death may not have been intentional, but who would believe that when the woman in the dock was a prostitute and the dead man was rich and respected? What judge or juror could afford to accept that such a man could be at least in part responsible for his own death?

“I’m sorry,” she said again. “I can’t help.”

He sighed. “An’ you wouldn’t if you could… I know that.” He rose to his feet slowly, shifting his weight a little as if his boots pinched. “Just’ad ter ask.”

It was nearly ten o’clock in the morning when the hansom pulled up at her house in Fitzroy Street.

Monk was sitting in the front room he used to receive those who came to seek his services as a private agent of enquiry. He had papers spread in front of him and was reading them.

She was surprised to see him and filled with a sudden upsurge of pleasure. She had known him for nearly seven years, but had been married to him for less than three, and the joy of it was still sharp. She found herself smiling for no other reason.

He put the papers aside and stood up, his face softening in response.

There was a question in his eyes. “You’re late,” he said, not in criticism but in sympathy. “Have you eaten anything?”

“Toast,” she replied with a little shrug. She was untidy and she knew she smelled of vinegar and carbolic, but she wanted him to kiss her anyway. She stood in front of him, hoping she was not obvious. She was sufficiently in love that it would have embarrassed her to be too easily read.

He undid her bonnet and tossed it casually onto the chair, then he put his arms around her and kissed her rather more warmly than she had expected. She responded with a whole heart, then, remembering the lonely and rejected women she had treated during the night, she kept her arms around him and held him more closely.

“What is it?” he asked, his voice demanding, knowing the difference in her.

“Just the women,” she replied. “There was a murder last night. That’s why I’m late. The police came to the house this morning.”

“Why? What would you know about it?” He was puzzled.

She knew what he was imagining: a prostitute beaten and bleeding coming to the house, then returning to her brothel and being beaten again, this time to death. “No. At least not the way you mean,” she answered. “It was a man who was killed, a client, if you can call him that. They think he fought with one of the women and somehow or other she pushed him downstairs. They wanted to know about women who came in cut and bruised as if they had been in a struggle.”

“And you had seen some?” he said.

“Of course. Every night! It’s mostly that and disease. I couldn’t help because I don’t know how they got hurt, or where to find them again.”

He pushed her back a little, looking more closely at her face. “And would you help the police if you could?”

“I don’t think so,” she admitted. “I don’t know…”

He smiled very slightly, but his eyes read her perfectly.

“All right…” she agreed. “I’m glad I can’t help. It relieves me of having to decide if I would or not. Apparently he was, in Constable Hart’s words, ’a toff,’ so the police are going to make everyone suffer, because the family will make sure they do.” She grimaced with disgust. “They’ll probably tell us he was a philanthropist walking the back streets and alleys trying to save the souls of fallen women!”

He lifted his head and very gently pushed back the hair that had fallen across her brow. “Unlikely… but I suppose it’s possible. We believe what we need to… at least for as long as we can.”

She rested her head against his chin. “I know. But I can’t excuse persecuting a lot of women who are wretched enough anyway, or the pimps who will only take it out on them. It won’t change anything.”