The Dark Assassin (19 page)

"We have
addresses," Hester replied. "We find a cup of tea, or better,
chocolate, if we can. Then we go and see some of these people and find out
which of them, if any, Mary Havilland asked also."

Fortified by a
cup each of thick, rich cocoa and a ham sandwich bought from a peddler, then
hot chestnuts a hundred yards farther on, they set out to the nearest of the
addresses. The early afternoon turned colder. The sleet changed into
intermittent snow, but still the street was too wet for it to stick except on
the windowsills and lower eaves. Of course the roofs were white except for
around the chimneys, where the heat melted the snow and sent it in dribbles
down the slates. Cab horses looked miserable. Peddlers shivered. The wind
flurried, scattering newspapers, and gray smoke hung in the air like shadows of
the night to come.

At the first
house the woman refused to allow them in. At the second there was no answer. At
the third, the woman was busy with three children, the oldest of whom looked
barely five.

Hester glanced
at Rose and saw the pity in her eyes. However, Rose masked it before the woman
could recognize its nature.

"I in't got
time ter talk to yer," the woman said bitterly. "Wot d'yer think I am?
I got washin' ter do wot in't never gonna dry in this weather, an' summink ter
find fer tea. Wot's a member o' Parliament ter me? I in't got no vote, nor's
any o' me fam'ly. We in't never 'ad an 'ouse wot's ours, let alone big enough
ter let us vote. Anyway, me man's crippled." She started to push the door
closed, pushing the small girl behind her and moving her skirts awkwardly.

"We don't
want your vote," Hester said quickly. "We just want to talk to you.
I'll help. I'm good at laundry."

The woman looked
her up and down, disbelief growing into anger at being mocked. "I 'ear
yer, misses. Ladies 'oo talk like you, all proper, don' know a scrubbin' brush
from an 'airbrush." She pushed the door again.

Hester pushed it
back. "I'm a nurse and I keep a clinic for street women in Portpool
Lane." She remembered too late that it was no longer true. "I'll
wager you a good dinner I've done more dirty washing than you have!" she
added.

The woman's hand
went slack with surprise, allowing the door to swing open, and Rose took full
advantage of it.

Inside, the
house was bare and cold with the sort of poverty that teeters on the edge of
starvation. Hester heard Rose draw in her breath, then very carefully let it
out silently while she tried to compose her face as if she saw such things
every day.

It was like the
Collards again, only worse. This man was sickly pale, his eyes hollow and
defeated. He had been crushed from the waist but his legs were still there,
deformed and-from the way he lay and the pinching around his mouth-a constant
agony.

Patiently and
with trembling gentleness Rose tried to elicit facts from him, and he refused.
No one was to blame. It was an accident. Could have happened to anyone. No,
there was nothing wrong with the machines. What was the matter with them that
they could not understand that? He had told the others the same.

Hester half
listened as she started on the laundry with lye soap and water that was almost
cold. The physical misery of it did nothing to assuage her sense of guilt. Even
as she did it she knew that was ridiculous. Her hour or two of discomfort would
be pointless. But the biting cold on her skin pleased her, and the drag on her
shoulders when she heaved the wet sheets out and tried to wring them by hand.
At the clinic at least they had a mangle.

It was the
fourth house after that before they learned anything further. Mary Havilland
had been there also.

"You are
certain?" Hester said to the handsome, weary woman busy sewing shirts. All
the time she was talking to them her fingers never stopped. She barely needed
to look at what she was doing.

"Course I
am. Don' forget summink like a young lady, an' she were a lady, comin' an'
askin' about sewers an' drains an' water wot runs under the ground. Knowed
about it, too, she did-engines, too. Knew one from another."

Rose stiffened,
glancing at Hester, then back at the woman.

"She knew
about underground streams?" Hester asked, trying to keep the urgency out
of her voice.

"Summink,"
the woman replied. "Queer, though." She shook her head. "She
wanted ter know more. I said me pa'd bin a tosher, afore 'e got took, an' she
wanted ter know if I still knew any toshers now. Or gangers. I tol' 'er me
bruvver were a tosher, but I in't seen 'im in years. She asked me 'is name. Now
wot'd a nice young lady like that wanna find a tosher fer?"

"To learn
more about hidden streams?" Rose suggested.

The woman's eyes
opened wide. "Wot fer? Yer don' think one o' them's gonna break through,
do yer?"

"Did she
say that?"

"No! Course
she din't! D'yer think I'd be sittin' 'ere wi' a needle in me 'and if she 'ad?
Me sister's 'usband's down there diggin'." She made no reference to her
own husband, one-armed, who was out somewhere in the streets trying to earn a
living running errands for people. "Is this wot yer on about? Wot 'appened
to 'er, anyway? Why are yer 'ere?"

Hester debated
only for an instant. "She fell off Westminster Bridge and drowned. We are
concerned it may not have been an accident. We need to know what she
learned."

"Nothin'
from 'ere that'd get her topped, I swear that on me muvver's grave!

They stayed
another ten minutes, but the woman could add nothing.

Outside it was
dark and the snow was beginning to accumulate, even though it was only shortly
after six.

"Do you
suppose she went looking for toshers?" Rose said unhappily. "What
for? To tell her where the underground streams were? Surely Argyll would have
done all that. He can't want a disaster-it would ruin him most of all."

"I don't
know," Hester admitted, beginning to walk towards the omnibus stop. Moving
was better than standing still. "It doesn't make any sense, and she must
have known that. But she learned something. What could it be, other than that
they are somehow using the machines dangerously, in order to be the fastest,
and therefore get the best contracts? Are Argyll's machines different from
other people's? We need to find out. Could they be more dangerous?"

Rose stopped,
shuddering with cold. "It seems they work faster-so maybe they are. What
can we do? These men won't tell us anything-they daren't!" There was
anguish in her cry.

"I don't
know," Hester answered. "All we can do is find out what happened to
Mary . . . maybe. If she found proof of some sort-I mean something that would
have shut down the works until the machines were made safe, even if it were
slower-whom would she have told?"

"Morgan,"
Rose said straightaway. "She didn't. She never came back."

They started
walking again, as it was too cold to stand.

"Perhaps
she wasn't certain," Hester suggested. "If it was almost complete,
perhaps lacking one point... ?"

They reached the
bus stop and stood side by side, moving their weight from one foot to the other
to prevent themselves from freezing.

"Toby?"
Hester pressed. "She might have told him?"

Rose shook her
head. "She didn't trust him. He and Alan were very close."

"Toby
worked in the company?"

"Yes. She
said he was very ambitious, and at least as clever as Alan, with engineering,
at any rate. Perhaps not as good at handling men and as quick in
business."

Half an idea
flashed into Hester's mind, but it dissolved before she grasped hold of it.
"So he would understand the machines?"

"Oh, yes.
So others said." Rose's eyes widened. "You mean she might have been
... been deliberately playing him ... drawing information from him to get her
final proof?"

"Mightn't
she?" Hester asked. "Would she have had the courage to do that?"

Rose did not
hesitate. "Yes-by heaven, she would! And he was playing her, to see how
much she knew! But it was too much! He had to kill her, because in the end his
loyalty was to his brother."

"And to his
own ambition," Hester retorted. She saw lights along the road and prayed
it was the omnibus at last. Her teeth were chattering with the cold.

"How will
we ever know?" Rose said desperately. "I absolutely refuse to let
them get away with it, whatever it costs!"

The omnibus
stopped and they climbed on, being obliged to stand jammed between tired
workmen and women with bags of shopping followed by exhausted children with
loud voices and sticky hands.

At the
changeover to the second omnibus Rose gave a wry, blisteringly honest smile as
she climbed onto the next platform and inside. "I shall never be rude to a
coachman again!" she whispered fiercely. "I shall never insult the
cook, outrage the maids, or argue with the butler. And above all, I shall never
let the fire go out, even if I have to carry the coal in myself!"

Hester swallowed
a laugh that was a little on the edge of hysteria.

"What are
we going to do?" Rose demanded.

Hester's mind
raced, struggling between the practical and the safe. Safety won, at least for
Rose. "You are going to see what chances there are of passing some kind of
law to help the injured. Mary might have thought of that. It was probably why
she approached Mr. Applegate in the first place. I'll attempt to locate the
toshers Mary spoke to and see what they told her. If anyone knows where the old
sunken rivers are, or if anything s changed course, it'll be them."

"Be
careful!" Rose warned.

"I
will," Hester assured her.

But she did not
tell Monk anything other than that she had visited some of those injured in
past cave-ins and other machine accidents. She certainly did not reveal her
plans. And she lost no time in composing a brief letter to Sutton, telling him
of her need to learn more from the toshers who knew the old system best. Only
after she had sent it did she realize that she had no idea whether Sutton could
read or not! He did all his business in cash. Perhaps even the best houses did
not wish a bill or a receipt from a ratcatcher.

She waited all
day for an answer, busying herself with chores, cleaning up after the
plasterer.

Sutton came just
after dark, at about half past four.

"Yer
sure?" he asked carefully, studying her face in the kitchen gaslight. He
sipped a steaming cup of tea, and had accepted a piece of fruitcake. He was
scrupulous to give Snoot a tiny portion, just so he felt included. It probably
amounted to no more than a couple of raisins. Snoot took them delicately and
licked his chops, waiting hopefully for more.

"That's yer
lot!" Sutton told him, shaking his head, then turned back to Hester.

"Well if
yer sure yer really want ter know wot's 'appened, someone as'll tell yer the
truth, we'd best go under the Thames Tunnel an' find some o' the folks wot's
not still 'opin' fer work, or got loyalties to them as is." He looked her
up and down anxiously. "But yer can't come like that. If I take yer with
me, yer gotta look like yer belong. If I bring yer the clothes, can yer come as
me lad wot I'm teachin'?"

She was taken
aback for a moment, amusement replaced by the sudden jar of reality.
"Yes," she said soberly. "Of course I can. I'll tie my hair back
and put a cap on." It was an unreasonably displeasing thought that with a
change of attire she could be taken for a ratcatcher's apprentice. And yet had
she been more buxomly built, with a rounder, more womanly face, then she would
not have been able to go at all.

Then she thought
of the faces of the women she had seen yesterday, worn out and old long before
their time, color and softness taken from them. Suddenly self-regard seemed not
only ridiculous but disgusting. "I'll be ready," she said firmly. "What
time shall we begin?"

"I'll come
'ere," he said, still uncertain of himself. "At breakfast. We'll
start early. Not as it makes much difference under the ... ground."

She knew he had
been going to say river but stopped himself at the last moment, in case the
thought should be too much for her, especially since they had been talking of
cave-ins, floods, and gas.

"I'll be
here," she said with a smile, catching his eye and seeing the answering
humor in it, and a flicker of admiration that pleased her quite unreasonably.

He nodded and
rose to his feet.

By the next
morning the clothes that Sutton provided had been laundered. They were still
shabby and badly patched; however, Hester found them more comfortable than she
had expected. It was an oddly naked feeling to have no skirts. Even on the
battlefield she had been used to the nuisance of skirts around her legs, making
striding difficult, especially in wind or rain. Trousers were marvelous, even
if she did feel indecent.